In this exclusive phone interview with Cryptic Studios COO Jack Emmert, ZAM gets a heap of new details about the recently-announced Neverwinter "online multiplayer" RPG

ZAM: When you say that's the direction you eventually want to go in, does that mean the game is being developed as an actual video game representation of the full D&D experience, even from the Dungeon Master's perspective?

Emmert: Right now, the depth to which the Forge can make you the Dungeon Master—whether you can actively participate in the adventure; you know, like throwing traps at your party as your buddies are going through it—I'm not sure you'll be able to do that. I know that you'll be able to create adventures, you can attach them to our world… Of course, maybe we'll create another system that allows people to jump into your adventures regardless; we'll have to see how that progresses.

But ultimately, obviously, I have hopes that the tools can get to the point where players are creating series of adventures—almost like a campaign—within our virtual world. That would be ideal; that's what the Neverwinter tools of the first game did. There were a lot of people who ran entire campaigns; the only difference here would be that we're going to take care of the back-end stuff so that you don't have to handle that. But ultimately, if that's where we can grow the tools, I'd be thrilled. For all those people who can't get together [in real space]; to be able to give them tools that would enable them to capture the magic of D&D would be terrific.

ZAM: How will the user-generated content coincide with Neverwinter's primary storyline and campaign? Is the user-generated content a secondary gameplay mechanic, similar to the way third-party maps are played in FPS or RTS games?

Emmert: There is a storyline that we have, so obviously players progress through it… The [user-generated content] is more like a parallel path that you can take. So you can either dive in or you could just sample it, but there is a storyline within Neverwinter that you'd want to follow in a linear fashion.

ZAM: Will players access user-generated content via a matchmaking system or by similar means?

Emmert: There will be persistent zones that characters will be in, and there will be areas—or ways of accessing UGC which is obvious—because the matchmaking that goes on would be in the persistent world as well as through chat and so forth…

ZAM: Right, but how will the front-end of user-generated content be represented in-game?

Emmert: So imagine you're walking through a persistent zone and you run across a tavern entrance; you click on it, it's marked [as user-generated content] and you can sort it by the creator, most popular and so forth… That isn't necessarily what we're going to do, but ideologically, that's the model we're trying to frame; you can access it in-game. Now we might do other things, but that's our first thought.

ZAM: Is the game being developed with Cryptic's same proprietary graphics engine used in Champions Online and Star Trek Online?

Emmert: Yeah, and it's not just a graphics engine, it's an engine period… it's rendering, server, client—everything we do is proprietary, outside a couple of things like audio. By and large, everything is [in-house].

ZAM: A substantial number of D&D players believe the 4th edition rules are a "dumbed down" version; but in this case, do you think 4th edition better lends itself to the modern, multiplayer RPG video games?

Emmert: A lot of the terminology and game mechanics really resonate very well with MMOs, so from that perspective, yeah; 4th edition is a very good pick for us. If you just take a look at how things are broken down within the Player's Handbook itself, there are different roles for each of the character classes which try to suggest the gameplay that players would do. And lo and behold, a lot of that terminology is very similar to MMO terminology. So for instance, a rogue is a striker—meaning an alpha-strike character—somebody who does a lot of damage really quickly but is also vulnerable. There are controllers; different character classes that can mesmerize and sleep and so forth. So already, you're noting a parallel to terms that we use in MMOs. And you see, the powers are broken down like that too, so it's easy for us to translate [to an RPG video game].

ZAM: We've heard the combat in Neverwinter will be in real-time, but will there be any tactical features, like a pause mechanic?

Emmert: You know it's funny; we might play with pause. We put [a pause mechanic] in Star Trek Online and we have talked about it… Right now position is important; if you get flanked, if you're surrounded or if you surround an opponent, that's a part of D&D 4th edition, so we made sure to get that in. We're really trying to create old-school, tactical RPG combat; that's our goal, but in real-time.