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Los Gatos, CA-based online game developer Cryptic Studios is coming out of a slightly difficult period, in which the company launched two MMOs to less-than-stellar reactions from critics and many fans.

The move to a co-op RPG instead of an MMO format -- why did Cryptic end up doing that? Your experience is in larger-scale MMOs.

Jack Emmert: I believe it's because the jump wasn't that big, because we saw that there were games out there increasingly using co-op multiplayer. I think Borderlands is one of the best examples recently. Not to mention the fact that the team thought it would make sense to make Neverwinter a game that revolves around story, and really revolves around previous games, [and] around R. A. Salvatore's trilogy.

In an MMO, it's really hard to thread in "Go collect 10 orc pelts" in a setting within a really compelling storyline. So we just thought we were not going to use that format.

That's kind of a knock on MMOs' storylines. Do you think that it'd be possible for a game company to really put an emphasis on a story in a massively multiplayer online game? That's what BioWare is saying they're going to do with their Star Wars: The Old Republic.

JE: Yeah I think it's entirely possible. For one it's an issue of size. I think BioWare has both the budget and the team to be able to do that. There are hundreds of people. That's all it is. It's like asking why Fallout 3 isn't an online game -- they could've easily made it an online game, it's just a matter of resources. So I think it's entirely possible, it's just a lot easier that an online co-op story experience is in many ways.

(Gamasutra)