Operator: Yes, thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star then "1" on your touchtone phone. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press the pound sign or the hash (#) key. If you are using a speakerphone you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. Once again, if there any questions press star then "1" on your touchtone phone. John Callaham from Gamecloud is online with a question. Please go ahead.

John Callaham: Hi guys. Thanks for this press conference. It is pretty cool games that you guys are launching. I do have a couple of questions. You said that this is currently in preproduction? Does that mean that the graphics engine for this game has not been selected yet?

Joe Ybarra: We are going to make an announcement sometime very soon about where we are going with technology. But the answer is that we are actually pretty far along on the client side engine to the extent that one of the deliverables for the close of preproduction is our first playable prototype.

John Callaham: Is this a game engine that you guys have developed? Or are you licensing something else?

Joe Ybarra: We will make an announcement about that later.

John Callaham: The other question I had was that a lot of other MMOs have been based on licensed properties such as Star Wars' galaxies and the Matrix online have not perhaps lived up to the promise that they originally had. Are the folks at the development team aware of this? What kinds of things are they trying to do to make this game appealing to both the fans of this TV show as well as MMO types who…obviously this market has grown tremendously in the past few years and there are a lot of them out there.

Joe Ybarra: Well, I think the first thing to say is that regardless of whether we have a property or not we have to build a really exciting and compelling game. All of us on the development team are not only just avid hardcore gamers and especially MMO game players but most of us are very experienced at building this type of product. So our primary focus is for us to make a really terrific game.

Then on top of that we can extract from the Stargate material itself -- all the really good stuff that I have already described plus a bunch of stuff I didn't describe. It really enforces and enhances the experience of being in the Stargate universe. So it is sort of in that order of importance. We have to build a great game and then we build a great game that uses and takes advantage as much as we can of the Stargate material.

To further answer your question the other thing that is really terrific about this property is that MGM and Bridge Productions, the folks that actually make the show in Vancouver, are really excited and cooperative in working with us on this property. Bridge has already supplied us with a tremendous amount of material from the TV series including many of the digital assets that they use for the special effects on the show itself. That material can actually be directly imported into our game. So we will have some authentic material in the game design as a whole that come from the show.

Most important of all is the fact that the folks in Vancouver really want to have a good relationship with what we are doing. One of the goals that we have in this product is to intertwine the material that you see on the TV series as it is being released together with updates during the live team with the game so that the game and the TV set show are in lockstep with one another with respect to the storytelling and the content.

John Callaham: Is it possible that we could see a crossover maybe event in the game itself? Maybe referred to in the TV show and vice versa?

Joe Ybarra: That is one of our goals. Clearly one of the issues with that is the flexibility of the coordination of all activity given the fact that they have to make the show and then it has to be scheduled to be aired and it has to be timed perfectly with the release of an update. So it is going to be a challenge for us to be able to do that, but it is our goal to try to accomplish that.

John Callaham: All right. Thank you very much.

Joe Ybarra: Sure.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mike Thies from WOOT Radio. Please go ahead.

Mike Thies: Hi, thanks. Guys, I have to say I have a lot of people that are really excited about the concept of this game and one of the questions that I have gotten from some of our listeners is, is there going to be a developing storyline? As in are we going to see the missions changing? Some missions not being available as updates come out?

Joe Ybarra: Well, whether or not we deny content in terms of taking missions away…we haven't discussed that, but we certainly do intend on enhancing the product and moving the storylines forward as we go to a live team aspect of the game.

One of the things that is interesting about building an MMO is that you have to have a very robust and powerful tool library. Part of that is for us to be able to do live team content update. So to that extent because we are staffing our organization with really good writers and people who really understand the medium of what it is like to translate television into storytelling and quests. But yes we do plan on expanding new story lines. We will be releasing Atlantis as an expansion kit and when that comes out clearly we will start a new thread.

Mike Thies: The other thing that a lot of folks are concerned about in a lot of games especially for MMOs anymore is character customization. If you are going to play a human, and obviously you are going to end up being part of the military, you are going to end up in a uniform, which means there are not a lot of options there for your character to be truly unique and represent yourself, which is something that games like City of Heroes and City of Villains have really set the standard for as far as making someone stand out in a crowd. How are you going to accomplish something similar?

Joe Ybarra: Wow! That is a tough question to answer because we are in the middle of deciding exactly how we want to enact that as we speak. But a short answer to your question is the fact that in addition to the standard military material…and your observation is correct. The show is dominated by humans so one of the goals that we have here is to try to create original set of races that the players can play so that there is diversity from that standpoint.

But when you look at the actual…what am I wearing? And what is my persona in the game? We certainly have other things to draw from than just Air Force uniforms. In particular what we look at is how we mix technology into that. As you go further up the ranks here in terms of levels you will have access to equipment such as space suits and various other kinds of use that will allow the user to look very different. When we start pioneering things like (inaudible)…that is usable as equipment and armor and various other things. We can have a very distinctive look to the game.

Another aspect of it is that the show has made a turn in that area as well by introducing characters that are not Air Force. So we will have a fair amount of flexibility here with how we, if you will, clothe our customers and make them look unique because we understand how important that really is.

Mike Thies: And will you be focusing on things like facial features as well to make them extremely in-depth in body shape and size?

Joe Ybarra: We are still making those decisions as we speak. The cost to do that from a performance standpoint is fairly steep. We have to be judicious about how we do that. But we certainly want to give the user as much customizable capability as we possible can given the constraints we have to work in.

Mike Thies: Okay, I just have a couple more things here. One is, are we going to see the signature characters from the series making appearances in the game at some point? Or are you going to try and separate yourself to a point from that?

Joe Ybarra: We don't really know the answer to that question at this time. A lot of this is still being decided because number one of course not everybody can be Jack O'Neill so certainly we are going to be focusing on the game design as being independent of the stars of the show. However, whether they have participation in our product or not- we have not yet determined that.

Mike Thies: Okay, the only other thing I wanted to talk about was, you are talking about using partial cover and things like that. Does that mean the environment is going to be destructible in long-range goal?

Joe Ybarra: Not in the fullest extent. There will be certain areas of the playfield that will likely be destructible but to make the entire playfield malleable and destructible is right now not something we are contemplating.

Mike Thies: Okay, thanks. That's all I have for now.

Joe Ybarra: Sure.

Operator: Our next question comes from Bart Fiddler from GamerGod.com. Please go ahead.

Bart Fiddler: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to join the conference here. You guys have a great concept going. It is an exciting time. One of the main things that I had a question about was, you mentioned instances and the incredible exploration potentials that are associated with the Stargate itself. The question that I have is the worlds that we travel through from the Stargate, are these all going to be static, pre-generated worlds? Or will there be any potential for unique exploration in that we may be able to step through the Stargate and see sort of a random generated content?

Joe Ybarra: We actually haven't discussed dynamic content of that type. One of the things we understand very well is how important the actual playfield design is. With respect to being able to do something that is artistically pretty stunning together with from a play standpoint is really pretty exciting and unique. Things that we have constructed by hand. So we really haven't really looked at the random environment generation capability, which is not to say that we won't do it it is just that we haven't looked at it yet.

Bart Fiddler: Okay, thank you. The next question I have is you put a lot of emphasis on the brutal nature of the combat in that we will be using terrains, etc. Is this then based on more of a twitch-based combat? Almost a first-person shooter? Or will there be more of the overstyle MMO skills-based combat?

Joe Ybarra: We are looking at this as more being the skill-based type of combat system. We actually have a posting on our forum that talks to this point. But basically the idea is that if we try to do something that is very twitch-based in a very traditional MMO environment, we don't have any real control over the number of users that are in a particular area and obviously we have no control whatsoever over the bandwidth and the system specifications of the end user. So if we try to do something that is very twitch-based in a very open environment like this we run the risk of some customers being penalized just because they have a bad connection or some other issue that we have no way of being able to work with.

To that extent we want to stay with the traditional type of MMO. It is a hidden turn-based environment. When I said hidden and turn-based of course if you look at any modern game we will use World of Warcraft…as an example, although that game design is not a twitch-based environment the combat pacing is so fast that it just seems like it is real time. Our game will play very much like that.

Bart Fiddler: Fantastic. Now as far as PVP combat there has been some talk about there being contested worlds. Does that imply that there is going to be some shape (inaudible) within the game? Or is it going to be an open PVP type of environment? Along those lines you mentioned in solo play we are going to have the advantage of potentially using AI bots. Will there be any ability to use the AI bots in PVP combat?

Joe Ybarra: Well, let us see. Two questions there so I will talk about contested worlds first. Our concept of this is if you look at the way the game architecture works at the strategic level there are three major areas of play. The first one being of course the newbie experience and its immediate follow-on, which is, "I am still learning the world but I have a handle on it". The second is the midgame experience and the mid-game is basically the leveling treadmill to get up into the elder game play and of course the elder game play is the third level.

What we are expecting to do for contested world is to make that an elder game play feature, whereby the time the customer and the guilds have pioneered their way up to these high level of play, that they will have capabilities in terms of being able to construct spacecraft, planetary defenses and various other kinds of things. So it will be a very large scale capability for the player and a very rich play environment.

We want to put them in a PVP environment in doing that so the contested worlds are essentially open playfields that are rich with lots of material in them in terms of both resources such as (inaudible) and various other resources that will allow users to use as well as enemies and various other things including specialized quests that are just for the contested world. The ideas that we want to put the various factions against one another in vying for these environments. There is a PVE type of component as well using the exact same paradigm. So we plan on doing that as well but this is again targeted for the elder game play.

In terms of the bought usage though in PVP, I think a lot of that will fall on a play test. It depends entirely on the atmosphere that we want to see the users in. You know if you look at the way some of the traditional MMO's handle large-scale raids, it is not unreasonable for us to imagine a situation where there are two guilds that are competing against each other that have several hundred players together all fighting over a playfield or an environment that they are contesting to get the resources off of.

So in a situation like that to throw bots into that circumstance might muddy the waters more than would be helpful. Whereas on the other side of the coin if you were say in a straight PVE circumstance in a contested world and there are only say 40 or 50 people in your guild who may need to be able to supplement that with bots. We don't know that yet and we will determine that as we go through play test.

Bart Fiddler: Okay, thank you. Another question I had was if the entire server full of players is going to be using the same Cheyenne Mountain complex to being their debentures that seems to pose some serious issues as far as available game space and congestion. How are you going to handle an entire server of people using the same Stargate?

Joe Ybarra: We will not all be starting from the same location. One of the big things is that of course there is the alpha site that is the dominant in various different episodes of the TV series. But we are going to spawn also other starting locations for the users to overcome the issue that you just described. Cheyenne Mountain will actually just be one of the locations that you can actually go to and visit but it is not what we consider to be home base, if you will.

Bart Fiddler: So not to monopolize too much of the time I do have one more question about character customization. I know you discussed that you guys are still in the process of defining that. But what considerations have been put in for the very cool custom sunglasses that everybody on SG1 team uses?

Joe Ybarra: (Laughing) I guess I am going to have to wait until the Art Department comes back with their feelings on sunglasses. We like sunglasses too, so I wouldn't be surprised if we had them.

Bart Fiddler: Great. Thank you.

Joe Ybarra: No problem. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Laura Griffin from Stargate-Game.com. Please go ahead.

Laura Griffin: Hello. I just want to get a few simple ones out of the way. A couple of them have already been answered. Anyway I want to say congratulations guys on getting your game started.

Joe Ybarra: Thank you.