Ted Woolsey chat transcript

[04.23.99] » Ted Woolsey of Crave Entertainment chats on EB World, delving into Shadow Madness, his work at Square, and the proper way to spell his last name.

   The famed former translator for Square was interviewed Thursday night on EBworld.com, what follows here is a full transcript. Keep in mind that Ted's last name is indeed spelt "Woolsey" -- a typo within EB World's chat engine assigned Ted a misspelt username. For another dose of Q&A with the spoony bard himself, check out the GIA's own in-depth Woolsey interview. For now, enjoy the wonderful question selection of the moderator...

Ted Woosley says Hi All.

EB Moderator says Ted is here, so let's get started!

Lido says Ted, is there a sequel planned for SM?

Ted Woosley says We are already in the early stages of working on concepts for a sequel.

Takami says Mr. Woosely. how did you come up with the story behind Shadow Madness?

Ted Woosley says The story was put together by a handful of designers. Once they had an overview I came up with characterizations. It was a group prodject.

Pablo2 says Mr Woolsey, you stated that in your previous translation of SNES titles were plagued by memory limitations, so with SM, is it gunna be more text-heavy a la Xenogears?

Ted Woosley says Yes. We were not held back by any memory limitations.

Ted Woosley says what more in the prerendered enviroment the prerendered background the prerendered objects have script attached to them and this way the enviroment tells the story as wel.

PS2RULES says Ted, is crave planning on developing any game for the PSX2, maybe a shadow madness game?

Ted Woosley says Yes we're talking with the design team and we are excited about the prospect of making a playstation 2 game.

William Defoe says Mr. Woosley, what do you think is the biggest draw of SM: the graphics, soundtrack, characters, locales, or a combination of all of the above?

Ted Woosley says The story is the biggest draw. We worked hard on the characterization.

Ted Woosley says For me the most important aspect of the RPG is the story I believe SM has a very engaging story. Just like readers buy a sequel to a book the gamers will buy role playing games and enjoy the sequels.

alex5688 says ted,about what is the average time to beat the game?

Ted Woosley says The average gamer will take about 40 hours finish. But those wish to find out the side quests it could take 50 or 60 hours.

TheFreak says Ted, I've heard a lot about Shadow madness being a "Final Fantasy 7 Clone". Did you design the game with Final Fantasy in mind?

Ted Woosley says The technology used to make the game Final Fantasy VII. But if you play SM you will see the differences. SM darker moodier tone and uses fewer longer cinimatic sequences (FMV)s

Takami says If SM makes it big, is there a possiblitiy of merchandise, SM action figures for example? : )

Ted Woosley says Yes we'd love to create action figure to support the title.

ErMaC says Ted - Did you do any censoring of your story? Were there things you would have liked to include but decided against because of content?

TheFreak says Ted, umm....Just a quick question....Woolsey or Woosley?

Ted Woosley says Woolsey

Spoony Bard says Mr. Woosely, if this is not too personal a question.. could you tell us why you left Square to work with Crave?

Ted Woosley says Square asked me to move to LA to work on FF7. So when i got there my wife and i did not feel comfortable raising our children there. An opportunity arose in Seattle and I was lucky enough to stay here in Seattle. Born and raised.

Fujisawa says I believe that since you've worked with translating some of the finest RPGs, you can do an excelent job on the story. But as far as fun, is the game over all that fun to play???

Ted Woosley says You betcha.....I believe ther are enough plot twist and challenges and puzzles so that it will keep most players happy for the 40 hours

TheFreak says Mr. W, Of all the games you've translated, which do you think is your favorite?

Ted Woosley says I like Chronotrigger the best. I like the characters and game design was beautiful.

Lido says Ted, Shadow Madness' soundtrack sounds superb so far. Will Brad Spear be working on other internally deveopled titles with you?

Ted Woosley says Thanks for the compliment and Brad has done a great job. Matching the music to the action taking place on the screen. He will be working on prodjects in the Craveyard.

Lido says Ted, what do you think of Square's way of telling stories; the cinematic way?

Ted Woosley says I think Square does a beautiful job telling stories, but thier way is just one way. I think any game that takes 40 or 50 hours to play take a lot of imagination on the part of the player, so what it comes down to is the story. SM does not rely on long cinamatic sequences, but rather on story telling and plot. I think both ways are valid.

bill defoe says Is it true that you had only six weeks to work on the translation of Secret of Mana?

Ted Woosley says No, actually it was 5 weeks...

Ted Woosley says Most of it was spent in Tokyo...

Ted Woosley says Everday when I can into work I would translate the text that was written the day before...

Ted Woosley says so it was a frustrating project...

Ted Woosley says but the game design was beautiful, overall I think the English translation worked OK for me...

Spoon Daggers says Mr. Woosley when I played the demo I found the controls frustrating and some of the battles tedious. How different it the actual game from the demo?

Bart says in regards to gameplay, is most of SM player-controlled or is there a large amount of cut scenes and FMV?

Ted Woosley says Most of it is player controlled...

Ted Woosley says we used FMV's throughout the game, but they're shorter and carefully inserted into the gameplay.

bill defoe says How much of an emphasis did you have on the combat system? From what I played on the demo, I was unimpressed. Are there any plans to work on the battle engine before the game's release?

Ted Woosley says We did a lot of work on the battle engine after the demo. There are now 3 levels of difficulty in which you can play SM. You can change degree of difficulty....

Ted Woosley says SM is designed to have fewer battles but more difficult battles. the idea is to emphasize the story and the adventure while intergrating the battles.

Fat_Chocobo says Mr. Woolsey, do you have a fan club? Can I join?

Ted Woosley says Your making me blush.....

AndrewK says What college degrees do you feel are best suited for working in the gaming industry? I know there's more than the degree you get, but how important is the specific degree?

Ted Woosley says It really depends on what you want to do in the gaming industry. A college degree is important for programing. As game consoles get more complex programers will have to become more savy....

Ted Woosley says If you want to make art you will have have some training as we. Not to say you need college. If you enjoy writing you can find entry into the industry though your creativity.

AndrewK says What are your thoughts on the Colorado incident and the involvement of video games? Some places are reporting that the two killers loved shoot 'em up games and took out their frustrations that way.

Ted Woosley says I dont know how to react to that incident in Colorado....It was horrible.....I

bill defoe says How do you feel the graphics rate up against other games coming out on the Playstation?

Ted Woosley says SM has 80 areas in the game. Some of wich are forrest, towns and cave and alike. Because of the diversity of enviroment there is a cross section of different types of visuals..

Ted Woosley says so as you journey through the game you will see the juxtaposition, but in the end most players will enjoy the wide variety of enviroment in this game.

EB Moderator says We have time for one more question..

Pablo2 says Why was the choice made in SM to make the map look like...well, a map?

Ted Woosley says We did various treatments of what the overworld map was going to look like. During this process one of our artist who is a gifted watercolor painter....

Ted Woosley says came up with the look and the style of the overworld we decided to use. Her images were so powerful we decided to haver her do painting of the entire overworld and underworld.

Ted Woosley says Thanks everyone....