11> With the advent of packet sniffers such as ShowEQ, is your company making any advancement in stopping these programs to eliminate cheating in MMOG's all together?

I think we learned a lot with EQ and also by watching other games.  Suffice it to say we plan on addressing what we do and don’t send the client a little differently this time.

12> What do you think of the idea of degradation of items and level limits imposed on items that players can wear, and how it effects the player driven economy?

I’m not opposed to the idea of item degradation in general – in fact, I think it can add a lot to a game in terms of interdependence.  That said, I don’t think it’s an effective means by which to remove items from the economy, especially if the game in question has any focus whatsoever on item acquisition. 

I am opposed to hard level limits, because it’s pretty much impossible to stop item deflation.  Eventually items will trickle down as newer content is added, or higher levels, or both.  Using hard level limits just means that items will trickle down to a fixed point and become obsolete earlier, which not only doesn’t solve the problem people are trying to solve (twinking), but it also screws up the player driven economy.

I think there are much better ways to address item deflation, twinking, etc., but as much as I hate to be a ‘secret sauce’ guy, I’m not going to elaborate.  That said, these are not new issues… MUDs have been dealing with them for over a decade, so I’m sure you’ll see better and better handling of these issues as we enter the second and then third generation of commercial massively multiplayer games.

13> And on a side note, more out of my own curiosity, what games are you playing right now that you just cannot put down :) ?

Honestly, at this point, mostly EverQuest.  During the lull between working at Sony and founding Sigil I really got back into the game and have been playing quite a bit on the Firiona Vie RP server where I have a level 47 Ranger.

Besides EverQuest, I’ve been enjoying Operation Flashpoint with the guys at work, and just bought Neverwinter Nights which I’m looking forward to playing.  I’m also really excited about Warcraft 3 and several other titles on the horizon.

14> And last but not least, did you ever play any of the old King's Quest games, and do you miss them as much as I do if you had :)

You know, I never really got into the King’s Quest games as much… I was always more of a hack-n-slash RPGer than an adventure gamer.  I played all of the Ultimas, the Phantasie series, the D&D Gold Box games, Questron, Fairy Tale, etc. 

I want to thank you very much for taking some time out of your day to answer these questions :) I am sure all will go well for you in the future, and I cannot wait to see the first game out of Sigil that will awe the industry! 

Thanks very much and we appreciate your interest in both Sigil and our new game.  I’ll say that with EverQuest behind us, we are all determined to play a major role in the future of MMOGs and I’m very proud of the experienced and passionate team we’ve been able to assemble.  That, and with Microsoft backing us… well, I don’t see how we couldn’t be in a better position.