尽管Facebook已充斥大量西部主题的热门社交游戏，其中就包括Zynga旗下的《FrontierVille》，但ClipWire团队却不惧竞争和挑战，推出了同类风格但不落俗套的游戏《Wild West Town》。由于该游戏主要以人物角色和故事背景为核心，所以它成功从其他同类题材的社交游戏中脱颖而出，并获得了Gamezebo网站的4.5星级评价。ClipWire首席执行官Ritesh Khanna在最近的媒体访谈中讲述了出色的故事对一款好游戏的重要性，并介绍了该游戏未来发展计划。以下是游戏邦编译的访谈内容：

wild-west-town-on-facebook

同样属于西部题材的《FrontierVille》已经大获成功，你们为何还要再创建这种风格的游戏？你们这款游戏的设置有何吸引力？

西部拓荒是一个很有趣的主题，但《Wild West Town》的不同之处在于，它是一款自始至终都与故事情节密切相关的游戏，这也为我们创造了拓展不同于普通西部游戏，并为玩家提供独特体验的机会。几乎人人都知道一些西部拓荒的故事和主题，这也正是这种风格的游戏能够吸引大量玩家的原因所在。我们希望以一种有趣、讨人喜欢和社交化的方式，将这些元素引进Facebook游戏领域。

为何决定将《Wild West Town》打造成一款不同于其他同题材社交游戏，而是更侧重于故事背景的游戏？

以故事剧情推动游戏进程正是我们的强项，我们已经掌握了许多以故事促进游戏剧情发展的经验，并且推出了Facebook平台上的首款这类风格的游戏《Nitrous Racing》。我们自己本身也很喜欢创建和体验这类以故事为主心骨的游戏，在Facebook上有许多游戏并没有多少故事内涵，它们对于作为玩家的我们来说多少带有点强迫性。

《Wild West Town》不会随机弹出一个任务对话框，要求你无缘无故地购买鲜花、树木等植物，我们认为如果能够在一个完整的故事背景下玩游戏，同时避免那种漫无目的地机械化操作，会让游戏更为有趣和富有吸引力。我们围绕一个有趣的故事线索来创建任务系统，玩家会从中发现自己不但拥有明确的目标，而且总有些新鲜事情可做，它可以利用玩家已经熟悉和了解的机制来创造良好的游戏体验。

看得出来你们在创造令人难忘的角色和有趣的对话这一环节上花了不少心思，为何决定要走这种路线？为何你们的想法与多数社交游戏如此不同？

游戏中的人物角色和对话正是《Wild West Town》的非凡之处，我们下了不少功夫来创建角色和故事，因为我们知道这些元素会受到用户喜爱。Facebook上极少有游戏可以成功创造NPC和玩家之间的亲密情感联系。

至于其他社交游戏为何没有采取这种做法，我也不得而知。编写任务系统不但需要投入大量时间和精力，而且还得创建一个动态的任务引擎，这样我们才能将故事撰稿人所有天马行空的想法植入其中（例如将人物变成紫色或者缩小体形等）。但它也有一个不足之处，那就是非英语用户可能就无法轻松体验这种游戏。

《Wild West Town》在游戏虚拟货币这一点上似乎很乐于让利给玩家，你们是如何在不影响玩家游戏体验的情况下，又保证游戏的盈利能力呢？

我们为玩家发放了许多其他游戏所无法提供的高级虚拟货币，我们的首要目标是创建“有趣而令人兴奋的社交游戏“。假如我们将多数高级内容的价格都抬高了，给大量玩家划定了一个极高的准入门槛，那么我们很可能就无法在付费玩家与免费玩家之间取得平衡。

我们的理念就是尽量保证所有人都可以来玩我们的游戏，我们当然可以减少发放免费的Bank Notes，但这样就会有许多人无法真正投入地体验游戏。我们相信自己在这一点上取得了平衡，游戏中的一切东西都可以免费提供给专注的玩家，但那些没有时间投入游戏的玩家，也仍然可低价获取内容。

这款游戏问世已经有几个月时间，它的用户反馈如何？是否出现了让你们意想不到的结果？

对我来说，对大的意外之喜就是的用户给予的积极评价。用户对我们的最高赞美就是邀请好友也来参与游戏挑战，这种情况非常之多。

另一个意外就是，用户很喜欢讨论我们每天推出的故事内容。我们的Facebook页面论坛上每天都有关于这款游戏的用户评论——他们不是在表达自己对游戏中反派角色的厌恶，就是在抒发自己对英雄人物的仰慕之情。而这一点也正是我们致力于实现的目标。

是否有更新这个项目的计划？

我们已经有不少计划了！最近刚推出了一些重大的更新内容，包括新型的Greenhouse机制，支持铁杆玩家在好友的帮助下完成任务。我们还打算为希望在西部游戏找到更多新玩意的用户推出更多很棒的功能。

我们计划推出一个支持玩家在各个小镇间开火车的系统，也有意创建一个徽章/成就系统。因为它是一款Flash游戏，所以我们更容易推出大规模的更新内容，增加玩家可玩的功能。我们当然也很喜欢充分利用这种优势实现这一点。

对粉丝们有什么留言吗？

我们希望听到你们反馈意见！我们每天都会阅读Facebook评论、ClipWireGames.com论坛以及电子邮件。如果你们对这款游戏有什么改进意见，请及时告诉我们。另外，请关注这款游戏即将推出的新功能、庄稼和装饰品！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Interview: Clipwire on the importance of narrative in Wild West Town

Despite the large number of popular Western-themed games on Facebook, including Zynga’s FrontierVille, the team at ClipWire games still decided to put its own spin on the genre with Wild West Town.

And it worked. Thanks to a strong focus on characters and storytelling the game managed to set itself apart from the pack and earn a 4.5 star rating from us. Gamezebo recently talked with Clipwire CEO Ritesh Khanna about why a good story is so important and what fans can expect from the game in the future.

With FrontierVille already such a huge success, why did you decide to create another Wild West-themed game? What is it about the setting that’s so appealing?

The frontier is a fun theme, but it’s a very different place that the Wild West. We knew the game was going to be very story driven right from the start, which would provide us opportunities to expand beyond the usual western tropes and offer plenty of difference for players. Everybody has been exposed to western stories and themes at some point, which helps explain why it appeals to a broad number of players. We just wanted to bring that all to Facebook in a fun, cute and social way.

Why did you decide to make Wild West Town a much more story-focused game compared to other similar social games?

Story driven games are our strength and we’ve learned a lot about making story driven social games, being the first ones to do it on Facebook with Nitrous Racing. Naturally we also prefer making and playing story driven games ourselves; a lot of the games you can play on Facebook leave you with little narrative purpose to play, which is something that’s always compelled us as gamers.

Rather than a quest that randomly tells you to buy flowers or a tree for no reason, we thought it would be more fun if there was a narrative reason and it would help keep the experience from feeling bland or repetitive. Building our quest system around a fun storyline keeps our users interested and engaged over a longer period of time because they’ve always got something new to do and a good reason to do it. Ultimately it builds a better experience using mechanics that players are already familiar with.

It also seems like a lot of time was spent on creating memorable characters and interesting dialog. Why did you decide to go this route? Why do you think so few social games do?

The characters and dialog is what makes Wild West so special and why the game stands apart from similar titles. We put a lot of time in to the characters and stories because we know a lot of users love it. Few games on Facebook have the ability to create emotional attachment between an NPC and the player. I love seeing Dr. Wells (our absent-minded scientist) come off the train and thinking to myself “Here we go again!”

As to why other social games don’t do this, I can’t tell you for sure. It takes a lot of time and dedication not only to write the quests, but to build a dynamic quest engine that allows us to implement all the crazy things our writers want to do (turning characters purple or shrinking them for example). On the flip side, it makes for a game that is very difficult for players who don’t speak English as a first language to play.

Wild West Town is pretty generous when it comes to the implementation of premium currency. How difficult/important is it to strike that delicate balance between not upsetting the player but still creating a game that’s profitable?

We give away a lot more premium currency for free than other games. Our mission statement has always been that we’re here to create “fun, exciting and social games”. If we make a lot of a of our premium content un-attainable to a huge portion of our users, we wouldn’t be living up to that standard and this goes for both paying and non-paying customers.

The idea is to make every part of our game playable for everyone. We could reduce the amount of free Bank Notes we give away, but then people wouldn’t be able to enjoy the game to its fullest. We believe we strike the right balance when everything in the game is attainable free to dedicated players, but those who don’t have the time to invest can still access the content for a low price.

The game has been out for a few months now. What’s the reaction been like? Any surprises?

The biggest and best surprise for me is all the positive feedback we receive from our users. The best compliment we can receive from a player is them inviting a friend to come and play, and there has been a lot of that.

Additionally it’s been really surprising seeing how much our players love to talk about the daily stories we put out. Every day there are threads on our forums and comments on our Facebook page discussing the story—talking about how they hate our villains and love their heroes—which ultimately validates everything we’ve been striving for.

Do you have any future updates in the works?

Plenty! We’ve just released a few big updates including our new Greenhouse mechanic that lets our most avid users complete quests faster with the help of friends. We’ve also got a lot of great features in the pipelines for players looking for something fresh to do in the West.

We’re planning on putting in a system where players can run trains between towns, and we also have a badge/achievement system on our radar. Being a Flash game, it’s far easier for us to roll out big, exciting features that increase the number of things our players can do. We definitely love taking a advantage of that.

Any final words for your fans?

We love hearing feedback! We read the Facebook comments, ClipwireGames.com forums, and e-mail every single day. If you have an idea for the game or have something can be improved, tell us! Also, keep your eyes open because we’ll be rolling out new features, crops, and decorations in the coming weeks!（source:gamezebo）