FreeWorld: Interview with Scott Morton
Altre, 2004-05-19

Scott: Well, my name's Scott Morton, and I'm currently the composer-in-residence for Freeworld Online. I'm responsible for composing and producing all the music for the game. I'm also responsible for deciding how the music is played back and how it is implemented. So I guess I am the "music supervisor" in that sense.

Scott: I am a very visual and emotional composer. One of the things I try to do with my music most often is to capture character and mood. I fell in love with film music as a kid. I'm also a very impulsive composer. I tend to look at what I'm composing for, look at the story, and then wait for something to come into my head. It's usually just a small idea or a "germ" if you will, and then I build off of that. There is not a lot of structure to my work during this phase; I like to let my compositions grow naturally.

I'm one of the lucky few musicians out there that has a very strong ear, and I am totally excited about where music technology has come. I love working with samplers and computers because it allows me a lot of immediate feedback, so I can add and change things in my music. It's almost like painting . . . you can see the results (or hear them) as you are creating.

As far as in Freeworld, I do some wandering around a new area when it is first built, and I gain inspiration that way. Looking at the scenery, seeing how things move and also how the game feels when I'm playing it. The rest sort of comes together in a combination of thought processes and impulse.

Scott: I had been getting close to graduating college, and I actually was scouring the Gamedev.net forums looking for some free work to do. I stumbled across a posting by Clyde Bielss from Freeworld, and it was asking for a texture artist I believe. I went to the site and looked at the game screenshots and concepts, and decided I would email him and ask if he had need for music. I sent him a few demos and a link to my site.

Clyde was impressed, and soon after that I began composing for the game. There had been some music done as placeholders before that, so that was slowly phased out. Freeworld is really a very unique project and one of the only successful MMORPG games made by a team without a budget. I definitely felt the dedication of the team members as soon as I joined.

Scott: Freeworld is unique in that it is a creation of love . . . the love of games. The team listens to its testers, for one, and is honestly concerned with evolving it according to things they'd like to see. There is not a huge pressure on having a development timeline, so the creative juices I think are more powerful and unhindered. There is also something about it that I can't really explain. It seems to be an unrestricted sort of place, where it doesn't necessarily try and fit in with the rest of the genre. There are unique races that don't exist in other games. There is a unique battle system. The truth is, Freeworld feels to me more like a "world" than any other MMORPG I've played, simply because it feels like it's not a duplication of anything else out there.

There is something refreshing about playing it, because it is truly unique and creative, not from a literal and technological standpoint, but creative and new in a sensory and an intuitive way. It's the result of unpressured and very driven creative processes. If that makes sense. It's almost like the way I compose . . . Freeworld slowly evolves into what it will be, with no expectations or rules.

Scott: It's funny you ask; the things I always thought should be improved in the game are always seeming to either be integrated or improved. One of the big things people criticized the most was the graphics, for instance. Until this latest phase, I admit that they were not groundbreaking. But during this phase, that completely changed. We raised the poly-count on models and integrated some cool tree software, stuff like that. I can't really say what I would like to see better at this point, because after all, we are still in alpha. The game isn't even really born yet. We're just lucky to get to share an unborn game with the public so early on. I think Freeworld will be 100 times even more advanced than it is now when it's released officially.

Scott: Well, I think they underestimate my powers. As a composer they might think me a pacifist, but I'm just biding my time. Draconus (Clyde) may think his power is unmatched, but soon . . . very soon.

Scott: Well, there's nothing like composing a little clown or polka music for their victory dance if they DID beat me. At least I could take them down in the process.

Scott: I've done a few independent projects, and I'd just like to say, that Freeworld is a diamond in the rough. It defies the odds of most indy-launched games. The fact that we continue to develop and the result we get in this game is nothing other than sheer love of creating a game. I think that's easily lost in the industry today, and I honestly think that when Freeworld goes gold and is open to the public, people will be able to feel the love and pure effort we've put into it.