March 26th, 2008

Summary of Earthrise Interview Podcast

Earthrise Concept Art

I finally got around to listening to the entire 56 and a half minute Wife-Aggro.com’s audio interview with Earthrise CEO, Atanas Atanosov and lead designer, Apostol Apostolov from Masthead Studios out of Bulgaria.

They start off by introducing themselves. Atanas is 30 years old, has been a passionate gamer for 20 years and followed the gaming industry since ‘88. He’s a big fan of MMOs and enjoys following the development of new titles.

Apostolov is 29, has been gaming since the Apple IIe and has played pen and paper RPGs and MMOs for many years. He’s in charge of the gameplay mechanics and systems, and also manages the writing team, designer team and level design team.

Masthead Studios started in the Summer of 2005 when Atanas put together a small team of programmers and artists who wanted to break into the MMO scene with something revolutionary, so they began working on a project. Two and a half years later, it grew into something much larger than they expected. A team that started with 10 people is now made up of 50 members who are all passionate about Earthrise. The artists come from art universities and the programmers have experience in corporate fields.

Factions and Guilds

When it was time to talk about the game, it was revealed that players were able to choose not to align with either of the two main factions, the Continoma and Noir. Instead, they can join neutral or criminal factions. Players affiliated with neutral factions can play stronger roles in the economy as they’re unrestricted by the laws and limitations of the markets.

Players and guilds who choose to become associated with criminal factions and activity can receive assignments where other players are your targets.

It basically comes down to four types of guilds in the game: Continoma guilds, Noir guilds, neutral guilds and criminal guilds. Neutral guilds have the most freedom in the game, since they’re not enemies with any faction. They can travel and trade freely amongst the entire Island of Enterra. Criminal guilds, on the other hand, will have a tougher life, as you’ll have to worry about multiple threats due to your lifestyle.

Guilds can be distinguished with a number of icons that they can choose from to represent themselves, as well as being able to set matching colors for their attire.

Territories, Structures, Crafting and Economics

All guilds will be able to control territories and build structures on those territories, such as walls, turrets, headquarters and administrative buildings, which are all upgradeable. Other players can attack and destroy those structures, but it will be difficult and time consuming to do so. Territories contain resources that will be important for economic and technological supremacy, so they will be highly contested.

The rich crafting system was stated to be one of the most important aspects of the game. Every item, equipment, weapon, etc. (especially the most powerful ones) is created by players. Every item in the game has value, nothing will be completely useless, since everything can be reverse engineered and/or deconstructed to be used to develop other items and components. Players can become powerful and wealthy from economic and political influence. Crafters and socializers can have fun without ever engaging in combat. It’s in-depth enough to even be considered a game within the game.

There are two types of resources. Materials such as metal and ore aren’t necessarily required to be harvested/mined, as they can be bought off the market. However, advanced items will require more rare resources found only in contested territory that guilds will have to conquer and gain access to. Building factories, mining materials, trying to create monopolies or using the resources for your own technological advantage will be a major reason to capture territory.

I’m particularly glad to hear that drugs and medicine will be in the game that players can experiment with and concoct, with complex recipes and chemical compounds. They will be used to temporarily enhance/regen/buff your character.

There will be two types of market terminals throughout the game world. Officially regulated Continoma markets where illegal items are restricted and black Noir markets that have fewer to no restrictions. The two factions can’t sell items to each other using these terminals, but neutrals can use both types of market terminals. Each player and/or guild will also be able to run their own shop by supplying their own inventory to their own warehouse structure in controlled territory.

Skills, Progression and Combat

It was decided that the game would be skill-based even before Masthead Studios was formed because it “allows more freedom and opportunities.” It’s “closer to the real world” and doesn’t have as much limitations as a class-based system. Ultima Online was mentioned as being one of the inspirations for Earthrise’s overall design. Skills, abilities, tactics and customization are all built deep into the Earthrise combat system. There are hundreds of thousands of builds and the designers really want you to be able to fine-tune your character down to the last decimal.

They also made some clarifications on the offline progressions system, which caused some confusion early on when it was announced as a feature. Offline progression means that players gain income and social status offline from their in-game professions. A librarian is one example of a profession. It’s supposed to reward casual players for investing time and effort into the game but without spending countless hours logged in. How it works exactly wasn’t elaborated on much further than what was said.

Vehicles

Apparently, Hovercrafts aren’t just one type of vehicle. Hovercrafts pertain to a number of vehicles varying in sizes ranging from your typical motorcycle to a truck, but with a futuristic spin on them. Exo-skeletons will be similar to anime-inspired mechs that are about 10 feet in height and are used both for transportation and combat. They will require a lot of maintenance, though, since they require fuel to operate.

Final Words

To close out the interview, Masthead said that they do not and will not support an out-of-game economy/microtransactions/the selling of virtual items for real currency. They discourage it because it makes the in-game economy “false” and that it’s the “wealthy players IRL who are successful in-game and not the players who actually play well”. It’s also an immersion breaker.

Atanas wanted everyone to know that Earthrise is more than just a simple PvP game, it’s a virtual simulation of a possible future scenario.