 | We are proud to present our second exclusive interview with the Irth Online development team. | | MMORPG.com: | In a recent interview it was stated that “The world of Irth is enormous at tens of thousands of square kilometers. This is an extremely small area of the entire playable landmass potential. We will introduce new continents when needed.” A problem that myself and a lot of players have seen with worlds this large is that they tend to lack content and originality sometimes. Quite often you’ll come upon long stretches where there is nothing but grass or trees as far as you can see. How do you plan to make sure this doesn’t happen in Irth? | | Irth Dev Team: | It is true that the playable potential is enormous and we hope that one day we can use every square inch of it. The initial playable area is 192km x 192km. We don’t think that’s too big to start with. It is also true that the initial playable landmass is but a small fraction of the actual Irth size. We have very creative and industrious world builders. Although there are many vast areas, they are not without interest, intrigue, danger, adventure and discovery. We have listened and responded to many players as they have expressed their needs. Solo players often enjoy large areas of interest away from the beaten path. We have it, and it’s filled with content and surprise. |  | | MMORPG.com: | It has been stated that you can basically change your profession at any time in the game by doing different things; thus forfeiting an old profession for a new one. Will all skills learned and progress made in the old skill be completely gone, or will it work like Horizons did where if you decide to go back to it down the road you’ll pick up where you left off? | | Irth Dev Team: | There will be quantities of diverse and exciting professions that players can develop relating to combat as well as crafting. From Alchemist to Zoologist, players will be able to experiment and develop any profession for any character that they see fit. The player character will be defined by what skill the player chooses to develop. Players are not limited to one profession. They can develop multiple professions. If the player does not like what he or she has become, he or she can change the character by doing different things and this will result in the forfeit of one profession and the development of another. A player can choose to un-train a profession relatively quickly or they can simply not use a certain skill, and the profession will slowly decay until it is completely gone from lack of use. If a skill is not practiced it will completely deteriorate. Players will not be able to stop using a skill for an extended period and return to it at a later date with the same aptitude. The system was designed to reflect real life, use it or lose it. |  | | MMORPG.com: | What would you say has been the most difficult feature of the game to figure out how to implement for the team? What was that one feature that you just couldn’t live without but has been a major pain to figure out how to make it work just the way you wanted it to? | | Irth Dev Team: | There are so many features that we have painstakingly mulled over and over until we have gotten just right, but no single one stands out as most difficult. We want this game to be the best that it can be and we are pretty much all perfectionists. Therefore the challenges continue daily. Particle effects, textures, game mechanics, storylines, animations, shadows, the development of natural and supernatural Wonders etc have all been worked and re-worked until we were collectively content. Probably the most important issue to us relating to gameplay is balance. Poorly balanced games often discourage players. We wanted to avoid this by carefully planning game mechanics and features. In many respects, because we do not have a class system, players are expected to balance their own characters. If the player finds his or her character at an unfair disadvantage he or she can change the character by developing new skills. However, there still remain many areas that we must assume balance responsibility for. These areas have been carefully planned and designed, worked out and re-worked again and again. How PvP and Non-PvP will interact, the differences between civilization specific magic, character changing of civilizations, and countless other topics that relate to balance have been thoroughly worked through over and over again. |  | | MMORPG.com: | What types of non-essential, fun things will we find in the game? Like mini-games, role-playing clothing, or whatever else you may have dreamed up? | | Irth Dev Team: | There are many rare items and rare item collections. There is a series of clothing, armor and equipment with the Irth logo on them. Really cool looking. There are also many other rare collectables in game. We are allowing contest winners to design and create unique items, including weapons, armor, potions, magic spells, NPC characters, rituals, outposts etc. Contest winners not only get to design these items but they are named after the player or by the player. We have created incredibly unique places that I don’t believe have ever been conceived of before in other MMORPGs. I don’t want to say too much about these places, because they are secret and need to be discovered by players. They are very different and innovative. | Thanks you to the devs who answered our questions. Please, make your opinions known on their HYPE METER and in THIS COMMENT THREAD. |
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