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Hero's Journey News - Q&A #6, Screens #18
Posted by Dana Massey on Aug 23, 2005 | 2 comments in our forums
Jon Wood is back to quiz Simutronics designer Aaron Strandridge with five more questions as our bi-weekly Q&A series continues with installment #6. There are also two brand new screenshots for you to enjoy.
;) MMORPG.com: A combat system has the ability to make or break an MMO. What, beyond group combat moves, are you doing with your combat system that will keep players interested in the long term?
Aaron Standridge: Combat in Hero’s Journey is intended to be a lot more fast-paced and fluid than the genre’s current offerings. Even when fighting alone, there are frequently tactical decisions to be made if you want to emerge victorious. The trick to combat is all in how you deliver the tactical options to the player so that it is interesting, and balance the play so that is challenging but not absurdly so. Hero’s tend to be victorious, but they need to look heroic doing it. And, in good movies and literature, that means interesting resolutions to problems (pugilistic or otherwise). The trick for us is to deliver a way for a Hero to take advantage of his environment as well as his skills in overcoming the enemy. However, what makes it really exciting for us to work with is how dynamic everything is. Our creature AI can change at the drop of a hat, allowing them to constantly adapt to new situations and threats, and devise new strategies themselves. Quest layout and design, too, allows for virtually any scenario that can be dreamed up. Monsters can devise traps and ambushes, call for reinforcements, utilize chokepoints, and tank for their casters, just like players. Plus, it looks very sweet. We have some really talented animators here. |
The more the time pass, the more I look with an intriguing smile toward this game.
They never rise my hype much, they never outrage me either. I wonder how flawed a character will be if he dont join a guild, a clan, or a faction, or how viable will he still be...can the best guy be a lone wolf in particuliar field(like soloing)?
HJ may be my future home...maybe not...I will keep reading...the wording of the benefits any association was careful enough, it is not clarifying anything yet...before I even go buy the game 1 day, I will need clarifications on what exactly are those benefits, how does they affect peoples who have them and those who dont. What does it really mean in terms of involment to belong to a clan? To a guild? To a faction? This also affect the first, if you NEED to be in something that require little involvement, it is far less bad then if you NEED to stop playing just to meet the requirements of the assocation. Myself would prolly start a clan and dont bother with it much, let folks join if they want, or not...also join a faction...a guild is doubtful if it require much involvement. SoE teach me well to never give a blind trust to a company...and Cryptic did it as well, although less badly, they did it...
EQ was a first love...CoH was a super model that happen to be a lead scientist...HJ is neither! Will HJ seduce me? And what about you?
I really like all of the concepts I read about for this game, and the screen shots are pretty nice looking. I do have one concern about the screenshots though: Lack of Bump-mapping. Are there plans to include BM in the engine?