MMORPG.com: You’re in Early Access shortly – have you had players in the game already?
Small: This [EGX Rezzed] is our first time publically that we’ve got to show it, and we’ve already got some feedback that we’re going to take back and try and get in before the launch. Sure there might be the odd little collision bug, you might be able to walk through some walls, but we’ll try and catch them. It’s a big world, so we’re hoping the community will help us.
Rowbotham: We’ve been trying to make sure it’s well optimised. The game itself is running very quickly on these computers, and some of our crapper computers in the office.
Small: We don’t have to the best rigs in the office, we get 30 frames with everything turned on, full resolution, occlusion’s turned on, dynamic shadowing, so we’re going to ship with a very stable graphic representation of the game.
MMORPG.com: How much of the heavy lifting does the Unreal Engine do for you in that regard?
Small: Everything’s exposed in that engine. We don’t have to code new systems; they just have it all there. Gears of War has some of the best graphics in the industry, and we can just abuse that. Why would we try and improve on it? We’re not cocky like that – oh Paragon looks okay.’ [laughs]. That’s the standard right now. What they have access to, we have access to.
Rowbotham: They’ve been so good with releasing. Paragon is just coming out. In the latest update, they’ve put in a load of stuff that they’ve learned and added to the engine from that. Which is cool because they’re solving problems that we didn’t even know we had in some cases. It looks so much better, and we didn’t do anything.
Small: Like eye shading and the hair - ‘by the way, we made a really good version of that’ Oh, thanks again!
Rowbotham: They’re great, really good. All their feedback and support, and all the tutorials as well. I forget the guy’s name, but he’s great.
MMORPG.com: So what’s changed since we last took a look?
Small: So we’re definitely launching with Militia, Merchant, Peasant, which then can unlock Blacksmith, Monk and Hunter. And special class skills are also a new thing, so each profession can do something unique to them. The hunter lays traps, and they go from crude – a stone that falls on a rabbit, the medium one catches deer, and the large ones are to catch players. Blacksmith can fix weapons, and monks can heal others.
Rowbotham: Monks can also make opium, and ale. So if anyone’s played Dark RP, we love dodgy characters. I actually love that we put in that you can die, you can overdose.
Small: Because monks are shifty characters in 14th century medieval Europe, they profited from a lot of shady activity. The churches were seen as a community that everyone hung around, so it’s ‘do you want to try some of this?’ It’s that sandboxiness that we want though; Monks can be nice or they can be a bit shifty.
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MMORPG.com: What’s your server model going to be like?
Rowbotham: Initially we’re going to have our own official servers. We don’t have it at the moment, but we’re looking at putting in the ability to turn certain settings on or off, so we can make more PvE or PvP servers. We’re currently working on getting it so players can maybe make their own severs as well, because I know they’re quite keen on it. Especially for guys who are really into it, they seem to like having their own community.
MMORPG.com: Early Access is 19th April. What’s coming afterwards?
Rowbotham: One of our biggest updates, one of the first ones we’re going to try and get in is horse riding. We know how much of a difference cars make in H1Z1, and anything like that kind of fast travel. You hear a car coming, and you’re looking to hide. Hear a couple of guys coming on horseback and you’re like ‘I’m off!’
Small: Horse riding’s the big update, but we’ll be following it with the Knight. We’ll be constantly adding new professions, and you unlock them from progressing through. Some advanced professions will then have master professions, so you play the advanced one to unlock the next. Militia’s got Noble, then it’s Noble to Knight, so it’s a lineage.
Rowbotham: Some of the future ones we’ve got planned are Noble, Guard, Knight, Bandit, Minstrel. [mimes playing an instrument]
MMORPG.com: Are you actually going to put that in?
Rowbotham: I’d love it, if we get the time and we can do it, changing it so Minstrel could do combat, but they also use our combat system to play notes. And then you could imagine that with a microphone as well. We’ve got stages and seats, so you get some guy like ‘Hi, this is my song!’ And then they get booed offstage.
MMORPG.com: I’ve just got this vision of Mad Max: Fury Road, where you’ve got the guitarist 14th century style.
Rowbotham: Puffy clothes, really unsuited for the battlefield.
MMORPG.com: Are you looking at construction, buildings, anything like that?
Small: We’re going to have a Restoration update. Little villages, that you’ll notice in the trailers, are burned down. Because houses are buyable – we have the deed system – some places are just burned down, so you can actually repair them up, and then the cost of buying them is next to nothing, because you’ve done the work.
Rowbotham: We wanted to keep the building system slightly controlled by us, because we didn’t want it to get out of hand where players are blocking things off, or making things that destroy the landscape.
Small: If you’ve seen some of the constructions in some of these survival games. Because it’s a sandbox survival game, I think that will kill a lot of the vibe. We’ve done a lot of the hard work by putting nice buildings down, and they can buy it and fix it up.
Rowbotham: It ties into how a lot of survival games view durability. You’ll buy a house, then you’ll have a pool of rent money that you put into it, to keep the player needing to do stuff, and keep the house going. And then we’re going to have selling of houses as well. We don’t have a class specifically for it, but you can be the guy that buys houses, does them up, fixes the items inside, and then sells it on for a profit.
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MMORPG.com: How far have you gone down the social route?
Rowbotham: It’s something we know is quite important. H1Z1, they put in an update reasonably recently about being able to party up and stuff. We don’t have anything set in stone in at the moment, but it’s something we’re very keen to get in as we know it’s important.
Small: It’s trying to find that medieval version of it, like a guild way of doing it. Like shared ownership of houses – that’s something that we’re definitely looking at. Here’s the keys to my house, let’s band up together. Let’s save up and buy that castle, and look after it together. Keep it sandbox, not too rigid.
What would they have done back then? Did they band together, like the militiamen forming a militia group, and then doing militia stuff together? That’s the kind of stuff we’re looking at.
Rowbotham: I think the interesting thing is, during early access we can see how players like to join up. Then we can manipulate that, make a mechanic for it, to enhance how they play. Which is how all the roleplaying stuff is going to expand.
Small: It’s part of our emote stuff, and interaction with other players as well. Each profession has a unique emote system. The merchant has a nice wave; the militiaman has a [waves two fingers].
Rowbotham: We want it to be where you walk into town, walk past a guy, and go ‘that’s a Blacksmith, that guy’s a monk, that guy’s a bandit, I’m steering clear of him.’ You’ve got a ragtag group sitting in a pub, you’ve got the peasant a bit hunched over and stuff.
I’m really looking forward to suggestions on other stuff people want to interact with. At the moment we have chairs, stools, beds, stocks. But if people want to see the gallows, that sort of thing…
