MMORPG: How about Chaos Cult (marked) units? The Mark of Nurgle is in there now, but will we be seeing more marks, and the troops associated with them? Want to give us a hint as to how they will work?
NR: Can’t tell you yet! It’s part of the entire character progression and customization with the priority being getting those systems in first for all factions, before starting to making something specific for Chaos right now. Our character pipeline is doing both balancing, progression, accessories, new weapons, weapon variations – so systems for everyone first before we do much more for SM and CSMs (except balancing of course).
MMORPG: Post-release one of the first updates (maybe even the first) will be adding Terminators. Will Land Raiders be included in this update (since Terminators can't very well ride in Rhinos)?
NR: We have updates quite frequently after going live, a new map here, new game mode there, additions to character progression and then we have free expansions about every 3 months. That’s where the Terminator Equivalent class comes in for all factions. While they seem simple to do they really are not and that’s the very reason we pushed them out and they became the first expansion!
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As a result, Land Raiders will definitely not be along with them in an expansion as a new vehicle class is an entire expansion in itself. It’s part of their drawback. That and they can’t go some places like vehicles. That doesn’t eliminate us allowing them to teleport to some sort of spawn beacons, like treat a Rhino as having a spawn beacon so they could spawn outside one. Besides, we haven’t even made all the variants of the current vehicles which is much easier to add.
MMORPG: Regarding characters, we know the Warlord is expected first, when might we see these guys?
NR: That’s actually changed based on Early Access player behavior and feedback from Early Access. They aren’t as important as balancing the factions, adding the other factions, balancing vehicles and making sure all weapons work in their own unique way. In other words, we’d rather focus on getting them right before adding some mushroom-cloud-laying mother-lovers to the mix and believe me, when the entire character customization comes in and two new factions, balancing will be a huge focus for us.
MMORPG: Now something aside from what features are coming up, a lot of players are concerned with things like weapon characteristics, and how each faction will be balanced against the others, is it safe to assume that things like Time To Kill (TTK), are still being balanced, and we probably see lots of significant changes as the team sees how the races perform against each other in “real time”?
NR: Our very definition of being in the state of Alpha is that everything is broken and nothing is finalized. When you reach the end of Alpha, that’s when we say we’ve reached a point where we have a version of the game which we feel is becoming close any part of it being final.
Your assumption is therefore entirely correct, everything will change, nothing is eternal.
MMORPG: In March's State of the Crusade, you alluded to Microsoft's new, pro cross-platform stance on gaming, can you give us any news on how that is proceeding? Has there been any response from Sony? What sort of balancing measures do you anticipate between the platforms, or will you just throw the PC crew into the mix with the X-Boxers and see how it plays out?
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NR: Nothing happening on that front and it’s not something we’re working on implementing till Sony and Microsoft actually agree to allow it so when it’s official and it’s possible, we’d look at how to implement it. We simply think our game is a good fit since a lot of people in the office always play with the controller and aren’t “keyboard and mouse” people.
Regarding balancing, I would say it’s first and foremost tuning the amount of aim assist and all such things that console shooters usually have and I think some classes would simply fit much better for a controller than mouse and keyboard. I like that kind of asymmetric thoughts and I simply don’t accept the answer that it can’t be done. If we accept that kind of attitude there wouldn’t even be online games today.
I think it’s a worthy challenge if it’ll be allowed and we’ve talked how to balance it and so many of our developers are both controller and mouse and keyboard guys so we have plenty of ideas. We’re also on our way to the patent office later today.
MMORPG: Thanks very much for spending some time with us today, Nathan, and sharing some info on how Eternal Crusade is shaping up as we get closer to release.
Remember, Crusaders, to stay up-to-the-minute on Eternal Crusade developments, head over to the Official Website, and while you're there, check out the Forums. Lots of interaction with the Dev Team on those Forums, I'm sure you can find the answers to any questions you might have about the game.
