Cavadus
Fri, 03 Oct 2008, 16:07
Happy Monday!
Here's your weekly dose of Question of the Week, with answers brought to you straight from the developers.
Balthazar: Will specific organizations be tied in to specific geographic locations?
Masthead: Yes, Organizations will have their own homeland in specific geographic location of the island of Enterra, such as Red Dragons being located in the mountain-sheltered regions of the Northeast parts of the island, while the criminal Syndicate populate the swampy treacherous grounds in the derelict North. While lower level members of each Organization can be found in many places across the island, in each organization's homeland players can meet with the powerful and influential officers and leaders of each organizations in order to get missions and further improve their own reputation towards that Organization.
Hector: Is it expected that we will be playing on recognizable maps, IE. island of Crete, or future expansions into Europe?
Masthead: Since the apocalyptic demise of the humanity in the war, the world has changed to almost unrecognizable state. The polar caps have melted and the ocean level has risen, tectonic activity further changing the face of Earth. While it is a bit too early to announce any plans to implement new island(s) with new territory for exploration and conquest, we won't rule out the opportunity to make some places easily recognizable as reminders to an long lost age.
Enjoy, and feel free to discuss in detail below...
~ m.
Hi everyone,
Not too much for me to say this week, however you will probably enjoy some of these clarifications on last week's HOC straight from the Dev Team.
_________________________________________________
This week's Question of the Week is a great opportunity for us to give come clarification on statements we made during the House of Commons Chat at Stratics. As tends to happen, some of our answers to your questions there raised understandable concerns and only the lack of time and the massive amount of questions being asked did not allow us to give you as much information as we needed to.
We said on the Stratics Chat, that "Earthrise is less complex than EVE and it will be more friendly". We still back this statement as it refers to several key components that are easily recognizable and instantly playable by anyone without having to undergo long tutorials or spend time learning the influence of hundreds of minor factors, and the interface would be less complicated and easier to learn. Earthrise also removes the tedium of "harvesting occupations" that put players on a daily job of providing resources - almost every resource would involve something exciting and dynamic to do as primary or optional way to achieve it. Crafting also makes it much manageable and easier for players to create new designs and manufacture with ease, and the Technology/Design system uses the same paradigms already implemented and used by Skill Abilities, making it easier for players to understand crafting once they've mastered combat. Less complex is indeed a bold statement and can mean many things, but it certainly does not mean that we are making Earthrise a casual game; however, casual players would not have hard time understanding the game.
A lot of readers raised concerns about the size of Enterra in light of the statement that it takes 2 hours to cross the island. We'd like to point out that this statement is made on the assumption that players would be sprinting (an ability that has associated costs and cannot be used permanently) and they would not face a single obstruction on their way. That is not the case as the terrain of Enterra can be complex and convoluted at many places and would require the players to find their path way longer than expected rather than just cross the plains. That alone can add an hour and some to the duration of the travel. Finally, we wanted to make Enterra large, but at the same time not empty. Our estimates for server population require that we provide you with an area big enough to encourage exploration but also tightly packed with content and actually allowing players to run into each other at other places but a couple hubs of social activity, so that the PvP gameplay doesn't run high on promise but at the end low on delivery. It is not the size of the land that matters, but what you can do there.
Finally, the decision to limit sieges to a time period has a lot of reasons behind it. Territory control is all about production and management, with a lot of resources being poured into the building of mines and factories, administrative buildings that simplify trade and more. To have this immense investment being endangered 24/7 means that for many guilds the entrance to Territorial Conquest would require them to either expand with a wide international roster (or people who don’t get any sleep) or be assimilated by other guilds that can afford such luxury. At the end, only established guilds would be able to withstand constant attacks and protect their investment; everyone else would be able to take territories only for a limited time, and wouldn't dare to invest too much, therefore not enjoying the benefits of using the complete set of available buildings. We want to avoid the constant change of power especially as larger guilds get more powerful and smaller get squeezed out of the game. Also, this will remove "gank-conquest", or attacking the weaker defender/attacker after he has taken control over a territory and just destroying his remaining forces and taking over the territory... only the ganker gets ganked by some other guild, and so on and so forth, until the Territory has nothing to offer as surviving buildings and it's just taken over for the sake of it... such gameplay would render the Territory Conquest unusable and unprofitable, and the lack of resources provided by it, the Enterran economy would return to a metaphorical "stone age". Therefore, we decided to protect the Territories all the time but in a window called Siege Time. Only in a Siege time a Territory can be attacked by opposing Guild; in the rest of the time players are free to develop their Territories, use the resources from it, either distribute them on the market or invest them back into the territory.
Of course, we'll be revisiting many of these topics again in the future with more details, but we encourage your questions and commentary below. Please keep your commentary to the above topics from the chat and use the general thread about the HOC to discuss other topics that came up.
_________________________________________________
That post is here: http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1812.0
~ m.
Hello!
Happy Monday, everyone. This week as our team is returning from the Leipzig Games Convention, we take some time out to revisit an old and favorite topic with a new twist - defense and looting.
Tyrus Dark asks us one very interesting question regarding defenders - are they in fact too powerful to handle by any offensive attack? We say "certainly not!"
1) What's to prevent the defender's respawn point within their base (or teleport point) (as noted by the recent Stratics Chat) from giving a defender a nearly-overwhelming advantage: assuming roughly equal economic strength, it seems like 1 kill for the defenders will mean a LOT more than one kill for the attackers.
When a player is killed, all his inventory that is not Insured is dropped on the battlefield and before his next respawn he is offered a chance to reinsure all his inventory and to retrieve items that were dropped but not yet looted at excessive price if he definitely does not want something lost. Given the death rate on a battlefield, expect defenders to lose huge amount of money by constantly being respawned and their inventory reinsured. Despite this, there is an option to actually make money in a siege battle if you score more kills than deaths, at some point the defenders will deplete their personal funds forcing many of their members to retreat or face being totally looted... and returning to the battlefield completely naked is an embarrassment most players will want to avoid at all cost, not to mention they won't be able to offer any realistic defense of their base.
Please be sure to visit our other related topics:
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1521.0 (insurance, as it relates to looting)
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1158.0 (insurance)
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=23.0 (21 pages of looting fun)
See you all on the forums, and thank you to the developers for this clarification! As always, we invite discussion on this topic, below.
- m.
Hello everyone, I hope you had a great weekend:)
Without further delay I present you the question of this week, enjoy!
What kind of terrain can we expect? Will Enterra be a generally jungle/tropical setting, or will we see some deserts and other terrain as well? Also, if there is going to be a variety of terrain, can we expect different resources/features to make each terrain unique and strategically important for whatever group is currently holding it?
As we have announced so far, the island of Enterra is predominantly a lush and vibrant tropical setting, with a striking contrast between the thriving life and futuristic lifestyle and the lurking threat of mutants outside the safe harbor of civilization. As a persistent world that strives to remain realistic and immersive for its players, Earthrise will offer fluid transition between different environments that carry the mood and the ambience of each of Enterra's unique locations - from the signature token of civilization on Enterra, the city of Sal Vitas and its terraformed valley that showcases the advancement of the future humanity, to the exotic villages populating the sea beaches and the foreboding swamps surrounding the The Nest where the dregs of society have built themselves a safe haven; the eternal spirit that transcends in the Asian design of the Eastern Gardens and the mutant infestation that have its roots deep under the post-apocalyptic remains of an ancient city. The different environments range from open hill fields that paint a distant vista to high mountains that force players to think their path across. Each terrain will feature its own concept, and players will need to consider all logistic challenges presented by it. The conflict of Continoma and Noir is probably best felt through the security presence across the island, and terrain plays a huge role in taking best advantage (or getting around) the guards presence. Out of all locations on Earthrise however, one is special - and as deadly as alien it appears, the Xelite fields, a rocky desert of hazardous crystalized resource, would be a no man's land that only massive mechanized exoskeletons and the worst creations of mutations do thread, fighting over the precious resource that has become the foundation of recent advances of the human civilizations.
That's all for this week. Feel free to discuss below in this thread
Welcome to Monday!
Time to return to another old favorite topic - territorial control! Remember our QOTW comes straight from the developers, and contains the most up to date information on systems and features in the game's development.
Thanks to Quamie (and others!), we bring you back where we stopped last time to answer some question about what happens when more than one guild decides a piece of land is worth fighting for.
Q: Will battles over territories involve only single guilds, or can multiple guilds take part in attacking or defending a territory (even though a single guild still gains the territory)?
A: Yes, more than one guild may decide to fight for control over a territory, and more than one guild may try to defend the current controller of a territory. Guilds can cooperate together in a siege battle, yet not every guild will be able to claim ownership over a territory, and this will encourage certain guilds to offer their services as mercenaries, assisting other guilds in combat against the opponents.
Q: Will there be a limit on the number of players in a territory battle?
A:This is a technical question that we tackle through testing internally. We will try to provide for the best mass combat experience possible while making combat manageable and running on everyone's computer. Therefore, for now we cannot give you any hard numbers - but we will want to make it massive!
Q: Will guilds of the same faction be able to attack each others territories?
A: Yes. While Continoma encourages cooperation between guilds working to exploit the resources of the island, it may not guarantee that they don't play hard against each other. In a highly competitive economic environment guilds may find faction affiliation something they will sacrifice in their personal interest.
That's it for this week, stay tuned for another exciting QOTW next Monday.
For more on Territorial Gameplay, please check out the other information we have posted:
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1008.0 (question two)
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=689.0
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1244.0
We encourage you to share your thoughts below, and bring them to our Stratics House of Commons Chat later today.
~ m.
Hi everyone,
We wish our developers safe travels this week as they head to AGC, and thank them for this question of the week.
This week Magunnus asked on clarification on Earthrise's Still Tree and how Abilities and Tactics work together to shape unique actions customized to player's specific gaming style. We are happy to oblige, with a disclaimer that all examples shown below, including names of skills, abilities statistics and such, are only for descriptive purposes and are no way final game design.
In Earthrise skills serve as containers for Abilities and Tactics. Each Skill contains a set of Abilities and/or Tactics and as players progress in a Skill, they unlock Abilities or Tactics. From character advancement viewpoint, Abilities and Tactics are the same - they are options that players unlock as their character accumulates knowledge and experience.
But there's huge difference between Abilities and Tactics. Abilities are actions that players can execute to achieve spectacular combat advantage, heal themselves or aid their ally. Tactics are small enhancements and modifications that are applied to Abilities and modify their effect enough to create same yet different Ability, tailored to player's needs. Players will be able to use any Tactic with any Ability as long as they are compatible - we use a complex system of types that must match on both Ability and Tactic makes sure that players are both free to experiment and yet cannot break the system. Players will be able to add several Tactics to an Ability - one copy of several Tactics or multiple copies of the same Tactics. As you see, there are many combinations.
Here's a simple Ability we will use, the same Magunnus suggested. Once again this is only for the example, people, the final design may be very different but the concepts remain the same:
Skill/Level: Athletics 5
Ability Name: Sprinting
Type: Physical, Motion
Cost: 5 Stamina per second.
Effect: For 10 seconds, the player is capable of moving at 150% Movement Speed.
Skill/Level: Coordination 3
Tactics Name: Extra Effort
Type: Motion (can only enhance Motion type Abilities)
Effect. For the Ability Duration, Movement Speed is raised by 50%. Ability Cost is raised by 5 per Second.
Skill/Level: Engineering 4
Tactics Name: Servo Support
Type: Motion (can only enhance Motion type Abilities)
Type: Ability Duration is enhanced by 3 seconds. For the Ability Duration, 5 Stamina per Second from the cost is converted to 7 Energy per Second cost.
The above examples allow a character to build several different types of Sprinting - from squeezing every last drop of effort with several Extra Effort Tactics, to a servo-operated running using several Servo Supports for characters that have enough Energy to bear the enhanced cost in exchanged to prolonged sprinting, or maybe combining both to offset the additional cost of Extra Effort with a different resource pool.
We're glad to be able to help clarify things for our community when we can, and encourage you to keep asking questions, and make your comments below. Please remember that these are examples, and as such may change before game's release.
~ m.
Greetings everyone!
Welcome to another edition of Question of the Week. Today we're looking at weapons!
Malarius' question regarding weapons used in the game gets the spotlight this week.
Earthrise offers a futuristic game setting where ranged combat remains an ever popular way to dispose with your enemies. Choosing from a wide range of different ranged weapons - from common pistols to massive launchers - players who develop their skills in ranged combat will make the medium to far offensive line in combat. Ranged weapons do have the disadvantage to use ammunition - every time you hold the mouse button at an enemy, you are burning money, and the more expensive and damaging the choice of ammunition, the more costly the combat will be to your character's bottom line. Careful planning in order to avoid running in the red via combat will be important, and characters will be discouraged to use their most expensive ammo against enemies that simply do not provide comparable return to the investment. Also, ranged weapons have an advantage in combat from certain distances - when shooting from a too close or too far distance compared to a target, the damage output will be modified - there will be weapons that serve best from the rear of the battlefield, while some ranged weapons serve best as melee fighter's close assistance.
Melee weapons are here to stay, of course! Although Earthrise is not a fantasy setting, the recent advances in melee combat research have provided Enterian soldiers with powerful weapons made of light materials and embedded electronic generators and cirquirty that power damaging effects on touch. Such weapons carry the same complication of ranged weapons, use of energy from embedded fuel cells that will generate expense to the player and powerful fuel cells should be saved against enemies that provide comparable return. Years of research and testing has proven melee weapons to exploit certain weaknesses in personal force field design that makes them very well suited for surprising ambushes or close, overpowering attacks. Melee weaponry has a place in PvP that makes otherwise anachronistic and outdated weapon in a meaningful and dangerous tool that many will either use or avoid at any cost.
Probably a candidate for most interesting array of arms is employed by the Cybermentalist, a specialist trained in using special brain interface allowing him to control his weapons using subconscious intuition, emotions and such. We will have more information on the Cybermentalist when we're ready to reveal them, so keep your eyes on the site and future updates.
That's some interesting stuff right there, and we look forward to the discussion below! Thank you to our developers as always for taking time out to answer these questions for us.
~ m.
Hi everyone!
Today's question of the week is short, sweet, and all for the crafter minded.
Necris' question about whether crafted items will have random or static statistics was under our radar for some time and it's about time we put it in the spotlight.
When designing Earthrise's crafting system, we wanted to encourage mass manufacturing with marginal failure rate and predictable item qualities, allowing the crafter to set a long-term strategy how to use his acquired resources in order to meet the market demand. There's rarely a sizable chance of failure except when using poorly equipped factories or aiming at a very difficult product, in all other cases the failure margins are minimal or non-existing. The items quality is not left to chance either - when using the same technology and the same designs, the player will end up with the same item. The only notable exception is the item quality - depending on the quality of the components used while crafting, the final product might be of exceptional quality, which allows that item to break less often due to extended durability, as well as minor bonuses to its statistics. That's why crafters will aim to create better quality products that require less maintenance and provide superior results compared to standard, stock items that will undoubtedly be widely available on the market.
Enjoy!
~ m.
Phew, that should get us all caught up on QOTWs:p
Here's your weekly dose of Question of the Week, with answers brought to you straight from the developers.
Balthazar: Will specific organizations be tied in to specific geographic locations?
Masthead: Yes, Organizations will have their own homeland in specific geographic location of the island of Enterra, such as Red Dragons being located in the mountain-sheltered regions of the Northeast parts of the island, while the criminal Syndicate populate the swampy treacherous grounds in the derelict North. While lower level members of each Organization can be found in many places across the island, in each organization's homeland players can meet with the powerful and influential officers and leaders of each organizations in order to get missions and further improve their own reputation towards that Organization.
Hector: Is it expected that we will be playing on recognizable maps, IE. island of Crete, or future expansions into Europe?
Masthead: Since the apocalyptic demise of the humanity in the war, the world has changed to almost unrecognizable state. The polar caps have melted and the ocean level has risen, tectonic activity further changing the face of Earth. While it is a bit too early to announce any plans to implement new island(s) with new territory for exploration and conquest, we won't rule out the opportunity to make some places easily recognizable as reminders to an long lost age.
Enjoy, and feel free to discuss in detail below...
~ m.
Hi everyone,
Not too much for me to say this week, however you will probably enjoy some of these clarifications on last week's HOC straight from the Dev Team.
_________________________________________________
This week's Question of the Week is a great opportunity for us to give come clarification on statements we made during the House of Commons Chat at Stratics. As tends to happen, some of our answers to your questions there raised understandable concerns and only the lack of time and the massive amount of questions being asked did not allow us to give you as much information as we needed to.
We said on the Stratics Chat, that "Earthrise is less complex than EVE and it will be more friendly". We still back this statement as it refers to several key components that are easily recognizable and instantly playable by anyone without having to undergo long tutorials or spend time learning the influence of hundreds of minor factors, and the interface would be less complicated and easier to learn. Earthrise also removes the tedium of "harvesting occupations" that put players on a daily job of providing resources - almost every resource would involve something exciting and dynamic to do as primary or optional way to achieve it. Crafting also makes it much manageable and easier for players to create new designs and manufacture with ease, and the Technology/Design system uses the same paradigms already implemented and used by Skill Abilities, making it easier for players to understand crafting once they've mastered combat. Less complex is indeed a bold statement and can mean many things, but it certainly does not mean that we are making Earthrise a casual game; however, casual players would not have hard time understanding the game.
A lot of readers raised concerns about the size of Enterra in light of the statement that it takes 2 hours to cross the island. We'd like to point out that this statement is made on the assumption that players would be sprinting (an ability that has associated costs and cannot be used permanently) and they would not face a single obstruction on their way. That is not the case as the terrain of Enterra can be complex and convoluted at many places and would require the players to find their path way longer than expected rather than just cross the plains. That alone can add an hour and some to the duration of the travel. Finally, we wanted to make Enterra large, but at the same time not empty. Our estimates for server population require that we provide you with an area big enough to encourage exploration but also tightly packed with content and actually allowing players to run into each other at other places but a couple hubs of social activity, so that the PvP gameplay doesn't run high on promise but at the end low on delivery. It is not the size of the land that matters, but what you can do there.
Finally, the decision to limit sieges to a time period has a lot of reasons behind it. Territory control is all about production and management, with a lot of resources being poured into the building of mines and factories, administrative buildings that simplify trade and more. To have this immense investment being endangered 24/7 means that for many guilds the entrance to Territorial Conquest would require them to either expand with a wide international roster (or people who don’t get any sleep) or be assimilated by other guilds that can afford such luxury. At the end, only established guilds would be able to withstand constant attacks and protect their investment; everyone else would be able to take territories only for a limited time, and wouldn't dare to invest too much, therefore not enjoying the benefits of using the complete set of available buildings. We want to avoid the constant change of power especially as larger guilds get more powerful and smaller get squeezed out of the game. Also, this will remove "gank-conquest", or attacking the weaker defender/attacker after he has taken control over a territory and just destroying his remaining forces and taking over the territory... only the ganker gets ganked by some other guild, and so on and so forth, until the Territory has nothing to offer as surviving buildings and it's just taken over for the sake of it... such gameplay would render the Territory Conquest unusable and unprofitable, and the lack of resources provided by it, the Enterran economy would return to a metaphorical "stone age". Therefore, we decided to protect the Territories all the time but in a window called Siege Time. Only in a Siege time a Territory can be attacked by opposing Guild; in the rest of the time players are free to develop their Territories, use the resources from it, either distribute them on the market or invest them back into the territory.
Of course, we'll be revisiting many of these topics again in the future with more details, but we encourage your questions and commentary below. Please keep your commentary to the above topics from the chat and use the general thread about the HOC to discuss other topics that came up.
_________________________________________________
That post is here: http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1812.0
~ m.
Hello!
Happy Monday, everyone. This week as our team is returning from the Leipzig Games Convention, we take some time out to revisit an old and favorite topic with a new twist - defense and looting.
Tyrus Dark asks us one very interesting question regarding defenders - are they in fact too powerful to handle by any offensive attack? We say "certainly not!"
1) What's to prevent the defender's respawn point within their base (or teleport point) (as noted by the recent Stratics Chat) from giving a defender a nearly-overwhelming advantage: assuming roughly equal economic strength, it seems like 1 kill for the defenders will mean a LOT more than one kill for the attackers.
When a player is killed, all his inventory that is not Insured is dropped on the battlefield and before his next respawn he is offered a chance to reinsure all his inventory and to retrieve items that were dropped but not yet looted at excessive price if he definitely does not want something lost. Given the death rate on a battlefield, expect defenders to lose huge amount of money by constantly being respawned and their inventory reinsured. Despite this, there is an option to actually make money in a siege battle if you score more kills than deaths, at some point the defenders will deplete their personal funds forcing many of their members to retreat or face being totally looted... and returning to the battlefield completely naked is an embarrassment most players will want to avoid at all cost, not to mention they won't be able to offer any realistic defense of their base.
Please be sure to visit our other related topics:
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1521.0 (insurance, as it relates to looting)
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1158.0 (insurance)
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=23.0 (21 pages of looting fun)
See you all on the forums, and thank you to the developers for this clarification! As always, we invite discussion on this topic, below.
- m.
Hello everyone, I hope you had a great weekend:)
Without further delay I present you the question of this week, enjoy!
What kind of terrain can we expect? Will Enterra be a generally jungle/tropical setting, or will we see some deserts and other terrain as well? Also, if there is going to be a variety of terrain, can we expect different resources/features to make each terrain unique and strategically important for whatever group is currently holding it?
As we have announced so far, the island of Enterra is predominantly a lush and vibrant tropical setting, with a striking contrast between the thriving life and futuristic lifestyle and the lurking threat of mutants outside the safe harbor of civilization. As a persistent world that strives to remain realistic and immersive for its players, Earthrise will offer fluid transition between different environments that carry the mood and the ambience of each of Enterra's unique locations - from the signature token of civilization on Enterra, the city of Sal Vitas and its terraformed valley that showcases the advancement of the future humanity, to the exotic villages populating the sea beaches and the foreboding swamps surrounding the The Nest where the dregs of society have built themselves a safe haven; the eternal spirit that transcends in the Asian design of the Eastern Gardens and the mutant infestation that have its roots deep under the post-apocalyptic remains of an ancient city. The different environments range from open hill fields that paint a distant vista to high mountains that force players to think their path across. Each terrain will feature its own concept, and players will need to consider all logistic challenges presented by it. The conflict of Continoma and Noir is probably best felt through the security presence across the island, and terrain plays a huge role in taking best advantage (or getting around) the guards presence. Out of all locations on Earthrise however, one is special - and as deadly as alien it appears, the Xelite fields, a rocky desert of hazardous crystalized resource, would be a no man's land that only massive mechanized exoskeletons and the worst creations of mutations do thread, fighting over the precious resource that has become the foundation of recent advances of the human civilizations.
That's all for this week. Feel free to discuss below in this thread
Welcome to Monday!
Time to return to another old favorite topic - territorial control! Remember our QOTW comes straight from the developers, and contains the most up to date information on systems and features in the game's development.
Thanks to Quamie (and others!), we bring you back where we stopped last time to answer some question about what happens when more than one guild decides a piece of land is worth fighting for.
Q: Will battles over territories involve only single guilds, or can multiple guilds take part in attacking or defending a territory (even though a single guild still gains the territory)?
A: Yes, more than one guild may decide to fight for control over a territory, and more than one guild may try to defend the current controller of a territory. Guilds can cooperate together in a siege battle, yet not every guild will be able to claim ownership over a territory, and this will encourage certain guilds to offer their services as mercenaries, assisting other guilds in combat against the opponents.
Q: Will there be a limit on the number of players in a territory battle?
A:This is a technical question that we tackle through testing internally. We will try to provide for the best mass combat experience possible while making combat manageable and running on everyone's computer. Therefore, for now we cannot give you any hard numbers - but we will want to make it massive!
Q: Will guilds of the same faction be able to attack each others territories?
A: Yes. While Continoma encourages cooperation between guilds working to exploit the resources of the island, it may not guarantee that they don't play hard against each other. In a highly competitive economic environment guilds may find faction affiliation something they will sacrifice in their personal interest.
That's it for this week, stay tuned for another exciting QOTW next Monday.
For more on Territorial Gameplay, please check out the other information we have posted:
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1008.0 (question two)
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=689.0
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=1244.0
We encourage you to share your thoughts below, and bring them to our Stratics House of Commons Chat later today.
~ m.
Hi everyone,
We wish our developers safe travels this week as they head to AGC, and thank them for this question of the week.
This week Magunnus asked on clarification on Earthrise's Still Tree and how Abilities and Tactics work together to shape unique actions customized to player's specific gaming style. We are happy to oblige, with a disclaimer that all examples shown below, including names of skills, abilities statistics and such, are only for descriptive purposes and are no way final game design.
In Earthrise skills serve as containers for Abilities and Tactics. Each Skill contains a set of Abilities and/or Tactics and as players progress in a Skill, they unlock Abilities or Tactics. From character advancement viewpoint, Abilities and Tactics are the same - they are options that players unlock as their character accumulates knowledge and experience.
But there's huge difference between Abilities and Tactics. Abilities are actions that players can execute to achieve spectacular combat advantage, heal themselves or aid their ally. Tactics are small enhancements and modifications that are applied to Abilities and modify their effect enough to create same yet different Ability, tailored to player's needs. Players will be able to use any Tactic with any Ability as long as they are compatible - we use a complex system of types that must match on both Ability and Tactic makes sure that players are both free to experiment and yet cannot break the system. Players will be able to add several Tactics to an Ability - one copy of several Tactics or multiple copies of the same Tactics. As you see, there are many combinations.
Here's a simple Ability we will use, the same Magunnus suggested. Once again this is only for the example, people, the final design may be very different but the concepts remain the same:
Skill/Level: Athletics 5
Ability Name: Sprinting
Type: Physical, Motion
Cost: 5 Stamina per second.
Effect: For 10 seconds, the player is capable of moving at 150% Movement Speed.
Skill/Level: Coordination 3
Tactics Name: Extra Effort
Type: Motion (can only enhance Motion type Abilities)
Effect. For the Ability Duration, Movement Speed is raised by 50%. Ability Cost is raised by 5 per Second.
Skill/Level: Engineering 4
Tactics Name: Servo Support
Type: Motion (can only enhance Motion type Abilities)
Type: Ability Duration is enhanced by 3 seconds. For the Ability Duration, 5 Stamina per Second from the cost is converted to 7 Energy per Second cost.
The above examples allow a character to build several different types of Sprinting - from squeezing every last drop of effort with several Extra Effort Tactics, to a servo-operated running using several Servo Supports for characters that have enough Energy to bear the enhanced cost in exchanged to prolonged sprinting, or maybe combining both to offset the additional cost of Extra Effort with a different resource pool.
We're glad to be able to help clarify things for our community when we can, and encourage you to keep asking questions, and make your comments below. Please remember that these are examples, and as such may change before game's release.
~ m.
Greetings everyone!
Welcome to another edition of Question of the Week. Today we're looking at weapons!
Malarius' question regarding weapons used in the game gets the spotlight this week.
Earthrise offers a futuristic game setting where ranged combat remains an ever popular way to dispose with your enemies. Choosing from a wide range of different ranged weapons - from common pistols to massive launchers - players who develop their skills in ranged combat will make the medium to far offensive line in combat. Ranged weapons do have the disadvantage to use ammunition - every time you hold the mouse button at an enemy, you are burning money, and the more expensive and damaging the choice of ammunition, the more costly the combat will be to your character's bottom line. Careful planning in order to avoid running in the red via combat will be important, and characters will be discouraged to use their most expensive ammo against enemies that simply do not provide comparable return to the investment. Also, ranged weapons have an advantage in combat from certain distances - when shooting from a too close or too far distance compared to a target, the damage output will be modified - there will be weapons that serve best from the rear of the battlefield, while some ranged weapons serve best as melee fighter's close assistance.
Melee weapons are here to stay, of course! Although Earthrise is not a fantasy setting, the recent advances in melee combat research have provided Enterian soldiers with powerful weapons made of light materials and embedded electronic generators and cirquirty that power damaging effects on touch. Such weapons carry the same complication of ranged weapons, use of energy from embedded fuel cells that will generate expense to the player and powerful fuel cells should be saved against enemies that provide comparable return. Years of research and testing has proven melee weapons to exploit certain weaknesses in personal force field design that makes them very well suited for surprising ambushes or close, overpowering attacks. Melee weaponry has a place in PvP that makes otherwise anachronistic and outdated weapon in a meaningful and dangerous tool that many will either use or avoid at any cost.
Probably a candidate for most interesting array of arms is employed by the Cybermentalist, a specialist trained in using special brain interface allowing him to control his weapons using subconscious intuition, emotions and such. We will have more information on the Cybermentalist when we're ready to reveal them, so keep your eyes on the site and future updates.
That's some interesting stuff right there, and we look forward to the discussion below! Thank you to our developers as always for taking time out to answer these questions for us.
~ m.
Hi everyone!
Today's question of the week is short, sweet, and all for the crafter minded.
Necris' question about whether crafted items will have random or static statistics was under our radar for some time and it's about time we put it in the spotlight.
When designing Earthrise's crafting system, we wanted to encourage mass manufacturing with marginal failure rate and predictable item qualities, allowing the crafter to set a long-term strategy how to use his acquired resources in order to meet the market demand. There's rarely a sizable chance of failure except when using poorly equipped factories or aiming at a very difficult product, in all other cases the failure margins are minimal or non-existing. The items quality is not left to chance either - when using the same technology and the same designs, the player will end up with the same item. The only notable exception is the item quality - depending on the quality of the components used while crafting, the final product might be of exceptional quality, which allows that item to break less often due to extended durability, as well as minor bonuses to its statistics. That's why crafters will aim to create better quality products that require less maintenance and provide superior results compared to standard, stock items that will undoubtedly be widely available on the market.
Enjoy!
~ m.
Phew, that should get us all caught up on QOTWs:p