Ten Ton Hammer: With that
combat system, how will the skills players
can advance influence the way you shoot your gun, build your equipment,
etc.?



Atanas: All
combat skills in Earthrise
are comprised of abilities that
players can use in combat against their opponents. As players advance
in their skills, they will unlock new abilities, tactics, and special
enhancements that will boost the abilities they are compatible with.
The availability and the use of these abilities will differentiate a
new player from an experienced player. Skills alone do not add passive
bonuses or enhance the player's combat potential permanently, allowing
the players’ abilities to play a large role in the game. This
will prevent players who rely on spending months in grinding to be
powerful enough to slay anything with one click of a button. Player
skill will decide whether the combination of abilities, modified by
specific tactics, will work in a particular situation.

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The combat in
Earthrise is a combination of third person shooter and classic RPG
elements.

Ten Ton Hammer: From the
screenshots you’ve unveiled to the
public, the graphics in Earthrise look pretty awesome. What sort of
graphics engine are you using, and will players with low spec machines
be able to run the game?



Atanas: We
are using our own proprietary engine that will feature many
of the latest DirectX9 and DirectX10 features, but the game will run on
low spec machines, although some of the features should be disabled.



Ten Ton Hammer: If
Earthrise
has a fairly intricate story, how do you
plan on immersing players in that storyline? Will you have a lot of
in-game text, or will players see stories unfold through cut-scenes
and/or in-game action?



Atanas:
Recently launched MMORPGs are taking cues from single-player
games that provide players with immersive cut scenes and dialogue trees
that capture the player's attention with a cinematic experience.
However, MMORPGs are not the same as single-player games - there is a
lot more content that would lead to overuse of those mentioned methods.
What we do in Earthrise
is present quests and stories that alone have a
cinematic feeling in which the player is an active character rather
than a spectator. It is the same with text, where we will provide
readers with enough text to enjoy and read, but we will give players
the opportunity to act out the storyline rather than read about it
through dialogues. Dialogue won't be as simple as accepting and
declining every offered mission. Players will be able to accept or
decline missions depending on what affiliation they have with different
factions and their choice will have direct impact on quest requirements
and completion.



Ten Ton Hammer: 
Although sound and music has never been the
highest priority for MMOGs, how are you planning on handling this
portion of a player’s experience? Is your music going to be
top notch? Will your sound effects blow people away?



Atanas: We
put a strong emphasis on the sound and music in style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise
with the hopes that it will add to the game’s atmosphere.
Most of the music will be electronic, which we feel fits the futuristic
post-apocalyptic world of Earthrise.
Our music artists have already
composed more than 50 pieces already, four of which have been posted on
our site (www.play-earthrise.com) and are free to download.



The sound effects are custom made for style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise by our
sound designer.
We decided to forego using clips from sound libraries or other games
and have already created thousands of unique sounds. This
personalization will add to the immersion of the players into style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise.

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The most challenging
element for the development team has been building the engine.

Ten Ton Hammer: What has
been the most challenging part of developing
an MMOG thus far? Where have you had the most difficulty?



Atanas: The
most challenging part was the start of the project and the
first months when we had to work hard on the first engine builds. We
literally started from scratch. Many other studios base their
technology on licensed engines or previously released games with some
new versions of their engines, but our case was different. We wanted to
make an engine to support all of our cool ideas for style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise, such as
the great graphics, open world with no instances and true sandbox
experience that we are creating. The result after two and a half years
of development is great and we are currently in alpha stages of the
game.



Ten Ton Hammer: Is there
anything else you’d like to tell Ten
Ton Hammer readers and Earthrise
fans?



Atanas: As I
already mentioned, Earthrise
is in its alpha stages at the
moment and we are working hard to prepare the game for the closed beta,
expected by the end of this year. Our community is very supportive and
we really appreciate all of the positive feedback and comments, based
on our interviews and answers on the forums.