Ten Ton Hammer:
Are you changing anything with the minion system? Or is
that pretty concrete?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: The only thing we're really
doing with the minion system is that
we're still working to give all the minions their own personalities.
We're also finishing all the backstories and working on their
interactions with the character. That's really all. As far as mechanics
or control goes, that's all pretty much settled. Now we're just mainly
focused on making you care about them and breathing life into those
characters.


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 148px; height: 185px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/11763"> src="/image/view/11763/preview"
width="200">

Another shot of the
Perpetual booth.

Ten Ton Hammer:
Is most of the content in the game, or are there a few
things (besides minion personality) that are still being added to the
game?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: All of the launch content is
in the game and has been in the
game for quite some time now. We're just going through it and polishing
and revamping it. We're already working on post-launch content. There
are teams already working on areas that we're going to be pushing out
the door shortly after launch. We know that there are people that will
hurry through the content and will do it in a day or a week or
whatever. So we know that we need to have content in the pipe that we
can push out as soon as possible.



Ten Ton Hammer:
From the community manager side of things, what sort of
feelings do you have for the Gods and Heroes community?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: It's been amazing. They're one
of the best communities I've ever
dealt with. They're very helpful with one another. We're very cognizant
of controlling forum trolls and flame wars and those sorts of things.
My motto as a community manager is "mutual respect and constructive
criticism." Those are the two things I want from my forums. The
official forums aren't the place to flame people and cause problems.
There are plenty of places to go do that. We've set that precedence and
that expectation, and the community's really understood and grasped it.
I hear from a vast number of people about how awesome our community is.




Going further, those
community members who've gotten into the beta are
really excited to be in the beta, and those that haven't are really
excited to get into the beta! It's full circle.



Ten Ton Hammer:
But you let a bunch of people from the community into
the beta already, haven't you?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: We did. Pretty much everyone
that was signed up by a date
earlier this summer were let into the beta, and there was a good mess
of 'em. From a community manager's standpoint it's funny, because our
beta forums are literally bustling with activity. There are so many
posts we can hardly keep up with them all. But on the public side of
the forums, things are moving very slowly because everyone's in the
beta! When the execs come by and look at the forums, they go, "Where'd
everybody go? What happened!?"That's when we tell them not to worry,
and that the community just moved over to the beta forums.



Ten Ton Hammer:
Do you have plans to encourage players towards
"word-of-mouth" sort of campaigns to bring other players in? How are
you going to promote that?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: Oh yeah, absolutely! The
biggest driving factor in that is the
game itself. Once people see the minion system and realize that you
only need four players to have a 25 person raid, they'll start talking
about that and bringing their friends into the game. Other things that
you can do are buddy rewards, where you incentivize people to go find
new people to bring into the game. Public recognition also works, where
you do a public profile of a player that brings in solid number of
players into the game. You could even give them their own column for
awhile!



We're really going to
harness the power of the community because
without it your MMO is dead in the water.


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; width: 148px; height: 185px;"
border="1">

href="http://tth.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album209&id=Gods_Heroes_Chimera_001&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/tth/gallery/albums/album209/Gods_Heroes_Chimera_001.sized.jpg"
width="200">

Fighting a Chimera.

Ten Ton Hammer:
As far as gameplay goes, is there ever going to be an
instance where a player drops all their minions to do a larger raid
with a bunch of other demi-god type characters?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: That's actually something
we're planning on doing post-launch.
There will be big battlefield type areas where it may be 30 v. 30 or
thirty players versus one HUGE boss. Things like that, where we'll toss
things up. We've talked about doing encounters where players are only
allowed to bring one minion, even though you're a level 40 character.
Or you join a party of 10 other players but your party is only allowed
to bring a total of 5 minions. We're definitely talking about doing
that.



One thing that we've
learned throughout this process is that people
enjoy the five-player raid, but there are people who do want the
ability to group with large amounts of people. We're definitely going
to accommodate that  post launch.



Ten Ton Hammer:
As far as current content is concerned, what're you
trying to polish the most?



Binky style="font-style: italic;">: Probably combat. The combat
system has gone through several
revisions, and right now it's the fastest and most fun its been thus
far. However we're still trying to get it to the point where it looks
better than any MMOG out there right now. The interactivity and other
elements certainly pose a difficult challenge for us and that's what
we're really working on. We want to make it interactive and visceral,
bringing you something more than the wait-wait-wait-ATTACK sort of
mentality you get with other games.



Ten Ton Hammer:
To end, can you say where you think you're going to go
post launch? More of Italy or some other area?


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: We're probably going to be
exploring more of Italy and those
regions, and we've been tossing around a variety of expansion ideas. At
this point, the most probable idea is Egypt.



Ten Ton Hammer:
Very cool.


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: Yeah, the idea is that Rome
and Egypt were very crucial to each
other in those early years, and they were always fighting each other
for some reason. No matter what area we explore, it'll be a good time
to introduce full-scale PvP and faction, because it really doesn't make
sense when everyone's a Roman and everyone is the son and daughter of a
god. But when you throw in that alternate warring culture and people
forsake allegiance to their gods, then that adds a whole new level of
ideals and possibilities that makes sense.



Ten Ton Hammer:
You could have a whole guild of Roman demi-gods that
have converted to the worship of Egyptian gods!


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: Exactly. That's exactly right.



Ten Ton Hammer:
That'd be pretty intense.


style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Binky style="font-style: italic;">: To say the least!


Ten Ton Hammer is your
unofficial source for Gods and Heroes href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/33">news and
articles!



Make sure you check out all of our AGDC content!



To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

Comments