Set, Ra, and Horus - The Next Gods for Your Hero? - Page Two

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Posted September 17th, 2007 by Cody Bye

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

Binky: 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.

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?

Binky: 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?

Binky: 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?

Binky: 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?

Binky: 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.

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?

Binky: 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: 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?

Binky: 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.

Binky: 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!

Binky: Exactly. That's exactly right.

Ten Ton Hammer: That'd be pretty intense.

Binky: To say the least!

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