Questions
by Cody “Micajah” Bye, Managing Editor
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Answers
by Atanas Atanasov, CEO of Masthead Studios



The beginning experience in a massively multiplayer online game is
often what makes or breaks an experience for a beginning player. To
release a game without a thoroughly immersive initial play experience
is akin to dooming your product to the depths of the bargain bin, and
so developers all over the world are striving to insure that their
games have stellar new player experiences. Since the initial play
session in a MMOG is so crucial for players, Cody
“Micajah” Bye sat down with Atanas Atanasov, the
CEO of Masthead Studios, to discuss what players should expect to find
in Earthrise,
the upcoming MMOG being developed by the previously
mentioned studio. The answers that Ten Ton Hammer received were
fantastic and are definitely worth a look.

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Atanas Atanasov, CEO
of Masthead Studios

Ten Ton Hammer: To start,
character creation in massively multiplayer
online games is an essential piece of a player’s initial
experience. What sort of options are you presenting to players in
Earthrise,
and what can they expect when they begin the game?



Atanas Atanasov:
Player creation in Earthrise
will offer a lot of
options to all those players who want to make their character unique
looking. They will be able to select gender, skin color, hair, height
and body shape, pretty much everything that a player expects from a
good MMORPG nowadays.



When players start the game, they will not be overwhelmed by decisions
what class or player statistics to choose simply because style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise is a
skill-based game and everyone will be equal at the beginning. Skills
will be raised by doing certain actions in the game and the more
players advance in the game the more they will differentiate from each
other.



Ten Ton Hammer: From the
previous interviews you’ve done with
Ten Ton Hammer and other publications, it sounds like style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise will be
a fairly intricate skill-based game that has elements. How are you
planning on balancing PvP in the game when you have a high number of
variable skills for players to choose from?



Atanas:
Balancing is always an issue when it comes to MMORPGs.
Providing players with a fine-tuned set of skills and abilities to use
is very important and it requires countless hours of testing on the
designers' part, but even then, players always figure out new and
exciting ways to make more of the game. From here it’s up to
the designers to step in and make changes to the game. style="font-style: italic;">Earthrise's PvP
will go through a lot of development and we plan to invite experienced
and influential PvP guilds into the closed beta to help us with rooting
out most of the problems associated with creating a complex skill-based
system. As for the huge number of skills and abilities in the game, we
will use both gameplay testing and analytical tools to allow us to
predict closely the outcome of possible conflicts.



Ten Ton Hammer: How do
the two factions - Continoma and Noir
– operate within Earthrise? Will players be doing
quests/missions for these two factions? Will each faction have their
own equipment?

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An exclusive look at
an environment in Earthrise.

Atanas:
Continoma and Noir will both be deeply involved with the quest
system. Their presence will be strong in the main storyline as players
have an opportunity to aid their preferred side as the conflict deepens
and secrets and political intrigue are uncovered. Meanwhile,
organizations such as the Red Dragons, The Syndicate and Alpha
Sisterhood provide randomly generated quests with a great level of
variety in their goals. These quests will allow players to earn
reputations within the organizations and in turn, use their reputation
for favors, such as technologies that organizations have monopolies on.
Once these technologies, design blueprints, are placed in the recipe to
create a new item with enhanced capabilities the process will result in
equipment aligned with that organization's configuration. Use of
aligned weapons and armor within the enemy faction’s
territory will put the player at a disadvantage by triggering
aggressive behavior from the guards.

Ten Ton Hammer: How does
the combat mechanic work in Earthrise?
Will we
be seeing something akin to Tabula Rasa with the
“sticky” aiming, or will it be closer to an actual
first person shooter?



Atanas: The
combat mechanic will be a hybrid system between third
person shooter and a classic RPG. It will rely both on
players’ skill and character statistics and gear. Players
will see their character from third person just like many popular MMOs
on the market. Earthrise will feature WASD character movement with
mouse movement of the camera.