Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

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.

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 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 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 Earthrise.

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 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.