by Chris Ware on Sep 11, 2009
Questions
by Jeff
“Ethec” Woleslagle
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Answers
by Matt Mihaly, CEO and Creative Director of Sparkplay Media
Earth Eternal first caught our attention as a unique take on the newly
emerging browser
based MMOG genre. We were able to continue our conversation with CEO
and Creative Director of Sparkplay Media, Matt Mihaly, and get some
more answers about what has been going on with EE since our last
conversation. The company was able to raise some venture capital last
year and has fleshed out their game even more. We discuss those
additions as well at look at what makes
href="http://www.eartheternal.com/" target="_blank">Earth
Eternal different from other
free-to-play games on the market today.
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style="font-style: italic;">Earth Eternal will be a
3D MMOG in a browser
Ten
Ton Hammer: We’ve
seen a few
browser based MMOs pop up since we did our first Earth Eternal
interview in 2007, most notably FusionFall and Free Realms. How has the
concept evolved in the past few years, and what would you say are
EE’s most unique attributes?
We differ pretty significantly from FusionFall and Free Realms in that
we’re creating a ‘real’ 3d fantasy MMO in
a browser. I don’t mean that as a slight to the other two
games (both of which I admire), but those who play many MMOs will find
Earth Eternal more closely resembles the sophisticated MMO experience
they’re familiar with. .
Our most unique attributes are probably
the range of customization available in a browser MMO, and the
potential in our Groves feature, which will launch a few months after
we go into open beta. Groves will let players control and customize
private areas, either alone or with their clans, with options from
placing buildings and forests to altering the terrain itself to
populating it with monsters or NPCs.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Earth
Eternal is billed as
a free-to-play MMO with paid-for benefits. Typically among F2Ps, these
benefits are consumables (potions, etc.) and cosmetic items - things
that don’t affect gameplay. Are you sticking pretty close to
these guidelines, or will players be able to buy more with their Earth
Eternal buck?
Happy
to answer some variation on this question that doesn’t
presume the above though. Here’s an explanation of what we
sell:
“We sell a combination of cosmetic and functional items.
Players can buy armor appearances which can be transferred onto any
item, giving players the ability to really customize what they look
like without sacrificing the stats they want.
We also sell some functional items. For instance, larger backpacks than
you can buy with gold in order to expand your inventory space or speed
potions that increase your running speed. “
Ten
Ton Hammer: Do the proposed classes of knight, mage,
druid, and rogue compare closely with the typical MMO archetypes
we’re familiar
with (tank, ranged DPS, healer, melee DPS)? How are they different?
Ten
Ton Hammer: Earth Eternal boasts an incredible number
of races: 22 in all, covering most of the animal kingdom (the land
dwellers,
anyway). What makes each race different or special, given that none has
a
gameplay advantage over another?
Ten
Ton Hammer:Groves
are a unique take on player housing. What are they, and how will
players be
able to modify them when they’re added to the game some time
after launch?
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style="font-style: italic;">The raid size cap will
be five players.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Does
Earth Eternal have player vs. player combat? If so, is there a story
angle?
Ten
Ton Hammer: What
sort of gameplay opportunities exist for groups and clans? Is there
something
equivalent to dungeons and raids?
Mihaly: We’re more
solo-focused than most MMOs, but we have both clans and dungeon raids.
What we don’t have though are 25 man raids. That’s
just too hardcore for the game we’re making. Instead, our
dungeons cap at 5 man raids right now. There are a few dozen dungeons
available, ranging from small to very large.
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Ten
Ton Hammer: It's been stated that Earth Eternal will be released on Mac
OSX, but not at launch. If EE is truly a browser-based game, shouldn't
it be OS-agnostic?
We
will be Mac-compatible and
have been engineered from the ground up for it, but it won’t
be ready at
open-beta.
Ten
Ton Hammer: What’s
your target audience? What does Earth Eternal have to offer, say, a
hardcore
MMO gamer who has over a dozen hours a week to play but expects to
constantly
have a new carrot on the proverbial stick?
Ten
Ton Hammer: What aspect of the game are you most
looking forward to, in terms of watching how players take hold of it
and make
it their own?
I’m
also really looking forward
to us getting Groves out in the future, and seeing what players do with
them.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Thanks
again to Matt for more excellent information on Earth Eternal!