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Vol.
2, Issue 14
February 28, 2000
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In games
like Everquest and Asheron’s Call, periodically they release new
missions into the game, or new campaigns. Will you be doing that
sort of thing in Dark Sector?
Eekels:
Definitely.
Ewing: Yes. One of the things we found
really cool about Asheron’s Call, just the one thing where it stops
snowing and there’s this big event coming and it really –
Eekels:
I bought Asheron’s Call solely because someone said, “It will start
snowing tomorrow in Asheron’s Call” and I though Oh that’s cool,
and I went out and bought it. And I played it for a while and I
liked evolving gameplay and settings.
You
like to be immersed.
Eekels:
Oh yeah. Absolutely cool. That’s something we’ll exploit to the
fullest.
Ewing: I think that’s something, as Massively
Multiplayer Online games become more prevalent, which I think they
certainly are, and there’s talk of quite a few new ones coming out
that the ones that evolve in the coolest ways are going to be the
ones that do well so we’re really planning on that.
Will
a character in Dark Sector be building his stats and gathering items
that will make him more powerful?
Eekels:
We won’t be going into as much detail as your standard RPG.
Ewing: As far as stats and that kind of
stuff goes, a lot of our updates, things to improve your character,
are a lot more tangible stuff and more materialistic.
Eekels:
So you get instant feedback. Instead of, “Ok I have to build up
this number so I can do better at this,” I think we’re taking a
little bit away from that complexity and adding instant feedback
like adding your strength of whatever.
Ewing: Which is what you need to do. We’re
trying to meld the RPG and First Person Shooter type aspects.
Eekels: We’ll take the cool parts from each.
So there’s
a real reason to play everyday then.
Eekels:
Yes. That’s one of our biggest things.
Ewing:
The character development will be, for sure, at least as big as
any RPG. But just hopefully going in a different direction.
Eekels:
Yeah you don’t want to have it just be persistent. That doesn’t
make any sense. It will definitely be that you will have your character
and you can add all kinds of stuff and you can buy all kinds of
stuff. And there’s this evolving world around them. And we’ll
have an underlying plot throughout the game.
So
will we see items bought and sold on ebay?
<laughs>
Ewing:
Accounts and stuff? Hopefully.
Eekels:
Sure. We will definitely be looking at all the cool features in
all persistent worlds games, and not just the material ones but
also the fun factors. Like what’s really fun about this game.
Ewing:
Once you’ve played like 200 hours of this game, what makes you want
to play still 400 more hours. I’ve played so many hours of Asheron’s
Call and there’s still guys that are so much higher level. We want
the same sort of thing for our game definitely. You can look at
a guy and say “Oh my god, look at the armor that guy has on. Woooah!”
Are
you worried at all about addiction?
Eekels: No.
Gameplay
addiction? Like students dropping out of school because they’re
playing Dark Sector?
<laughs>
Eekels:
I had so many games. I played so many games. And yes I blew some
courses because of them. But I don’t know. It didn’t do me harm
in the long run.
Ewing:
I have heard of some people flunking college because of games.
Eekels:
Yeah but that’s also a little bit of responsibility that you have
for yourself. You can’t just take a two-week holiday and play a
game.
So it’s
the sort of thing where, if you’re going to dropout of university,
it doesn’t matter what kind of game you’re playing, really.
Eekels: Yeah
you could be addicted to going out at night or whatever. Addicted
to watching movies all day. For someone to be addicted to our game,
that’s a compliment to us. I don’t think we worry too much about
that.
Dark
Sector is set in the future, is that right? We’re going to have
futuristic weapons?
Eekels:
It’s going to be in the near future. It will be a recognizable
future.
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