Novus Aeterno interview - A sci-fi dream

In today’s interview, we’ll host Nick Nieuwoudt, a young gamer who decided to take the matter in his own hands and develop the game of his dreams, since established developers wouldn’t do it. That game is Novus Aeterno, a persistent MMORTS in development at Taitale Studios (the team is currently trying to get funding on Kickstarter.

 

Welcome to Worlds Factory! Please, tell us a bit about yourself and your game.

I’m Nick Nieuwoudt, CEO and Founder of Taitale studios; the indie company in the process of developing Novus AEterno.

The word “Massive” in MMO is definitely something we have concentrated on since day one of development. Novus AEterno is a persistent and seamless MMO-RTS which will have thousands of players fighting against each other while trying to expand their own empire, in an attempt to conquer an ever expanding universe.

With the scale of Novus AEterno, we wanted to make sure not to cut corners when it comes to elements within a standard RTS. Fog of War, Resource collection, unit production, etc. All these elements are in Novus AEterno and they are features which are essential to the expansion and success of a player’s empire. We have, however, added a few of our own twists to some features which we feel will make the game more unique and dynamic, such as Non-techtree-based research as well as fully player customizable ship designs.

 

I have quite a few questions regarding actual mechanics. For example, you will use a single persistent megaserver, much like that used in EVE Online, hosting all players in Novus Aeterno. However, seeing as every player gets an uncapturable home planet, I assume that galaxies are procedurally generated and constantly expanding. Is this correct, or are the home planets instanced and therefore separate from the seamless world?

All planets are part of the persistent universe. The universe of Novus AEterno will continually expand as new players enter the game and each player will only be allowed to have a single empire within the game at any point in time.

Players who have been offline for an extremely long amount of time might come back to Novus AEterno having to start a new empire as the fortress shield, which protects a player’s Home Planet from other players, will start to lose power the longer they are offline. This will prevent the universe from being populated with dormant empires.

Novus AEterno does not have separate instances or areas that are “phased out” to some players. Everything that happens within the server will directly impact every single player’s experience within the game.

 

Novus Aeterno is primarily focused on PvP, as stated in your FAQ. What happens when you destroy the ship of an enemy player, then? Can you loot it?

Novus AEterno will mainly feature PvP based content. We will be adding unique and interesting NPC driven empires. These NPC factions will play a major role in the development of story driven content and how players interact with the universe.

 

Also, I’ve read that a player ship’s crew is able to level up and gain new skills. However, what happens to that crew if the ship they’re currently on gets destroyed? Is there permadeath for these NPCs?

The officers of a ship can gain experience and level up during combat. These officers have the ability to escape an exploding ship if the ship has been fitted with escape pods. They can then be transferred to a new ship granting it their bonuses and skills.

While constructing ships, a player can choose to slot improved escape pods. This will raise the CP cost of the ship but will give the officers a higher chance of escaping from a destroyed ship.

 

What about the General impersonated by players? Will there be a dedicated RPG-like progression for him?

The General will take the form of the player avatar. They work exactly the same as officers but offer greater benefits to the Capital ship he/she is assigned to. Capital ships are one of our Kickstarter stretch goals which we will be adding into the game at a later stage.

 

How big can battles get, in terms of real players participating? Can you give us an estimate? EVE Online has absolutely gigantic battles.

At the moment, we don’t really have an idea on how big the battles can become. So far we have tested a battle involving around 100 players. Each player can control up to 500 ships depending on the complexity of the ships they have designed.

We are testing the stability of the server with more and more players as we move forward and so far everything is working in perfect form.

Just remember that space is big, the only limitation will be if you can get your ships into firing range of your target.

 

Interestingly, when the player logs out, his whole empire is handed over to an AI. Aren’t you worried that everyone will just wait for that player to go offline though, thus avoiding Player versus Player conflict whenever possible? Also, do you plan to have any way (an app, for instance) to notify the player whenever the empire is under attack during his/her absence?

PvE will be linked to the NPC empires scattered throughout the universe. There will not be any pre-scripted or pre-made PvE events but rather the actions between the players within Novus AEterno and these NPC empires will change the state of the universe and how the story of Novus AEterno evolves.

These NPC empires will evolve and expand the same way a player does within the game. You as the player will have to decide if keeping an NPC empire alive will be viable or detrimental to the expansion of your empire and a player has to keep in mind how the relationship with one NPC empire will affect the relations between his/her empire and other NPCs and players.

With that in mind, some players will protect the existence of an NPC empire while other players try to wipe them out; players can completely wipe out an NPC empire. This gives for player driven content which directly impacts the future of every single empire within Novus AEterno.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to add about Novus Aeterno?

One of the key features within Novus AEterno is the ability to design and build your fleet the way you want to. The game has not a single pre-made unit but rather gives the player to create their own.

Players will have to design their fleet from the ground up, firstly by picking the Hull type which will classify the ship, followed by choosing every single component within that hull. This gives Novus AEterno an almost endless amount of unique units as each player will have ships which are tailor-made to their playing style.

Novus AEterno has come a long way over the last 7 years, but there is still quite a lot we would like to add into the universe which we have created. This is why we are currently on Kickstarter. We are trying to raise funds in order to polish the game for its initial release on steam.

We wish to have as much as possible within the game when it goes out to the community. We have massive plans for Novus AEterno and the only way we will be able to get them ready and out to the player will be if we can get enough support from the community. We need as much support as we possibly can.

 

Thanks for your time.