Crowfall Interview - MMORPG + Strategy

We’ve reported on the massive early success enjoyed by Crowfall on its Kickstarter campaign; with three days left, the third stretch goal at $1.4 million is now in sight  and there may be time for a fourth one as well.

Being one of the most interesting MMORPGs on the horizon, we’ve contacted Artcraft Entertainment in order to learn more on its intricate game design and features. Enjoy our interview with President Gordon Walton, who worked on genre defining titles such as Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic as Executive Producer.

• The design for Eternal Kingdoms war sounds very interesting. Would there be a leaderboard for those partaking in this sort of bouts? Also, what about a Guild vs Guild variant?
• We have a design for a “Tournament System” in mind, but we haven’t talked about the details, yet. It’s at the top of our list of stretch goals, but the design hasn’t been fleshed out enough yet to really go into it. The high level vision is: yes, we want to have some kind of qualification system for guilds to engage in one or more seasonal tournament ladders, with the goal is having one guild emerge at the end as the Champion.

 

• The core module for launch will only include the Dregs ruleset, correct? After that one, do you already have a queue set for introducing the remaining ones in Crowfall?
• We do have a plan and order for the rulesets we want to add, and our goal is to bring these online as quickly as we can after the Core Module is finished. In fact, we just added the “God’s Reach” ruleset as our next stretch goal. Based on the kickstarter campaign (and the crowdfunding that we’ll continue to do, after kickstarter is over) we will see how many get added, and how quickly!

 

• PvE is not Crowfall’s focus. That said, we’d still like to know more about it - what can we expect to see? Any chance of NPCs invading towns or perhaps even castles during Winter, for instance?
• The monsters that fill the Dying Worlds are deadly – and they become increasingly lethal as the seasons pass, and the Hunger takes over the world. But the effect is more environmental; we aren’t laying them out for players in a linear set of dungeon rooms, with a boss monster at the end. Nor do we ask you to kill 8/8 of them to achieve something. A lot of the monsters spawn in packs, and are drawn to noise and activity (much like the hordes of walkers in the Walking Dead)… but they aren’t going to be acting like players, and organizing a siege. Instead, they serve to raise the general threat level of the world: the packs get larger, and the monsters themselves grow more dangerous.

 

• Speaking of character customization, will it be possible for players to choose different body types (slim, fat, muscular etc.) and/or height within their chosen archetype?
• No. We recently released an example of the character customization (for the Knight) and it’s a huge, combinatory array of equipment and body customization… but it doesn’t include sliders for height or changing your eyebrows or anything like that. Offering that kind of customization dramatically slows down you engine, and in a game like Crowfall, we have to prioritize framerate over minor cosmetics. Instead, we stick to the big ticket items: weapons, cloaks, armor, helmets, gloves, boots, decals, etc. Keep in mind, we are also using a physics-based combat engine, so we have to be careful about customization for other reasons, as well. We don’t want to allow people to change their size, height, and or mass since it might work out that being really tall or short is a combat advantage.

 

• Will there be a limit in terms of how many a skills characters can use at any given time in combat (such as in GW2, ESO and other recent MMOs)?
• I think you are asking about the powers that go into a characters power tray. Right now we are experimenting to find the “right” number to grant each archetype; we think there is some middle ground beyond games like EQ2 with 40+ active powers and GW2’s much smaller amount.

 

• We’ve seen combat “telegraphs” in the pre-alpha footage, but many players have been vocal against these. Will you be removing them outright or perhaps it will vary from world to world?
• We are still experimenting with much in the combat system, so we honestly don’t now yet. We’re going to keep iterating on it, to figure out with what feels best.

 

• You mentioned that combat in Crowfall is heavily physics based and that you are inspired by TERA’s combat system, however in the pre-alpha footage hits seemed to lack impact and weight. Is that something you’re looking to improve drastically during development?
• That’s actually incorrect; some of the powers in the current prototype do apply force (it is most noticeable in the radial attacks, where the monsters are “pushed” back, away from the attacker) but there is still a LOT we can do with this system. Remember, we made this video to sell the concept. We expect to have people dedicated to testing and polishing the feel of combat from now until release. One change we’re already addressing is the split-body animation system. It’s very common, and it’s easy to understand why studios use it, but we just aren’t happy with the way it looks. The animations tends to less impactful, and it leads to lots of circle-strafing in PvP. Oh, and it leads to sliding and skating in the animations, which looks terrible. We’re currently trying a revision that is closer to the Tera system. It looks great, because it uses lots of animation locking to make those big moves feel powerful and fluid. The downside is making it feel right. We’re working on that now.

 

• Are you still looking to use Popcorn FX in order to improve particle effects as per first stretch goal, or perhaps you’ve found something else?
• As we just hit the “Hire another Eric” stretch goal, we will be looking for an FX animator as soon as the kickstarter campaign ends. We like popcorn FX, but we’re open to other solution if we find one that is more appropriate for Crowfall.

 

• Microsoft demonstrated great performance gains with DirectX 12 at GDC 2015. This should be especially useful for games with many “units” on screen such as MMOs, as draw calls cease to be a problem - are you planning to use DX12 at launch and if so, how?
• Our Engineering team is very excited about the early performances that have been shown with DX12. Dx12 has shown some awesome gains in the draw call area, and could be a game changer for future games. We are definitely interested.

 

• Finally, the last stretch goal was about mounts and caravans. How would the caravan system tie exactly into the economy? Can you tell us its rules?
• The goal of the caravan system is really to push emergent gameplay. We wanted to up the ante of every activity of the game, and the caravan system provides a key link in that chain. Explore to find a resource factory (mine, quarry or mill). Acquire the materials. Haul the materials to the place where you need them. Avoid ambushes from other players along the way. Every step in this chain is an opportunity for problem solving (and, frankly, problem causing.) We want this to be the type of activity that replaces the artificial nature of traditional MMO questing; instead of a fake escort quest, this is a very real escort activity, with very real consequences.

 

• Thank for your time!