GameSNAFU's M.G.Koshgarian interviews Gergely Szelei from Avatar Creations Studio on the development of their MECH MMO entitled Perpetuum.
Q: Where does the development team come from and how did they meet? How was The Perpetuum idea born? (This first question comes to us from Perpetuum forum member Bambi)
A: The Perpetuum development team is assembled from all over Hungary, and most of us are currently located huddled up in a messy office in suburban Budapest. The short version of the story is that the idea came around 2004-2005 when one of us wanted to make an online game - at this point "online" was the only criteria it had, no mention of robots or MMO or anything. From then on, it was a slow and linear process of team- and game-building - most of the people who work or worked on the game are friends or friends-of-friends, so it was simple to establish a common interest in what we're trying to achieve, which is a crucial point when one does a "garage". It's hard to nail down a moment considering when "Perpetuum" was born: it was a process, from the decision of using mechs to selecting a name for the game to the game logo, and so on
Q: We are impressed with what you have done so far with a small development team. How long have you been working on Perpetuum and is it your first MMO project?
A: 2010 will mark the fifth year of development for the game with 10-12 people working on it, which is quite a long time for a project like this nowadays - it certainly is the longest endeavor any of us has embarked on. Notably, the progress of the project fluctuated a considerable portion over the course of these five years - while the first few years mainly consisted of throwing things to the wall to see if they stick, as we got more confident and more experienced in avoiding potholes, the development speed accelerated rapidly, so much so that screen shots from the game in early 2009 showcase a profound difference compared to the late 2009 ones.
As far as we know, this is the first commercial MMO project not only for us, but also the first one originating from this country, which makes us quite thrilled. Even more notably, only one of us in the development team has professional game development experience, so it's not only the first MMO for us, it's the first commercial game, as it were.
Q: The graphics are impressive, have you developed this engine on your own? If so what is it called?
A: The graphics engine was homegrown from the ground-up, strictly keeping in mind the possible scale of the game and engineering it in a way that scenery of this proportion would be rendered with an acceptable frame rate. To achieve this, we used procedural techniques extensively, which results in a rather minuscule hard disk footprint and network load in the end. As for the name, well, we don't actually have one for it, only short internal backronyms to make functions in code sound cool.
Q: The interface is very different from the usual WoW HUD. Was this intentional and do you plan to innovate further on it? We liked the interface by the way.
The interface is different because the game is vastly different, and hence the player base and their habits are different. There are ideas on how we can expand the interface more (script-ability is one thing we've been tossing around recently), but first we'd like to make what we have right now more efficient.
Q: The question I was asked most by our beta team was "Is this EvE on the ground?" The interface and complexity of play is somewhat similar to EvE. Are you going for a traditional MMO that requires skill and MMO experience to play? If so then what is the learning curve of Perpetuum?
A: The premise of the question reminds me of a friend who consistently apostrophed every first-person shooter as "Wolfenstein 3D with different dogs", and yes, that is a valid point of view, albeit a somewhat skewed / biased one. In a sense, a lot of games are alike and have a lot of features that stem from the same beaten path, but this is because those paths and methods work very well, and they're proven by time and numbers. Players who are familiar with these customs won't have a problem adjusting to Perpetuum either.
When it comes to a learning curve, a lot of people forget that steepness isn't the only thing that matters about them: A game where the player can learn mechanics early enough to have fun can have arbitrary depth to it, which the players will explore by themselves without having them forced into it. A standard "pew-pew" player will learn the combat interface within a few seconds, and from then on, he will have enough knowledge to play the game the way he wants to. Of course, at some point he will realize that it would be much more efficient if he would team up with others, and from then on, the learning curve is self-induced. In other words, the best way to present a game is to avoid overwhelming the player with the depth that it has.
Q: Will the game support any type of game pad or other controller?
A: That's admittedly something we haven't thought much about, given the rather mouse-oriented nature of the game, but it shouldn't be an issue to add along the way. We're a bit more curious about accessibility problems - we already had users noting us that some parts of the game get confusing for people who have problems with distinguishing colors, so we're doing some cursory research on how we can make the game more accessible for everyone.
Q: Will there be a FPS view from your MECH while playing Perpetuum?
A: We've been chewing on this for a while now, but ran into various concerns over it: While it is impressive to feel the weight of the robot around you and see your rocket flares fire off from your proximity, the combat system offers a couple of pitfalls into this approach; the game mechanics rely on locking the target when you fire at them, which causes the robot chassis to turn towards the enemy and stay facing towards it throughout the course of the fight. This presents us with the common "steering vs. targeting" dilemma seen in a couple of other games: If your camera sticks to realistic first-person view, you will consistently face the enemy without having the option to turn away; if the camera is free to look around, the visuals might get messy because the robot's chassis doesn't rotate with it.
We still have a few ideas on how to resolve this, but one thing is important to understand: for something like this that builds on the immersion of the game, one really has to get it right to avoid breaking the suspension of disbelief in the players.
Q: Will Perpetuum be played on a single persistent world server? If so how does the engine handle the load of many players in one area?
A: Yes, Perpetuum is definitely a single-sharded game - we feel that a game isn't really "massively" multi-player if it's broken down to more central servers. We have a very intricate network topology to handle load-issues on our server-network, meaning that the load of players is going to automatically balanced from our side, in case there would be a surge of users on a certain location. As for the client side, as said, we're aiming for fairly modest computer- and Internet-setups for the same reason.
Q: When it comes to PvP what type of play will be involved? World server war? Mini games? Large scale battles? Corporation verses corporation? What will be the incentive to take part in PvP? What will be the spoils of war?
A: We intend PVP to be mostly about acquiring and keeping areas of the game world for the resources found there. These resources include rich material deposits, fertile areas where valuable plants grow in big numbers, or simply highly used trading routes, etc.
Players will be able to build encampments with complex infrastructure networks, which will help in colonizing areas of the planet. We're working on a system where the layout of these encampments will be determined by the players via terraforming (moving mountains, raising walls or digging ditches), placing each building individually and connecting them with an infrastructural network. Attacking and defending such player built encampments will be the goal of high-end PVP. We expect big battles, trench warfare, infrastructural sabotage methods, and so on, to develop naturally as players learn to use the tools we give them to build their own world.
Q: Is there a crafting system in Perpetuum now or is there one planned for the future?
A: Yes, crafting and industry is a big part of Perpetuum. We're still working on the final production system, but we can tell you that it'll be based around research, knowledge and reverse engineering. We'll have two ways to create items: prototype production and mass production, the first for high-end industrial players the latter more for the production/trading crowd. The introduction of this final production system will also bring with it what we call the "hybrid" robots - but let's not give away too much ;)
Thank you so much Gergely!
Well what I was impressed with before I am even more intrigued about now. Not only has this development team made the game with a small crew but they have managed what appears to be a nicely rounded project. I have played the game at its current state of development and I must say I love the look of the landscape and vegetation as well as the mechs them selves. The way the land lays, looks like it will provide a great place for massive battles to take place. We wish Avatar Creations the best of luck with this project and hope to see Perpetuum released in 2010.
