Realms of Torment Interview
Questions from MMORPGDOT.com readers

Erno "Xanaki" Tuomainen, 2003-07-18

In this article I managed to get three Realms of Torment dev team members to join together and answer the questions from MMORPGDOT.COM readers. The article includes 10 MMORPGDOT exclusive screenshots provided by David A. Jasinski (from Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC). Without any further babble here is the interview.

Enjoy!

MMORPGDOT: Hi guys, thank you for taking some time off and participating this short interview. Lets start with an easy one, could you tell me who you are and what you do?

MB: Hi, my name is Mihnea Balta (MB from now on), and I'm in charge with shutting down the server moments after I broadcast the message "the server is going down for update", i.e. I'm the server programmer. :)

GA: I am Andrei Gireada (GA from now on) and currently I am the Project Manager at Realms of Torment. Previously I have been a game designer and lore writer.

DA: Hi, I'm Dan Antonescu (DA from now on), the only ado language speaker from this Universe, i.e. RoT's lead game designer :PPP

MMORPGDOT: You must have lots of experience playing other MMOs. Can you tell which games you've played and how did you end up working with RoT?

MB: I haven't really played other MMOs, though I roamed around in Dark Age Of Camelot and Anarchy Online for a short while and I've seen a few others. My personal belief is that the computing power and internet connectivity available today aren't good enough for providing me with a quality MMO experience. If you think this is a paradox, it makes two of us, but I'm sure you can see the bright side of this situation too. ;) I am working on RoT since January this year, and I got here after gaining some experience with a tiny online game project.

GA: Before beginning this project I had no previous experience with any MMORPG. After we begun RoT I played DAOC for 1.5 years (canceled the account 1 month ago - I had a R5L4 Dark SM on Lancelot) and AC1 and AC2 for short periods of time. I also tested almost all the big MMORPGs on the market. From all of them I liked DAOC most and the game really caught me. I believe that, at the moment, it is the best on the market and it will stay that way at least untill winter 2003-2004.

DA: I played some, (DAOC, AC, UO) betatested some (AC2 and Shadowbane) and tried some (AO, RO).

MMORPGDOT: You are currently going through the first closed beta phase, can you tell me how the beta test has been proceeding so far?

MB: The beta community is still small enough to form an elitistic clique with its own charm, where every person has his or her own voice. I like the relation we have with them, and I think that they will keep their roles even after the upcoming phase two of the beta, when the place will become substantially more crowded.

GA: Till now the beta phase was better than we expected. The number of bugs that appeared is really small. I think that when we get further in the development the number of bugs per release will increase but it is still incredible low for a project of such a complexity. In a few weeks we will add a few hundred new betatesters.

DA: As everything, our closed beta had its own ups and downs, but in the end, we are pretty pleased about it, at least until now. I hope everything will go the same when we'll advance in the next beta stages, and when the beta will be more crowded as it is right now.

MMORPGDOT: I'd like to ask you something about the quests and their rewards. Many current games force players to camp certain rare and slow spawning monsters when hunting for some special item or doing a quest task. Are you trying to solve this somehow so the players do not have to wait for extensive periods?

GA: We are limited by the current technology for the server so we can not implement all the kind of quests we would like. There will be this kind of quests and the infamous 'travel quests' where you need to go through the realm from one corner to the other. But the number of such quests will be limited and I really hope that they won't be more than 10%.

DA: We'll want to implement a player generated quest system as a base for our quest system. So you don't have to be scared about too much common quests. About the type of quests you asked us, there will be such quests, but they will rather be one time only quests than common quests.

MMORPGDOT: The FAQ says you are currently implementing a new system which aggressively targets and punishes "Grief playing." Is bounty-hunting part of that system? What would be the bounty (coin, items, or experience)? Are there ways to track a person through, say, footprints or something?

DA: Yes it is :D. The reward for the bounty will depend on the one which will offer that bounty, but basically can be everything (coins, items, experience, social position, owe-you-one, the love of gods and so on). I've spent some time trying to think about something like a tracking system, and I managed to get some pretty good answers. Want to hear them? Well, you'll have to wait for the next interview for that! :PPP

MMORPGDOT: Noo, come on Dan, in another interview! Can you reveal some things for us now? :)

DA: Lol, OK, OK... I'll tell you about two of them: the first one is about trying to figure out tracks and it is based on a skill. The player will have an action which will make him lean towards the ground like he's looking for tracks. The amount of time spent trying to figure out the tracks and the accuracy of the result will depend on that tracking skill. If the player succeedes in his action, then he'll get a message saying something like "the tracks are pointing towards NNW". In this way you can track players, mobs or NPCs. The second one is by asking an NPC about it. It will be based on a charisma stat and on some gifts (coins etc) and the NPC will respond accordingly. No game until now (by our knowledge) has implemented something like this :D

MMORPGDOT: Sounds very interesting. Thanks for revealing that :) How about cheating, macroing and third party applications? They are pretty common these days in online games, whats your stance against them?

MB: We are doing our best to limit cheating and exploits from the game's architecture, but I won't be absurd and claim that we completely elliminated those. Some types of cheats are either impossible to prevent or we would have to trade game fluency and number of online players versus implementing draconic rules and checks. For example, we will make sure you can't load up a trainer and raise your stats to their caps, get infinite gold etc.; however, we can't prevent someone from reverse engineering our communication protocol and writing a radar. Thus, we will also protect the honest player against cheaters through a strong anti-cheater policy: you cheat, you get banned. Practice has proved this is the best (if not the only) way to do it.

DA: These 3rd party progs/scripts were the death of some awesome mmoprgs, like AC or UO. We don't want to allow that in RoT, under no circumstancies. Of course we can't prevent all the progs and hacks by security programming, but we'll enforce it through our official policy regarding this subject: instant ban (with annihilation of the bloodline too).

MMORPGDOT: If i am the king of a country, will i be able to change the laws of that country? And are there different forms of governments, such as kingships, grand councils, or other forms of governments like democracies wherein everyone has equal voting power?

DA: Yes. The design was made with these things as goals. Practically we will offer a list of laws, and someone can pick the appropiate ones for his/her kingdom.

MMORPGDOT: I have a powerful computer and I like to see far into the distance. How far will i be able to see to the horizon in RoT? Is there a user-defined setting that changes the viewing distance?

DA: At the moment you can see the terrain, trees and structures at a minimumdistance of 1 patch (768 meters) and maximum of 2 patches diagonal distance (approx. 2200 meters). The range for grass can be set by the client, depending on the available processing power. You start seeing other characters when they get closer than 128 meters from you, and they stop being rendered when they get more than 192 meters away, which is more than enough (at 100 meters you'll see a 2-meter tall char as a pixel on the screen). This can't be modified by client.

MMORPGDOT: Do you have any estimates how many players will RoT server support simultaneously. Are you aiming to have one big server or multiple "shards" like in other MMOs currently (Eve Online claims to support over 12k players)?

MB: We are aiming towards at least the current "standards", i.e. over 3000 players online at once. The system is currently designed as one big, continuous world, kept on a single server system - still, please bear in mind that a server does not equal a single computer - but we can easily expand the world by installing another server with a different map and linking the two through a passage, where the client actually disconnects from the first server and connects to the second.

DA: Basically we'll try to support as many as we'll can. :D

MMORPGDOT: How will events be implemented? Will you be relying more on game mechanics to oversee an event or will a gamemaster control the event in real-time?

DA: This hasn't been settled yet, but I think that the final decision will make events rely more on the GMs. They can control more aspects that can be pre-programmed and no AI can match the human way of thinking (at least not yet :P). In this way, with GM having an active role in the story the immersion will be served in the best way.

MMORPGDOT: Have you decided whether to have race-specific languages or not yet?

DA: Not yet, we're planning to add some sort of language skill, with different races/zones/realms and even orders languages. But this isn't really a priority and we don't know if we can add it at release. But in a later update/addon for sure.

MMORPGDOT: Considering this is a very much Player vs Player oriented game with no safe zones, what would you like to say to those players who want to play RoT but do not like PvP so much?

DA: We're trying to make it as in real life, there will be things (as the laws, or gods, or fame system and so on) that will protect them and allow them to do what they would like to do in a mmorpg... well, at least if they don't harm anyone else :D

MMORPGDOT: Will i be able to control my mount just like an extension of my character? i.e. will mounts be steer-able? (E.g. DAoC has unsteerable mounts)

DA: Can't tell atm. We could make steerable mounts, but it depends by the time we'll have.

MMORPGDOT: In past MMORPGs territorial conquest had little to no value. A guild with no city was just as powerful as one with a fully developed city. What kind of rewards does RoT plan on having for territorial control?

DA: In game resources (think at it in RTS terms).

MMORPGDOT: Most MMROPG's today use really high number on personal statistics and weapon/item statistics, compared to pen and paper games of the past. What type of numbers will be used in your game, and what is your take on pen and paper games making it in to today's MMORPGmarket?  Your game is looking very nice and I am glad to have found it.

DA: Lol, is this really a question? If yes, then my answer is: I'm still thinking about really hiding the numbers from players.

MMORPGDOT: You have Permanent Death and aging in RoT, how do you think players will like it?

DA: Well, I am sure about one simple thing: some will love it, some will hate it. No one has really tried it until now. RoT is being designed as an attempt to make a MMORPG that we would love to play. We have been trying to add things that have been asked or suggested by the whole MMORPG community around the internet, but that no developers seemed to listen to. Companies aren't willing to take the risk of implementing new gameplay concepts in games because they are too busy making clones of the "successfull" old games, thinking only of their profits and not at all of the fun players want to see and taste in a game. We can't eat the same food in every day of our life, so because no one seems to be willing to make new food, we made ourselves cooks and started to prepare a new one. :PPP

MMORPGDOT: Do you have some news for the next phases of beta and the possible release date?

GA: We have just entered the second phase of closed beta testing. We will have 2 more phases of closed beta testing and then we will begin an open beta. As a project manager I believe in an iterative model of software development and I want to have a feedback about how things are going as soon as possible. This way I can correct the things that the players don't like. As an example so far we changed the way the female character looks based on the feedback we received. We will modify the dwarf model too and the list can continue. I really try to listen to the player base and modify things based on their input. We have this closed beta mainly for 2 reasons: 1. see what is wrong with the game and fix the bugs 2. enhance the graphics and the gameplay so it fits what the player wants.

DA: It has already been released and right now we are making patches for it, fixing the bugs and adding all sort of new things. After the dev chat that will take place this saturday, we'll select the second wave of beta testers. So... good luck!

MMORPGDOT: Is Realms of Torment going to be firstly a group oriented game like AC2 or DAoC or will soloing be viable just like in AC1?

DA: We're aiming for both ways of playing. Time will tell if we succeed or not.

MMORPGDOT: I'm sure you guys play a lot of other types of games too. What kind of games, or just MMORPGs mainly?

MB: When time allows for it (and lately it doesn't, especially with the release date galloping towards us) I like playing many kinds of games. My favorite genres are RPGs and Adventures, because I like stories. The only game I play constantly is Quake 3, which we use for releasing the tension at the office each day from 1 PM until 2 PM :) At some rare moments I dig up the Z80 emulator and play some of the best games ever made ;) , though it's not the same thing as playing on the real thing (my Spectrum clone passed away a long time ago). In my Top games I would include Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Baldur's Gate 2, Starcraft and Half-Life.

DA: Aaaaa, I am playing all sort of games. Atm, no MMORPGs, but only single player games (me and GA gave up DAOC because of the lack of time and their absolutely wrong way of artificially increasing the game length). The last games I played were Gothic, Gothic 2, Pirates of Caribbean, Great Battles Collectors Edition, Il2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles and MS Combat Flight Simulator 2. A top "ten" is something very hard to put together, but it would surely include the UFO/X-Com series, the Gothic series, the Blood Omen/Soul Reaver series, The Elder Scrolls series, Jedi Knight 2: Outcast, Great Battles Collector Edition, the Combat Mission series, Starcraft/Broodwar aaaaa... and so on.

MMORPGDOT: This is to Dan, regarding the previous question. There is a rumor floating around the community that one of your betatesters Snert is kicking your arse in Jedi Knight 2 all the time, is there any truth behind this and what would you say to Snert?

DA: Lol, well, as in everyone's life, there are times when you win and times when you lose. But... no one seems willing to see the pure truth: I OWNED HIS A@# so bad one time, on a net server (it was like 24 to 7 or something like that, I can't recall it well) and he never ever succeeded the same with me. We'll stop the rumors once and for all when we'll find a decent net server, acceptable for both of us in terms of net latency. Then we'll really see who's who :P

MMORPGDOT: Apart from big challenges I am sure there has been many fun moments as well. Can you tell us any some of the funny situations during your development (or beta) so far. For example, I heard a rumor about some special commands added to the server to amuse Dan. :)

MB: Well, I don't think that "amuse" is the best word for it ;). The first in-game quest (or event, take it as you wish) ever to see the light of RoT was this: I added a command that would kill Dan's character if he was online. The command was secret, and the players had a limited number of questions per day that they could ask in order to recieve clues about the command. The reward for the finder was that s/he could set a new keyword for the command, and use it until someone else finds it or a given period of time passes. Snert eventually found the command ;) Working on a game is inherently fun: you should have seen how the monsters behaved in their first day of existance ;). The magic atmosphere the builds around creating a game is one of the major factors that makes this activity so rewarding.

DA: Hmmm... amuse me. You must have some weird definition for this word! Like you're VERY amused when the programmers make commands for betatesters to give you an instant death, or making your char say anything they want, or banning you from your own official lore chatroom! But I have my own ways to amuse them too. Like my own special ado language (/me grins).

MMORPGDOT: And last but not least, can we send some pizza and cola (beer?) to the Devs for a more quicker release? If yes where to? :)

MB: Some fine irish whiskey will do (Tullamore might not be a bad choice), if you send it together with a ticket for New Zealand or Norway. As an alternative, I think our productivity would be boosted if we relocate to a mansion built somewhere in the mountains. ;)

DA: Don't forget the babes too, the more the better ;)

MMORPGDOT: I'm sure the goods start flying towards you :) Thank you Dan, Mihnea and Andrei for taking the time to participate in this questionnaire! We in MMORPGDot wish you best luck with the Realms of Torment project and I am sure we will be hearing from you soon again.

Also thank you to everyone who submitted questions for this interview. The following persons submitted questions to the interview: Patrick Lechanteur, Dan Stott, Derek Stowe, Greg Wright, Danny Smith Jr. and some questions from the MMORPGDOT.com staff. Also thanks to David for providing the exclusive screenshots.

Screenshot page