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Endless Ages: Interview
Wouter "Hyrrix" Ryckbosch, 2003-08-21 
Endless Ages has been released for a few months now but has remained an unfamiliar name for most people. Blending several kinds of traditional settings together in an action-packed mmorpg, Endless Ages admittedly has a very strange feel at first sight. Time for an interview with Aaron Boucher, lead programmer of Endless Ages, to give us an introduction to their firstborn child and the what the future might bring. MMORPGDot: Endless Ages has been made by an extremely small team, consisting of three core members and a few artists, correct? How long did the development of the game take and what were the major drawbacks of having such a small team? Do you think the result would've been much different with a larger team?
Aaron Boucher: Development took about 3 years, and it would have been great to have a larger team but we simply didnt have the funding for it. MMORPGDot: The game looks very different from any other (mmo)rpg ever released. How would you best describe the world and setting of Endless Ages? What do we have to know about the world history?
Aaron Boucher: Endless Ages takes place after you die, IIA is a place that all beings from all worlds and time end up, and because a few minutes in IIA is the same as a hundreds of years in our time this explains the reason why weapons, architecture, magic, technology, creatures that have been extinct coexist at the same time. The setting is Surreal, we didnt design endlessages to be "realistic" even our new graphics/feature booster pack comming in 2 months looks very high end but is still Surrealistic style.
MMORPGDot: How does the combat work in EA? To what extent do character stats influence the outcome of a fight?
Aaron Boucher: There is a lot of skill involved: you can dodge and use jetpacks or pets etc, a lower level can definetly over come stronger monsters because their FPS skills, but levels and stats add bonuses to attack and allow you to use better weapons, magic and armor that can give you a major edge in combat. MMORPGDot: Could you introduce the 4 races (or actually 3, with male and female counted as one) to our readers?
Aaron Boucher: The Humans are the middle ground of the game, they accell at trade skills but are average in every other way. The Amphibious are frog like creatures that are small and very fast, they are excellent at shapeshift, magic, familiars and hiding, they use mind control to control cretures as a form of wepons. Last is the Bloblic a massive creature originating from Malia that loves huge weapons, rocket-launchers, mortars, gernades, massive axes etc he accels at Weapon Tech, Melee weapons, Reveal. But all races can learn almost all skill, but it can be very slow. MMORPGDot: Are there any in-game events organised by the GM's? If so, could you give us an example of such an event?
Aaron Boucher: Theres many types of events, somtimes theres monster raids and GM played evil players. But we are getting ready for some more exciting events tools when the booster pack it released.
MMORPGDot: Is the main focus of the game on PvP or more on Player vs Enviroment combat? What kind of PvP combat is there in Endless Ages? Large-scale battles or smaller conflicts between individual players?
Aaron Boucher: Definetly depends how long you have been paying, PVP is huge for high levels and for mid game and lower levels definetly prefer PVM and quests, but there is a global arena system for all levels that everyone can participate in. MMORPGDot: With only 4 races and 3 main stats, Endless Ages seems to be fairly easy to start out with. Was it a deliberate choice to make the game as little complicated as possible?
Aaron Boucher: Its allot more complex than meets the eye at first, and unfortunatly this is why allot of people dont actually ever get to see what this game is about. We are adding allot of help into the booster pack for newer players to resolve this. Stats in Endless Ages is the very basic, the skills however are complex and are dynamically added when you attempt the skill for the first time, so you dont know all the skills unless you read the site or play enogh to find you way to 4 falls to see people that have high levels that can show some stuff off. MMORPGDot: What challenges can higher-level players expect later on in the game?
Aaron Boucher: The higher level players will pass through the gate to the underworld, allot of the endless ages playerbase is from beta and spends allot of time in towns like Fire-Town and hunt in Cave Of Ancients or Catacombs, or battle each-other over territory in Fire-Town. Some higher levels leave the Atlanta server and go to the non-pk server when they reach the underworld because it can be very violent.
MMORPGDot: What features set Endless Ages apart from the other mmorpg's on the market, in your opinion?
Aaron Boucher: The sheer variety of the genres and mixed with the realtime gameplay offers allot in my opinion, but again our Booster pack this year is going to give us a more user-friendly system with great graphics in combination with the gameplay and this will give us what i beleive we are missing. MMORPGDot: How has the community response to the game been so far? Are you satisfied with the final result?
Aaron Boucher: Im never satisfied, and the comminity is always growing even though we are allot smaller than other well knowns out there we hope to change that soon. MMORPGDot: What future plans do you have with the company? How long will you keep working on Endless Ages?
Aaron Boucher: I've been mentioning the booster pack, and as always we will have our no strings attached Trial so i hope everyone gives it a try :) We will probably be working on the Endless Ages forever :) We have allot of fun building this game.
Our thanks go out to Aaron Boucher for taking the time to answer our questions. More information about Endless Ages as well as the free Trial can be found over at Endlessagesportal.com, so be sure to check it out.
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