The vision behind the Archaean Multiplayer Online World is to create a virtual life. The ability for a player to actually live an alter ego in a computer generated environment, a world set in an astonishing fantasy realm. The freedom to make his own decisions in life and not be guided by mechanics to be a certain way, do certain things or think certain ways. The freedom to become what he envisions in his deepest dreams; be it an innkeep, merchant, heroic warrior or commanding warlord of the undead. The ability to live within a world filled with things we cannot experience in the real life, a world that adapts and changes by your own actions...
Our team member Logan interviewed Alex Carlson "Userbusi", Lead Designer, and Thiago "Darien Kane" Moraes, Associate Producer and World Designer for Archaean. This is the second part of the interview, the first one can be found here.

U: Skills will grow through use, though no explicit feedback will be given to inform the player they are now more skilled. We intend to keep the development of a character ambiguous to some degree at all times. Speed is of course relative. As far as macros are concerned, we have not been able to determine whether they will even be necessary. We have a few special ideas on how to keep the player entertained and occupied even if the character itself is doing something rather borish while a script or behavior is running.

Q: Will PC tradesmen be forced to compete with NPC merchants?

U: Well, unless the world starts without a single merchant in existence, then the players must. The ratio and dynamics of NPCs and PCs in the game world will simply have to be studied, and if necessary the team may tweak the NPC merchants to better reflect the status of the market or world. I.E. if there are too many merchants, some should naturally leave the profession even before they start losing money. We don't assume that software will be able to interpret and implement this for us.

Q: Will better gear be dropped from monsters than what can be made?

U: Unless the said gear is a part of the creature's body, or its some kind of magical exception, then someone made it. (Obvious exception being all items NPC's possess when the gameworld opens. It would be funny if all of civilization just appeared one day with no clothes, nor homes, etc...)

D: I'd say that from a designer's standpoint, the answer is a categorical no. That would be a violation of our commitment to keep all and every game element within the potential reach of the character. >From a player's standpoint, the answer is a virtual yes. This is so because even though players will try and strive for an omnipresent hand at item production, the systems we'll have in place will prevent many, if not most items, from being created without product-specific apparatus, process-based refinement of resources, particular performance of composite operations, and more often that not, a quasi-scientific approach to technology. There are few instances when I like to compare Archaean with reality, and this is one of them -- how many objects do you come upon on the street that you can produce yourself?

Q: Will there be item degradation?

U: Yes.

D: I can't possibly envision anything resembling an economy if there wasn't!

Q: Can players design and build... A hovel, a house, a keep, a castle?

U: Assuming nothing goes wrong, almost all in-game architecture should be feasible through construction systems. There will likely be some exceptions. Really odd, or magical, or environmentally problematic structures may not be replicable.

D: Note that crafting systems are being designed from the smallest possible fractional levels up - that is, you bake fifty bricks, pile them up and call it a fort if you so wish. The corpuscular quality of some architectural systems is not particularly new in circles of discussion, and by now we've heard every possible con one may think up regarding this approach. We are studying solutions carefully, but in the end, free action will take precedence over minor hassles.

Q: How smart are the mobs? I mean, if I keep showing up at their daycare center, luring single young monsters away to a nasty death, can I do this forever, or do they eventually take action? Is the mobs behavior static, or is there a pseudo random component? By this I mean, if I shoot a mob with an arrow, A) It always chases directly at me, back to the waiting hoards for slaughter, or B) 70% give chase, 20% attempt to use an evasive maneuver, and 10% run for help?

U: AI is a very subjective and temperamental beast. Its extremely difficult to predict the capability of AI in a poorly defined environment.

D: When brainstorms over ideal behavioral courses for NPCs in Archaean came up during our meetings, I would frequently ask the other members: if a creature stumbles in the forest and no one else is around to hear it, does it really make a noise? Happily, the answer was invariably yes. By that we mean that our NPCs do not exist solely for the thirty seconds period between respawn and death. They have a life of their own, a mind of their own, and an agenda to carry out. Like you, the player, they have aspirations they hope to fulfill, as well as necessities they must address in the meantime.

So we cannot really answer with one of those options, because as you see, we go case-by-case here. Some creatures won't attack unless cornered. Others will protect their offspring. Others will chase you down the road as long as you have that pork chop in your backpack. And others will concoct such intricate traps to kidnap you that you won't even know what happened when you wake up forty eight hours later behind a filthy tavern across the globe.

Q: In Everquest, if the target is too far above/below you, you cannot shoot it with arrows; in Anarchy Online & Everquest if monsters were attacked, they would simply teleport to you or hit you from where they were regardless of barriers. Will Archaean fortifications actually have any effect?

U: Fortifications should have their expected effect. A wall is a wall.

D: Part of our efforts to enrich PvP engagements includes a revamp of tactical approach to martial matters. In Archaean we will be attempting to implement real strategy, a degree of intellectual planning and execution matched only by tactics-focused games and squad simulations -- maybe not even that, given that we count on permanent world elements. This program involves the inclusion of vehicles, specialty-weapons, terrain-specific dynamics and among others, fortifications -- all of which are not, of course, limited to a military context.

Q: Many games have attempted to slow their rate of level advancement by introducing downtime. Players are very concerned about it. In EQ, downtime was severe - up to 20 minutes. In DAOC and AO, it is under 1 minute. I view this as an excellent trend. If I was the most powerful fighter possible in your game and wanted to rest after a nasty combat in which I was nearly killed, how long would it take me to get back my full hit points? Mana?

U: As mentioned before, Archaean is not geared for creating or supporting a combat treadmill. Thus the downtime is simply reflective of whatever wounds were sustained. Minor cuts or bruises are fine given good health and conditions. Having a major limb impaled or shattered is a problem that time will only worsen.

D: It is very hard for us to quantify downtime since we don't acknowledge resting as a measurement of healing. Like Userbusi said, in cases of internal damage, passage of time is actually detrimental. As a general rule, if it doesn't heal you in real life, don't expect it to do so in Archaean. Sleeping, eating cheese, wrapping up a bandage around a cranial trauma... that won't do much. Archaean is set in a low-fantasy scenario, so don't expect to run into gnomes peddling life potions by every road sign either. And know that life is by far the most fragile element of magical manipulation, so... be scared.

Q: In AO, we were introduced to vehicles. These were not independent things that could be parked, stolen, sat upon, etc - they were very lame morphings of the character into the vehicle (i.e. man becomes car). In SOL (EQ) this will be repeated. In DAOC, their vehicles amount to buy ticket and sit on horse till it gets to the destination (whereupon it disappears) or jump off enroute. Will your game have vehicles? Will the character models 'morph' into the vehicle, be forced to only go along vehicle routes or will the vehicles be completely separate from the characters?

U: Assuming no major technological limitation forces our hand, characters should remain independent of vehicles and/or mounts.

D: We do have plans for vehicles, organic, mechanical and otherwise. There will be no 'morphing', nor routes -- in comparative terms, vehicles will be large tools that can be manipulated at will with no judgment from the engine as to its appropriate use.

Q: Will characters be able (upon release) to make vehicles? Enchant items?

U: See question on dropped gear.

Q: What about vehicular combat (the pride and joy of ALL vehicle owners)? Can I run someone over with an ox cart? A dragon?

U: There is no reason you shouldn't be able to run someone over with an cart, assuming one can go fast enough to run someone over.

D: There is really no arbitrary distinction as to what can or cannot be done. Again, we ask that you think in a corpuscular language: an ox cart is made of wood, which effects bludgeoning damage upon surfaces that are softer than that material. Therefore, there is absolutely no natural reason why a collision wouldn't damage both bodies -- be them organic or not.

Q: Will you have areas in your world which are extraordinary? IE - Dreamscapes, floating castles, etc?

U: Depending on certain, hmm, situations and contexts Archaean ranges from low-fantasy to metaphysics. I know of no good way to explain the divisions and/or contrasts offhand.

Q: Name three things which intrigue YOU about the gameplay.

U: 1. Whatever happens when one removes some of the most sacred Skinner Boxes from MMO gaming. (loot, exp, etc...)

2. The After Realm, and everything tied to it.

3. The fact that historical events have a fundamental effect from everything to the availability of ore, to the processes of resurrection.

D: 1. The fact that in the old Art vs. Game debate, Archaean doesn't fall under either category: it is a form of art achieved -through- gaming.

2. The 'multiverse' mentality we apply to our game designs, ranging from magic (we currently have 5 magic systems) to resurrection (what I call the Open Physics Model).

3. The absolute state of detachment we have managed to attain concerning good and evil.

Q: What are the death penalties? Is your system 'permanent death'? What will prevent problems with the local IP from getting someone killed? How does death affect skills you have gained? What happens to your "skill bank" when you die?

U: Death in Archaean is one of the occurrences we will not describe in depth. The simplest explanation we can give is that it is based on a principle of non-automatic resurrection. Once something dies, someone or something has to go through the trouble of bringing the dead individual back to life. What happens upon death/resurrection/rebirth, relating to skills or otherwise, is something we will not disclose for the time being.

Q: Will there be static spawns? Static loot?

U: Neither.

Q: What is your favorite aspect of your game?

U: The private satisfaction of the challenge in making it.

Q: Aside for the fact that the game is not yet out, what is your least favorite aspect of your game?

U: The worst aspect, and I realize I'm cheating the question a bit to say this, is not being in control. There are a thousand factors or more which may bless or doom this project and they are completely beyond our control or power. All we can do is go with it.

Q: What features will be coded into the game to allow guilds to be more than just 'glorified chat channels'?

U: The feature, or in this case a non-feature, that relates to this is that guilds will not receive any magical chat channel that reaches across continents, cities, etc...

D: I believe that for a guild to exist, there must be a framework to contain it. Groups who band together merely because they share the same skills, name tags or clothing colors are but gangs lusting for a sense of belonging. But if you have an aristocratic order covertly bent on reverting the predominance of Ku'Los fundamentalists in the court of Onn Fereoboc, now that's a context that can furnish a -real- organization.

Q: How will long distance travel work?

U: Historically speaking there are only a few documented cases of teleportation. All of them (*) have either been lost, or destroyed. In the physical world at least, the only way to get around is to hoof it.

*There is one case of teleportation in the physical realm which is in serious question, but we assume that it will not survive to the gameworld's opening for the sake of consistency.

D: This is that old debate of boringness vs. the thrill of the journey coming back again, and of course, if your world is a floating green polygon filled with tree sprites and squirrel chirps in the background, its not going to be the road trip of a lifetime. But Archaean is to be a living world, and as such, it will have its share of landmarks, events, points of interest, the works. As a rule of thumb, it goes like this: if traveling is not a purpose of its own, then we know we're not trying hard enough.

Q: In light of the fact that combat is secondary, and in every other game it was primary, what is the primary source of content in the game?

U: The primary source of content is that there isn't one. No primary content will be force fed to the players for immediate, but ultimately over saturating gratification. The goals of Archaean are intentionally ambiguous because the only activities which stay with human beings over the long term are either wired into our biology (hunger, etc...) or things with no particular endgame. An over reliance on Skinner Box-like gameplay methods generally result in burnout, or become mundane.

Q: What is the most important thing you've learned from the failures and shortcomings of other MMOLG's?

U: The most important lesson I've learned is that there is no way to please everyone. If someone is absolutely set on having something in line with their vision of perfection, then one cannot satiate them. Most often these people cannot even define this vision of perfection they possess. One has to design for those that are flexible and willing to enjoy things that they did not completely desire or expect.

D: I for one have learned that presenting players with more and more choices is no safeguard against the tyranny of numbers. As the amount of active users grows beyond the system's capacity to provide diversity, a general breakdown of quality ensues. Again, we try and work together with this predicament, by providing tools that create diversity instead of providing only diversity itself. That way, the organism is never overwhelmed -- in fact, it in only enriched by the arrival of new creators.

Q: To get our readers a bit into the 'business angle' of the MMOLG - what was the biggest hurdle you believe new designers have to hurdle when pitching the game to a producer?

U: The single biggest hurdle is that after all that hard work and thinking, one has to walk up to a group of strangers and then re-justify every decision and design all over again to their perspective, desires, and wants. And the burden falls not upon the business man to understand the designers, but for the designers to understand the business man. For new designers that do not come from a business background, this is a fundamentally hard paradigm shift. And in the midst of that turmoil, one must retain one's poise, confidence, and presence before these strangers that may or may not review a dozen propositions in a week.

Q: Why was the company name recently changed to eMage?

D: Because everyone and their uncles seem to have a company named Arcane, Arkane, Arcanum or variations.

Q: Any additional comments you would like to add?

D: From my part, just the observation that we are not out to overthrow the current king of MMOLGs or to reform the archetype of universal gaming. We are simply a party of individuals inspired by something new, something... else. Along the way, we found out that a lot of people share this inspiration, so we took them in. Even now, we invite kindred spirits to come and hang around -- and non-kindred spirits to perhaps enjoy a point or two that can at least provide a different perspective.