Faelor
07-26-2010, 03:31 PM
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=22861&storypage=1
In Part One of our interview, we chat with Scott Hartsman, Creative Director of Trion, to get the scoop on PvP and PvE in Rift, as well as what makes Rift a "social" MMO and why Rift will be so unique as an MMO
Every now and then, when we talk to MMO development companies about some of the new things they're doing, we get that odd little sensation of rightness. That is, sometimes you hear of the ideas that are going into new MMORPGs, and boy does it make you want to play the game! This is definitely true of Rift: Planes of Telara (Rift), an incredibly ambitious (from a graphical and game play perspective) MMORPG currently being developed by Trion World Networks.
For those of you who don't know, Rift originally debuted at E3 2009 under the title "Heroes of Telara," but it has since changed that name to "Rift: Planes of Telara" to better reflect the theme of the game. In Rift, the two factions, the Guardians and the Defiant, are fighting a fierce war against invading planes of existence, known as "Rifts," which have suddenly begun to appear on Telara, leaking all sorts of baddies onto the planet. In addition to this, the Guardians and the Defiant are also fighting a particularly fierce civil war - with the Guardians staying loyal to their silent Gods, while the Defiant seek to defend Telara by their own strength alone. As an MMORPG, Rift has some incredibly ambitious plans, so whether you're interested in their stunning next-gen graphics, or their innovative "soul" class system, or even their unique take on the MMORPG genre as a whole, this is definitely one game you should be keeping an eye on.
We decided to catch up with Scott Hartsman, Creative Director of Trion, to get every little bit of new info on Rift that we could possibly get! In Part One, we talk with Scott about PvP in Rift, what really makes Rift a "social MMO," and we get a fresh perspective on the MMO genre as a whole. Tomorrow, in Part Two, we talk about Rift's innovative 'soul' system and how players will grow into heroes in Rift: Planes of Telara.
<hr>http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171558.jpg
ZAM: Before we begin, while most of our readers are aware of what Rift: Planes of Telara is, there's a good chance that not all of them are really sure what, exactly, sets this MMO apart from its competitors. What three elements do you think really "define" Rift as being unique?
Scott Hartsman: If I had to pick three elements, the first would be the fact that we're trying to make sure that there are only interesting things going in the world; activities that stand well beyond what you would see as static content in other games. It's not to say that we don't have stuff that you would expect to do in MMOs, but we also have a lot more dynamic content, like invasions and the game play elements that revolve around fighting back the invading planes of existence (rifts). What's really cool is how changes begin to occur on the planet as a rift appears; these rifts will, literally, affect the area in which they appear, and players will instantly be able to recognize when a dynamically spawning rift has appeared nearby. As well, we're planning to really develop on the theme of Rift: Planes of Telara, which is the idea of players at war with these planes of existence while also being at war with each other.
To be honest, we want to do a thousand more things with this IP than we can do at launch, and I think that's a great thing. The core of the IP is the interaction of the planes with Telara. The moment you start speaking of extra-planar existences and exploring those, you end up with a whole lot of stuff.
Finally, we're also very proud of how high-res Rift is. Our team has an incredible amount of experience in the MMORPG world, so we're really leveling up the graphics that people have come to expect from MMOs. Most MMOs on PCs have come out about half a generation (graphically speaking) behind the consoles, and we want to change that.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171561.jpg
ZAM: Here at ZAM.com, some of us are huge fans of PvP and the freshness it can bring to an MMORPG. Now, we already know that Rift will have copious amounts of PvP, but how will it all work out? Where do your focuses lie?
Scott Hartsman: Well, we really don't want this experience to be some kind of foreign thing that nobody can wrap their head around. We want PvP in Rift to be familiar, but to have that unique twist that sets us apart. We do, however, have our PvP and our PvE servers - we're making sure that we're not forcing PvP on anybody if they don't want to do it.
But it's not to say that players who avoid PvP will miss out on all the game, either, as we have an incredibly well developed PvE game that you can play the entire way through. On the other hand, on our PvP servers we also have parts of the world that are highly contested, and this ties into the concept of invasions and rifts. Finally, we'll have some PvP instances in Rift, so that both PvE and PvP players can come into a slightly more controlled setting.
ZAM: You mention invasions and the potential for Rifts to dynamically grow stronger if players don't react accordingly. While this sounds really ambitious, apathy in the player base can often debilitate ideas like this. That is, what happens if players just can't be bothered to defend their planet or their territories? Will the game suffer as result?
Scott Hartsman: Well, when you create a game where players are, essentially, janitors, you can certainly end up with a lot of apathy. We really don't want to make players run around saving the world and, if they don't, it all just goes to hell. That's what I mean by making players become janitors. Instead, we want players to go around and take part in defending parts of the world for tons of incentives and rewards, rather than the potential for suffering. Making a game like Rift work is really more about the reward structure; make it worth their time and they'll want to come because they want to, not because they have to.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171562.jpg
ZAM: On that note, then, what happens if it all swings one way? In MMOs where faction versus faction play is heavily emphasized (World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Aion), one side often gets a huge advantage in numbers, and this can often translate to a server dominance where one side has, literally, taken over all of the zones, resulting in a severely inhibited game for the losing faction. How can you deal with this?
Scott Hartsman: It's more a matter of defining what "taking over a zone" really means. Does it mean the other side can't do anything? No, of course not. Players should think of it as being about "who has conquered the invaders in a given area and has gotten the reward for doing so." It's not who has put up a fence. Of course, there will be lots of direct conflict and all of that, but by the same token, that kind of activity can take place in the overland (consensual PvP) or on the warfront (PvP instances). At the end of the day, everyone wants to get some game play value out of the game they're playing.
ZAM: In a different vein, you've often mentioned that you wanted Rift to be a true "social" MMO. What do you mean by this, and how do you intend to do this?
Scott Hartsman: Think of other MMORPGs you've played in the past. You wander around, you level up, you mind your own business and then, suddenly, you see a cool thing. Let's say, for example, that this "cool thing" is a monster, and it drops something that you want. I would imagine that you would want that "cool thing" to be all yours; as in, if you see another person coming along, you would tell them to leave you alone with your discovery.
What we want to do is change that mindset so that you want to see more people show up, and we've done this by simply making it so that the more people that show up… the better off you are! For example, take the most common event that we've demonstrated thus far, the Rifts themselves. If you see a Rift open, you might say, "I'm going to go kick that invasion's ass," and then you'll decide to work your way through by yourself. You'll still get a good reward for it, but if more people show up to fight, all of you will get better loot because you're all doing it together. The fact is, more people equal more rewards and higher quality results. That's really the philosophy that we're trying to bring to a lot of things. We're trying to get away from that "it's mine, so you can't have it" mindset.
In the end, we want our MMO to be a social experience and we've realized that it's not that people don't want to be social, it's just because they don't want to be inconvenienced.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171560.jpg
ZAM: How do you plan to deal with "griefing" (intentionally ruining or preventing others from enjoying the game) in Rift? For example, if a few players decide that they want to be the only ones at a Rift, and if some new guy comes wandering along to participate, the group just decides that they won't participate any more until the new player leaves.
Scott Hartsman: Well, six guys being difficult isn't really a "big deal," because there are thousands more that can help. These rifts are supposed to be massive, and we have events of all sizes. At the end of the day, it comes down to who chooses to go there, rather than hard limiting the numbers that can be there. The idea we have here is that once you have a full server population, chances are, you'll get those large numbers and you'll definitely have more people helping than not.
ZAM: What other social features do you have planned for Rift? What about housing?
Scott Hartsman: We have a pretty robust Guild system in the works. One thing we haven't talked much about is people getting together to build their guild up and build a structure (in the metaphorical sense) that provides you and all of your friends benefits. Once again, we've come back to that idea of everybody contributing to the effort of benefiting themselves and their friends.
We don't want to go with geographical housing, but there needs to be things that people can build on and that they can be proud to build. If we add in tangible benefits as well, then that's just another reason to do so.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171559.jpg
ZAM: What about the economy as a social feature? While most games, these days, just use crafting as another form of self-sufficient player progression (ie, World of Warcraft), there have been other MMOs, like Final Fantasy XI, that have employed crafting as a whole new sphere of player interaction. In this way, because it usually took an incredible amount of time, money and effort to become a master of your craft, social communities could spring up around the pursuit of mastering these crafts. As well, players would also need to seek out other crafters in order to lock down suppliers, or to get items crafted that the player wouldn't be able to make themselves. Will Rift pursue crafting in this same way?
Scott Hartsman: I would say that our game supports both kinds of crafting. We let you choose between those crafting and gathering professions and, on your character, we let you pick three of the total of all of them. You can definitely choose to make yourself an uber-specialist in one thing and to become self-sufficient in that one thing, but it's obvious that the more you branch out, the more you'll have to rely on other people.
You see, with the way MMO gaming has evolved, we are, once again, dealing with the concept of convenient socializing and inconvenient socializing. Players just like to deal with the auction house (rather than contacting specialized crafting suppliers) because it's so convenient.
As a final point, if you go too far in the direction of ultra-difficult crafting masteries, you end up isolating more people than you're appealing to. Lots of people make the assumption that an MMORPG developed by a new company will be grindy, but we are very much not doing that. We are very sensitive to the idea that there needs to be something interesting to do. A large amount of time spent on something does not always equate to a certain level of difficulty; a large amount of time spent just means a large amount of time spent.
<hr>
And that covers the first half of our phone interview with Scott Hartsman! Be sure to check in tomorrow, as we'll be covering the real meat and potatoes of Rift: the 'soul' class system and player growth!
In Part One of our interview, we chat with Scott Hartsman, Creative Director of Trion, to get the scoop on PvP and PvE in Rift, as well as what makes Rift a "social" MMO and why Rift will be so unique as an MMO
Every now and then, when we talk to MMO development companies about some of the new things they're doing, we get that odd little sensation of rightness. That is, sometimes you hear of the ideas that are going into new MMORPGs, and boy does it make you want to play the game! This is definitely true of Rift: Planes of Telara (Rift), an incredibly ambitious (from a graphical and game play perspective) MMORPG currently being developed by Trion World Networks.
For those of you who don't know, Rift originally debuted at E3 2009 under the title "Heroes of Telara," but it has since changed that name to "Rift: Planes of Telara" to better reflect the theme of the game. In Rift, the two factions, the Guardians and the Defiant, are fighting a fierce war against invading planes of existence, known as "Rifts," which have suddenly begun to appear on Telara, leaking all sorts of baddies onto the planet. In addition to this, the Guardians and the Defiant are also fighting a particularly fierce civil war - with the Guardians staying loyal to their silent Gods, while the Defiant seek to defend Telara by their own strength alone. As an MMORPG, Rift has some incredibly ambitious plans, so whether you're interested in their stunning next-gen graphics, or their innovative "soul" class system, or even their unique take on the MMORPG genre as a whole, this is definitely one game you should be keeping an eye on.
We decided to catch up with Scott Hartsman, Creative Director of Trion, to get every little bit of new info on Rift that we could possibly get! In Part One, we talk with Scott about PvP in Rift, what really makes Rift a "social MMO," and we get a fresh perspective on the MMO genre as a whole. Tomorrow, in Part Two, we talk about Rift's innovative 'soul' system and how players will grow into heroes in Rift: Planes of Telara.
<hr>http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171558.jpg
ZAM: Before we begin, while most of our readers are aware of what Rift: Planes of Telara is, there's a good chance that not all of them are really sure what, exactly, sets this MMO apart from its competitors. What three elements do you think really "define" Rift as being unique?
Scott Hartsman: If I had to pick three elements, the first would be the fact that we're trying to make sure that there are only interesting things going in the world; activities that stand well beyond what you would see as static content in other games. It's not to say that we don't have stuff that you would expect to do in MMOs, but we also have a lot more dynamic content, like invasions and the game play elements that revolve around fighting back the invading planes of existence (rifts). What's really cool is how changes begin to occur on the planet as a rift appears; these rifts will, literally, affect the area in which they appear, and players will instantly be able to recognize when a dynamically spawning rift has appeared nearby. As well, we're planning to really develop on the theme of Rift: Planes of Telara, which is the idea of players at war with these planes of existence while also being at war with each other.
To be honest, we want to do a thousand more things with this IP than we can do at launch, and I think that's a great thing. The core of the IP is the interaction of the planes with Telara. The moment you start speaking of extra-planar existences and exploring those, you end up with a whole lot of stuff.
Finally, we're also very proud of how high-res Rift is. Our team has an incredible amount of experience in the MMORPG world, so we're really leveling up the graphics that people have come to expect from MMOs. Most MMOs on PCs have come out about half a generation (graphically speaking) behind the consoles, and we want to change that.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171561.jpg
ZAM: Here at ZAM.com, some of us are huge fans of PvP and the freshness it can bring to an MMORPG. Now, we already know that Rift will have copious amounts of PvP, but how will it all work out? Where do your focuses lie?
Scott Hartsman: Well, we really don't want this experience to be some kind of foreign thing that nobody can wrap their head around. We want PvP in Rift to be familiar, but to have that unique twist that sets us apart. We do, however, have our PvP and our PvE servers - we're making sure that we're not forcing PvP on anybody if they don't want to do it.
But it's not to say that players who avoid PvP will miss out on all the game, either, as we have an incredibly well developed PvE game that you can play the entire way through. On the other hand, on our PvP servers we also have parts of the world that are highly contested, and this ties into the concept of invasions and rifts. Finally, we'll have some PvP instances in Rift, so that both PvE and PvP players can come into a slightly more controlled setting.
ZAM: You mention invasions and the potential for Rifts to dynamically grow stronger if players don't react accordingly. While this sounds really ambitious, apathy in the player base can often debilitate ideas like this. That is, what happens if players just can't be bothered to defend their planet or their territories? Will the game suffer as result?
Scott Hartsman: Well, when you create a game where players are, essentially, janitors, you can certainly end up with a lot of apathy. We really don't want to make players run around saving the world and, if they don't, it all just goes to hell. That's what I mean by making players become janitors. Instead, we want players to go around and take part in defending parts of the world for tons of incentives and rewards, rather than the potential for suffering. Making a game like Rift work is really more about the reward structure; make it worth their time and they'll want to come because they want to, not because they have to.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171562.jpg
ZAM: On that note, then, what happens if it all swings one way? In MMOs where faction versus faction play is heavily emphasized (World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Aion), one side often gets a huge advantage in numbers, and this can often translate to a server dominance where one side has, literally, taken over all of the zones, resulting in a severely inhibited game for the losing faction. How can you deal with this?
Scott Hartsman: It's more a matter of defining what "taking over a zone" really means. Does it mean the other side can't do anything? No, of course not. Players should think of it as being about "who has conquered the invaders in a given area and has gotten the reward for doing so." It's not who has put up a fence. Of course, there will be lots of direct conflict and all of that, but by the same token, that kind of activity can take place in the overland (consensual PvP) or on the warfront (PvP instances). At the end of the day, everyone wants to get some game play value out of the game they're playing.
ZAM: In a different vein, you've often mentioned that you wanted Rift to be a true "social" MMO. What do you mean by this, and how do you intend to do this?
Scott Hartsman: Think of other MMORPGs you've played in the past. You wander around, you level up, you mind your own business and then, suddenly, you see a cool thing. Let's say, for example, that this "cool thing" is a monster, and it drops something that you want. I would imagine that you would want that "cool thing" to be all yours; as in, if you see another person coming along, you would tell them to leave you alone with your discovery.
What we want to do is change that mindset so that you want to see more people show up, and we've done this by simply making it so that the more people that show up… the better off you are! For example, take the most common event that we've demonstrated thus far, the Rifts themselves. If you see a Rift open, you might say, "I'm going to go kick that invasion's ass," and then you'll decide to work your way through by yourself. You'll still get a good reward for it, but if more people show up to fight, all of you will get better loot because you're all doing it together. The fact is, more people equal more rewards and higher quality results. That's really the philosophy that we're trying to bring to a lot of things. We're trying to get away from that "it's mine, so you can't have it" mindset.
In the end, we want our MMO to be a social experience and we've realized that it's not that people don't want to be social, it's just because they don't want to be inconvenienced.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171560.jpg
ZAM: How do you plan to deal with "griefing" (intentionally ruining or preventing others from enjoying the game) in Rift? For example, if a few players decide that they want to be the only ones at a Rift, and if some new guy comes wandering along to participate, the group just decides that they won't participate any more until the new player leaves.
Scott Hartsman: Well, six guys being difficult isn't really a "big deal," because there are thousands more that can help. These rifts are supposed to be massive, and we have events of all sizes. At the end of the day, it comes down to who chooses to go there, rather than hard limiting the numbers that can be there. The idea we have here is that once you have a full server population, chances are, you'll get those large numbers and you'll definitely have more people helping than not.
ZAM: What other social features do you have planned for Rift? What about housing?
Scott Hartsman: We have a pretty robust Guild system in the works. One thing we haven't talked much about is people getting together to build their guild up and build a structure (in the metaphorical sense) that provides you and all of your friends benefits. Once again, we've come back to that idea of everybody contributing to the effort of benefiting themselves and their friends.
We don't want to go with geographical housing, but there needs to be things that people can build on and that they can be proud to build. If we add in tangible benefits as well, then that's just another reason to do so.
http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/171559.jpg
ZAM: What about the economy as a social feature? While most games, these days, just use crafting as another form of self-sufficient player progression (ie, World of Warcraft), there have been other MMOs, like Final Fantasy XI, that have employed crafting as a whole new sphere of player interaction. In this way, because it usually took an incredible amount of time, money and effort to become a master of your craft, social communities could spring up around the pursuit of mastering these crafts. As well, players would also need to seek out other crafters in order to lock down suppliers, or to get items crafted that the player wouldn't be able to make themselves. Will Rift pursue crafting in this same way?
Scott Hartsman: I would say that our game supports both kinds of crafting. We let you choose between those crafting and gathering professions and, on your character, we let you pick three of the total of all of them. You can definitely choose to make yourself an uber-specialist in one thing and to become self-sufficient in that one thing, but it's obvious that the more you branch out, the more you'll have to rely on other people.
You see, with the way MMO gaming has evolved, we are, once again, dealing with the concept of convenient socializing and inconvenient socializing. Players just like to deal with the auction house (rather than contacting specialized crafting suppliers) because it's so convenient.
As a final point, if you go too far in the direction of ultra-difficult crafting masteries, you end up isolating more people than you're appealing to. Lots of people make the assumption that an MMORPG developed by a new company will be grindy, but we are very much not doing that. We are very sensitive to the idea that there needs to be something interesting to do. A large amount of time spent on something does not always equate to a certain level of difficulty; a large amount of time spent just means a large amount of time spent.
<hr>
And that covers the first half of our phone interview with Scott Hartsman! Be sure to check in tomorrow, as we'll be covering the real meat and potatoes of Rift: the 'soul' class system and player growth!