With only a few days left on Project Gorgon‘s Kickstarter, the fund raising will be coming to a close with in game festivities from the developers.

I took the opportunity to get the party started with Eric Heimburg, the Lead Developer of ElderGame, by asking a few questions that were on my mind. It still amazes me to see how busy developers still take the time out to keep in touch with fans. Gorgon has really caught my interest and while there is still a lot of work to be done, some of the things they have produced are really standing out to make this game special. As an example, I really love the cursed forms and the Words of Power system is interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing more from this team as the game progresses.

Development

MMO Central: What led you towards crowdfunding, over a more traditional method of publishing/funding?

Eric Heimburg: It’s very hard to get publishers excited about MMOs these days. They’ve been burned many times with MMOs that failed to ship or that shipped to lackluster success. MMOs are extremely difficult to make! So getting a publisher on board for an MMO that throws out the successful directed-quest-hub mentality in exchange for a “do whatever you like” design philosophy? That’s just too risky for them. Crowdfunding is the only to get this game made.

Why choose Kickstarter as your crowdfunding platform of choice?

We picked Kickstarter simply because more people already have a Kickstarter account. It’s a lot easier to convince people to back a project if they already have an account. Beyond the Kickstarter, though, we also plan to fund the game through Steam Early Access sales. So we’re not putting every egg into the Kickstarter basket.

How much of the game will stay playable throughout the development to the general public, if any?

Our immediate plans are to just stop having a free play version entirely, at least for a while. At some point I’m sure we’ll have a limited-access version so people can try it before buying, but we haven’t planned that out yet.

What sort of server architecture are you planning on (megaserver, individual shards, something else)?

What sort of player caps will the server(s) have?

We’re using individual world shards, each designed for relatively low populations — 500 players at slow times, and maybe 1200 at peak time. We want to create a more intimate experience than is possible on a megaserver architecture. That’s also why we use very little instancing: it breaks people up too much. We want people to be able to recognize other players by repeatedly seeing them around. This sounds like a minor detail, but it’s actually really important. Think about it this way: the first requirement of a community is repeated interaction. On a megaserver you may never see the same people twice… that’s hardly a community at all! Even if your only “interaction” with another player is seeing their face repeatedly on different nights, that continuity creates an important sense of community. And that helps make it feel more like a real virtual world, instead of just a game.

Will there be different server rulesets? (PvE, RP, PvP, Permadeath, etc.)

Sure, we’ll look at different rulesets. But we also want to facilitate multiple playstyles on a single world through guild customizations. For instance, you’ll be able to create a guild with extremely punitive death systems if you want to. (This was a Kickstarter stretch goal that we reached!) Putting more options into the guild system lets us offer rule options that wouldn’t be popular enough to have their own entire server, but can still be fun for a small number of people.

What quarter are you estimating for a launch date?

If all goes well, we’ll launch in the last quarter of 2016.

What are your monetization plans on release?

Are any RMT shops planned, if so what type of gear will be for sale?

We’re a buy-to-play game with an optional VIP subscription. VIPs get a monthly allotment of special currency that they can spend on items like XP potions, dye colors, etc. Modest temporary boosts and cosmetic rewards. After launch we hope to do expansion content several times per year, which will also be buy-to-play. But that’s too far out to think about too much!

What kind of methods of keeping the MMO community in the loop during the development cycle are you planning on utilizing?

We do several game updates per month (and have for years now), and people who get into the Kickstarter or the Steam Early Access will get news about those updates periodically. As we get closer to official release, we’ll have more video to show off as well.

Gameplay

Describe the setting for Project Gorgon – a brief plot synopsis, if you will

Alharth is a high-magic land. The mageocracy that runs the place has traditionally been benevolent, but recently the council of mages has gone missing, and without their constant oversight, things are going wrong fast. Players take a key role in figuring out what’s going on and putting a stop to it. (That is, if they want to! The storyline parts of the game are largely optional, because it’s the sort of game where you can do what you want.)

What is the planned level/skill cap on release?

The hard level cap is 100, but skills can be raised up to 125 with synergistic bonuses from other skills or with certain other rewards. Gear can further increase players’ effective level, so the highest level monsters are effectively level 150.

Why choose free form skill selection over a more traditional class-based restriction?

When I was employed as an MMO designer, I was vocal about the dangers and difficulties of a free-form skill system. It’s much harder to manage and to balance. But a lot of players find it more fun, and at some point I was able to accept that perfect balance really isn’t that important anyway. Getting adequate balance is important, of course, but it’s actually lots of fun for a game to have some pits and valleys for players to explore, mechanics-wise.

Are you concerned about players “gimping” themselves?

We don’t limit the number of skills a player can learn, so you can’t get permanently gimped. Players choose two skills at any given time to be their active combat skills. So I’m not too worried — players can discover pretty quickly whether a skill combination works for them or whether they need to try something else. And if they need something else, they can just switch!

What, if any, forms and methods of Player vs. Player interaction are you currently planning on including?

We’ll have arenas and dueling and we might have an opt-in “PK mode”, too — we love to give players lots of ways to play. But this is not really a big PvP game and that’ll never be the main focus of the game. Specifically, the game’s combat balance is heavily focused on PvE, so PvP players will need to find ways to make these PvE-centric skills work for them in PvP. (Which is its own sort of fun challenge, for some players.)

Every NPC has their own goals and you can build reputation with them, but does anything create a negative reputation gain – such as working with an enemy, or refusing to aid their goals?

We’ve been focusing on the newbie areas of the game so far, where most NPCs are pretty straightforward, but even at these low levels you can lose favor with NPCs. Some will get upset if you kill their livestock. Some get upset if you give them thoughtless gifts (like giving severed orc heads to an orc shaman). Some lose respect for you if they realize you’re a necromancer. And on and on. At higher level, these dislikes become a little more complicated and hard to manage, but it’s never a huge part of the game. There might be a few NPCs who hate you in proportion to how much you like some other NPC, but those would be an exception. We’ve found that micro-managing NPCs against each other just isn’t much fun! It can be interesting as an occasional change of pace, though.

Can you go into more detail on how you create your own death penalty system or customize it?

For the average player, there are just a couple of different death penalties to choose from. But guild masters will have a larger palette of death penalty options, including determining what kinds of items break on death (if any), how easy it is to fix those items (if it’s possible at all), how hard it is to resurrect players, XP penalties, and more. The in-game rewards for these death penalties are fairly minor, though, because we don’t want this to be seen as the “right” way to play in order to get the best loot. These death penalties are just a way to play the game on “hard mode” with like-minded individuals.

Will NPC reputation changes have a wider impact than just restricting interactions with that one entity?

We have some other city-wide reputation mechanics in mind, yes, but the details haven’t been hammered out yet.

Beyond the player-created quest system, what other kinds of player created content systems are you looking to include?

Players can write books, and I’d like to let players create paintings, too (either as little uploaded JPGs, or with primitive in-game painting tools). We’re also struggling with a way to reward oratory skill — public speaking, that is — in a way that’s fun and fair and not too spammy. That one’s a tough nut to crack, but we’re giving it a shot!

With player-written books and notes included in the game, what (if any) filters or restrictions will be in place to stop people from abusing this system? (e.g. gold spammers posting flyers around town, or just general vulgarity)

We’ll have a reporting mechanism to report inappropriate content, and a voting system to let established players upvote and downvote content they like. It’s also important to realize that these in-game content creation tools require high levels of in-game skills, so it’s not something that a brand new player can do. That barrier to entry helps, because established players aren’t as likely to risk losing their account by posting inappropriate content.

Could you clarify the durations of the day and night cycles?

(If there is a difference in duration between day and night) What drove your decision on that split?

Are there special creatures that just come out at night?

We’re still actively exploring what the best day/night cycle is. Right now a full day is 2 hours long. We’ve recently tried 90 minute days, and we’ll try 3 hour day-cycles soon. We’ll use player feedback to figure out what’s best. There are special spawns at night, but right now they’re limited to special resources, such as flowers that only appear in the morning. But in the final game there will certainly be special night-time-only monsters, as well as monsters that are tied into the real-world lunar calendar.

Five zones have been announced so far – is this the number planned on launch?

There’ll be a lot more areas than exist right now. The exact number is still up in the air, but 12 zones is probably minimum we’ll need to cover all the level ranges, and 16 is a more comfortable number. Most of these zones will have numerous dungeons underneath them as well, which are technically their own zones.

Player Abilities

It has been stated that Words of Power said in chat will activate their magic. Can you give example of some of the effects of these Words of Power?

Words of power can grant you powerful temporary abilities like flight or teleportation or super-leaping. They can cure diseases, give you more carrying capacity for a time, and much more. But there are also negative words of power, which can kill you, or give your horrific diseases, or turn your bones to glass. Words of power only work once. After you say them, they lose their power and you have to research new words. Short words with weak powers are easy to come by, but the longest words with the most tremendous effects are expensive and time-consuming to research. One side effect of this design is that players have to be a little wary of “free words”. Short words of power aren’t dangerous enough to be worrisome, but if somebody offers you a humongous word for free, you’ll have to decide whether you trust them or not. Maybe they’re giving you a word to double your inventory space… or maybe you’re about to inflict leprosy on yourself!

Inscribing your own items has already been listed – is there any interaction between this and the Words of Power system as a way of creating magic items (“Word of Armor” on a set of Chainmail) or even booby-trapped items (“Word of Fireball” in a book).

There’s a different kind of inscriptive magic planned for equipment, which hasn’t been revealed yet. But inscribing words of power does have an effect. Basically, you can’t do it! You can’t successfully inscribe an active word of power — if you try, some other random factoid or piece of information gets written there instead. This is a useful way to make sure your word of power is still potent. Once it’s been spoken aloud, it stops being a word of power and then you’d be able to successfully inscribe it.

When training beasts for Animal handling, do the pets level up?

Independently or in tandem with your character level?

Yes, they earn XP by killing monsters with you. Pets level up separately from the player (and at a faster rate than the player), but the pet is limited to the player’s Animal Handling skill level. So if you have level 30 in Animal Handling, you can help your pets get to level 30, but they can’t get higher until you do.

When breeding trained beasts, do any of the skills/levels of the parents pass on to the offspring (i.e. would high level breeding pairs be more valuable)

Right now the plan is for it to be genetics-based, so it’s less about leveling the pet and more about finding the perfect breeding stock. But we’ll have to see if that’s fun enough. Like so much of the game, we’re using player feedback to figure out what’s fun.

Is there any “raw materials” left for a Necromancer to work with if a player opts to respawn?

It’s a bit hand-wavy… necromancers can utilize player tombstones even after the player respawns. I’m not sure if there’s a separate second corpse in the ground there, or if it’s just… mysterious magic.

Will more “forms” be added to the game? (deer, cow, spider, pig)

An upcoming Kickstarter stretch goal is to add another animal form, and we have another one planned either way, so with a bit of luck there’ll at least be two more… possibly more than that. Those are comparatively easy for us to add, so they might be something we add a bunch of after launch, too.

Will there be mounts? What form will these take? Are you planning on any flying in the game?

Yep, there will be horses and other quadrupeds. Flying mounts aren’t currently planned for launch, but players can fly via other means such as words of power, or turning into a bird, or controlling the weather.

Group Content

With the larger creatures, are you expecting raid-level coordination to take them down?

What is the largest scale group combat you are expecting to see?

Group dungeons are designed around either 3-man or 6-man groups right now. We might scale that up to 10-man groups at high level, I’m not sure yet. But probably not higher than that. However, there are also huge dangerous beasts in the world which can spawn randomly, and which require the coordinated efforts of dozens of players to defeat. These are the sorts of monsters that the druids have sworn to take down.

Community

Live events with a story focus is great news for roleplaying guilds and communities. Do you have plans on how you can reach out to these players to involve them?

We’ve gotten a lot of good ideas over the past several years of development, and we’re always listening to the forums to see what players will find exciting. It’s hard for players to participate in the game’s lore right now because most of the game world (and hence the lore) isn’t accessible yet. But as we get nearer to launch, and beyond launch, it will be possible to integrate players’ RP ideas directly into game lore, at least to a limited extent.

Crafting/Commerce

Players can manage shops but to what level of customization? Simply inventory, or the entire shop’s appearance?

We try to under-promise and over-deliver, so the official word is that you just hire an NPC to work in a pre-made stall. But I hope to do more than that, including decorations and signage.

When bartering in game, how is it determined what is offered by an NPC?

NPC vendors have a fixed selection of predetermined gear which unlocks based on how well they like you (that is, your Favor Level). Beyond that, NPCs will resell stuff that players have sold to them, at a markup of course, and some NPC shopkeepers are willing to sell items on consignment, where they sell your item for you and give you the money. And as mentioned, more established players will be able to hire NPCs to be dedicated shopkeepers just for them (or just for their guild). In that case, the player (or guild) will stock the NPC with items for sale. They can also choose to let their NPC buy certain items created by other players.

What type of marketplace do you plan on implementing – auction house?

Global or regional or direct sales by players?

We don’t plan to have a general auction house because it rapidly removes the profit from crafting. It creates a buyer’s market where crafters often can’t even give their gear away. At that point, crafting’s not a profession, it’s a hobby, and an expensive one! We want crafting to be a way to make money. So for stuff like weapons and equipment, players will need to shop around at player-run stalls to find what they want. This helps keep prices high, and also lets crafters enjoy the experience more. It’s just much more satisfying to have your own virtual shop rather than selling everything via a faceless auction house. If you’re going to have crafting in an MMO, it should be rewarding for crafters! On the other hand, certain items aren’t fun to window-shop for. Arrows are a good example. It would be really tedious to expect players to go door to door searching for arrows every time they need some. So I think we’ll end up with a limited auction house that just sells these sorts of consumable items. There’s a bit more to it, actually, but we’re not quite ready to talk about all the details yet!

The game has 20+ Tradeskills already defined, how do think your current crafting mechanics will create in game socialization?

Most everybody will be involved in at least a few non-combat skills. For instance, swordsmen get bonuses from Calligraphy, so even the most powerful swordsman needs special inks and parchments if they want to unlock the most powerful bonuses. And if they go the extra mile in Calligraphy, they can learn to create calligraphic art which they can sell to other players for bonuses. So the intricate interconnections of skills is part of what makes them fun and interesting. There’s also lots of different ways to be nice to each other. That’s a big deal, and something that’s often overlooked. In other words, you’ll end up crafting all sorts of stuff that can be beneficial to your friends, and often it won’t cost you much just to give it away for free. Not everything has to be profit-motivated. Just being able to help your fellow players can be a surprisingly rewarding experience.

The nice thing with Gorgon is that it has been playable during the Kickstarter campaign – allowing potential backers to test it out and even help work out some bugs for ElderGame team in the process. During the campaign is has doubled it’s initial goal and is on target to triple it before the end.