Piercing the Veil™ #4

Dearest Hens and Drakes,

What?! Sometimes you try on several hats before you find the one that fits.

Anyhoo…welcome to the 4th PtV! We apologize for the delay in posting this. We all know Mark is a busy guy, and he edits/fact-checks the PtV. Until he puts a shiny gold star on PtV, it does not get published. Since he is in charge we tend not to yell at him (unless we run out of sugary consumables), at least not too loudly, or within earshot and especially not today as he is wearing a big pressure bandage from yesterday’s successful surgery!

Enjoy!

Will CU ever see the stores or will it only be available for digital download?

We will have boxed copies of the game for collectors. We will likely avoid brick and mortar stores due to the cost of producing the box as well as the cut that would have to be paid to distributor/B&M stores.

Which CSE employee is the most feared in PvP? Which CSE employee is most feared on Monday morning?

Hmm, feared in PvP depends on the genre. Many of us game nightly, so we can hold our own, myself included. Tim would likely be the biggest threat in classic MMORGP-style PvP. James, and Patrick would be rather feared in space PvP. Since we are all over 12, not a one of us is a major threat in any FPS PvP. Feared on Monday morning? Whoever stayed up the latest (being awesome at PvP) Sunday night 🙂

You mentioned you will be using Havok Physics in Camelot Unchained. Will you be using any other middleware to do things like cloth simulation, destruction effects, etc.?

We’ll have to see how things shake out over the next two years. We are currently looking at another piece of middleware but until we finish our tests, we’re not going to commit to using it though we hope we will be able to use it. We’ll know more soon!

Are you going to make decisions during the development of the game to make it more enjoyable to watch for a third person (like youtube videos, or streams)?

You may have heard Mark’s BSC idea during the Kickstarter about letting players observe the goings-on in The Depths, when they are not able to be physically in there. We still love that idea and though The Depths are not guaranteed for launch, we remain hopeful about implementing something like MJ’s BSC idea.

Can you give out accurate information on the magic system? If not, when can we expect a more profound explanation of combat systems and rules?

Mark has been writing and editing the magic and combat systems documents and we have had team meetings to give him feedback. Once we have these systems to a point where the team feels that they are exciting and workable, then we can start releasing details to the community. Once these systems are polished enough for a reveal, we will happily (yet with a modicum of trepidation!) do so.

Will you allow members of the community to create add-ons to incorporate into the game / user interfaces etc?

Yes, we are interested in letting our community create add-ons and custom UIs etc. As long as we don’t feel that these will at all compromise security or enable cheats/hacks of any kind, we will indeed allow players to get creative. We also hope to work with add-on providers in a very significant way.

I noticed the Luri (Luchorpan) had a boon giving them a bonus to crafting shoes, do you plan on having B&Bs for every race that relates to crafting?

Not necessarily. There is beauty in asymmetry 😉 Also I would remind players that none of the banes/boons are yet set in stone.

How many gear slots (head, chest, hands, rings, necklace, etc.) will a character have?

Add feet and wrists for starters and then we’ll see what make sense development wise and for the players. 🙂

Old daoc servers used to lag once you got around 3000-4000 people on at the same time. Server tech has become a lot more advanced since then so… About how many players can we expect to see on a server at one time without lots of lag/delay or will there be server caps?

We’re going into this with the assumption that we are going to be able to support more than what is seen as the industry average of about 3K. Not having loads of NPCs milling about will certainly help. Of course it will depend on what is both achievable from a technical standpoint and what makes the most sense fun and gameplay-wise.

Do you guys follow Dr Who? If yes, will you watch the 50th anniversary with Hurt, 10th and 11th?

Many of us do and yes we watched it! Mark recorded it so that we could watch it in comfort in his home theater last weekend. Local places sold out fast and we were all more interested in comfort anyway. A good time was had by all!

Will founder’s be able to reserve a character name before launch of the game or is it going to be first come first serve?

Both a guild and a Founder will be able to reserve a name either through the use of Founder’s Points (first come, first served) or by being the first one to use it after the end of Beta and the Founder/Builder pre-launch. We are not sure how long the pre-launch period will but given the nature of this game, we don’t want it to be too long.

The upcoming second round of funding will be added to the KS funding toward reaching the stretch goals? If yes, will there be new stretch goals?

At first, additional funds will go toward existing unmet stretch goals (The Depths!). After that, we will add other super awesome gameplay-related stretch goals that will add a lot to our game. In addition, we will add team members (by dumping water on the existing ones of course), and likely incorporate ideas that we would otherwise not be able to include with current resources.

Is it possible to get a picture of our super-duper CSE staff all together?

You flatter us! What a fine idea though 🙂 I will work on this before Christmas and get a nice shot of us all together.

How big is the RvRvR-zone going to be in kilometers/miles?

Since it doesn’t exist yet, we would be speculating. Mark has said the RvR portion of the world is not only going to be big, it is going to make up the vast majority of the world’s map!

According to trusty Wikipedia, Medraut is Welsh for Mordred. Will this character make further appearances in the Lore as a Mordred-like character, or is he just a one-off character for the sake of exposition?

Anything is possible.

Renée Machyousky, Community Manager, City State Entertainment