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Mo On Everything- 8/22/00

(by Sixxo)

Everyone's favorite producer of World War Two Online, Chris "Mo" Sherland, was gracious enough to answer a few questions. Immediately after hearing that he had 5 free minutes, off to the forums I went in search of information that the players are dying to hear about. Here's the good stuff:

Sixxo: When can we expect the infantry video to be released?

Mo: Should be something ready by the end of the month for sure.

Sixxo: What kind of testing will Phase III of the closed beta encompass?

Mo: Combat mostly, planes and tanks. We'll add troops during the cycle as well. Basically Phase III will be the validation of two basic systems: The combat/physics loops, and the host/client. We want to wring these out bigtime, and get them stout enough to support the last 3 systems. Hydrodynamics, Mission/RPG layer, and the Strategic system.

Sixxo: Will reconaissance photographs/video only be represented in full color, or will players be forced to/have the choice to watch it strictly in black and white?

Mo: I am hoping to force it to be black and white :)

Sixxo: Will a commander or somebody who is creating a mission have the ability to restrict vehicle or weapon choice for that particular mission? Will there be anything to restrict them on the vehicles they can assign for that mission?

Mo: Definitely. There will be restrictions simply by what weapon types are available at the base the mission sorties from. As well, there will be limits on any "advanced" weapons sortied from that base. So, a mission may have limits in both types and numbers available. Ratios will be a factor too, and missions may be restricted to fleshing out teams before getting other systems, for example, you may need to get 4 riflemen sortied to get a heavy MG team.

Sixxo: Is there a separate naval air rank or is naval aviation part of overall naval rank?

Mo: It's integrated, but Naval Air rank will be looked at more like "experience". Air ops from a CV will raise your overall Navy rank, but getting command of a CV will be up to your commanders, and they will be looking for air op experience. Indeed there may be a minimum of air ops experience needed to be considered for command of a CV at all.

Sixxo: Is surrender being considered as a viable option or is it just not a prioritized concern at the moment? If so, could it be a possibility in the future?

Mo: Sure, anything is possible :) We have no plans right now for it. And the only reason is we haven't sat down and thought it out. We don't add features that don't buy the players something cool. So Medics and Surrender both fall under the category of: "What could those things do for a player that would be compelling?" We'll look at it eventually, but right now that's serious back burner material.

Sixxo: How are you planning to deal with fuel consumption over half-scaled terrain?

Mo: Well, we have a fuel modifier designed. The ground vehicles are a no brainer, but the aircraft move vertically and there is no reduction in that axis so some "difficulties" arise. We have a plan though.

Sixxo: What does the beta schedule look like? You've mentioned in the forums and the HQ chat that the 3rd quarter date might be "a little tight." Can you elaborate?

Mo: Boy you don't miss anything :) Entering Phase III has taken a bit longer than we'd have liked. The big challenges have been the animation scripting language and the host client comm systems. Both of these we are writing from scratch and are quite complex. The animation system needs to be very flexible and "not painting ourselves into a corner" has been our main focus there. The host eventually needs to support 1000 players per theater, and use both server load balancing, as well as swapping so we need to build it solid from the ground up. It's taking us a bit more time early on, but we'd gladly spend it now rather than have to tear up the host during the test, or worse yet, during pay for play. So, to finally answer your question , we *are* running late. Phase III will be up and running by the end of this month with 50-100 players. We'll see how much debugging it needs, and that will tell us where we are as far as open beta goes. I don't see us going open by the end of September though, and that's the Q3 date blown right there. I'd like to give you more definite dates, but Phase III needs to be in debug for us to really see where we are. I will post more detail once combat is going on, look for a detailed beta report and a steady flow of test news once Phase III is rolling.

Thanks to Chris "Mo" Sherland for taking the time out and answering our questions. Hopefully he won't have any more free time in the future, seeing as how he should be working on the game... hmm, doesn't this seem like a win/win situation both ways?