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Andrew Krausnick - Trove AMA

AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18

Hey all,

My name is Andrew Krausnick and I am the Creative Lead on Trove - a new voxel game all about adventure, exploration, and creation.

If you're curious about the full spiel for the game, I recommend checking out this post on reddit which was made when we announced the game about a month ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/Trove/comments/1qojcx/who_are_we_why_are_we_making_this_game_and_why/

In addition we've chatted a few times with Bill here on MMORPG and those are definitely worth a read:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/984/feature/8017

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/984/feature/8082

Personally speaking my history has been all about the MMO. I started on Vanguard where my most notable contribution was leading the team behind APW, the game's first raid zone. I bounced around some after that but eventually found myself here at Trion working on Rift, where I designed the reward and contribution mechanics for Rifts as well as creating the systems for invasions and zone events. 

I look forward to your questions! If you want more info or to support us (and increase your chances at getting into Alpha) after hearing about the game today, visit www.trovegame.com. You can also find us on reddit at reddit.com/r/trove, and you can find me personally on twitter at @heyandrewk.

So fire away, and AMA!

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Comments

  • MavolenceMavolence Member UncommonPosts: 635
    Thanks for stopping by, I did have one question right away regarding the tier of support packages. If one were to support the 25,50,100,150. At which tier is the alpha almost instant access? Im really considering giving it a go for a bit here after my terraria/starbound/minecraft binge.
  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by Mavolence
    Thanks for stopping by, I did have one question right away regarding the tier of support packages. If one were to support the 25,50,100,150. At which tier is the alpha almost instant access? Im really considering giving it a go for a bit here after my terraria/starbound/minecraft binge.

    If you support at the Conqueror level you will get actual literal instant access into the game. The moment that support hits, you can download the client.

    For everyone else following along, you can check out our support page at: http://www.trovegame.com/support-trove/

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by Torvaldr

    How does progression work differently from similar types of games (Minecraft, Cubeworld, etc)?

     

     

    What design choices are working out really well that you want to expand on?

     

    What early design choices aren't working out how you envisioned and how have you changed them or what have you put in their stead?

     

    Progression for Trove comes in two forms, 'persistent progression' (i.e., power and things you collect that travel with you from world to world) and 'world progression' (i..e., stuff that is world specific). Right now most items are specific to the world and your Cornerstone (the place where you build your home base), unlocked crafting recipes, and class levels stay with you.

    Cornerstones have been an incredible addition and I love seeing what creative constructions people have made. We'll definitely be doing a lot more with these.

    Right now one thing that isn't working out is how many items are mapped to the world. Specifically any items which are placeable right now feels wrong that you don't get to keep them unless you put them down in your Cornerstone. We'll be making some changes in those areas to increase the amount of stuff that lives with the character instead of the world.

    On top of this we have some new features coming in this month, like worlds cycling on a regular basis outside of patch days, that will really shake up how we're tuning the game and how we play the game, so I'm looking forward to getting that in and seeing what changes it encourages us to make next.

  • Romulan78Romulan78 Member UncommonPosts: 99
    Originally posted by DMKano

     

    3) PvP - I've heard that very early iterations of this game (pre-Trove) was actually more of a PvP centric game, will we see PvP in some form (be it custom player made worlds)? I know that one of your design pillars is an adventure game, but you can still PvP AND adventure right?

     

    Hmm PVP got my attention. Playing Starbound currently (fun time waster). Can you tell us about the pvp plans and ideas that the game will employ?

     

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Andrew - first of all thanks for spending time here and answering questions, I've been a fan of your work since your time at SOE - Vanguard's APW, big kudos on that!

    I am going to get right to it (I've been in Trove alpha for a while)

     

    1) Is there any chance that Trove will at some point in the future have wires/switches/actuators like Terraria? It would be nice to be able to build some traps or remotely turn lights on/off etc....I know in 3D this would be a pretty tough to pull off, but it would really set Trove apart imo, you can imagine crazy stuff you could build with timers and trap doors etc...

     

    2) Are there any plans to have Biomes that change over time as a result of an event or some external influence (like corruption spreading and taking over the forest biome, or a meteor landing and introducing new enemies, or killing a boss making the whole world harder) - not to steal from Terraria but man did that game get that right! Something along those lines? I mean world events should be right up Trion's alley (rifts and arkfalls)

     

    3) PvP - I've heard that very early iterations of this game (pre-Trove) was actually more of a PvP centric game, will we see PvP in some form (be it custom player made worlds)? I know that one of your design pillars is an adventure game, but you can still PvP AND adventure right?

     

    4) I really love the new "no NDA" open development approach - can you comment on how you are liking that so far, especially with so much feedback on reddit/r/trove? Is this something that Trion will embrace even beyond Trove?

     

    5) Any rough guestimate how many final classes you're shooting for? Like more than 8, less than 100 :)?

     

    6) Final question - for all practical purposes Trove's 11-man team is like an indie-game team, but you are inside of an established game studio with access to all the big-studio tools and existing platform and hosting infrastructure. Can you talk about the pros/cons of a small team inside of a big company?

    7) - Doh I lied about the last question - can you elaborate on what kind of stuff you guys are thinking about when it comes to "completing a Trove world" - you mentioned something along the lines of collecting 10 items of power that awakens a big world boss that has to be defeated. How many different types of world-goal mechanics are you guys thinking about having in Trove? Could we have maybe some construction goals that could complete the world instead of typical destruction?

    Thanks again, keep up the great work!

    Hey! Great questions, and thank you for spending your time spreading the word about the game.

    1) That's all fun stuff that we might do in the future. At the end of the day being a smaller team we need to pick and choose where we focus and right now we feel like we have a strong foundation for building and are shifting our attention to the adventure and exploration aspects of the game that are a little less flushed out. Minecraft with all of its mods I think will always be able to beat us at being a diggy builder game, which isn't to say that we won't keep expanding in those areas over time, but it isn't a primary focus for us either.

    2) That stuff was great in Terraria! We'll be adding more 'dynamic' elements to our maps and map generation over time as well. The first step is getting in cycling worlds and making worlds feel different from each other. Once we get that in and build out more of the adventure/explore core I think it will help us understand the right type of events to put in our worlds.

    3) With regards to PvP it really comes back to the small team and focus more than anything. We might do some type of minor/gimmicky PvP in the future, but it's a long ways out still from that point. It's certainly something we could do but there are a lot of other features above it on the list.

    4) Personally I believe the no NDA approach is the way of the future for everyone except the really big players in the game space. It has been great to be able to show off and talk about what we actually have. It certainly can make it harder in some ways (we can't build hype through promises, we have to build hype through legitimate features) but at the end of the day that builds a stronger community and a better game and there's no substitute for that.

    5) No idea on number of classes at this point, they're something we plan on continuing to add through the life of the project as opposed to the 'average' MMO where what you launch with is largely what you stay with.

    6) As part of Trion we have great support when it comes to getting the word out about the game (the website, our community team, other games like Rift) and when building some of the more 'boring' but important pieces for an online game like this (billing, data tracking). Since we're also using the open no NDA approach we actually don't have a lot of negatives for development as compared to an indie team.

    7) More on world cycling and completing worlds coming very soon, keep an eye on reddit. It's something we're designing and developing now and I don't want to say something here when it very well might change tomorrow!

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    With servers only holding about 40 people you've said. How do you guys plan to address the issue of someone playing one night on server "A" and then tomorrow night it's filled up and that player misses the big finale of the server.

    I suppose that also begs the bigger question of how long are these worlds going to last? An hour a day a week?

    I for one would be a little upset if I spent a lot of time working towards a worlds goal only to be locked out when it's destroyed.

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  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by Fendel84M
    With servers only holding about 40 people you've said. How do you guys plan to address the issue of someone playing one night on server "A" and then tomorrow night it's filled up and that player misses the big finale of the server.

    I suppose that also begs the bigger question of how long are these worlds going to last? An hour a day a week?

    I for one would be a little upset if I spent a lot of time working towards a worlds goal only to be locked out when it's destroyed.

    These are incredibly valid concerns and are some of the questions we're asking ourselves right now.

    We're actually thinking about modifying somewhat how we were planning on doing world cycling to make it happen more often and on a schedule and make the 'boss beating' part of it a more separate individually rewarding component. That way you never have to worry about missing the big moment or that you can't log in to a world later.

    We'll be putting the first version of all of this in the game sometime in the next month which will let us start learning and iterating over it as a system.

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    I can't wait! Been in the alpha for a month now and loving it.

    You ever consider making some worlds that don't ever blow up? Sort of like a home world reserved for a guild perhaps or specific groups of friends? Maybe even larger persistent worlds strictly for cornerstones and no combat? You could call them civilization worlds or city worlds! :)

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  • KiwiHypeKiwiHype Member UncommonPosts: 233

    Really enjoying Trove Alpha: Leveling experience, the biomes towers and castles. I love building also - Looking forward to how you will be including guilds and dungeons. I am perhaps most curious for the direction Trove will take for content and encouraging community. Will there be leader boards/pvp/ interactive objectives that see guilds vs guilds or shard wide? OH and most important questions for the night I am sure ...will the Pink Flamingo of Pain become a Rainbow tier 7 Item and when will we see Dragonfly pet I am curious what stat it will bring heh? Cheers Avarem :)

    PS Slow questions because of time zone more than anything I thought it was 7pm Pacific. Great questions going on here!

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Since the questions are coming in slow - I'll ask a technical question I've been thinking about:

    In Trove - the client/server communication also includes voxel updates that are done to the world (as players build, chuck bombs, destroy etc...), normal MMORPGs have less data to exhchange between client and server (because the world geography doesn't change).

    Long story short - my friend Bob in game chucks a bomb or builds a house - I see the world changes in real time on my client because the server is sending back voxel updates to all clients.

    I have a hunch that Trion Trove team has been also keeping abreast of EQNLandmark development as it's a big popular Voxel MMO builder - anyway here's the question:

    Trove has a fixed cube size for the world blocks, but the client/server still have to constantly send voxel updates on the changes - which IMO is pretty significant overhead.

    If Trove had a variable voxels world size (which is what EQNLandmark has) - wouldn't that make the client/server traffic exponentially worse, - aka a TON more overhead.

    So how does EQNLandmark get away with variable cube size (I realize it's an entirely different engine) - but still since you can make minute changes on your client - the server HAS to send those changes to all other players, could Trove do this as well?

     

    Definitely feel free to keep 'em coming!

    MMOs and online games in general send a ton of data all the time. When it comes to destruction that's actually a relatively cheap message (location and what happened) and even placement isn't too bad. If you think about even the most basic combat you're constantly sending messages that while not overly complex do contain a lot of data (damage, status, etc.). With Landmark they make up their entire world of simple points of data, the same way we do, theirs are just smaller and contain different types of data than we care about. 

    The reason for our approach is actually gameplay and mechanical more than it is technical. We think that cubes are more accessible and powerful. My favorite analogy is Lego vs. clay. Clay is great if you're a skilled artist with enough time on your hands, and it can certainly make very cool looking stuff. For the average person though Legos are just more fun to play with and take less time to build something that still looks incredibly cool.

  • krondinkrondin Member UncommonPosts: 106

    I've been reading a lot about Trove and i find it very interesting. I was a master builder in Secondlife. I have played a lot of Rift and Defiance, as well as other big MMO's < like WoW and Swtor and STO >  But i never tried Minecraft even though it looked interesting.  I find i do have an interest in playing Trove, i am signed up for the testing. I have a question for you. 

     

    Is building, exploring, gathering resources, while continually developing your character endlessly , The entire game or is there more things to do that would be considered "End Game" that i have not read about yet or missed?  

     

    There doesn't have to have "End Game" , for me to play it,  i am just curious how this question would be answered because in the gaming industry today it is a concern of most gamers. 

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by Kiwidream

    Really enjoying Trove Alpha: Leveling experience, the biomes towers and castles. I love building also - Looking forward to how you will be including guilds and dungeons. I am perhaps most curious for the direction Trove will take for content and encouraging community. Will there be leader boards/pvp/ interactive objectives that see guilds vs guilds or shard wide? OH and most important questions for the night I am sure ...will the Pink Flamingo of Pain become a Rainbow tier 7 Item and when will we see Dragonfly pet I am curious what stat it will bring heh? Cheers Avarem :)

    PS Slow questions because of time zone more than anything I thought it was 7pm Pacific. Great questions going on here!

    Thanks Kiwi!

    Our community features are definitely 'world' focused, and that's what we're looking at as an analogy to guilds. Making community more important is one of the biggest things on my mind right now. Our first step was adding the town center, and it has a few physical features which contain hints as to what the next steps might be. :)

    Once we get the worlds feeling like they're a shared space and everyone is working together, we'll start adding ways for them to compete with each other and show off. In terms of PvP, while we aren't doing to do player vs. player conflict directly for a long time, making it so we have 'social PvP' (i.e., "I'm more uber than you are!") type features is definitely key for us.

    And the flamingo is already epic! Maybe we'll bump it up once we get some of these badass community contributions in.

  • AlfiexxAlfiexx Member Posts: 1
    Just played Hunger Games to day with a few friends on minecraft, will you add things like that into trove or allow people to MOD the game to add things like this is or anything else? :)
  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by krondin

    I've been reading a lot about Trove and i find it very interesting. I was a master builder in Secondlife. I have played a lot of Rift and Defiance, as well as other big MMO's < like WoW and Swtor and STO >  But i never tried Minecraft even though it looked interesting.  I find i do have an interest in playing Trove, i am signed up for the testing. I have a question for you. 

     

    Is building, exploring, gathering resources, while continually developing your character endlessly , The entire game or is there more things to do that would be considered "End Game" that i have not read about yet or missed?  

     

    There doesn't have to have "End Game" , for me to play it,  i am just curious how this question would be answered because in the gaming industry today it is a concern of most gamers. 

    Our end game is focused around competition between worlds and collection. As an individual our goal is to make it so there is always some way to improve yourself or your Cornerstone. Collectively we want you and your group of friends (or random people you met on the internet) to be able to compete and compare yourself with other groups. Our broad ideas for that are similar to ladder runs in games like Diablo and PoE or the daily Spelunky runs.

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Oh I just realized we unlocked Tier 8! Woot!

    Was it unlocked in time for holiday bonus (I looked on Reddit but didn't see the answer)

    http://www.trovegame.com/support-trove/

     

    Tier 8

    All Supporters get 50% more Supporter Credits at beta launch plus a Raptor Pet and Holiday Raptor Mount.

    Yep!

     

    http://www.reddit.com/r/Trove/comments/1ur8zn/tier_8_complete/

  • KiwiHypeKiwiHype Member UncommonPosts: 233
    Originally posted by Avarem
    Originally posted by DMKano

    Oh I just realized we unlocked Tier 8! Woot!

    Was it unlocked in time for holiday bonus (I looked on Reddit but didn't see the answer)

    http://www.trovegame.com/support-trove/

     

    Tier 8

    All Supporters get 50% more Supporter Credits at beta launch plus a Raptor Pet and Holiday Raptor Mount.

    Yep!

     

    http://www.reddit.com/r/Trove/comments/1ur8zn/tier_8_complete/

    YES! Rock on Trove supporters xox

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by Alfiexx
    Just played Hunger Games to day with a few friends on minecraft, will you add things like that into trove or allow people to MOD the game to add things like this is or anything else? :)

    Oh man, I love the hunger games mod!

    It's unlikely that Trove will have anything close to that, at least for a long time, as our core game is very different from that experience.

    Modding is an interesting question. Since we're an online, persistent, and hosted service it's not really something we'll have to the same extent that Minecraft does. The thing we do get from that is a much more polished and consistent experience, although obviously we do lose out on some of the creativity and unique experiences.

    That said, we aren't entirely without community contribution to the game. We have just opened up weapons for community submission and we'll be expanding the areas in which the community can contribute assets in the future. Visit http://www.reddit.com/r/Trove/comments/1uby5c/see_your_work_in_game_submit_user_created_art_for/ for more details!

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    So hard to think of questions when you have to...

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  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    Kiwidream!!! So good to see you here :) I'm Dreamo84 on twitter :p

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  • ibdablokeibdabloke Member UncommonPosts: 1

    Thanks for the AMA.

     

    In the future are there going to be transparent voxels? Also, will there be the ability to rotate items to be placed in your cornerstone?

     

     

  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by ibdabloke

    Thanks for the AMA.

     

    In the future are there going to be transparent voxels? Also, will there be the ability to rotate items to be placed in your cornerstone?

     

     

    There will be glass and water blocks with some transparency for sure.

    We're still evaluating how we do rotation. This last patch made the facing 'more correct' (i.e., towards you instead of away) so I'm hoping that resolves most of the issues. We're keeping an eye on it in case we need a more advanced solution.

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    So water will be cubes! The plot thickens.

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  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    I absolutely love water in games so I am excited to see water eventually. Will we ever see more liquids like lava?

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  • AvaremAvarem Creative Lead, TroveMember Posts: 18
    Originally posted by Fendel84M
    I absolutely love water in games so I am excited to see water eventually. Will we ever see more liquids like lava?

    It would be a waste to do all the work for only one type of liquid...

  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    Good point. :)

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This discussion has been closed.