Hero's Journey: Q&A #4 & Screens #14

Dana

Today we carry two new exclusive screenshots and our fourth Q&A with Hero's Journey. As she does every other week, Melissa Meyer answers a mix of fan and editor questions.

MMORPG.com: In any game that relies heavily on instanced missions, keeping up with the demand is often an issue. How many GMs do you have producing content at this time and how many missions do you think you’ll have at launch? Melissa Meyer: Actually, even a game without instances missions has the same issue: quantity of content! Whether it’s quests, hunting areas, creatures to hunt, or whatever. The thing that makes Hero’s Journey different is that we use a large team of GameMasters and give them the tools to constantly enhance and expand the content of the game. We are currently working with a core team of 30 GMs. In the next few weeks we’ll be expanding the team to about 50. Then over the next year we’ll be hiring at a rapid rate to well over 100 development GameMasters. We are hiring; so if you have level design experience or programming experience and you would like to get your foot in the door of the gaming industry, send in an application. Applications are available at: http://www.play.net/hj/info/apply/home.asp. Our unique and innovated GameMaster system, as well as our ability to update game content dynamically will enable us to update the game on a daily basis with new content and additional Quests. Hero’s Journey development does not stop when the game goes live. It’s only the beginning!

You can read the full Q&A here.

Agent_X7

The more I read about this game, the more I can't wait to dive in and explore it.

Also, on a related note, I was watching the G4 show, Icons, this weekend. The featured game was Everquest. John Smedley (sp?) was rambling on and on about how Everquest came to be, and he just happened to mention how his team was influenced by a Simutronics game. Of course, that immediately brought to mind Hero's Journey, and my opinion that HJ is shaping up to look and play better than Everquest or Everquest 2. Ah, I love the smell of irony in the morning. (Er...late afternoon, rather...)

 

 

Jenuviel

---

Originally posted by Agent_X7
The more I read about this game, the more I can't wait to dive in and explore it.

---

My thoughts exactly. It really sounds like they're heading down precisely the road I'd like to travel. There are still more questions than answers at this point (getting one's hopes up prior to release has a habit of ending badly), but every feature I've heard discussed so far in the various Q&A sessions/interviews is something I'd very much like to play with. There's almost always one or more features in any upcoming game that greatly reduces my interest in it, but that's simply not the case with Hero's Journey so far. I'm very optimistic about this title, and I hope that optimism is well-placed this time.

Tatsit

 

I plan on moving my guild here and calling HJ home!

Character creation and the look and avitars is highly important to me - and feel finially a game co that agrees!   L2 had good avitars - but the game bites!  I have been following this game for a little bit now and excited for something fresh and new.

Thank you Melissa!

Tatsit

-Silly Rabbit WoW is for kids!

 

Billius8

Instancing is bad.  It hurts immersion in a big way for a minor payoff in reducing contested camps and spawns.

jimmyman99

---

Originally posted by Billius8
Instancing is bad. It hurts immersion in a big way for a minor payoff in reducing contested camps and spawns.

---

Id rather have instances then overcamped Boss mobs or quest mobs... a named griffin in Velious comes to my mind, people used to camp him for DAYS in reallife, just go get their mob stolen by a passing by asshole. No, definitely not a good idea to keep everything in public.

Tatsit

---

Originally posted by Billius8
Instancing is bad.  It hurts immersion in a big way for a minor payoff in reducing contested camps and spawns.

---

Ok, I see you have not done your home work yet.  I think HJ chose a bad word for there quest missions -  some other mmo's has left a bad taste in the mouth when it comes to instances...

There "instances" are designed to bring you smack dab in the middle of the story - to completely immerse you into the situation of the mission.   its not like other mmo's

Instances in HJ however are completely different - an instance is just there termonology used - but an instance in HJ opens up so much more interaction with the enviroment that you could not do in a public -- its not about killing mob after mob, after mob, after mob kill the boss and get your reward -- there missions is more well read about it on the questions and answers -- instances in HJ =

I think Simu regrets ever using the word "instances"  dont think of it as such - think of it as an enviromental interactive quest - you cant otherwise do in public zone.