New QotW - September 11, 2008

Here is the new one, enjoy!

 

From the desk of Lee Hammock:

Woo boy, we’ve got a lot going on lately. Last week a good chunk of the office was in LA for the Virtual Worlds show, and next week another good chunk is going out to Austin GDC. For those who are curious and wish to avenge the Landshark or his son, Captain Pouches will likely be accompanying us to Austin. He seems to think that Texas may be a good place to extend his domain. Due to the Austin trip the Question of the Week will likely be on hiatus next week.

We’ve had some folks asking about how the Alpha is going and, while I can’t go into many specifics, the Alpha test process is going well. We’ve got lots of good bugs turned in and everything is regularly improving. We’ve found some really impressive bugs, like the field of several thousand prairie chickens or the escort NPC that had spawned over two thousand times in the same place. I log in pretty regularly to give the testers someone to beat up on in the PvP zones and so far have spent most of that time getting owned in the face. Almost all the feedback has been of the “tweak this and rework that” instead of “burn it down and start over” so that’s good news. So far the crafting and exploration aspects of the game seem to be the most popular. We’ve got characters that have gone pretty far beyond the level range for the currently available content and are playing just to do crafting and to try and see everything.

This week is more polish and clean-up. We’re working on major storyline missions and Gaia, the major Vista settlement in Kaibab Forest. We’re also working on sound for the mutations, special abilities, and creatures, UI polishes, armor and clothes models, and vehicles.

1. Will we be required to eat/drink in the game? i.e. If I don’t drink in the desert will I die of thirst?

I realize this has been answered previously, but we hadn’t said anything on it for awhile so I wanted folks to know nothing had changed. You do not have to eat, but your Health and Stamina recovery without a food or drink buff is pretty rough.

2. Will I be able to swim on top of the water, and/or dive under the surface of the water? If yes, can I use a weapon while swimming? Melee or Ranged or both?

No swimming in the initial content, though there are so few large bodies of water you won’t notice much. It is the desert after all, and it's awfully hard to reach the Colorado River from the top of the canyon.

3. Will I be able to deploy land mines or proximity mines?

In a limited fashion. We don’t want people randomly leaving landmines around that the system has to keep track of until they’re used because that’s a huge amount of information and distance checks to do. Players can develop abilities or items that function like land mines, but they all have a maximum duration on them.

4. Will we be able to upgrade our vehicles over time? For example, can we buy a basic Dune Buggy early on and then slowly upgrade it to a full-blown Skirmish Buggy later on, or will we have to get a brand new one when we can afford it?

When crafting a vehicle, it’s the components that are the rough part in terms of time and resources; putting the components together is pretty easy. What folks will be doing a lot of the time when they want a new vehicle is pulling parts off their old one, adding in new parts, and building a new vehicle. For example, if you wanted to upgrade from a Dune Buggy to a Skirmish Buggy, you may have to find a new engine, control system, and some machine guns, but you could pull other parts off the Dune Buggy and use them in building the Skirmish Buggy. Basically each vehicle can be salvaged for parts you can use in the next level up.

5. What did this company (Brenhauer Investments) specialize in??

Shockingly, investments. Particularly high tech companies.

6. Will we be able to fight into their headquarters?? Brenhauer Investments opens its majestic new headquarters on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

Not in the launch content, but it’s definitely part of our future plans.

7. Is there still water here --->GlobalTech moves its headquarters to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area-- if not where do people get non irradiated water from??

Maybe there is…maybe there isn’t.

And for the second part, wells. Or rain. And just cause it’s irradiated doesn’t mean they won’t drink it. It is the apocalypse, after all.

8. Are GlobalTech and Brenhauer Investments the same company? Each has a different headquarters even though one acquired the other?

They were deeply involved with each other.

9. Why was the Grand Canyon for sale??

Because everything is for sale if you know the right price…or you’re a bankrupt federal government with lots of resource-rich parkland to sell.

10. How did people in Las Vegas survive? It is a City of Sin -- it should have been nuked first. (It is also a major city.)

Good question.

11. What did you do to this guy? ---->Alec Masters attacks the Monastery, home of the Lightbearers, capturing their leader Shakti and scattering the order.

Alec Masters = dead

Shakti = dead