Theryon Wars: Community Q&A: One Week

Ok, I've recently discovered there are several misconceptions about Theryon: Wars and many of you have the will and energy to speak your minds and help Entropia Universe and new planets like ours to grow healthy and, for you, enjoyable.
Well, thank you!

I believe we should share a common ground before having a well-aimed dialogue; some of you might even doubt if you want to participate beforehand. Fair enough.

So here, spontaneously (well, right from another thread), I propose you (Entropia Planets Community) the following:
Ask me questions about Theryon:Wars from now until December the 7th (by mid-day). You have one week and a simple set of rules...

1.- One post, one question. Choose the most important ones first.

2.- If the last posted question is yours, don't post another one. When someone else posts another question, you can post a new one. Let's give a chance to all mates 'round and you'll also see how many of them are interested.

3.- I'll answer in the same order the questions are made. If I can't share with you information needed to answer a question, I'll let you know. Be aware I shall not discuss the operations of other PPs or MindArk itself but I'll try my best to satisfy your curiosity.

4.- If there's something that can be answered by someone else in my team apart from myself, I'll find out and bring you that answer. To respect the ordering, I won't move to the next question until a given one is answered, so this might cause a delay (hopefully won't).

5.- Bona fide. Good faith. If a given question can be misinterpreted by a third party, it will. That also goes for answers. I hope no question will go unanswered, but it might happen. Let us all be nice, smart and exercise our good intentions... let's not overdo the trick, ok?

I hope it's simple and useful enough for a start.
Also, we'll se how fast I can answer

 

Beyond the planets you know (that means outside EU) there are other planets, colonies, empires, alliances... One major power has been conquering other planets as they've charted them for the last 270 years until they reached a certain pocket where six "minor powers" had settled. Generations of mistrust and recurring conficts had their fleets and armies on par with the otherwise huge forces of the big "empire"... once all six gathered under a single flag and fought back in a coordinated way. That was some 52 years ago; the "Union Spirit" is strong but there's still some tension under the surface. From the "imperial" perspective, these barbarian hordes of marauders, scavengers and wrongoers need to be civilized, for their own good, or swept from existence for the good of all others; there are even those who believe in a third way, dialogue, so there are also behind-the-scenes plots and conflicts on this side.

Having a stable battlefront, both sides keep exploring further depths of space for new planets and more resources. When two deep space explorers reached a specially juicy planet almost at the same time, they called in their mates and battle fleets gathered to fight for what you now know as "planet Theryon".

Then... The Blackout Incident took place.
An alien-looking faction stepped in and forced a truce to be signed by both parts. They set up an orbital base and a surface settlement to help maintaining "overall peace"...

Your characters were not there when all this happened and during the planet development the situation in Theryon will evolve (story-wise) to bring in non-military personnel from both sides to try and get the upper hand by non-military means (covertly, that also means low intensity conflicts, espionage, sabotage...). Also, recruiting locals is most of times easier and that would mean "current EU players". Players willing to remain neutral can access the non-warring settlements and open areas.

In the surrounding areas of space there's no truce, no smiley faces, no mercy... but both factions have enough muscle to maintain Green Zones (PvP-free) areas in orbit.

There's a valuable resource in this planet of which you have never heard of, and both opposing factions believe you'd better know no more about it. If you find it, you can trade it; if you want to know what it's for or how to use it yourself, you'd better go on quests, make good friends among the NPCs and push your avatar through the story. We haven't set a date to release this knowledge to you: it shall depend on you, players, finding out what these invading forces try you not to get to know.


Well, for a start, I hope it'll suffice.

 

Personally, I won't sell you a promise. We need to advance to the next stage of development and agree with MindArk on several matters before I can give you the right, serious and final details.

That shall include a dedicated contact person for this

 

We do want unlimited objects, in small healthy doses; about health and in-game economy, ratios and criteria must be met.

We will also have to take into account issues which may not be evident now, such as armor and weapons trading or smuggling. If players from other planets find themselves demanding such items from our planet, it's logical we'd want them to come over and have a look by themselves. This could roughly mean proportionally more L batches than unL batches if the item-demanding playerbase is mostly off-planet and the adjustment is to be made.

I hope this makes sense for you.

 

I think this "world economic trouble" is perceived quite differently depending on which countries we are; the US tells Europe to do something, Europe replies US rating agencies are doing wrong, then the US says, then Europe says... then China, Japan, Australia, Canada...

I passed this question to our CEO with a smirk; it's not the typical kind of question one would expect from the average player of any other game (hey, that's a compliment!).

Rafael told me I could quote him: "Ask Razer if he thinks MindArk would have us as Planet Partners if both technically and economically we wouldn't be up to the task of creating Theryon Wars". I've just translated from Spanish into English, there you go.

Fortunately for us, I think, RCE doesn't equal "Real World Economy", if you get me

Apart from this, we have other projects in the oven and ours is a global market

 

We're currently designing everything without import/export restrictions.

 

Nope, not really.
Bizarrick, let's cool down and stay on topic or we could end up like Mr. Eusebio here.
Let's not miss this chance

 

I think you just left out gameplay, community relations and additional games. Right?

About gameplay, mostly depending on the platform, a fresh idea we've been developing since before our first contact with MindArk is a blend of PvP and PvE. We're far from release date, so I'll provide additional details in small chunks later on; this way you can tell us what you think about these features and we can take notes for improving them upon your comments. This links to the second part, community relations... Although I'm not a community manager or a PR guy, here I am. All and any of you can reach me, PMs, open forums... I sweat, I can get my hands dirty with code, 3D and textures; I hope that you'll appreciate comments made by someone like me more than generic emails. And this is just for a start.

Also, in the interview you might have seen our Theryon IP is to be developed in different games and genres. The first related game is a small arcade one, full 3D and fun. There are other, more hardcore-oriented games up our sleeves, for which we might use the Cry Engine or not. A third person shooter and a space sim have already been defined and set on hold until we reach "full ahead" speed with our EU planet.

Was this... different enough?

 

No screenies for the moment, but you already have the first Eye Candy Series in this very forum, some other images on their way here and, later on, the second Eye Candy Series. Then you'll have some screenies.

Hey, I told you I'd answer, never said you'd like the answers themselves, right?

 

Hi Misao! (^_^)
Great question here. See, we're not taking destructible environments for granted, we're not relying on them and I do agree nice things can be done using them. I usually say (several times a week in fact): "If it isn't bronken, don't fix it!". Now, with this question on the table, what happens with broken environments? Who fixes them, if anyone does? And also, where's the limit for destruction? Tricky questions and possible issues for MMOs show up, both technically and gameplay-wise. Hence, we're leaving "Red Faction-like" destruction as a road to explore in other Theryon games and after launch date in theryon: Wars (you know, our EU planet). Other kinds of destruction are being considered, most of them related to sovereignty.