Interview with Arkadia CEO David Dobson by Zume on AHR - The Written Summary

On 25th November Zume interviewed Planet Arkadia CEO David Dobson on Atlas Haven Radio for more than 2 hours.

In another massive effort Zume created a written summary of the interview. Below you can find a little bit restructered version of it.

Thanks to David Dobson for the answers, Zume for the great effort and David Westmoreland -owner of Atlas Haven Radio- for granting the permission to share this on EntropiaPlanets.

If you prefer to listen to the whole interview you can do that there:




The Written Summary


Clothing

Clothing blueprints – expecting them in the January update. Boots, sunglasses, pants, tops and maybe more by January. Clothing will be unlimited.


New Missions

Missions on Tuesday – 12 IFN missions + existing Oro mission. Rewards will be big especially for final stages. Will be a mix of skills, attributes and items. Trophy Heads to show off – put on the wall. Blueprints as rewards too. January update will have a lot of “new player” missions.
Oro rewards has been changed – added something extra. Those who has already completed this mission will be given this something automatically.
Oratan more involved on a story level. Mission later will include killing Oratan anyways. Not going to double up on missions for those with IFN mission.

Lootable mission items will come. Maybe as some form of key to enter an instance.

Up to January 90% of resources going into mission and storyline development. Especially for new players.


Treasure Hunting

Date in his mind is June 2012. Overall theme for the planet. Finding RL treasure (Alienware items) in loot. Backstory part of it.
The mining part – premium choice. Materials/stackables AND Items – using “SOOTO” to find Ancient Arkadian items like Swords and Armors. Miners will enjoy this part of treasure hunting. Will be possible to loot high MU items from mining. 200-400 new blueprints going in using those materials.


Alienware Pied Piper Event

Alienware mice in mining – none looted yet. Not enough miners. Mining got the best odds of getting a mouse atm. Already talking to AW about more products to come in, so eager to get these mice looted. – GO MINING! Any mining finder can find a mouse. Mice have 0 impact on loot. It’s an added bonus. – Silent HOF.


Arkadia Underground

AFTER treasure hunting. Late next year. Need bigger player base. Wasn’t supposed to be in at release. Area under 8 coins. Heavily focused towards TH and mining. Will be able to drive/fly around in there.

Caraboks are hunted a lot – 2 mice dropped from them. – we need more Carabok spawns – maybe January. Maybe increase of Quarry on Tuesday. Can’t slip something in before Tuesday. Maybe when IFN comes, demand for Carabok spawns will fall.


Improvements to environment

More caves will come, and they will be used in future missions. Ongoing development at 8 coins. New player mission will have a long explore mission later.

Quarry overhaul Tuesday. Area flattened. Landing pad and command post gone. Outside terminals and shop booths. More going in in January. Constantly improving the Quarry. Outside Terminals a request from players.

Focus not on earning money now – focus on making Ark the premium place to be –Want to make EU world class.


Loot and Blueprints

Drop rates on blueprints and generic loot – 2 separate issues since launch.
Muscle oil will drop from more mobs on Tuesday. Can be taken to read other generic loots will come too – not sure though. He wants feedback on forum after update about what drops what.
Blueprints: Arkadian and Shared BP – random probability 50/50. Lots of shared blueprints will make Ark ones not drop as often as the system will have more shared to pick from. Don’t want to use shared mobs.
MA agreed to make new code that will give local blueprints higher probability to drop. Will affect all planets. Maybe a 70/30 chance for Ark BP’s over Shared ones. Around a total of 800 Ark blueprints available now.


New Weapons

Long range guns: Laser and BLP around range 110-120 – still finalizing stats and availability. Maybe January. Part of Ark and Law series. Matching the Ark-10,20 and so on. Will have a new name like the Deserts/Arctic/Jungle.
Swords: this Tuesday – 40 new swords going in. all looted.
Clubs and Power fists not in development as of now. Likely coming along with Treasure Hunting.

Unlimited Weapon Amps/smuggler versions? Tied to player growth – maybe march.

New weapon will come that people will find interesting. Will be put in alongside Combat FAPs. Very close.


New Healing Tools

New series of FAPs very soon. Waiting for them to go in. Cross fingers for Tuesday.


Vehicles

Arkadia’s first vehicle: single seater, hover pod, run on oil, working on new player version. Aim is to put in a number of versions. Aiming to have them in in the January update, but fine tuning is missing. Picture in the newsletter.
Attachments for vehicles. The pod is compact. Has attachment points on it. Attachments used for bling. Customizing the look – not what it does. A little like a spoiler on a car IRL.

Hopefully they will make motorbikes, but they require development on the way players sit/act when on a motorbike. Hover pods will act as a futuristic version of motorbikes. Maybe even a hoverboard (requested by Cyrus).

No plans for Arkadian space vehicles. Space controlled by MA not Arkadia.


Beginners gear

Rookie mining gear will come in January. It will be a full set of rookie items. FAP, Vehicle, Finder, Gun. Part of the new player experience.


Estates, Land Areas, etc

Looking for more in game investment options than just land areas and estates. Something between LA’s and Estates in price. 1000-5000 USD range. Nothing worked on atm. Probably not until 2013.

DNA parts in the future. Just not near future. Model of the DNA sample is done. Need private land areas first. New mobs LA only like e.g. Treasure Island and their Furors and mobs like that.


PVP

PVP-areas not coming right now. Not high on the agenda. Want to do more than just deeming an area PVP.


Events

Event system someday. No set date yet. Want feedback on forum on what type of event area we want.

Sea based fort events for playing with boats. MAYBE 2nd half of next year. Already discussed a water based area like that.


Mindforce

Generic mind force chips is coming in on Tuesday.

No current plans for Arkadian specific mind force. May be looked at next year. Wants to create MF chips useful for team environments and instances.


Creatures

The new creature coming this update will be good for midlevel players and teams. Scoria. Will be at 8 Coins. Northern Parts of 8 Coins, with Teladons at the south.



Mixed spawns will come. It’s a matter of mixing mobs with similar stats/level. Don’t want to put Yuka and Osteloks together. Has to make sense.


Storyline

Players helping Arch Soc uncovering the truth about the ancient Arkadians. Related to treasure hunting. Ancient Ruins will be rebuilt with help from players. Not sure if by events or missions yet. Due mid next year for the start of it. 3 main ruin sites. Will end up being fully functioning cities. Dig sites will be transformed by the help of the players into whatever it used to be.

Robots will come, but no ETA. The mob that might be in development might be a robot.


Gifts

Decided against Halloween gifts because Singapore doesn’t really know about that. Maybe Chinese new year’s gifts. Looking at gifts, but needs to make sense for Arkadia Studios (Asia).


More stuff

Anymore thoughts towards alternative use for sweat? Nothing at this stage. Will follow the work on the new player experience.

Paints and things like that to make e.g. Camo Textures? On the list, but not being developed as of yet. After Treasure Hunting.

Real life merchandise will come when player base is big enough. Else cost and pricing will be too high. Not looking at it for profit. Looking at players buying at close to cost price + shipping.

Weapon sounds being fixed soon. Found issue this week. Aiming for January.

David believes in separate Auction history/Markup for each planet. He is punking MA.

Read the background story!!



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