Introducing FPC’s Lead Writer: A man with a Mission. Who are you? My name is Krister and I’m the writer at First Planet Company. Can you describe a bit of what you do? I write stuff. I write story lines, missions, system specs and other things, as well as implementing missions into the game. I have a few associates that help me with implementation, writing et cetera, so I’m not all alone. And that’s good, because there’s a lot to do. These five missions of the preview, are those representative for future missions? Yes and no. We wrote these missions quite early, before the system was fully realized. We figured that if we can do these missions, we have the basic features of a mission system. As you have seen, we can do that. Of course, there’s room for improvement, but under the hood is a very powerful and flexible system. I think we can go far beyond the basic features. So why did you make them? Why did you stop there? We made these missions for three reasons. First, we wanted to learn the system. It’s smoking hot from MindArk’s development, and we have to learn what we can do and how we can do it. Second, we wanted to give you a preview, so that we could get feedback, especially about what you want. And third, we needed an introduction to Planet Calypso for new players. This should give the new players some direction as they start playing, something we seriously lacked before. This is by no means the final installment of the introduction and it can and will be improved a lot, but even as it is now, it is a lot better than the previous “you were killed by robots and reconstructed; now go and gather sweat”. What can you do with the mission system? I don’t know. Seriously, I haven’t found the limits yet. There seems to be no end to what you can do with the system. We’re aware of some limits, but they’re mostly visual stuff and we’re working with MindArk to have those issues fixed. When it comes to story flow, there are practically no limits. I sometimes joke about being able to make a dating sim using the mission system. Will you? No. But it’s definitely possible to have a contact’s mood change depending on your replies and your actions, and the story will definitely depend on what happens. Successfully completing a mission may open doors, failing will take the story on other roads. So there’s no need for any deus ex machina endings, no need for someone to say “pity you failed, but don’t worry, we fixed it anyway”. We can have them if you want, though, but the system is inherently non-linear and branching. Will missions cost anything to initiate? It isn’t implemented at the moment. It’s not impossible that we will add that in the future, but it’s not on the horizon either. What kind of rewards can be expected? We are still looking at the reward model. It’s a challenge due to the real economy, since that prohibits us from giving stuff away. We are looking at some possible solutions, including using Sweat, Dung, Stones, Fruit, Fragments and the occasional Ability increase as rewards; a token system; and achievements. We haven’t decided which one we will use yet, and we may find something else. Will you have to complete missions in order to progress in the game? Actually, most of the players have progressed absolutely fine until now without a mission system. Many haven’t participated in events either, and that hasn’t stopped their progression. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The mission system is one way of progression that opens up the possibility of linking your personal story to the story of the world. We will use the mission system as one tool of many to tell and evolve the story of Planet Calypso. However, it will not be the only way, and it will always be completely voluntary. If you don’t want to go on missions, you don’t have to. Will some missions have level or item requirements? We can limit missions so you have to have a certain level in a skill or a certain item. In fact, in the first iteration of the Swamp Camp hunt mission, you had to have a Sollomate Opalo to get that mission. It was a bad idea for that mission, so we scrapped it. However, we will use requirements in one form or another. For instance, there may be a mission to enter a secret bunker, but in order to do that you will need a key card. Without the key card, you wouldn’t be able to enter the bunker at all, and there may be another mission to get the key card. And we may have mission brokers that say “no, you don’t know how to shoot straight enough, come back to me when you’ve learned to handle a rifle”. And we may do it in reverse; “a super soldier like you doing a milk run? You have better things to do, so buzz off.” In that way we can limit certain missions to certain skill or profession levels, so that new comers won’t have to compete with the uber players. What about team support and team missions? Right now, there is no team support. We know what we would need to add to the system in order to have full team support. For instance, we need the team leader to see the team members’ missions and missions have to be scalable, just to mention a few things we are looking at. But that’s for the future. We have some other things to do first. Is it possible to allow players to create missions? Not as it is now. The system is far too powerful and needs access to some of our other tools. Perhaps someday in the distant future there may be a simplified version, but that’s far off. What can we expect in the near future? For starters, a lot more missions. We are working on a lot of new missions, and FPC’s next content release will contain a lot more of them. You will also see a lot of improvements to the user experience. Missions will look and work better. You will get much better indications in GUIs and HUD of mission objectives, contacts etc. And what can we expect in the long-term future? Two words: epic stories. The mission system will be one of our primary tools for telling the story of the colony on Calypso. So although we will have “perpetual missions” that can be grinded, we will also have missions that drive the story forward. Those may disappear as the story moves on – on purpose, I might add. This is a virtual universe, after all. Just as in the real world, you may find that if you weren’t there, you missed it. Do you have any influences? There’s a saying attributed to Pablo Picasso: “amateurs borrow; artists steal”. It’s supposed to mean that when a good artist is influenced by something, he makes it his own. Whatever it was before, it is now firmly embedded in the artist’s work and different from what it was before. Sure, you may trace his influences, but the work of art has left its origin and become something new. The amateur, however, is influenced in such a way that you can still see that this is an imitation of the original work. It’s not his. It’s someone else’s and there’s nothing new in it. In that sense, I strive for stealing. I will always be influenced, especially considering how much media I consume, but I always strive to make it my own, to make it new. It’s a tricky challenge. If I am to name the one person that has had the biggest influence on me and my writing, it has to be Joseph Campbell, because he shows how stories are told and why we tell them that way. As for thematic influences… oh, I could just go on namedropping forever, so I won’t. Aw, come on! Okay, here’s one: Tunnel in the Sky, by Robert Heinlein. And I’ll give you one for free: Santiago: A Myth from the Far Future, by Mike Resnick. One final question: right now, what do you want? Zero-calorie chocolate, a region-free bluray/DVD-player and two weeks off. More...
