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Interview:06 January 2001, Patric Sundstroem, MindArk
Interview:Patric Sundstroem, MindArk, 06 January 2001
An interview with Patric Sundström, Marketing Manager over at MindArk, the developers of Project Entropia. 1-6-01
1. Project Entropia will cost no money to buy the game, or have any monthly subscription fees...so how does Mindark plan to make money off of this game?
- This is where Project Entropia sets itself apart from all the other games that are available today or that are under production, and also what makes it quite unique. If you look at the games that are available today such as EverQuest, Asherons Call, Ultima Online etc. players buy and sell things or their characters at auction sites like E-bay. So that this won't happen here we are letting the players take care of it themselves inside the game.
- As a player you can choose to exchange real money for game creds so that you can buy things in the game. Maybe it's a good weapon you want to buy, your own house, or clothes perhaps. Of course if you would like to sell your house or something else you own it works just the same, you receive game creds for the item you've sold. These game creds can then be exchanged for real money in the real world.
- We will make money by taking out a transaction fee, the same way that Visa, American Express or Ebay do by processing a purchase. How large this will be will be decided at a later date. It definitely won't be any question of scandalous prices. This is just one way for us to make money from Project Entropia, we will also support real life business to take place in the game.
- What we are counting on and view as totally realistic is that certain players will begin playing Project Entropia to support themselves in the real world. It wouldn't surprise us if we have the first real-money dollar millionaire within a year of the release of Project Entropia.
2. In the December issue of PCGamer, the reviewer writes that P.E. will incorporate real world economy into the game...meaning that weapons and characters will have a real dollar value attached to them. How exactly will this take effect?
- Lets say that you want to get out and hunt really big monsters and robots. That little knife that you have, well, it's just not going to be enough. What you want is a good, big weapon so that you have a chance against those really difficult monsters. You can either work hard for a long time and save up the creds that you need or, if you want to get started directly, you can exchange x amount of real money for game creds so that you can go to the gun store and buy your dream weapon. Now you have it in your hand and you can go out and hunt what you want. After a couple of months you might feel like quitting hunting and want to get rid of your weapon. You can go back to the weapon store and sell it back or you can sell it to another player for the price they are willing to pay for it. This player sends the agreed sum to your game account at the same time you give him the weapon.
- After that you can choose to buy other things or exchange your game creds for real money that is put into your bank account or sent to you as a check.
3. What dollar range do you see the average player dealing with when playing this game?
- That's a really difficult question. Certain players may choose not to spend any real money in the game at all while others may want to have the best and biggest there is to buy. Just like real life.
- However, if we can get every player to spend an average of 1US$ a day it would be good. It should be pointed out however that the money is not all just coming to us, as the largest part goes right back to the players themselves. Certain individuals will earn a little more while others will loose a little.
- We want to build a system that is as fair as possible to all parties.
4. How will Mindark protect the player from hacking of his dollars?
- We are aware of the problems with hacking and have built a really secure system so that your money will be as safe with us than in a regular banking system. And YES, we will use several firewalls to keep out hackers, we also have a lot of other solutions to this problem.
- An important feature in our system is that every single object, including money, will have it's own unique ID number. This has two functions. It prevents duplication of objects which reduces the risk for inflation and secondly it allows us to trace every individual object through the game, from when it is created to when it us used. Should someone lose something in the game we can easily go into our databases, find the object and see what has happened to it and which route it took.
- To be able to remove any sort of money from the game you will have to have some form of bank account or address as well as a name and personal details. If someone should try to cheat the system and gain money we will be able to see directly in our databases that it was that did what and when.
5. How does Mindark plan on involving the characters in the story? Will they use "GM" characters that will seek out players and send them on quests? Or some other model?
- Yes to both questions. MindArk plans to employ one hundred and twenty people to begin with during spring that will solely be inside the game as GM characters to help other players with problems that might come up, or just to offer help.
- Some of these people will even work full time with the different quests, this will give us a more living quest system than those available today which are usually very statically constructed.
- There will even be the possibility for 'societies' to create their own quests. An example: you want to join a society and to qualify for membership you must complete a certain quest to prove yourself a worthwhile member. In this case the society could create a simple quest that you must complete.
- It is of great importance to us that Project Entropia is a living game and not just a game composed of a heap of static data held together by a server. We will really encourage people to help each other, and to be active in Project Entropia.
6. In the ZOCKS interview, you state that skills in P.E. will be similar to UO and EQ, only that you cannot "max" out. How will skills be developed? Via experience points accrued from slaying monsters and going on quests, or by "using" the skill?
- It will be a little of everything when it comes to the construction of your character. If you kill a monster you will more than likely use some weapon. When you use the weapon you skills in this area will also increase, to solve a quest you use different skills and so these would be increased. With the fact that there will be many different skills for different areas you will have to be able to do different things if you want to have a character that is as strong in many areas.
- If you're just interested in zapping monsters and robots though you can just hang out in the wilderness and zap away as long as you like. This however is not going to make you very strong which means you might find it hard to carry things around.
7. How will PvP be handled in your game? Will it be allowed? What safeguards will be put in place to protect the new player? Especially from the older characters who continue to grow more and more powerful (as they cannot be maxed out).
- Yes, PvP will of course be allowed, but not in the cities. Cities are protected by being so called 'safe zones', where neither robots, monsters or anything else can get at you. There will though be at least one arena in New Haven where you can practice your combat skills.
- People who like PvP are often those who can do it well as well as it being an easy way to steal other people's possessions. In Project Entropia we will have an insurance system. You will have the choice of several different policies, from the simplest policy to cover a single item to complete coverage. If you should be killed by another player or monster you will be able to keep those items that you have insured. If another player should kill you he will automatically loose his insurance for x amount of hours, meaning that if he himself should be killed anybody could just walk up and take his stuff. This applies to objects only and not money. You can never loose your money as it is always in your own bank account.
8. Other than losing materials and being "cloned", does death in P.E. carry any other disadvantages? Such as skill loss?
- If you don't have any insurance to cover the things you have on you, other players will be able to take things from your body. With insurance you won't loose anything except the time that it takes you to get resurrected, which can be long enough if you're out in the wilderness and have to get back to a city to find help.
9. Your "Mindforce" magic system is a bit vague. Can you give me an example of the type of "spells" players will have access to?
- In Project Entropia we use something called Mindforce instead of the usual type of magic you find in most fantasy games and the likes.
- MindForce is mans extended use of his mental capacities. As well as this you can amplify certain features by getting implants that increase your MindForce in specific areas.
- MindForce can be seen as an extra power that can be used in combat, both offensively and defensively. It can be applied in other areas as well, an example of which would be taking control over some animal to make it do what you want, or maybe sensing if there are other living things around you - like an extra sense. These MindForces are something that must be trained however, it's not just something that you get for free.
10. Will player housing be allowed in P.E.?
- Yes, players will have the possibility to build and own houses. We will even have a system where players can buy new land areas that don't even exist yet, a type of floating platform that can be placed out at sea that you can then build a house upon. If enough platforms were bought and placed together a new continent would be created.
- These continents could then be used to build up new communities, towns and cities etc.
11. How is the player community going to be built in P.E.? Will players simply be on their own to form attachments, or will some type of "guild" or "faction" system be in place?
- We will have a functional system for players to create their own guilds, we have decided to call them societies though.
- An example. If some players decided to create their own society they could together decide to build some houses. By doing this they have created a little village. The more people that join this society the bigger it will become, building more and more houses. All the trappings of a little community would follow such as shops and stores. If this society should become big enough in regards to the number of inhabitants and buildings they can apply for city rights and all that this involves, for example becoming a safe zone, getting a hospital, more shops etc.
- We really want to encourage players to take an active role in the creation of the game, to become involved in the creation of a new civilization. We intend to create proper connections for this through the internet. That which is called Communities at the Project Entropia web site is just the beginning of an integration of Project Entropia and the normal web.
- I must point out however that it won't ever be possible to play Project Entropia through a normal web browser or so, but you will be able to go into the societies pages and get statistics, see who's online, communicate with them through the web etc. There are endless possibilities here and we intend to use all of those that are possible with today's technology.
12. How will your interface be handled? On the screenshots I have seen thus far, there isn't any interface displayed on screen at all.
- No, that's correct. We have consciously decided not to show how the interface will look as we are still testing it, and intend to really put it through its paces when we begin our first internal beta tests in the middle of January.
- We will show some screen shots when we are nearer the first official beta tests, so until then you'll just have to be patient.