But enough of the loving, it time for the game details! Right now there are four different races (each with male and female genders) and three different classes. Each class has three skill trees, and more character builds than you can shake a stick at. The skills you choose tie very closely in with the stats you put points into (Strength, Dexterity, Vitality and Wisdom), resulting in many different builds that are fun and useful throughout the game. There are more skills in each tree than there were in Diablo II, and the only skill requiring prerequisites are essentially power-ups for that base skill. To explain it in a simplified manner, imagine starting with a fireball, and as you level you gain access to post-requisite skills that power up that fireball into something that explodes on contact and catches things on fire while simultaneously lowering that enemy resistance to fire with the attack. The end result is you can put points into your favorite skill starting from Level 1 and watch as it grows more powerful as you level up.
The crafting trees are as easy to use and understand as the skill trees
One of the more interesting ways to customize your character is via achievements. Mythos takes them to an all new level, with each unlocked achievement being equipable (with one open slot unlocked every 10 levels), and they can range from doing +10% damage for killing 10,000 monsters, to extra strength and dexterity points for killing a boss, to even gaining movement speed for picking up a large number of shoes. Some achievements have successive levels, with bonuses that stack, and others are secret and fun, and can even involve kicking a certain boss to death.
Whenever you level up you get three things: 5 stat points, 2 skill points, and 2 crafting points. Crafting in this game involves specializing in one of three crafting trees (Terran, Ethereal and Sylvan), and collecting ingredients from around the world and from monsters to make what you want. You also need to get recipes, which are dropped from monsters and sold by vendors. Each crafted item you attempt to make has a sliding scale that raises stats but also raises your chance of failure. Additionally, there are special things called Heraldry Sockets in each crafted item, which have a level assigned to them based on your skill and success at making the item. One thing you can specialize in is Heraldries, which are a kind of temporary gem with various enchantments you put into the items you make. If you have two characters working towards one specialized and riskily crafted item, you can make some extremely high-damage weapons and high-defense armor. As an added bonus, you can pick up all the junky items you would otherwise ignore and break them down for more crafting materials. The end result is a useful and somewhat fun element to the game that isn found in other dungeon crawlers.
Speaking of dungeon crawling, there are various ways to go about it in this game. The simplest way is to wander around, either on your own or while doing quests, descending into various randomized dungeons and slaying all that lay within. Another way is to find or buy runestones, and then searching for the matching color runegate to travel to places never before seen. These runestones (as well as all dungeons) come in two flavors: regular and epic. Epic maps have monsters in such quantity that wandering in alone becomes hazardous for all but the most experiences players. But don worry about having people steal your loot when attempting these epic maps, because in Mythos the only loot you can see is your loot. You have absolutely no idea what anyone else is getting, and the same amount of items drops no matter how you play the game.
Zone 2 will be returning in Overworld form soon. It features deserts and dry wastelands.
So what if you find something good that could work for one of your other characters? Well, all you have to do is go to one of the major towns and send it via in-game mail to another character. This gives you the stash space needed for each character along with ease of transfer, eliminating the need for shared stashes or guild members or friends to help you trade your stuff around. Then what happens if you find something really good and want to trade it? Well, there are various chat channels, including a trade channel, and channels based on area for you to search for people who might have something you want. The best part about Mythos trading is that unlike Diablo II, the copper, silver and gold you trade are actually valuable. The last factor into the economy will be the introduction of ingots, the currency bought through the game future in-game store that will give you access to many useful and fun (but not unfairly overpowered) items, pets, in-game housing, and other features that are planned around the full-game release.
Those are all the details I am going to go into for this interview. If there is enough demand, I will write a LONG and DETAILED sequel interview in the future, but for now I will leave you with an exclusive batch of new interview questions from some of the people working on Mythos.
Those are all the details I am going to go into for this interview. If there is enough demand, I will write a LONG and DETAILED sequel interview in the future, but for now I will leave you with an exclusive batch of new interview questions from some of the people working on Mythos.
*There are some minor Japan to America related issues in this interview. Thank you for bearing with us while we get them fixed.
Question 1: Just as a quick introduction for our audience, could you start by telling us who you are, what games you have worked on before this, and what your job is in regards to Mythos?
John Dunbar: John Dunbar, no one is sure what my actual title is so I settled on Zombie Pyrotechnician. A large part of my job is making zombies explode properly, so it seems like a good fit. I work on general design, make quests, decorate the world, and create particle effects. I also spend a lot of time arguing about how things feel.
Jason Beck: I'm Jason Beck and I'm the Art Lead for Mythos. I've done a bunch of casual games people likely haven't heard of, but also worked with Travis and many Mythos team members on FATE.
Marsh Lefler: Hello my name is Marsh Lefler and my title at Flagship Studios is programmer. Like most everybody here; I do a lot more than my title would lead you to believe. For instance, right now I'm balancing all the skills in the game; and after that I'll probably make a new class. Just the other day I added a new quest.
Question 2: In your opinion, what is going to set Mythos apart from games like Diablo II and FATE? For that matter, what is going to set it apart from current MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars?
JD: Mythos will be livelier than Diablo and Fate because of the interaction with other players. We're trying to enhance that aspect of the game and make it easier to meet people, and that's big part of why we're adding the overworld now. We're breaking down some of the barriers to community and making it easy for everyone to get online and play. Mythos will also be constantly expanding as we add features and content. Those older games were one shot deals, with a couple of patches. Mythos is a living, growing world.
The pace of play will also be much faster than WoW and even Guild Wars. In Mythos, you don't fight one monster for five minutes, you fight 20 monsters for five seconds. You'll see the difference as soon as you start playing.
JB: There’s a lot of all of those games we’re hoping that mix together, learn from, and improve where we can, or add something entirely new to. I think capturing that fun and addictive playstyle and putting it into an MMO without losing that pace and action is really what will set us apart from Diablo and FATE. As far as how Mythos differs from the MMO’s like WoW…I think it really comes down to streamlining everything that suits the player is how we’re approaching things. While we fully appreciate those games, playing them feels like a second job at times. To really progress and see all there is to see and feel “powerful” it’s an –incredible- grind. And I think those 10 million users or so might not be looking for a similarly huge grind in a slightly different world. I think they might be a bit burnt out on that type of time and energy investment and could go for a game that can be a smaller investment of time for a similar payoff.
ML: Mythos takes so many things from Diablo( I and II ) and Fate; that really the only BIG thing that sets it apart is that we’re an online action MMORPG. There are a lot of things that we take from quite a few other games too; such as the new open world and the crafting system.
Setting ourselves apart from other MMORPG’s has never been a big concern for us. Making a fun game is our biggest concern. Rule 1: it’s not fun; rip it out.
Question 3: What brought your production team together to decide to make something like Mythos? We know that many of your developers are former Blizzard employees, and that Mythos arose from a simple network software test for Hellgate: London, but at what point did you decide to make the shift from “software testing” to “let’s make a game?”
JD: I think making a game was always the goal. Maybe it was more like “let’s find an excuse to make a game.” Mythos was always fun, even in the very early stages, there’s just something fundamentally great about smashing tons of monsters.
JB: I know Flagship was really impressed with FATE and how it really captured the Diablo gameplay better than most. Travis and I had actually started the pre-production on FATE 2**** when Flagship came calling. From there, knowing Travis’ tenacity, I think he knew it could become a full fledged game immediately and it was a matter of getting it up and running on the Hellgate engine to prove the concept and get a team around him.
***This is not any sort of confirmation that FATE2 is in development. To quote Marsh: Fate2 was killed when Travis left which was over 2 years ago. Wildtangent might be making a sequel; but nobody here knows.
ML: Well before Flagship Seattle was even formed, Travis was working with Flagship San Fran. That group decided to take the next step, which included opening the Seattle branch. The production team was initially handpicked by Travis; with most of the team working with him on Fate. While others ( like me ) just worked alongside with Travis. Once the initial team was formed, we then picked up a few other people from around the nation.
Question 4: Mythos will be free-to-play, with a separate purchasable currency known as Ingots, which can be used in an in-game store. You’ve already stated that there will not be items of “uber” quality or that give a real advantage over non-playing characters. Can you give us a better idea of what kinds of things will be purchasable with ingots? What will make players want to voluntarily buy these things if they don’t give anyone a real advantage over anyone else?
JD:I think people will enjoy customizing their in-game avatar, even if they don’t get a real advantage out of it. Everyone wants to look cool, and at the same time they’ll get to support a game they enjoy. I’m excited about the pets, I think they’ll be really cool and add personality to the game. They’re definitely not necessary, but I would buy one.
I know some people are apprehensive about the whole cash shop thing, so I just want to restate that the game has to be fun for everyone. In this sort of game the vast majority of players never pay a dime, yet they are still crucial to making the world feel vibrant. Not only do we want the free players to have fun because we’re nice guys, we can’t succeed without them.
JB: Well, we’re trying to avoid the purchasing of items that give you an advantage in a battle-oriented stat or skill. We also want to avoid the “this is the best X” item problem where everyone in the game is running around in the same helmet, armor, boots, or whatever…while wielding the same weapons as everyone else as well. So, part of that is item diversity, but also changing the appearance of items through an RMT “skin”, but maintaining the native stats of that object.
The types of advantages we think people will enjoy are things like pets, which can serve a variety of purposes like additional inventory space, auto pickup of loot, or help in combat. Other things are advantages in time savings or convenience like luck modifiers to get more frequent or more rare drops, experience modifiers that give you a small boost in experience earned for an amount of time, and other convenience type offerings. Along with those, the majority of our RMT items will be in wardrobe and “dress up” options. More customization options, clothing, hats, masks, you name it. We’re going to add a bunch of fun options that I think people will really enjoy showing off to their friends.
ML: Well, we want pets. Each pet will have different properties; such as returning your items to town – or picking up specific items. And of course just walking around with you; making you look cooler! We have lots of ideas for them. Next thing we want to add are cosmetics. We’re thinking about a system that will link a new visual to an item. Or a visual taking on the properties of the item you assign it.
Question 5: Continuing on the in-game store economic model… how much are you (realistically) hoping to make in a month with this system? It sounds like Flagship Studios is putting its faith in selling “fun” rather than “advantage.” Do you have any hopes that this economic model will set a new standard?
JD: We’re all in the business of making games, selling fun really isn’t a foreign concept. I think that’s something every game developer puts faith in, if that doesn’t work out we’ll all have to get regular jobs and only make games in the wee hours of the night.
JB:I know someone has run the numbers, but it wasn’t me. I think the team is so focused on the experience of playing the game and the options we make available that we don’t really let that mindset take hold for very long, because to a degree it can impact our decisions. We certainly recognize the risk, but we’re feeling really good about the current game and our plans ahead that we think we’ll find and keep an audience.
ML: I would love it to set a new standard – who wouldn’t. As for the “realistic” hopes of the money we’ll make ….. I have no idea. I don’t even think about it – or maybe I should say I don’t have time to think about it.
Question 6: Final question! There is a huge world map, and currently only three zones filled in it. You’ve said before that you plan to fill the whole map, but is there a plan to ever stop adding content?
JD: Absolutely, and once that map is full it will probably be time to make a new one. New planet? Alternate dimension? Cities under the sea?
Keep playing it and we’ll keep making it.
JB: Yeah, we definitely intend to fill the entire map…and as long as we have players we’ll be adding new content. Speaking for myself, there are so many more areas, creatures, and items that I’d like to add to this world…it’ll just be a matter of “do we have enough of an audience?”
ML: As long as people keep playing the game, it’ll continue to grow. The possibilities are pretty endless for us.