Auto Assault: Ryan Seabury interview on Auto Assault Vault

Taken from the Auto Assault Vault:

AAVault: What spawned the idea to make this type of MMO. Ya know, one without wizards?

Ryan Seabury: NetDevil's goal is to make online games that enter uncharted territory in terms of genre and gameplay. We've always felt since the early days of MMO gaming as we've come to know it, that there were so many other avenues to explore that were being ignored by everyone. The classic car-combat in a post-apocalyptic wasteland was to us just an obvious idea begging to be given the MMO treatment.

AAVault: How many total vehicles will be in the final game? Can I own a fleet of sweet rides?

Ryan Seabury: There are hundreds of unique chassis types for players. Our dynamic loot system with random stats takes the variety even further. You can own as many vehicles as you have room for ignition keys in your current cargo space and locker space (which is to say, a *lot*).

AAVault: Just how customizable are the vehicles in the game?

Ryan Seabury: There are two major customization categories, one that affects gameplay and one that affects look and style. Gameplay affecting customizations include swapping out your equipment, such as front, turret, or rear weapons, melee weapons like blades and spikes etc. (most weapons are also visually distinct on your vehicle), power plants, armor, hood ornaments, hazard kits, etc. On top of all that we have Tricks and Trims which allow you to turn raw materials and paint colors you find in the world into visual flair and new paint styles for your ride.

AAVault: How much effect will players have on the environment in game?

Ryan Seabury: We are very proud of the level of interaction you can have on the environments in Auto Assault. How many other games (let alone MMOs) let you level entire city blocks and collect all the goodies out of the wreckage, just for fun? Additionally, the fact that it's a driving-centric, physics based game means that even while you're traveling you can take jumps off ramps or cliffs, catch air, and do all kinds of fun maneuvers in the physics engine.

AAVault: Just how many missions will there be in the final game?

Ryan Seabury: Well there is no "final game" per se, since obviously we will continue to add and improve content for as long as people continue to play it. For our initial launch we have over 3000 distinct missions going live. Each player race also has a vastly different approach to the world and the storyline. You may find as you play characters from different races that you come away with very different takes on the history and current situation in the universe of Auto Assault.

AAVault: How many total skills are there?

Ryan Seabury: It's different for each class, but as a general rule, each player class has access to a few new skill choices every 5 levels, and our initial level cap is 80. So quite a few.

AAVault: It appears a player receives one skill point per level, is this always the case? Will I be able to earn enough skill points to buy every skill for my race/class?

Ryan Seabury: You certainly won't be able to buy every skill for a given character in any useful way. Even if you could get enough points to acquire the first rank of every skill, they would be relatively ineffective without specializing in a few. In practice, I usually settle on a stock of 10 or so favorite skills depending on the class I'm playing and how I want to build it, with 1 or 2 of those really being maxed out. This means in the end game, two characters of the same class could bring drastically different abilities to the battle field.

AAVault: Does each race/class get the same number of skills?

Ryan Seabury: Not necessarily, although it is roughly equal.

AAVault: What are some of the more unique skills in the game?

Ryan Seabury: We of course have the standard variety of direct damage, DoTs, buffs/debuffs, repairs, etc. One of my personal favorite skill mechanics that we came up with is the virus & worm skills the Biomeks possess. An early design directive with the Biomeks was to create skills that reflected a highly computerized, synchronized society, virus & worm skills were one of our solutions for that. These skills tag an enemy (or friendly in some cases) with a special set of self-replicating nano-machines designed for a specific purpose. As long as they persist, they have a chance to jump to another valid target and spread their effect. So if you tag a patrolling vehicle that you know is heading into a densely packed enemy base with a Contamination resistance lowering virus, for example, it will spread and infect everything else that comes in range. Then you can show up with a shiny Contamination weapon and clean up the haplessly waiting victims.

AAVault: What kind of interesting powers do gadgets have? Can you give some examples of some killer gadget/item combos?

Ryan Seabury: Gadgets can do all kinds of things; in essence they can modify just about any stat in the game. Some examples of the most rare and sought-after gadget effects include + rank to all skills, extra chance for money to drop, damage or resistance adds, range extenders, or attribute point increases, to name a few.

AAVault: How does one obtain a gadget and do they all need to be crafted?

Ryan Seabury: Currently, gadgets mostly drop as loot in combat. Some basic ones can also be acquired from stores, and a few are given as mission rewards.

AAVault: Lastly, what's the highest level I can achieve with my character in Auto Assault? When I get there, what's the end game?

Ryan Seabury: For initial release, we are planning on a level cap of 80. Some things you will be able to do in the initial release "end game" at that point are fight over outposts to capture terrain for your side, compete in the ongoing arena ladders and tournaments (actually you can do this throughout your character's life), continue to find better swag from the dynamic loot system, purchase new empty vehicles and customize a whole fleet of them (as you put it J), and continue to challenge yourself with earning more prestigious medals and achievements. The astute player may come across some out-of-the-way missions that are particularly difficult to complete but may give some interesting status symbol types of rewards.
We have lots of other plans for the long term, including introducing lots of new arena maps and game types, adding more instances and layers of instances to existing highways, improving player housing options, and of course adding more vehicles, missions, and opening more highways on a regular basis.

Thanks, Ryan!