Gods And Heroes: Minions, Quests, Crafting, and... Monkeys?

He just kind of looked at me, but we know what's up. We're giving you the tantalizing tidbits of a Tiberius-sized truth. Word, or as my Roman counterparts would say, "Veritas, my brothers and sister. Veritas." With that said, I'd like to continue on the quest for truth, so I took some time this morning and just sat down with Stieg and asked him some questions that I've had on my mind as of late, from questing ("Quests are cool and stuff"), to crafting ("We're not putting a system in the game just to put it in the game"), to minions ("They'll eventually become self-aware and take over the world"), all the way to what's going to happen with monkeys in Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising post-launch ("Monkeys are integral to the fiction of the world we're creating so of course we intend to deliver on them to the highest possible quality").

I'm pretty sure he's kidding about the monkey thing, but I'm never certain when it comes to Stieg. None the less, he was pretty forthcoming about a lot of things that we've all been discussing. The first thing I asked him was about our quests and the quality of what we will be delivering.

According to Stieg, "All of our quests are super meaningful and awesome, and they are all written by Emmy-award winning writers. Okay, maybe not 'Emmy-award winning,' but they certainly are an extremely talented group led by our groovy quest lead, John Danza."

Groovy indeed. John and his team have done an amazing job creating quests that really draw the player into the world of Gods & Heroes. I'd like to take some time here to clear up some confusion regarding our questing system, factions, politics, how all of these tie together as one thing, and our plans for these things post-launch.

First and foremost, quests will vary from a "go and fetch this" to the full-blown epic storyline quests. While we're really making effort to avoid giving you 1,199 "fetch me 12 bearskins" quests, we do realize that there are points where these things are going to show up. The goal is to try and integrate these into the world in a way where it is "normal." For example, you run into a retired blacksmith and he tells you that he no longer makes this special sword he used to make because there are no more heroes in the world. If you think you're a hero, then you need to prove your mettle to him by gathering the items to forge such a weapon. It just so happens he needs 12 bearskins to forge the weapon of ultimate destiny.

Secondly, there are no factions other than the sense of, "here are some bandits and they really hate you." So to refer to your relationship with your god as "faction" is inherently inaccurate. Thus the relationship between you and your god, and politics within the world are driven by the quest system that we have set up. Your relationship with your god and the favor you achieve (or lose in some cases) is driven by your actions through quests. There are even quests and moments where opposing gods will offer up things to try and get you to anger your god, thus diminishing your favor in trade for some sort of a reward. We are hoping to set up the political system in the same way. Everything that happens in the political arena is story-driven and has a direct correlation with the tale we are trying to tell. As it stands, you can make choices to do one thing or the other, but you can't really align your character with a specific faction, yet.

This brings us to our plans for post-launch and how that affects quests, factions, and the political system. I was blunt with Stieg when I asked him how we plan on dealing with new content and supporting the game. I reminded him that history has shown that lots of people promise updates and content, but very few actually deliver. What is going to make us different?

The answer?

When Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising goes live, there will be two teams, the Live Team and the Expansion Team. The Expansion Team works on expansion packs and works with a longer development cycle than the Live Team. The Live Team is responsible for three things: 1) live events, 2) bug fixes, and 3) adding new content and features. Simply put, the Live Team is responsible for adding new quests, new armor, weapons, and introducing new systems into the game every month or so.

What does this mean? This means that we have a team that is solely dedicated to watching how you, the players, react and interact with the game and then making the adjustments necessary to ensure that we are building a world that you the players want to play in. If that means there's something that can genuinely add to the game and truly make it better for all, then we're committed to making that happen in a timely fashion.

Now, before you start jumping up and down screaming, "OMG WE'RE GETTING [insert system here]!!11!" The thing to understand is that we will never implement a system just for the sake of putting it in the game. Stieg and I discussed this at length, and the topic in particular that came up was that of crafting. I asked him point-blank, what was the decision process like that lead to the moment where you, as a team, said, "We don't feel we need to ship Gods & Heroes with a crafting system in place?"

The answer came down to the fact that to implement the crafting system that they wanted to implement meant that another part of the game would have to either be cut altogether, or take a significant hit to its development resources. When it came to the point where the decision was reached, the consensus was that crafting does not change the nature of a game. A good game is a good game and an excellent crafting system only enhances that game, however, a bad game can never be saved by any one system alone, regardless of how awesome that system is. Thus if we can launch an incredible game that stands on its own and is fun to play, then we've accomplished an enormous goal. If then, in the course of the game, it becomes apparent that a crafting system could truly enhance what we have already built, then our Live Team goes to work fulfilling the needs of the community.

Moving on I mercilessly grilled Stieg on minions, minion management, and minion A.I. Without missing a beat, I inquired as to the state of our minions. How focused are we on ensuring that the minions will actually be useful and not a nuisance? How committed to A.I. development are we? And finally, how will minions be allowed to interact in various areas of the world? The short answer is that Victor Sadauskas, one of our A.I. programmers, is making sure that our minion A.I. will eventually be smart enough to take over the world, and the world will rue the day that Victor ever sat down to program the A.I. of our minions. As of this morning, our content team pushed the latest minion A.I. update that Stieg described as, "nothing short of amazing." He also informed me that minion A.I. updates and tweaks will be on-going throughout the life of Gods & Heroes, thus ensuring that we constantly have the most advanced A.I. on the planet!

*insert maniacal laughter here*

Okay, okay, I'm done with the maniacal laughter. Let's wrap this big boy up, shall we? Touching briefly on the last few topics, to be certain that we can optimize performance across the board, there will only be a maximum of 4 minions allowed per person out in a public non-instanced zone and up to 8 minions per person allowed out in instanced zones. In the cities, your minions will retire to your camp as you will have no reason to have them out. Now, that doesn't mean you won't be able to take them out when you go into the Coliseum...

Finally, as a treat to all of you faithful fans, for everyone who's talked about this topic, and most importantly, to all of you who've helped maintain the peace and kept this board from flaming when things got hot, I'm going to let you in on a little something-something Stieg told me. We are thinking about trying to implement a Tribe vs. Tribe combat system either at launch, or sometime in the immediate timeframe post-launch. As for what else about the system, I can't say because it's still on the drawing board and things are still up in the air, but know this, both Stieg and I felt that it was important for you to be aware that you guys do have an effect on this team and that we read everything you guys write.

You guys are important to us, and we hope you realize that!

Until next week,

Deodatus, over and out!