Eric Wang Earth and Beyond Interview

From TradeWars Museum

After having great success with games such as Command and Conquer, Westwood decides to set their mark in the world of online gaming. The designers of Earth and Beyond made it possible for you to survey over 100 distant sections of the universe, and, furthermore, it will allow you to explore the atmosphere and the ground from your ship of numerous planets that you may come upon on your travels. Discovering unknown parts of the Universe, taking part in dangerous mission assignments, and engaging in battles with thousands of 'live' opponents, are all pivotal to the gameplay of Earth and Beyond.

Eric Wang, producer of Earth and Beyond, took the time to answer a few questions for us regarding this huge and complex project.

Action Trip: What inspired you to create Earth and Beyond? Uncover a little bit about your team's history.

Eric Wang: The idea for Earth and Beyond came from Brett Sperry. Brett has wanted to do a game like Earth and Beyond for many years. With the emergence of the Internet and the technology available on a PC it was the right time to build this game. Brett has been very involved in the development of this game and I know that we are remaining faithful to his vision. Personally, I've drawn inspiration from games like Elite, Privateer, Tradewars 2000, Starflight, and Starfleet Battles as I take the project through development. I'm also an avid movie fan and I love science fiction. For Earth and Beyond, all of the Star Trek movies and the Star Wars trilogy have been influential on our game aesthetic in various ways.

AT: Besides the standard races the player gets to choose from the start, will there be any other different neutral races throughout the game?

EW: We will have non-player characters throughout the game that players will be able to interact with. Players can get missions from NPCs and will also be able to get news and information about what is going on in this massive virtual world.

AT: After the player gets use to his customized character and advances him in certain skills, will he loose all of that if he disengages from the game at some point? How does the game look upon death?

EW: No, under normal circumstances, the player will keep all of the skills, items, and attributes he has acquired when playing after he logs off. The only exception to that would be if a player is losing a battle and tries to log off to prevent that from happening. In that case, the server would actually wait a brief amount of time before logging the player off, so that the battle loss would be recorded.

As for death, players cannot die, per say, in Earth and Beyond. Rather, the player's ship becomes incapacitated and is towed back to a space station for repairs. The player will not lose any of the items he has acquired before death but will, however, have to work off an "experience debt" before he can begin advancing his character again.

AT: This will be one of those MMRPG that features many details which will require a rather powerful 3D graphic system, especially if we consider such particulars as ships changing visually as the players advance their game status. Introduce some characteristics of the engine Earth and Beyond uses.

EW: The Earth and Beyond engine is based around DirectX 8. The graphics core is a proprietary engine that is being used in Renegade and in Earth and Beyond. We have two separate graphic engines. One that deals with outer space and one that deals with landing on planets. We have incorporated various Level of Detail (LOD) systems into the engine which should allow for reasonable performance across many different system specs.

AT: Describe how will the players be able to explore the planets? Will they be able to land on them?

EW: The player will not be able to land on planets, but will be able to explore the atmospheres and the ground from his ship. He will also be able to engage in combat, trade, and exploration in the planets' atmospheres just as they will in space.

AT: Every ship will have its own unique look and will be customizable, therefore making the game quite demanding. Can you tell us what will the system requirements be for this game?

EW: We are still finalizing the system requirements so I think it would be premature to quote exact system specs but we are aiming for a very low system spec. Something along the lines of a P2 266 with a TNT2 card.

AT: Specializing in certain skills and abilities the player gets a chance to advance his character, thus making him a more efficient warrior (explorer or trader). Could you reveal some of the attributes the player gets to enhance and how do they function?

EW: This is not set yet. Some of the things that we have stated in earlier interviews are: Warriors will get things like critical targeting, traders will get negotiate and repair, and explorers will get cloaking.

AT: Gamers are going to have the possibility of trading, fighting, and exploring. Explain how a particular task will look like, give us a small example of a certain mission.

EW: Regardless of the race and profession the player chooses, he will be able to get missions in exploration, trade, or combat. There are two types of missions in Earth and Beyond, personalized and crafted. Players get personalized missions from any of the mission generators found in the space stations. These generators scan the player's character and skill level and return with any of hundreds of missions, tailor made for that player. The crafted missions are in place to advance the overall story of Earth and Beyond and usually require the player to get help to complete. The missions range from combat-oriented, such as assassinating an NPC, to exploration, such as discovering a new Star Gate, to trade, such as delivering vital supplies to a far-flung outpost.

AT: Your official game-faq's seem to speak about players using various things such as cloaking devices and so on. Name some similar items and weapons we'll be able to use in Earth and Beyond.

EW: Actually, this has not been finalized yet, and I'd rather not speculate on what we might include. Stay tuned for details though.

AT: Earth and beyond takes a great step into the gaming industry by presenting a huge and pretty complex universe for players to compete in. How do you plan to handle potential troublemakers?

EW: We are working very diligently with EA.com to come up with policies and procedures to deal with grief players. We will have a dedicated customer service department which will be investigating reports of troublemakers and we will be quite aggressive when dealing with players who are violating our Terms of Service.

AT: Tell us something about the PvP modes in Earth and Beyond?

EW: Players will be able to engage in PvP if they choose, but they will only be able to do so on the fringes of space. The PvP areas only make up about 20 percent of the total playing area.

AT: Up to how many players will be able to engage in combat when the beta version comes out?

EW: Our first open beta will support about 1000 players.

AT: Currently, what's your crew working on?

EW: Right now, we are in the middle of our first internal beta, where 300 people are playing Earth and Beyond together for the first time. It's a big step for the game and we're all really excited about it.