Thrones of Chaos Q&A

In my opinion, wading through all the various MMOs available is beginning to feel like trying to make your way through a crowded street: barely any elbow room, lots of noise, and by the time you've made it to your destination, the headache pulsing through your skull makes you seriously consider if the journey was worth it. Each game is like a street vendor, shouting its praise and promising new features and revamped game play when compared to the other guy, but in the end, each title feels pretty much the same. Whenever something new comes along, especially something completely unknown and unforeseen, I tend to get a little bit excited. A breath of fresh air! A title that will, perhaps, offer a little bit of newness to its genre, or at least tweak existing trends so that they look fresh when brought to the table. Enter Thrones of Chaos, currently in development at Loud Ant software LLC. An MMORPG touting features such as no-holds-barred PvPing and strong guild support, Thrones may end up being a sweet surprise for MMO gamers-- or it may flop when made to go toe-to-toe with venerable giants such as World of WarCraft or EverQuest II. I spoke with the game's producer, Colton Burgess, to find out more about this new contender in the crowded field of online role-playing games. Shack: What is the back story for Thrones of Chaos? Colton Burgess: Thrones takes place in a medieval world at war. Four distinct races (Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Orcs) rule over 4 unique realms and are forever locked in a power struggle over the lands, territories and resources.

Shack: Tell us about the four playable races in ToC. (what makes one unique when compared to the others; etc) Colton Burgess: The players take advantage of an open skill system to mold their players in whatever directions they see fit. There are no restricting classes in Thrones of Chaos and because of this the variety or uniqueness that you will encounter in the world will be quite diverse. We feel very strongly about giving the players as much freedom in Thrones as possible. In is in the end their world and their personas. Shack: Is the traditional RPG system of "leveling up" used in this game? Colton Burgess: No. There are no levels or classes in Thrones of Chaos. Shack: How do players advance their character if not by leveling up? Colton Burgess: Players gain in skill as they do things such as participate in combat or crafting. Shack: Word on the virtual street is that Throne of Chaos doesn't feature player classes, either. What sort of system is used, then? Colton Burgess: The game makes use of a skill progression system. There are a few different ways to gain in skill, depending on the type of skills you you are attempting to raise. For example, If we are talking about combat related skills, then these can be raised through combat with others, against other guilds and so on. If you are wish to raise non combat skills such as crafting than you would do this by of course crafting different items. Shack: What are the core gameplay focuses in ToC? Colton Burgess: Thrones is focused primarily on Guild vs Guild strife and open PvP. Shack: Tell us all about how guilds work. Colton Burgess: The guild system is going to have a structure based on how the players create their guild. A leader, then ranks below. The leader will be able to set the ranks to do such tasks as collect a bounty on someones head, place taxes on a city that they have captured, and things of that sort. Guilds will be able to obtain certain cities, and the more cities they have, then the higher rank that guild will be in the game. Depending on how well they guard each city will also change the rank of the guild in game. Shack: Do players create cities for their guild, or must they be taken? Colton Burgess: Guilds can take over and manage existing locales in the world. They can than do things such as dynamically set taxes on goods being traded in their territories.

Shack: Let's say my guild has a city, and your guild wants it. How do you go about attempting to take the city, and how do I go about defending it? Colton Burgess: An invading party would trigger a massive wave of NPC defenders, the amount of which being dependent upon the guilds actual wealth and size. NPC melee units will pour out of keeps to meet the invaders, missile units will be high above reigning down arrows. These would need to be defeated before successfully taking over a locale. Obviously we do not want to publicly give too much away regarding the details of the systems for various reasons, however these are the basics. Shack: How about PvP? Tell us all about that aspect of the game. Colton Burgess: The PvP system is a system that hasn't really been seen in any game before. You can be any race, and still fight that same race. You can choose which side you want to be on for that race. This system is going to be so rich, that even walking out of your starting area could be a fatal move. As time progresses, you will be able to obtain certain armor classes, and certain name ranks that will be due to how you have PvP'd in this game. Shack: Incorporating PvP as a core focus sounds cool, but as with most RPGs, story can be important. Are there any inherently evil races? Please explain. Colton Burgess: I disagree. Story doesn't always need to drive everything. This is a hardcore, guild up and go to war or stay home and craft me a new helmet so I can replace the one I lost in battle with those filthy Orcs game. The players will inevitably decide what reasons they have for battling each other. There can be many reasons or there might be no reason at all but I would guess the main gameplay related reasons would have to do with territory and resource control. Due to the fact that there are no classes or branding of races, players can choose to be evil or good and do so using any of the races. Shack: What about things such as crafting items, harvesting, etc.? Any systems planned for stuff like that? Colton Burgess: Harvesting and Crafting are both in, yes. Resources spawn on the map allowing players to gather them. They can than be used for crafting purposes. The best of these resources are usually located near major points of interest such as towns. So collecting them may end up becoming a life changing experience if you are on the wrong side of the fence. Shack: How about the player market system? Colton Burgess: Our player market system really has not been decided on yet. This is really a in the air thing right now on how we plan on doing this and how not too. Shack: How does combat work in Thrones of Chaos? Colton Burgess: The combat system is very complex. We plan on keeping this system up-to-date as much as possible. You will be able to obtain a certain amount of skills when you enter the game, and then you will have to progress these skills to better your combat. After you have successfully obtained a higher level in that skill of combat you will be able to learn a more advanced skill, which leads to the use of rage, energy, etc depending on which skill system you are going with.

Another great feature this combat system will have is a finishing move, or fatal move combat feature. When your target is almost dead, you will be able to perform a fatal move, such as, severing the head of that enemy. Shack: I understand the combat is supposed to be rather violent when compared to other MMOs. Why is that? Colton Burgess: How is the combat violent or why did we choose to make it this way? ;) The short answer: because gamers like it that way. The longer professional answer: we believe that the current offerings in the hardcore PvP MMOG market place are severely lacking or even non existent and that there is a large untapped market for this style of play. Shack: FINISH HIM!! What are finishing moves, and how do they work? Colton Burgess: Finishing moves are special animations that can be activated or executed on a defeated foe. Each race has multiple, unique moves like this completely separate from the general combat. Shack: Are there combat instances in ToC? Are there any instances at all? Colton Burgess: No. There is no instancing in the game, but there will be dungeons. Shack: Thrones seems to have a veritable smorgasbord of talented MMO developers. Tell us more about Loud Ant Software, as well as the development team behind ToC. Colton Burgess: Without getting into a who's who list of details I can assure you that at senior level we have some of the best men in the industry working on Thrones who have been involved in many of the AAA MMOG titles. It definitely helps when putting something as complex as a MMOG together. Sometimes I simply sit and watch the chat log scroll by as they work if I am away. It's all Chinese to me but interesting nonetheless. Our guys are drinking coffee 24/7. Shack: While a developer can be safely checked off the list, the same cannot yet be said for a publisher. Any word on who will be picking up Thrones of Chaos? Colton Burgess: A little ago we received an interesting voice mail from a very well known publishing firm regarding Thrones of Chaos inquiring about its distribution plans in specific markets. Unfortunately at this point details cannot be given out on this as nothing concrete has been established yet but we do have numerous interested parties waiting in the wings. If any of these offers are taken than the public would first hear about it during a Beta.

Shack: The Chaos engine fueling Thrones of Chaos is touted quite heavily when compared to engines driving other MMOs. Tell us about it. Colton Burgess: The engine utilizes OpenGL, instead of DirectX. We believe that this API better broadens our community database. We can easily port our game over to many systems such as Max, or a Linux based system. The Chaos engine also has seamless zoning, which seems to be growing in the industry today. We basically were one of the first to have a real seamless world. As much as I would like to go on, and on about this engine, everyone can look and find out more detailed information from our website. Shack: When will we be able to play Thrones of Chaos? Colton Burgess: Our development team estimated that all goals will be reached by FEB 2007. Give or take a month. ;) Shack: Will there be a pricing plan for ToC? Colton Burgess: Quite honestly I have no idea about prices yet. It will most likely be priced along current industry standards and use a month to month payment structure. Shack: Thanks so much for your time! Is there anything else you'd like to add? Colton Burgess: Yes! We currently have a giveaway contest featuring some cool prizes running the month of August so come register and don't miss out no that! To register for the giveaway, as well as to get more info on Thrones of Chaos, head over to ThronesOfChaos.com.