Shack: On the speed meter from the leaked video, there is a section colored orange and red. Can a player build up too much speed, and maybe damage himself in a collision? Or is that red section only a superficial marking?

Tim Aste: I don't want to say much about that bit quite yet, but the players who enjoyed playing [light-armored characters in Tribes] will really enjoy what we have stored for that bit.

Shack: In the video, it seems that the characters have unlimited jet-pack fuel, deviating from the Tribes jet-recharge-jet mechanic. I'm guessing this is due to the nature of the clips? Is the "energy" bar displaying the available jet-pack fuel, or is that related to something else?

Tim Aste: [laughs] Yeah, I saw that same comment around a couple places. People in those leaked videos could jet so much because we were doing some tests. The HUD was test art and it's already been replaced. In those leaked vids, yeah the bar on the right was fuel, but the thrusting was pretty much turned to infinite for testing. In particular we were testing trail node rendering.

Shack: It seems that players can now use jets to power themselves toward the ground, rather than only into the sky. How is that achieved control-wise?

Tim Aste: This might change, but right now we have the ability to jet in six directions, not just up. Not all directions have the same jet strength, so it's not just a free-for-all glide fest, but it actually feels really good already. We need the control to feel even more fluid though, and we want a sweet-spot where new players never feel gimped, but experienced players can use the movement to their advantage. We definitely do not want the player movement to feel light and floaty, but it should feel fast and the players should feel their momentum.

Shack: How will bases factor into things? Will they be the large, elaborate flag-holding fortresses of Tribes, or something else?

Tim Aste: This is still kind of in development, but right now we are finding the most fun with the movement model is somewhere between medium and small buildings. We are finding indoor combat to be tense, but any huge sprawling interior space gets boring and confusing fast. The current design dictates that interior spaces should allow the player to move freely, and never feel constrained or claustrophobic. But the buildings need to let you get in and out fast if there is no solid defense in place, or quickly engage in an intense fire fight when there are good defenses.

Shack: How large will the largest maps be? Will it take only a few moments to cross a battlefield, or are we talking about a significant trek?

Tim Aste: Technically we can do either. The engine itself would allow us to create battlefields miles and miles long, if we wanted. So, this all depends on the game mode and what feel is best for a level. Right now we have large and small maps, but we select the size so it's fun to play, not so we can impress ourselves with how huge they are.

There should never be a dull moment while playing this game where you're just wandering around, yet you shouldn't be confined and unable to get away from the fire or set up strategic runs. Both freedom of movement and strategic combat are important to the gameplay, so for the maps to feel good we need well designed levels with clear objectives and choke points that also give players enough space to move around a lot and fight it out. It's a pretty hard thing to balance between all the movement, weapon, and level aspects, but it's already starting to feel good.

Shack: What is the maximum amount of players you're aiming to support in a match?

Tim Aste: Again, the tech gives us free rein here, so we could have huge 32-player teams or whatever if we wanted to. Torque technology started out with Tribes, but many years have passed and the engine has been massively updated since. Torque has some of the best netcode in the industry, but that's all useless if we are simply adding players to a match to have a marketing bullet point. We want the game to be fun.

We, the game team, have a very unique opportunity to create something we want to play totally free from that kind of pressure, and we plan to totally capitalize on it. More players per server doesn't always mean more fun--sometimes it actually sucks--so we're doing it based on what feels the best to players.

Shack: You've mentioned that you're hoping Fallen Empires will run under a wide range of system specs, with the game even sporting a software renderer. I assume the leaked video represents the highest graphical settings? Can you give me a guess on a minimum spec?

Tim Aste: No, we don't know the min specs yet. You're right that Legions looks like a high-end, high-spec game with the settings maxed out. Suffice it to say, we do want a broad range of people to be able to play the game, and do so competitively, so we'll get the performance cranked in as tightly as possible. We are shooting for high-end in this generation, not three years down the road.

Shack: What do you have planned as far as community features are concerned?

Josh Williams: We are starting out with social networking, real time chat, and personal profiles...and there's a practically unlimited set of cool features we can add after that. If anybody out there takes a minute and thinks about all the cool stuff you could do with this platform where games are accessible right on the web, I'm sure you'll come up with a ton of features yourself, and feel free to tell us about them in our forums so we can try to get them in.

Shack: Any plans to support user-based content, such as mods and custom maps?

Josh Williams: Even though it's so hyped now with Web 2.0, games really helped pioneer user-generated content--mods, custom maps, and the like are the lifeblood of many multiplayer games, especially shooters, and it's been that way for a long time. Supporting user-generated content or mods is important to us in the long haul. We're not going to have support for mods right out of the gate, but it's something really high on our priority list.

Step one is to get games launched with a bunch players. Once there's a big community, we'll definitely want to provide tools to create customizations, mods, and hopefully new stuff no one has done before.

Turn the page for more on the game's interface, community input, pricing, and 2 Girls 1 Cup.