Ted:Well, I had been involved in the Indie game scene for a while as a hobbyist, as well as having done some contract work here and there, and after seeing one-too-many projects fail, where I had been a team member, I thought to myself, “You know, I should probably just get into this for myself, since these other teams don’t seem to be working out.” And here we are.

Ted:We’re currently using the Torque Game Engine for our development, with a MySQL backend. There are some features that have been developed from scratch, such as our Interrogative system, which provides for player-to-NPC chat functionality to support role-playing mechanics. Aside from that, we’re looking heavily into the Service Oriented Architecture to guide our infrastructure development, so certain features of the game will actually become services operating independently from the game server on the back-end in order to provide better reliability and performance.

Ted:On the technology side, it’s been a few years. Interrogative was definitely something that I feel needs to be done correctly in relation to the rest of the game in order to provide a better overall role-playing experience, so I took the time to research and develop that — which obviously took more time that I would have liked. As a whole, the project entered an official pre-production period around May of last year, and we are currently phasing slowly into a production mode.

Ted:Unfortunately, we’re going to go the “it’ll be done when it’s done” route. The upside of being an Indie is that we get to take risks that larger companies cannot financially justify. The downside is that Indie budgets are much smaller, and so the work proceeds at a slower pace. We also don’t want to rush anything out the door, because that has historically meant death for most persistent-world online RPGs who have done so.

Ted:Epic Frontiers is a science-fiction/fantasy world that takes place on a planet named Chi’Hamak, which resides in a fairly lively nebula far, far away. As a player, you’ll find yourself reaching your 18th birthday as one of countless orphans created by a mysterious pandemic, which swept through the local star system about 15 years before. As you come of age, you are being released to make your own way in the world, which has since become rather shaky — politically and otherwise. You’ll find that not everyone sympathizes with orphans, but you will also get to explore your own factions with a fresh set of eyes and then help them cope with the changing events in various ways. So we’re going beyond the usual hack-and-slash MMO that has been the norm, and we’re looking to give the player a world that they can really sink their teeth into and experience at a deeper level. Though for those that like combat, there will be plenty of that!

Ted:A few things. First, we have no classes or levels — the game is skill-based with no current restrictions on the amount or types of skills you can learn. The limitation here is that skills auto-level on use, and so there is a time-limited component to the gameplay where you probably won’t be able to master everything you can learn to do in the game. But then again, the game is not designed for grinding or with “end-game” content in mind. What you have instead is a game that is meant to be enjoyed while having familiar aspects such as quests and achievements, but also not penalizing those who wish to craft, explore or socialize. We’re simply working on better game mechanics to support the non-combat actions better and integrate it in such a way that the player is rewarded for actually playing their role rather than having to engage in combat to make any advancement. That’s pretty different from most MMOs out there currently.

Then there is our Interrogative chat system, which allows players to interact with NPCs on a much deeper level than MMOs have been allowing so far. Instead of being hit with a huge wall of text, you get to ask different questions of the NPC and get information in that way, which in turn opens up subjects you can then talk to other NPCs about. It allows players to investigate and explore things in the world without having a pre-defined goal or quest. We’re constantly refining and updating its feature set to align with the kind of gameplay experience we’re trying to present. But suffice to say, it will make for very interesting gameplay.

We’re also making strides with all kinds of small game mechanics, from the ability for players to “link” skills for group efforts (think strength checks, group combos, and use in crafting and magic), to better interaction with the game world itself. In almost all of the MMOs out there today, the player is presented with the level treadmill that encourages them to ignore the world around them as they run from Point A to Point B in order to accomplish a narrow goal. What we’re doing is putting game mechanics in place that make the player think about the game world and how to either use it to their advantage or avoid its effects. So it makes you enjoy the journey as being as much a part of the game as accomplishing goals, and certain things like bikini armor will go away — unless you like freezing to death in polar regions or being burned by the sun in the desert.

In sum, Epic Frontiers will be presenting a very different method of online role-playing and one we believe everyone will enjoy.

Ted:Currently, we’re very small at five, though we’re destined to become much larger as we beGI.n brinGI.ng in more team members to fill in slots that open up as we ramp up to full-production tasks.

Ted:This is our first rodeo, as they say, and while we don’t have any game credits to our names, we do have a high level of talent in our respective fields. My own history is that of plug-in creation for trueSpace — some of the technology of which is making it into the game for procedural generation of content — and also some 2D/3D art for some failed Indie projects, and there are a lot of lessons from which I’m brinGI.ng to bear on this project from those experiences. The two lead designers, Rick and Chris, are creative types with backgrounds including comic book/concept art, and creative writing, respectively. And our two concept artists, Damien and Amber, are extremely talented, with some commercial concept/storyboarding experience behind them as well.

Ted:We’re always looking for those who want to put time into the project, and those looking to help should be willing to sign both a non-disclosure agreement as well as a work for hire agreement, because while our project is — like many Indie projects — existing on deferred payments (sweat equity, not royalties), we do need to keep things on the up-and-up. For those brave enough to get past the previous sentence and would like to be considered, you must be 18 or older with talent and/or experience with the tasks that you wish to help us accomplish, since we unfortunately cannot afford to teach people how to program or create artwork. Programmers should have knowledge of C++ and the Torque Game Engine; artists should have online portfolios demonstrating their modeling/animation/texturing abilities; and writers should have samples of writing, emphasizing dialogue and personality in narrative style. (Writers will be particularly tortured when they learn how we’re implementing dynamic missions, so we’ll just apologize right here and now for any sanity points lost during that conversation: Sorry. Our bad.)

Ted:As an Indie outfit, we do a lot of remote communication, and most of us have day jobs to support us as we get this game off the ground, so there will not be an office until the actual physical infrastructure to support the game begins to be put in place. You’ll know when that happens when we start talking about “open beta” and the development blog starts sounding more stressful.

Ted:More information can be found at http://EpicFrontiers.DigitalFlux.com, we have a development blog located at http://www.DigitalFlux.com/blogs, and also a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/epicfrontiers. Both are updated periodically with additional information as development moves forward so that gamers can see both what goes into the making of an MMO by a small Indie team as well as what they can expect from the game itself. The company Web site, http://www.DigitalFlux.com, also has information on when we visit conferences and conventions. Check back often, as we post blogs and update the Web site with additional content every few weeks.

I got to peek at a demo of Epic Frontiers at the Game Developers Conference 2009, and I was very impressed with how far they have pushed the Torque engine, particularly with their Interrogative chat system, which really opens up the way to more realistic and complex conversations with NPCs.