Although Matt was my primary respondent, I also spoke with Mike Lescault, Sanya Thomas, Scott Jennings, Linda Robbins, Jen Ortiz, and Walt Yarbrough.

Larian: Would you mind talking a bit more about "clustering"? Are there any "technical" aspects that are particularly exciting?

Matt Firor: Well, the technical aspects are really pretty boring from a gamer's perspective. It's just getting the different servers to communicate properly. As for what clustering will bring, we have different phases and opportunities that we are exploring. As for what the individual player will get to see is a host of opportunities.

First of all, there will be the merged Frontiers for low population servers. This should provide a much more rewarding RvR experience than some of the low population servers are able to participate in at the moment. Not only that, but players will basically be able to "move servers" on a temporary basis. They can talk to an NPC in the capital city, and that NPC can transport them to any of the servers they are clustered with. For instance, if Bors, Galahad, and Gawaine were clustered, a player from Bors would be able to go over to Galahad for a Dragon Raid, and then maybe later that week go over to Gawaine for a Master Level 4 raid. The Bors player would stay on the server they had "teleported" to as long as they wanted, but they would be identified as a Bors player, and of course will be restricted to guilds and alliances on their own server.

Trials of Atlantis will not be clustered the way Frontiers is by the way (from Team lead feedback). (Ed. And here I totally forgot to ask about what happens to people who have characters in different realms on clustered servers… Sorry!) By the way, we haven't set in stone which servers will be clustered, and those three server names were plucked from the air - I have no idea if they will be clustered, or clustered together if they are, etc.

Larian: I know that the recent price increase was addressed, and that there is never a good time to increase prices, however, there are worse times than others. What do you have to say to the critics that say this was the worst possible time to raise prices?

Matt Firor: It's always something, isn't it? In all honesty, I would rather have raised the price earlier in the year and just be done with it. We held off mostly because we were able to financially, and that felt like the right thing to do for the customers. That said though, the price increase was necessary to enable us to provide future expansions, upgrades, and customer service. Our price hadn't changed in three years, but our costs kept rising. (Ed. This is really paraphrased.)

Larian: What about the classic classes and lands? With each expansion, they seem less attractive and antiquated.

Matt Firor: Well, with each expansion, the "new" stuff needs to offer something to the player that they can't really get from what is already out there. It's a fact of life you have to deal with if you want to actually sell something. The Team Leads are doing a good job in making sure that overall realm balance is maintained, but we are not planning to do anything monumental to change these classes.

As for the old areas, we have an entire revamp of the original starting towns planned for spring. The starting towns and hunting areas are getting visual upgrades in terms of their art, their merchants and NPCs reorganized, etc. This was actually planned as part of Catacombs, but got cut due to the lack of time and the sheer size of Catacombs.

Larian: What are the plans for the "Free Summer Expansion"? ?

Matt Firor: The 2005 letter wasn't enough? Actually, we are still firming things up. With clustering and "iRvR" to work out, we'd rather have a good handle on that before going off after something else.

Larian: So asking about the Christmas 2005 expansion would be futile then?

Matt Firor: Yes, although we are also thinking on it too.

Larian: Okay, so you do have plans. Is "Strategic Planning" something that you all sit down and do here at Mythic? ?

Matt Firor: As for detailed changes and plans, no. Things just change too rapidly in the MMORPG market, and you just can't predict them. We do have a general direction we want to steer in though, but these are all modified by new technology, other company's games, and community demands.

Larian: What about us "fruity" role-players? Is there anything "special" in the works for us? ?

Matt Firor: Like "Mythic Run Events"? No, it's a long standing policy that we will not do anything that someone can "miss out on". It's just not fair to them. We are looking at possibly doing things that are static like GOA does with merchants and festival grounds, but it's not a top priority. The Halloween stuff is pretty much it for now. Who knows what the Future may bring though.

Jen Otiz: We save the Halloween files, so they are easy to add in each year. And we have a great deal of fun adding to them, but it's all on a time available basis (basically off the clock). I would personally love to see more things like this.

Walt: I would like to see more events like this. We do need to keep in mind that DAoC is about immersion into a fantasy world though. Sometimes it's good not to acknowledge what is happening outside the game with stuff that happens in the game as well. Holidays fall in this very gray area.

Larian: A bit of a philosophy question here. What are your thoughts on using Master Level abilities and Realm Abilities to balance classes? ?

Matt Firor: It's really a question of game design. All these factors play into class balance, how much fun it is to play a class, what they bring to their realm as a whole, etc. We try to look at things from a perspective of the RvR characteristics that each class has and brings to the game. The Team Leads help us with this, but ultimately, we have to look at this in the overall balance of the game.

Larian: Can you give me some idea on sales numbers? ?

Matt Firor: Well, I can't release actually hard figures, sorry. We haven't received them from the distributor yet. I can say that when Shrouded Isles launched, about 95% of current subscribers bought that expansion. The percentage was about 90% for Trials of Atlantis. It's still too early to get any good numbers on Catacombs, but I expect it to be around 90-95%.

Larian: Changing gears here. How many people are there here at Mythic? How many are dedicated to DAoC and Imperator? ?

Matt Firor: Well, there are about 175 people employed by Mythic. Many of the people are actually involved in both areas. As for people dedicated to each, I would say that since Imperator is still under development, there will be a few more folks there - in particular designers and artists.

Larian: How is Imperator going? ?

Matt Firor: Very well! We are making sure to take our time on this. We would love to repeat another launch like our DAoC launch in terms of stability and finish. Between a year from now and Summer 2006 seems reasonable, in terms of a projected launch date.

Larian: Okay, now for some dead horse issues and crusades of mine. ?

Matt Firor: *groans* (Ed. Okay, he didn't actually groan, but I bet he wanted to.)

Larian: Graphical Quiver? ?

Matt Firor: You'll need to talk to the Art Team about that.

Walt Yarbrough: I'd like to see a quiver, too. There are other more pressing issues of course, but if the art team can come up with something, I'd make sure to add it in a patch. (Ed. While wandering in the halls, I did see some art team folks, and I chanted "Graphical Quiver!" at them a few times before Linda, Sanya, Mike, and Walt were able to subdue me and drag me into another room.)

Larian: How about a volley animation? ?

Matt Firor: We actually had one. It was really cool looking, but it was also very broken.

Walt Yarbrough: It's still on my list. The art team did a wonderful job on it.

Mike Lescault: Yep, broken is a nice word for it.

Larian: What about a Bowmaster Master Level Track? ?

Matt Firor: Not my decision to make.

Mike Lescault: Sorry, we are not planning on anything drastic like that. We are looking at Master Levels, but more from a perspective of completing them. You can keep beating that dead horse if you want though.

Larian: How about more emotes? It makes me intensely jealous when I see the sheer number of emotes some games have! ?

Matt Firor: I'm sure the artists will add them as they can.

Jen Ortiz: You are not alone in wanting to see more emotes.

Walt Yarbrough: It's something that is brought up a lot. While there is a possibility of more emotes getting added as time passes, I wouldn't expect to see a whole patch dedicated to emotes. More of a trickle of emotes here and there.

At this point, it was getting dark outside, and I felt it was time to wrap things up. Matt Firor took some time to show me the internal server of Imperator. While Science Fiction based games are really not my cup of tea, what he did show me was visually stunning. Imagine the catacombs engine on steroids! The game actually had a sort of Sci-Fi retro feel to it actually. That is, he showed me a guy in what looks like power armour that was swinging a sword. The details were amazing as well. The absolute final decision on PvP has not been made, but the design is not centered around that, so it's not something they are likely to do. Maybe as a special rule-set.

The two offices I was very excited to stop by were Jen Ortiz's and Walt Yarbrough's. These two folks do a lot of work on stuff that gets added to the game. Walt's office features a big white board with a long list of items that are worthy of its own patch. I wish I could share the list with you, and I know Walt wishes he could just cram all that stuff into one big patch, but reality needs to set in at some point.

Well, that was my visit to Mythic Entertainment. I want to thank all the folks there for being so gracious for allowing me to come in and talk to them, and for being so forthright and honest. I enjoyed my visit up there, and plan to come by anytime I am in the area. I also urge players to visit if they are in the area. Sanya is always glad to give tours, as long as the tour was arranged in advance. The folks at Mythic are wonderful, and you can get a sense for the infectious enthusiasm for the game. Oh, this time it was Matt that dropped the loot.