Mythos Interview (con't)

FiringSquad: What will the multiplayer features be like in the game?

Phil Shenk: We will obviously have party-based cooperative play, complete with loot-sharing systems. We’ll have some kind of PvP, although this will always be voluntary. We have lots of ideas for other game types, including short competitions, or arena-style play. Like the rest of the game, we plan on building and improving it for a long time, keeping it fun and alive for both us and the players!

FiringSquad: What other unique features will Mythos have?

Phil Shenk: As in Hellgate, the adventure areas are instanced, so you don’t have to worry about other players cleaning out the dungeon before you. The town areas are persistent, and we will most likely have other persistent areas as well.

The levels are randomly generated, as are the items. It’s been a staple of our games so far, just because we love having that chance that you might find some amazing item that has never been seen before. We will have randomly generated quests and champion monsters, and as I mentioned before, randomly spawned map locations. That, plus we will continually be adding new content, makes for an ever-changing, and fascinating world.

FiringSquad: What can you tell us about the visual style and graphical features in the game?

Phil Shenk: The visual style is much brighter than anything we’ve done before, more colorful and exaggerated. For one reason, we wanted to make it appealing to a wide variety of players, and a style like this has a very open, inviting feel. The second reason is just because it’s a nice contrast for us. We spend so much time working on dark, somber worlds, and this is a nice change! I personally find it refreshing! Technologically, we’re using the same engine as we use for Hellgate, although we optimize where we can for performance reasons. We want this game to be playable on a wide variety of systems. We also keep the art a lot simpler than Hellgate, again, partly for performance, but also to make it easier to add new content. One of the keys to this game’s success is going to be our ability to respond to what players are doing and asking for, and try out new ideas of our own.

FiringSquad: Will the game be free to download and play or will there be a fee involved in playing Mythos?

Phil Shenk: Yes! It will be free to download and play. We want as many people as possible playing Mythos and having fun. Anyone will be able to play the game free, for as long as they like, and have access to most of the game’s content. Beyond that, we’re still considering economic models. We have some ideas, but one thing we know for sure is that we are committed to a significant free-to-play model. We want for lots of people to have fun playing this game, and we think the best way to do that is to offer up a huge chunk of it for free.