ZAM sat down with Reality Gap's Mark Hood to discuss Battleswarm: Field of Honor, a free-to-play MMO that combines the FPS and RTS genres.

Battleswarm: Field of Honor is a unique free-to-play MMO that combines the first-person shooter and real-time strategy genres by pitting FPS Humans against RTS Bugs. We got the chance to sit down with Reality Gap's Mark Hood to discuss how the team balances these gameplay styles and what the company's MetaTIX virtual currency system means for players.

Hood hints that they have big plans to launch a new type of in-game tournament in a couple months and discusses an upcoming patch that will make it easier for new players to get into the game. You can read all the details after the jump!

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ZAM: Battleswarm: Field of Honor officially launched about two months ago. What have you learned since the release?

Mark Hood: We have learned that balance is an ongoing concern and something that we need to stay focused on all the time. Every time we make a new weapon available in the store, or allow access to a new map, it has a ripple effect through the game and balance needs to be carefully monitored and adjusted. We've also learned, however, that bugs pretty much control the show. Good bug players make for a awesome match, so we've been listening to the bugs players to keep them coming and happy as much as possible without hurting the human game.

ZAM: The game pits FPS humans against RTS bugs. Can you tell us a little about the gameplay and the appeal of combining the first-person shooter and real-time strategy genres?

Hood: Battleswarm is unique because, as you said, we have a group of players looking at the game from a top-down 3D RTS perspective where they command a horde of bugs and control how new bugs get spawned while the Humans are running around on the ground attempting to keep from getting overwhelmed and blasting everything in sight on a more tactical squad-based level. Getting these two game styles to work together was a huge challenge and our developer, GameWorld, put a lot of effort into working out exactly how RTS and FPS could fit together and still be fun. I think the single best way to understand the appeal of putting these two together is to jump in a good game on the Oasis map and see massive hordes of bugs pouring in while the human soldiers are holed up in a bunker unloading flamethrowers while the Bug commanders get their long range artillery in place and start landing bombs – it can get very intense very quickly, and that is where the game is at its best.

ZAM: How exactly do players upgrade their human commandos and bug swarms? How does character advancement in Battleswarm compare to leveling in other MMOs?

Hood: As a free-to-play game, Battleswarm uses a mixture of two game economies. There is a gold currency which players can earn just by playing the game and then spend  to buy most things in the game (with the exception of a few goodies like special treasure boxes that contain mystery items). In addition to gold, we have the MetaTIX virtual currency which can be spent in the MetaTIX shop. In Battleswarm, every player gets both a Bug Commander and Human soldier – both of which have their own stats and level progression. Players can switch between them whenever they like and spend time leveling up either their Human or their Bug. We have a wide range of weapons and armor and, like a lot of MMOs, players will be restricted from using these items until they have achieved a higher level.

ZAM: How do you keep players who buy weapons, treasure boxes and other items with MetaTiX from having an advantage over those who choose to play the game for free and use in-game gold for their purchases?

Hood: As I mentioned above, we have a balance of currency systems. We wanted to make sure that the game was compelling for anyone who wanted to play whether they wanted to purchase MetaTIX or not, so it is possible to acquire nearly all of the same items in the game with Gold as with MetaTIX. However, MetaTIX provide several advantages – they are not expensive to buy ($1 is the equivalent of 100 MetaTIX), they let you purchase items that are newer (otherwise you can purchase most items in the Consign used from other players for Gold), they let players get items when they want them rather than needing to earn Gold to purchase them and they can be spent in other Reality Gap games. We have up to 20 more games coming in the pipeline that will make use of the MetaTIX currency. We have not seen anyone gain any real substantive advantage from using MetaTIX to buy items in the game, they just make it more convenient to get the items more easily.