Neo's Land Q&A

Ragar talks with Neojac about their upcoming fantasy MMO, from the Kickstarter campaign to user-generated content.

The guys at NeoJac Entertainment have created a proprietary server engine, Atavism, which provides building tools that allow users to create an online world and accompanying storyline faster than ever. All that’s left now is to create a game that shows off what Atavism is capable of – enter Neo’s Land. This high-fantasy MMORPG will use Atavism for the server work and the Unity3D engine on the client side so all that’s really left is for the players to get in to the world and begin to build it.

Michael “Ragar” Branham had the opportunity to ask some questions of Jacques Rossouw, NeoJac CEO and Patrick Hamilton, NeoJac Chief Security Officer.

Let's start with the basics: what is Neo's Land and what makes it stand out from the other fantasy MMOs out there?

Jacques Rossouw: Neo’s Land has many features that make it stand out from the rest but the most important one is the way we are developing the game. With our Crowd Game Designing system we are literally giving the players the ability to set what feature will be in the game and how the world is built. So with this unique way of developing we are getting amazing systems being developed by the players themselves to ensure the game stands out from the rest. Who would know better what is amazing in a game than the players?

What kind of balance do you plan for user-generated content versus developer-made at the beginning? How about post-launch? Do you foresee yourselves adding more typical content yourselves or is the plan more along the lines of these developer-created contests and just letting the community run wherever they want with it?

Patrick Hamilton: As far as adding content after launch, I foresee that coming from both the dev team and the community. And we’ll be providing ongoing dynamic story arcs which should add some additional excitement and drama. A two year story arc can be best thought of as a TV series. Each two year series will have four six month seasons, with each season having six one month episodes, and each month having four one week acts (sponsored events). These two-year series will allow for participation and the outcome of every monthly episode will be determined by the actions of the participants.

Static storylines in my opinion are bad. Players want to change the world, not impotently watch it unfold about them in a predetermined manner (branching or otherwise). Arcs work for soaps and TV Science Fiction series, but players want to shape their own futures. A story can provide a shared experience to help people socialize.

Neo's Land uses the Unity engine for graphics and gameplay, but you're using your own proprietary Atavism engine server side. What does Atavism specifically provide?

Patrick Hamilton: The primary feature of Atavism is to allow the power of Unity3D to be harnessed for MMOs in the true sense of supporting one virtual world with thousands of connected users. Features that developers may want in Unity3D, such as terrain deformation can be accomplished. The difficulty is really developing in Unity3D. For the server-side, we identify the information that needs to be saved and “hook” it so it can be managed by the controlling server in a database. For one person, the server integration takes hours typically, with some complex packages with large amounts of information to be managed. This usually takes a week (including testing and debugging).

Atavism handles the networking and server capabilities in managing the game world with Unity3D for the client. A world server is considered a zone which would support the size of the United States in a 1:1 scale. Atavism is designed to provide the capabilities of traditional and current MMORPGs; allowing for Instances (to provide segregation of users if desired), along with the other common items, such as trading, chat channels, inventory, character and user accounts, pet dogs, etc.

You list PC, Mac and Linux as your platforms with mobile apps for check-ins and mobile alerts. I know Unity is built to make multiplatform releases easier, but how exactly is this being done? Will there be a standalone client for Neo's Land or will this be done through a browser and Unity's plugin?

Jacques Rossouw: There will be different standalone clients for each of the platforms, and then there will also be a browser version so you can login on any system that supports a browser. As for mobile apps we will be developing a few different types that can be used as alert systems and in-game action limited to things like selling items and so forth.

Neo's Land has no classes or levels— instead it has the Affinity Skill system. What does Affinity Skill mean? How does it correlate to progression? Will equipment have skill level requirements to use?

Jacques Rossouw: There is no class or level system. Instead there is a skill system which has infinite possibilities to what skills you learn. You will decide what skills to learn but they will be based on time so you will only be able to learn a certain amount of skills in any specific time. Using these skills will then increase their points and open up different sets of abilities to be used in the world.

If there are no levels and classes in Neo's Land, what do you see as your "progression" tracker? Are you balancing your instanced dungeons around having a certain number or set of skills or is it more of a gear-check? Will there be a "tank" or "healer" skill and gear build?

Patrick Hamilton: Balancing will be based on skill levels to give an approximation of the level of difficulty. There are other factors involved such as attributes and equipment, but skills will be the primary factor. Equipment is to help aid the character, not define the character. As such, all equipment can be used by any character. It’s just a matter of how well it can be used.

Neo's Land will be a subscription-based game with options to purchase subs using in-game currency. What options will those F2P players have for buying their subs? Will it be a player market similar to EVE Online's PLEX currency or will they buy their subs directly from NeoJac?

Jacques Rossouw: For the F2P they can buy their subs from other players similar to the EVE PLEX system. For us it is very important to look at each system and see where we can get the player’s involved the most. Utilizing this system we have the best of both worlds, F2P and P2P.

In addition to the subscription system, players can also purchase property and housing for real world currency, with all other purchases being restricted to in-game currency. If players wish to sell their cash-purchased property later, they can do so for cash or in-game currency. How will this be handled? Will players be selling through an in-game realty market? Do you sell directly between players? Are there limits to how you can sell a property and for how much if it's for cash rather than in-game currency?

Jacques Rossouw: Players will be able to sell property through a market system that we run to ensure legitimate sales. There will be a cost to sell property. Only property bought with real world currency will be able to be sold for real world currency.

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