Ultima X: Odyssey Interview
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GB: How will the leveling system work in UXO, and how many levels do you anticipate allowing characters to gain? Jon: UXO's advancement system is a hybrid between what most players recognize as a level system and a skill-based system. We have twelve character classes (called Disciplines), broken into four groups called (Paths). The four Paths are: the Path of the Blade, the Path of the Arcane, the Path of Nature, and the Path of Balance. Each Path has three Disciplines. When creating a character, players choose a Path and can choose abilities from any Discipline within that Path. For example, if you chose the Path of Nature, you could select abilities from the Druid, Ranger, or Shepherd disciplines. So you will have a great deal of flexibility within your Path.
Fans of the Ultima series will also be happy to hear that all of the eight traditional Ultima classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Druid, Shepherd, Tinker, and Mage), are Disciplines in UXO. We've rounded out the choices with the other four Disciplines: Barbarian, Sorcerer, Knight, and Necromancer.
As far as leveling goes, UXO differs from traditional leveling games as well. In most games, you have to wait until you level before you earn points to increase your character's effectiveness. At high levels, this creates long periods of time where your character doesn't change or advance. In UXO you earn these points over time, in-between levels. Your level is really just a numerical indication of how powerful your character is, rather than something you have to wait for before you can advance your character.
Characters earn experience, which in turn earns them (stat points) and (ability points.) Stat points can be spent to increase your character's four basic statistics (strength, intelligence, dexterity, and constitution), while ability points allow you to learn abilities (skills). Abilities can be anything from a fireball spell for a mage to a powerful (war quake) melee attack for a barbarian. You can spend ability points to either learn a new ability or to raise the effectiveness of an ability your character already knows. Each discipline has 18 abilities, giving characters a choice of 54 abilities per Path. Each ability in a Path is unique, meaning you'll never gain an ability later in your character's advancement that makes a previous ability obsolete. Even at the highest levels, you'll still want to use the very first ability your character ever learned.
At first, characters can achieve a maximum level of 100. However, characters can break beyond this cap through the ascension system. Ascension is a reward for creating multiple characters, called (Disciples,) which allow your main character (who we call the (Hero)) to progress beyond level 100. So not only is making new characters and trying out new Paths and Disciplines fun, but you'll also get a reward for your Hero character as well. Eventually, once you have enough Disciples, your Hero can ascend and become an Avatar. Avatars are extremely powerful characters who have mastered all eight virtues, giving them incredible powers. We'll be releasing more information on Ascension and Avatars in the future on the uxo.ea.com site.
GB: Tell us a bit about how private questing will work. Will there be a limit to how many private "sessions" a server can handle?
Jon: Private areas is what will really make adventuring in UXO shine. In most games, if you are given the task to slay a dragon, you may travel all the way to the dragon's cave only to find that someone else just killed him. On top of that, there are 15 other groups all waiting in line for him to respawn. Not only is it annoying to have to wait hours (or even days in some cases!) for your (turn,) but it also greatly detracts from the feeling of being a hero if you literally have to watch as 15 other groups all complete the same quest you are attempting.
Instead, we create a private version of the dragon's cave just for you and your party. When you enter the cave, the system automatically creates a private instance of the map and builds the quest components. The adventure system can even scale the monsters on the map according to your party size and level. Having the quest take place in a private area also allows us to create much more interesting quests. For example, you could get a quest to kill all of the skeletons in the catacombs. Again, in other games this would be impossible, because if the skeletons didn't respawn, other players in the catacombs who just want to kill skeletons for XP or loot would quickly run out of things to fight.
When you arrive at the catacombs in UXO, we create a private instance of the map that doesn't interfere with those players fighting in the public catacombs. Now we can turn off the skeletons' respawn and literally allow you to (clean out) the dungeon. Of course, the real strength of the adventure system is that the quests are highly story-driven. So along the way, you might speak with a Necromancer and decide whether to continue killing the skeletons or perhaps perform some other task instead. Again, since the map is private, you don't have to worry about anyone else killing your quest NPC before you have a chance to make a decision.
GB: Do you plan on supporting player housing at launch? If so, can you tell us any development goals you might have for such a feature? If not, is it your intention to eventually add housing?
Jon: We don't plan on shipping the game with housing. At the start of this project, we wanted to create a focused set of really deep systems, rather than have a bunch of systems without the same amount of depth. So, we decided to really hone in on features like combat and adventuring, making sure those systems are fully fleshed out before thinking about systems like housing.
Right now we are focusing on creating a game that is fun, with or without housing.
GB: Any plans on what transportation options will be available to characters (horses, boats, teleportation, etc)? Will you offer a Recall spell similar to Ultima Online?
Jon: Generally, transportation systems in MMORPGs are nothing more than clever ways of disguising forced downtime. So whether it's making you take a (taxi) mount or sail on a ship to get from one place to another, you often have to waste a lot of time to get from where you are to where you want to be. While transportation systems like these can be neat the first few times you use them, as soon as their (newness) wears off, they become tedious.
We decided not to include mounts that you can control, mostly because putting the character on a mount greatly reduces how impressive combat can look. Our combat (which I'll discuss more in the next question) involves a lot of cool animation and exaggerated motions, such as flips and jumps. The moment you put your character on a mount, you lose all of that. So instead of creating mounts (which in most games are nothing more than a visual speed buff), we decided on different ways to get you around the world.
In UXO, we have two major forms of travel (aside from running, of course) that players can use to quickly get where they want to be. First, we have a moongate system. For those unfamiliar with the Ultima games, moongates are magical portals that allow you to travel from one map to another very quickly. About half of the outdoor maps have moongates on them, and you can use a moongate to travel to any other moongate that you have access to.
In addition to moongates, we also have a system that allows you to instantly teleport your friends to your location or have them teleport you to their location. This greatly reduces downtime and makes it very easy for friends to quickly group together even if they start out on opposite sides of the world. So if you can only play for 30 minutes on a certain night, you don't have to waste 15 of those minutes using a slow transportation system. You can log in, ask your friend to teleport you, and within seconds you're adventuring with your friends!
GB: To conclude, what do you feel is the most important aspect of UXO that will set it apart from other MMORPGs?
Jon: Well aside from the story-driven, virtue based questing, the feature that will set UXO apart from other MMORPGs is our combat. Combat in UXO really is like nothing you have ever experienced in a massively-multiplayer game.
In previous interviews and message board posts we've talked a lot about what we call (sandwich combat.) In other words, the kind of combat where your character goes into some kind of (war mode) and then proceeds to automatically fight half the battle for you. Aside from the occasional macro-key to cast a spell or use a skill, the control of the fight is largely out of your hands. You can practically leave your computer and go get a sandwich during the fight and check back later to see if you won. We wanted to change that. So, we didn't just give you some control over your character's combat actions.we gave you total control.
Every sword swing, every block, and every spell cast is controlled by you. Not only do you initiate every attack, but you can also control the pacing of the attacks. The longer you wait between attacks, the better your chance to hit. You can also choose to make your character actively defend, giving you a chance to actually block an attack. Hitting with an attack or blocking an opponent's attack does a lot more than just damage your opponent or help you avoid being damaged too.
Every time you hit an opponent or block an attack, your character gains momentum. Momentum can be spent to either (charge up) one of your special abilities (making it more powerful) or to create (combos,) allowing you to string different abilities together in rapid succession. Whether you choose to spend momentum to charge up one ability or to string together abilities is up to you, and will depend on the situation. UXO's combat is designed to give you a core group of options and then let you create strategies for using those options. Attack speed, active defense, momentum, charging-up, and combos are just some of the aspects you'll be able to use to influence a battle. But whatever your strategy, it will be your actions that will always directly determine every part of the fight.
Between our premier event in August and a few focus groups, we've had over 100 players try out UXO's combat already (and it's not even done yet). Many of them have compared it to console fighting games and other single-player games, instead of other MMORPGs. While UXO's combat doesn't require the (twitch) reaction of a fighting game, it is meant to give you the same sense of control and adrenaline rush. So we take those kinds of comments to mean we're definitely onto something with this kind of active combat!
If you are interested in learning more about combat, the uxo.ea.com site has an extensive update. Don't forget to check out the videos and the music while you're there!
We'd like to issue our thanks to everyone at EA and Origin, especially Jon, for taking the time to answer our questions!
