Developer Q&A: Episode VII

The Developer Q&A series continues with this, the seventh installment! Thanks to everyone who has participated. If you have not managed to squeeze your question into the final cut, this may be the one for you! Here's how it works:

Post a question for a specific dev or department here in this thread and I will look into getting it answered in this developer Q&A! If it doesn't get asked, not to worry -- It may be too early for them to answer -- and there will be plenty more opportunities in the series to come.

Please specify an individual developer or, if you cannot think of one, the department. I've presented two of my own formatted examples below. Following their guidelines will encourage entrance for your question.

One question per episode, please. If your question gets picked up, it may be edited for length and content. The Episode VI deadline is Friday evening, February 22.

Departments:
Production
Engineering (Client, Tools, Gameplay, Server, etc)
Art (Animation, World Team, Character, etc)
Design: (World Building, Systems, Content)
Sound

EXAMPLE 1:
Name (or alias): David
Dev or Dept: Chris Klug
Question: Insert your question here?

EXAMPLE 2:
Name (or alias): Scepter
Dev or Dept: Animation
Question: Insert your question here?

[Loviatar]

Name (or alias): Loviatar
Dev or Dept: Ledaye / Creative
Question: It has been stated that the SGW storyline is set between seasons 8 and 9 of Stargate: SG1. That seems like a very short timeframe in which to host a game / story that will (hopefully) run 5-10 years or more. Do you have the leeway to delve into season 9 if the game runs long enough and, if you do, when in the game's lifetime do you think that might happen?

[Pyus]

Name: Pyus
Department: Design
Question 1: It has been said in a few interviews now that the materials used to craft will droped loot or Reverse Engineered from droped loot. Will these materials be Raw such as Steel or Trinium or will they be componets like power cores, focusing coils, or stocks.

Question 2 - if time permits: How will the command and individual vaults work, will they be a simple menu you scroll through to see the items inside or will it look like a actual vault you can walk inside to store all your stuff in.

[Jayna]

Name: Jayna

Dept: Design - Bill Slease

Question: With so many different types of weapons in the game will we have one generic type of damage or will we have multiple types of damage (fire, cold, sonic etc)

[Pyus]

Originally Posted by Jayna

Name: Jayna

Dept: Design - Bill Slease

Question: With so many different types of weapons in the game will we have one generic type of damage or will we have multiple types of damage (fire, cold, sonic etc)

I would assume since we are having different types of ammo we will, but regardless of what i think nice question Jayna.

[TheWetLlama]

Name: The Wet Llama
Dept: Creative/ Ledaye
Question: How are you acclimating the new player to the game? Can we expect a quick In-game tutorial (reminiscent of SWG of yesteryear), are we going to see an entire single player experience for the first few levels (a la Conan), or are we going to be dropped off at the SGC with a P90, a pat on the back, and a quick "Good Luck!" from Gen O'Neill?

[Warlord1337]

Name, Thorgeir
Dev or Dept: Design/Engineering
Question: What kind of in-game mail system will there be , will players use Mail boxes to send mail with goods/cash ?

[Heart]

Name: Heart

Dept: Engineering - Gameplay

Question 1: In a previous interview, it was mentioned that SGW will have two types of small groups called teams and squads which can hold a maximum of 6 people. However, will it be compulsory to have all 6 slots filled to complete missions and will there be bonuses or handicaps for not having six in a group when leveling.

[blkjag]

Name: Blkjag
Dept: Crafting




There are some big discussion going on about crafting in the forum, where alots of us would love to see crafting play a very important role in the game where the crafting elements requires you think and experiment not "point and click system" and you only can be a Master in a chosen specialty and the crafters are the ones who make the uber gears and weapons and not having it drop by mobs or named bosses so a thriving players economy will come into play, and not have this be a gear driven game.


Simple Question - Will players who play as crafters have a significant role in providing uber items and equipment to other players and will the crafting system have some intelligent and experimentation to it that incorporate (successes and failures) depending upon the materials and grades like what (SWG and others) had and how many fields can you master? Can you share with us some key details on what they are, base on what been finalized about the crafting system so far.

Scepter - feel free to edit my question to what make sense for clarity purposes.

[Captain_Quint]

Name: Captain_Quint
Dev or Dept: Art Department
Question: With fishing being in the game, will the fish we will be catching be something truly exotic and alien or are we just going to be stuck chasing after bass or pursuing the "ever elusive crappie"?

[Jayna]

People people its always been 1 question per Q&A

Lets not make scepter come in and bonk us!

[SGWorldsnet]

Name (or alias): SGWorldsnet
Dev or Dept: Design
Question:

Hello Cheyenne Mountain. I am sooo excited about this MMO. Stargate Worlds is going to be the first MMO I get involved in, having been a Stargate fan since I first saw the first Stargate movie in the theater. Being able to play in that universe has got me jazzed.

My question is for the engineering team. How will you manage your character's mission(s)?. Will there be a journaling system to keep track of the various goals your character is trying to achieve?

Thank you,
Mike

[anofalye]

Name: Anofalye
Departement: Gameplays
Question: Most MMOs force a gameplay on you at a point or another, and they almost always try to fast talk us into believe it is not forced (be it raiding, RvR, PvP, tradeskills, diplomacy, etc.). How is Stargate World on this topic, if I fall in love with what I see the first days I log in, will you always offer me this gameplay later on or will I be trapped into another gameplay which has nothing to do with the first gameplays (I love grouping and soloing...and pretty much everything else hehehe)?

[blkjag]

Originally Posted by Jayna

People people its always been 1 question per Q&A

Lets not make scepter come in and bonk us!

I know Jayna but I could not figure out a way to phrase what I want to say in a solid single question type format, not a 2 part question. Please take a stab at it , if you can, appreciate it.

[R2X]

Name (or alias): R2X
Dev or Dept: Production(not sure if this is the right Dept to ask)/Accounting
Question:

Will you offer a life time membership for the game, for a flat fee? Or will it be a month to month only payment system?

Reason I ask:
I ask this becuase a monthly fee is harder to remember to pay and its easy to skip a month(for any reason, like work) and just not pay any more.

I play LOTRO and i am a life time memeber and founder(beta tester )there.
It makes going back to the game after a month or two! hiatus a no brainer. Since I had to pay over one years worth of monthly fees up front.

[Pyus]

Originally Posted by Heart

Question 2: Will ammunition be consumable or non-consumable, or a combination of the two and what is the rational behind your choice?

I can answer this Heart they said in a previous podcast that yes every weapon in the game even Gou'ld can run out of ammo and you have to reload, but at the same time they don't want you to be boned being completely out of ammo. Since we know at least one upgrade being planed is special ammos we can assume that if you have 5 clips of special ammo and run out of them the game will auto switch to standard infinite ammo so your never without, but you will always have to switch out clips. I would guess this is both for realism (no revolvers fireing forever without reloading like the old westerns) and for tactics. Since cover plays a huge part of the gam I would think the best time to run for it or try to flank would be when your enemy is reloading and not shooting at you.

[Oberon]

Name (or Alias): Oberon
Dev or Department: Design
Question: It was mentioned in an earlier Podcast that the Raid content will be broken down into shorter multi-part "beats". The question is that do you foresee a long prep time for each of the multi-parts? By prep time I mean time spend farming for consumables/repair cost to degradable items. (if there is such thing as degradable items) If these costs can be covered quickly through the auction houses, do you plan to have valuable trade loot drop (in enough quantity) from the "beats" to cover the costs of each attempt.

Loaded question FTW

[Penguin]

Name (or alias): Penguin
Dev or Dept: Systems
Question: Will teams be allowed to substitute players? If so how many substitutions are allowed per team?

To clarify: By substitution I mean players who aren't part of the regular team. For example I have a team of 6, 3 of us can't make it on tonight, so can I go and find 3 other people (be they guildies, friends or people found on a LFG channel) to make up numbers?

[Ohoni]

Name (or alias): Ohoni
Dev or Dept: Engineering
Question: Will this game fully support windowed mode and alt-tabbing in and out of the game?

I ask because I really like to retain access to my computer as I play, without having to continually log in and out, and without changing the global gamma levels on my monitor every time I play.

[Saber]

Name (or alias): Saber
Dev or Dept: Design?
Question: Are there any plans for different PvP rule sets? Such as Team (Faction vs. Faction) PvP for a server? In other words only being able too shoot those of your opposing faction(s)

[SnakeCharmer]

Name (or alias): SnakeCharmer
Dev or Dept: AnimusSonitus
Question: When you were recording sounds for weapons, were you able to go play with various weapons on the range? Or were you given access to SG-1's sound database for that?

[Tuinel]

Name (or alias): Tuinel
Departments: Engineering
Question: In many MMORPG games normal humans can make large groups which are named: clans, alliances (few clans etc.).
1. How do u imagine making 'clans' or gups of 'clans' in SGW. I know there are 2 sides: 'bad' and 'good', but im wondering what (if will be exis) is the point of being a member of the clan?
2. If we craeate a 'clan' we can add the special symbol of this 'clan' on armor, flag, near nick etc. How can we recognize a clan member?
3. Can we expect some special abilities for clan members like: special clan features, crafting table, clan hall etc.

[T-minator]

Name: T-minator
Dept: Design
Question: Will there be MALPs or FREDs in the game witch would enlarge your inventory space?

[Blinvan Camlost]

Name (or alias): Blinvan Camlost
Dev or Dept: Engineering
Question:Will the game support DirectX 9.0c, or will everyone have to switch to Vista?

[Liliane]

Originally Posted by Blinvan Camlost

Name (or alias): Blinvan Camlost
Dev or Dept: Engineering
Question:Will the game support DirectX 9.0c, or will everyone have to switch to Vista?

They allready have sayed that SGW will support DX9. Only idiot would make game just for vista, because that would drop over 50% of players out.