The only reason that I know it’s Friday is that the Pitch Black Games crew sat down and streamed another Q/A and info dump session.  I was totally planning to watch this one live but I spaced and took a lunch break.  I’ve gone back and watched the entire video, which comes in at an hour, and taken summation notes on what I found interesting or did not know and sprinkled in some of my own thoughts while I watched.  I’ll just get right to it.  Like the stream, there really isn’t any structure to the information given during Q/A so it’s all over the place.  I emphasized some buzz words to grab your attention in some of them.

First off, thanks for the shout out!  You guys deserve the attention.  Prime is shaping up, at least on paper, to be a game I had started to give up hope of ever seeing made again.  You’re mixing DAoC, SWG, using a Scifi theme, and have been very open with your community in a way that comes off real and honest instead of a cheesy production.

Testing coming up next Thursday.  They think they have the patcher ready to go.  There are some betas that I really hope to get into and some I ultimately do not care either way.  This is one I want in on because the game is hitting upon some design choices that are near and dear to my heart.  They’re mixing some of my favorite games into one.  Heck yes, I want to help shape that.

Gear Degradation – Mention of quality; lower quality degrades faster.  I’m getting a DAOC vibe.  Superior grade or better degrades slower, but it will not be permanent and you will have to replace.  Not in a few days to a week, but if you’re an avid player you will have to get new ones made.

Does Quality matter for gear?  Yes.  There are multiple grades of resources and these will be factored into crafting. Once again, I’m a huge fan.  You can read my thoughts on durability all over the blog, but most recently in my entry about Prime’s profession system.

How big are the PvP zones? There isn’t a lot of zoning and they are “pretty big”.  “10-12 LARGE base areas”.  “They’re pretty big”.  I’m hoping for DAOC frontier size.  Big enough to care about where you move your forces.  It would be a real let down to see Warhammer Online’s zone system again where everything is choke pointed, cramped, and not at all “big”.  Here’s hoping the PBG team understands the importance of zone size!

Melee heavy classes have a means of closing distance with targets.  I was talking on ventrilo about the classes the other night with a buddy of mine and we were wondering how jet packs would work with combat.  In particular, how would a melee class catch anyone jetting around?  I’m seeing (via my awesome imagination) some kind of rocket burst with a stun or some kind of EMP net to stun/disable rocket packs.  Obviously there are lots of ways they would implement this and keep it realistic to the setting.

Expected System requirements: 2 gigs ram, 512mb video card memory, multiple cores = Should run smooth.  Seems standard.  It’s interesting to look at these since it is using the Hero Engine which is also used by SWTOR.

There are crowd control abilities and ways to break them.  You’ll have to manage who you crowd control or not, likely due to some classes having abilities to break CC more regularly.  Should be interesting to see what kinds of CC there will be in a game with much more freedom of motion than a standard MMO.  People zipping around on jet packs up in the air getting stunned, for example, would be interesting to watch.

Cross-Server zones = No current plans.  Thank you.  We’ll see how Guild Wars 2 pulls this off, but I’m not holding my breath.

How many instances at launch? 5 or 6 guaranteed.  Some of them are more “adventuresome” and take longer and you’ll want to get more people to complete them.   World bosses are designed in cross-faction zones, so you will need “a lot” of people to take them down, especially if other factions are messing with you.  There was mention of a zone that sounds to me like Darkness Falls.  This is the second time they’ve mentioned it and I’d love more details on the place if anyone has them.  Is it unlocked by holding the most bases game-wide or just a particular pvp zone?

There will be a way to gauge your enemy’s skills to yours a la some sort of conning system.

PvP zones, like areas with Bases, will have very little (if any) PvE monsters.  No complaints here, but I do remember the excitement of finding those great places to hunt monsters in the DAoC frontiers.  I would always have to watch my back and contend with others.  As mentioned above, World Bosses are in PvP zones so maybe that will cover the bases.

No dungeon finder feature.  They want players to go out into the world and not just sit in one place.  I see this as a very good thing for the game and not in any way a missing feature.

What will be required to maintain bases in PvP areas?  “Don’t let the enemy break them.”  I would be interesting in knowing if there will be ways to upgrade them or bolster their defenses.  In DAOC you could bring wood and have crafters repair doors.  Perhaps something similar?

I’m setting my alarm this time so that I can make the next stream, shoot you guys some questions, and participate.  Hopefully there will be some beta PvP combat to show us.

To watch the video on youtube (if the ustream bugs out a lot for you like it does for me), read on. (more…)