Earth and Beyond Online Updated Q&A

A Terran warrior enters the lounge after docking his starship.

Recently we were invited to visit Westwood Studio's offices in Las Vegas to follow the progress of what's easily shaping up to be the company's most ambitious project to date: Earth and Beyond Online. The idea for a space-based game that lets a great number of people interact with one another was hovering in the mind of Brett Sperry, Westwood's cofounder and chief creative office, well before the company's early days of Red Alert and Command & Conquer. Games like Ultima Online spurred Westwood into action, and nearly five years ago, the game that was then simply called G and that's now known as Earth and Beyond Online began to take shape. And while the game might never truly be done--online RPGs constantly receive enhancements well beyond their release dates--it is finally to the point of being feature-complete. While we were able to play the game during our visit, we also took that opportunity to sit down with Sperry to talk about additional details about Earth and Beyond Online that we didn't discuss in yesterday's preview.

A Progen explorer enters a space station to repair his ship.

GameSpot: Brett, even though Earth and Beyond Online was not announced until earlier this year, it's obviously been in development for quite some time. Can you tell us exactly when you started work on this game and when you thought to do the game?

Brett Sperry: For as long as I can remember, even before we were acquired by Electronic Arts, I've been interested in creating a game experience where a lot of people could participate simultaneously in the same environment. However, the technology wasn't really right until about four years ago. Design on Earth and Beyond Online began in earnest around March 1997. For the next two years, a small team of about nine people worked on design concepts and visualization systems. Full development began shortly thereafter with a team of around 20 people.

GS: About two years ago, you told us that one aspect of 21st century gaming would be the advent of "meaningful cooperative play." How does Earth and Beyond Online fit into that statement?

BS: It's important that with Earth and Beyond Online we give players a compelling reason to engage others and participate with them in the game environment. We want to have a good benefit for players to socialize and participate with others in the game. For example, some players may choose to be a Jenquai explorer and play that role to the hilt. They'll play all the way through the experience, max out their particular skills, max out their spaceship, and have a great time. But what if they encounter another Jenquai that might not even be as evolved or developed as they are, but they've got some real cool item or skill? Hopefully that player will want to find out how they acquired it. In so doing, players will come to understand that there could be a whole new layer of experience and benefits that they'd be missing if they didn't communicate and cooperate with other players on missions.

Another aspect of the game we hope to incorporate post launch can be loosely called "social engineering tools" that will help to maintain burgeoning relationships that will inevitably be created. Let's say you see a friend you've made in the game universe, and you attempt to contact him or her, but they don't respond. Maybe they're in their own intense game moment; maybe they're away from their computer. All you know is that they're ignoring you. What if we could integrate a tool that, after a few minutes, would send you a message saying that person's away from their computer or tied up with something and can't get back to you right away? It might sound relatively minor, but it's the kind of tool that we think will help maintain the fabric of community that we're hoping to achieve.