Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Updated Q&A - Character Customization, Roman Gods, and Combat
Design director Stieg Hedlund tells us on the latest improvements to this upcoming massively multiplayer role-playing game set in the glory of ancient Rome.
Most massively multiplayer role-playing games are set in Tolkien-inspired fantasy worlds inhabited by cheery elves, surly dwarves, monstrous orcs, and so on. Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising isn't one of these. The debut game from Perpetual Entertainment is set in the ancient world, and you'll create a Roman character to adventure across a beautiful landscape inhabited by other players and countless enemies. This isn't the familiar ancient world of history as you know it, though, because the world of Rome Rising is full of mythological creatures and the power of the Roman gods themselves. For the latest on Gods & Heroes, we turned to design director Stieg Hedlund. Gods & Heroes is scheduled to launch later this year.
GameSpot: Tell us about character creation in Gods & Heroes. What choices will you have when creating a character? What sort of customization options are there to make sure your character looks unique in an online world populated by thousands of characters?
Stieg Hedlund: There has been a lot of work done on our character creation system lately, and there's a focus on giving the player as few or as many options as they want. When you start the game, you can click through some basic choices and start playing or you can dig down into the advanced options and play with the various sliders to alter everything from height and weight to minute facial features. We'll also be allowing players to pick colors that will appear on tunics and armor. These colors will also affect your minions, appearing on their equipment, as well. So you'll be running around and see someone run by with their squad, and you'll be able to recognize them based on their color schemes.
GS: Give us an overview of the game's six character professions.
SH: The classes are gladiator, mystic, priest, rogue, scout, and soldier. To give some detail, the gladiator is the real hands-on kind of guy. He wants to get out there and kill everything in style, while the soldier is very defensive and focused on outlasting his opponent. Likewise, the scout is your ranged single-target damage dealer, whereas the rogue is like the gladiator's stealthy little brother--get in close and make things bleed. Finally, the priest is your healer and has the ability to curse, while the mystic has the power to just lay down incredible amounts of ranged area damage on targets.
To further augment the classes, they will each have additional feats that allow them to become more specialized in their class. So the gladiator can choose from ropes or fighting gloves to make him more ruthless. The soldier gets shields and two-handed weapons. The rogue gets distance fighting and close fighting. The scout gets infiltration and beast handling. The mystic gets summoning and necromancy. And finally, the priest gets blessing and cursing.
GS: We understand that players will begin as one of the six character classes but can later evolve their characters considerably throughout the course of the game, depending on such factors as which Roman god they follow. Could you give us a specific example of how this will work?
SH: With the way the god system is implemented, players won't be allowed to change their god affiliation. The gods were designed to be a motivation and an unpredictable driving force to both the player and the story of Gods & Heroes. As players progress through the game, they will encounter the god they have chosen to follow and that god will begin to demand certain actions from the player. So if the player chooses to fulfill these requests, then the gods will grant them either an increase in overall favor, give them a new god power, or enhance a known god power. Each god has their own set of powers, and so having two players of the same class but each following a different god in the same party can have very favorable results.
GS: Speaking of the Roman gods, they play a big role in the game, as they grant god powers to those who follow them. How large is the pantheon of Roman gods--how many are in the game? Are all the major gods represented, and are any minor gods in the game?
SH: Gods & Heroes has 12 major gods: Jupiter and Fortuna for the gladiator, Mars and Minerva for the soldier, Apollo and Diana for the scout, Mercury and Nemesis for the rogue, Pluto and Juno for the priest, and Bacchus and Trevia for the mystic. All of the major gods are represented in the game, as well as many of the lesser gods, even if they aren't an option for the player at this point.
GS: What's involved when you level up a character? What kind of skills or abilities can you unlock as you advance? What's the level cap planned to be for Gods & Heroes when it first launches?
SH: Usually when a player levels up a character, they immediately type "Ding!" in the first available chat window to announce their success. Players can reach a maximum of level 50, and they will have a very robust feat tree with a variety of abilities to choose from. Players will be able to upgrade their current feats, choose new ones, or upgrade abilities for their squad. It's also important to point out that new god powers and other goodies can be obtained as players level up.
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