Silverfall: Earth Awakening -- Leipzig, Thursday August, 23th 2007
This interview has been conducted by Gorkk for GameGrob during the Games Convention 2007 in Leipzig.
Jehanne Rousseau, Project Manager at Monte Cristo for Silverfall
GameGrob: I am here with Jehanne Rousseau, Project Manager at Monte Cristo for Silverfall, who agreed to answer a few questions for us. Hello Jehanne.
Jehanne Rousseau: Hello.
During the Games Convention, you officially announce an add-on for Silverfall, which were released in France in November 2006 and at the beginning of 2007 in the other countries. When did you start the development of the add-on, and where are you at in this development?
We started working on the add-on right after the last patch for Silverfall, the 1.17 patch mid-April. The development is almost over, as we're now starting the debug phase. For us, the master will be ready before the end of the year, and the add-on released at the beginning of next year.
The French release for Silverfall had been stained by a clear lack of time to finish the game and include the features you wanted. With this add-on, will you have more time to polish the work?
Indeed yes, as it being an add-on, we use the same graphic engine, even though we add some optimizations to it, and we basically only enhance and add content, which saves much time and can only push us towards a better quality.
What about the story of this add-on? At the end of Silverfall, the city is rebuilt and the hero lost his or her true love, what happens next?
At the beginning of the add-on, you are the new lord of Silverfall, and hence you must rule the day to day business. Let's not tell too much about it to avoid spoiling the pleasure of discovery, but in an area nearby Silverfall, techno and nature extremists fight each other and destroy everything on their way. They are the Coal Clash Clan and the Bark Panters. Inhabitants of these areas then come to ask for the help of the new lord of Silverfall to settle the conflict.
It's time to get to the new things of the add-on. With Silverfall, lots of players complained about not having a trade interface. Will it be available in the add-on?
It will. It is something we would really have loved to put in the base game, but that we couldn't get into. One must admit that having to drop items on the flour to trade with others was not very practical.
Likewise, one popular demand was for the possibility of moving items between characters on the same computer, with a shared stash for example.
That's something we're thinking about, but there's no promise it will be featured in the add-on. Our main focus has been the permanent ingame interface and the lot of new features and modifications of the add-on.
Generally speaking, an add-on offers new character classes. With Silverfall system, this would mainly be new races. What about it?
There's two new races in the add-on: the dwarf and the lizardman. The dwarf was a race very popular among the community, so it was natural for us to add it. Of course, like for other base races in Silverfall, it will be possible to choose the gender of the character, as well as its facial traits and its hairs. You will then be able to play a dwarf female or a lizardwoman.
In Silverfall, each race had specific skills; The troll for example had skills making him tougher, the Goblin had techno skills... What kind of skills will those two new races have?
The dwarf will get skills making him more resilient, defence wise and magical resistances wise. As for the lizardman, he will oriented towards archery, with skills increasing agility, enhancing archery, etc.
During the months preceding Silverfall's original release, in particular during the E3 2006, there had been announces of features for Silverfall which didn't make it in the game when released. Among those were the Ultimate Skills which you were supposed to unlock above level 80 with two skill trees maxed. Have those Ultimate Skills been included in the add-on?
Yes we added the Ultimate Skills. There's 8 of them. In addition to these 8 Ultimate, there's 22 new skills added by the add-on, some for high levels, other offering new possibilities to the player, on top of the racial skills of the two new races.
Upon release, there was no unique item in Silverfall. There was no set items with set bonuses either. With the various patches on Silverfall, you added some unique items. Will you add more, as well as sets, in the add-on?
Definitely yes. We add a bunch of unique items with the add-on, and we introduce sets of items.
In Silverfall, the higher difficulty levels had a limited interest, due to their only effect being the added hitpoints to the monsters. Can we expect some changes regarding this particular point?
Generally speaking, monsters have been completely revamped. They will now use much many more skills, and will partly adapt their combat tactics to the player's behaviour, and in particular whether he's attacking in melee or at range. Of course, at low level the monsters will not use many skills, and they will use them much more and higher level, and will as well be more “intelligent”. Further more, we have worked a lot on the resistances to the various magics, to incite the player to carefully choose their buffs, and equipment of course. Some bosses in the base game have been reworked as well to make them smarter and require more tactics; of course, the new bosses of the add-on have been conceived with that in mind. All in all, it's possible that players used to Silverfall will find the game harder, but they will find a much greater challenge with it.
Is there any modifications regarding the interface or the controls? I think in particular of the camera management which was not really convenient in Silverfall.
There has been a tremendous amount of work on this. As a starter, the camera is now completely free, somehow like the one in Guild Wars: you can now not only rotate the camera, but change its tilt as well independently of the zoom, and place the camera right on top of the character or parallel to the floor. Additionally we introduce in the add-on a new option to control the character: on top of the classic Point & Click available in the base game, it will now be possible to control fully ones character with the keyboard, moving with the WASD keys and selecting the enemies with the TAB key.
Lastly, the interface has been completely reviewed and enhanced as well, and now each and any graphical element of the interface can now be moved on the screen at will by the player, including the life and energy bubbles, the elements of informations on the group members, etc. We have revamped the other ingame panels as well (skills, quest log, etc.), trying to answer as many player demands as possible and focusing on ergonomic and simplification.
Regarding the story, the add-on adds a brand new campaign, and its lot of secondary quests. What is the length of this new campaign?
Le main quest in the add-on is more or less as long as the one in the base game, et will be completed by around 50 new side quests. The player will go through around 20 brand new maps, which are all graphically unique, unlike the base game where several maps used the same kind of environment. There will hence be a large diversity with the new areas.
And then a large new base to work with for the modders community, and create new campaigns with the editor?
Exactly.
What are the other new features this add-on have to offer?
First of all, the add-on will be available as a standalone add-on, which means it will possible to play it without the original game.
What will players with only the add-on have access to?
They will have access to every races including the 4 of the base game. However, they will only be able to play the add-on campaign and won't have access to the base game campaign. They will start the game at level 45, and Silverfall will be partially rebuilt as if they had done none of the quests for rebuilding, without any techno or nature orientation. The choice of the nature or techno orientation will be offered to them when starting the game.
At times, game performances were not great in Silverfall, and this even with good rigs. Any improvements here?
Actually yes. We made lots of optimisations on the graphic engine, which makes the game much more smooth and most configurations. Most the enhancements will be available as well to people without the add-on through a patch which will be released probably during October.
Many players wished they had a crafting system in Silverfall. Do you have something for them?
We do indeed. I would even say it's the main feature of the add-on, as it offers a full crafting system, allowing the players to not only modify items, but as well to create their own new items through an ingame editor which will be available to the player when he develops his crafting skills. There will be one window to create new items, and another one to enhance items you or others have created.
With the creation window, the player will be able to choose the main material used for the item. He will then choose the main colour of the item with a complete colour palette. Then he will be able to add two rigid pieces like a shoulder pad on the armour part being created, and choose their material and colour as well. Each of these rigid parts can then be enhanced with additional stuff like add gems or spikes. Each and every of the choices available to the player, apart from the colours, will provide different bonuses, which means that the player shall choose the appearance of the created item, but must be careful of the quality of the created item. Anyway, that gives an incredible amount of possibilities! Even more considering that it is then possible to imbue these items to make them even more interesting.
On top of that we added demon stones to enhance armour pieces and weapons (except for backpacks). There's two kind of demon stones: lesser demons, who give small bonuses and relatively common, and greater demons, very rare, and which can only be obtained through quests. The later can evolve through side quests they will give to the player, which will grant them new levels and let them give higher bonuses. Those stones can be removed from the items and added on top of new ones of course. We came with the idea with the Stormbringer RPG, for those who happen to know it.
Two more quick questions before we leave. First, what will be the price range for this add-on?
Most likely around 30 €, or rather just below, like 29.90 €.
Last one. Until now, this add-on was known as “Standalone Add-on” or “Work in progress”. With the Games Convention, do we now have a name?
The French name is still awaiting the approval of our publisher, and will be announced later, maybe during the Festival du Jeu Vidéo in Montreuil next month. For the English speaking countries, the name is “Earth Awakening”, et the German name is more or less a literal translation of it (Note: the German name is “Das Erwachen der Elementer”, which means “The Awakening of the Elements”). It is probable the French name will be of the same kind.
GameGrob: Thank you very much for this interview and all these informations Jehanne.
The article courtesy of the French game site: Titanquest-fr
Thank you!
