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 Sections: Rubies of Eventide Interviewwith Julia Howe Rubies of Eventide is the recently re-released MMO Game from CyberWarrior. Taking time out of their schedule Julia Howe was able to sit down with us and gab about this old school classic going mainstream with the new Jupiter Graphics Engine, and answer all our questions about the game.
Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to talk with us. Could you start with a self-introduction to everyone reading, and telling us what your role is day-to-day and the duties you do? My name is Julia Howe; I'm the Product Manager for Cyber Warrior's title "Rubies of Eventide". On any given day, I could be working on musical scores for the game, soundFX production and placement (dedit makes me quite whoosey!), most recently my duties have been more marketing and customer service oriented. For example, the GMs and quality of service they provide is very much my business, keeping the knowledge base current, and of course maintaining the website. "Rubies of Eventide" is setting itself apart from the major players in MMO Games by offering some of the best levels of customer care and community relations in gaming, could you expand on that? What else set's RoE apart from the other games in what is basically a competitive market trying to gain the most users? I believe the best customer care comes from the heart. A lot of companies, including those companies that sell customer-support products, have embarassingly forgotten this basic tenant. We were lucky enough to find a good partner in our endeavors, Fuze (http://www.fuzeds.com/home.asp). Right from the beginning, we had a lot of assistance from the Fuze QnA team and they helped us set up a state of the art knowledge base within days. Aside from these technical boons, all of us working here have played these games and have been burnt at one time or another due to lousy customer service and griefers in-game. So we've brought what we've learned from our own lame experiences to hopefully do things differently, the way they probably SHOULD have been in the first place. Most importantly, we try to design our game inside and out to repel corporate-griefing as well as player-griefing. For example, if you've prepaid for 3 months and you don't like our game, we'll refund your money so you can go spend it on a game you do enjoy. Not refunding, in my opinion, constitutes sleezy greedy corporate-griefing. So to sum up this point, we take into account a lot of our own feelings about what is FAIR (our human intuitions, common sense, and what we'd do in the same situation) when dealing with our players not just the dollar. I should also mention that our GMs are awesome. Some of them are working mothers and they just have a lot of heart and love for what they do. We also have GMs that are in college, some domestic and some overseas.. yes there are jobs for insomniacs out there! We have never had a person quit the game *ever* due to customer service or GM problems. That's a pretty strong percentage and we hope to maintain that track record =) I feel most of our competition is in the Stone Age when it comes to this area. The newer games are really just visually rehashed versions of their predecessors and quite frankly, that's not what is going to be important to players in the long run. All of us walk away with a value derived from an experience ..sure, visuals are part of that experience but not the most important thing. No one is a stranger to the phenomenon where you could be in the most lovely place imaginable but if the people you're with are a bunch of weenies, or if your needs aren't being tended to, it doesn't matter... in the end... the experience sucks. We may not be the most popular game to hit the shelves this year, but we're not trying to be. We're trying to build a PERSISTANT WORLD here, not some perishable gold-plated fort 'o spam. "Rubies of Eventide" is an old-school game? Having an established fan base, from a niche perspective, how did the game develop to what we are seeing today? It was originally a text based MUD? It's been around since late 90's? Yes, It Just Is, yes, yes. Without the benefit of experienced programmers or knowledge in building persistent worlds.. we set out to do our own little R&D. In the 90's Cyber Warrior set up a local ISP which included free access to these concept MUDs. Around the same time, we also had other MUDs running on our network including MajorMUD on Realm of Mirage BBS. We still actively host MajorMUD among several other DOOR games here at www.realmofmirage.com! All of the other MUD servers have since shut down when their admins moved onto bigger and better things. The first Rubies servers, to give you an idea, were run off of a LambdaMOO server. We had a working DOS client! =D Many of the original (and seriously resourceful players) that would telnet-in are still playing Rubies today. We've all been very patience haven't we. (I swear when I'm a grannie, I'll have screenshots of the old lambdamoo and cancun ROE games in my wallet as if they were my grandchildren) How responsive has the gaming community and the RoE community been to the new game engine, compared to the earlier incarnations? Interestingly, the response initially was fear. Our purists were sincerely afraid we were going to go the visual aesthetic route and skimp on the details. Of course we would never do that. All the things that made Cancun great we're expanding on here. (I can't promise anything regarding those sling-hamsters though) The non-ROE gaming community itself has been generally skeptical. Even though we use the Lithtech Jupiter engine (which is in no way a cheesy graphics engine) people have their own ideas about quality largely based on screenshots. It's really a shame because our strengths lie in information a screenshot can not provide. The ROE community knows this though, and that's why they've put their faith in us. As a developer, I don't think we could have been blessed with a more sensitive and thoughtful group of players. So we do our part of the bargain and keep listening. "Rubies of Eventide" currently is following one of the higher priced models for monthly-based subscriptions compared to MMORPG bastions such as "Dark Age of Camelot" and "EverQuest." Could you expand on why? Do niche, smaller games need to charge more to support their communities? Will smaller games in the future in your mind charge higher prices? We really aren't in the higher price bracket when you stop to consider its $9.95 a month with the prepaid yearly accounts and you can get your money back. Our software is free. I mean, come on... we even GIVE players a free month of access automatically for every 3 people they refer. For anyone that can do the math, we're an overlooked bargain. The funny thing is, with a lower population insofar as mmorpgs go, it costs us MORE to run this operation than say.. SONY. We also don't have all the big corp business benefits (ie: cheaper bandwidth deals, cheaper server deals) so it's very costly doing this in 'short-run'. With more customers, this kind of game gets cheaper per head.. unless you're dealing with a lot of continuous development (free zones and add-ons) and customer service expenses. Keep in mind, Rubies of Eventide DOES provide free expansions and maintains a really high standard for customer care. So much like you, I'm puzzled too why these other companies can reasonably charge $15-$20 a month when they don't seem to take care of their players and on top of that expect people to buy all these expansions every 6 months in addition to the base software which is around $50. That's some sickly high financial maintenance. When you get the answers from the other guys, let me know. =) ROE boasts that it has in-depth character creation, aside from the over 100 character classes (kits) that a player could specialize in, could you tell us more about the races, hair color, etc? There are over 100 varying shades of hair coloring? Height Selection? Facial Morphing? There are over 100 character professions but anyone can choose to be an "adventurer" which is the wildcard template. We have 8 different races, each with a very significant backstory that will be revealed as the lore is disseminated. Hair color selection is pretty wide with a few minor racial variations. There are a lot of faces with tattoos and war paint. Dwarven women tend to wear a lot of rouge. Gnomes look innocent... usually. We tried to create whole "looks" for people with regard to how they would want to Play their character. As a lady, I'm amazed that there is even the option to be a big hefty ogress.. not many games even ALLOW women to be fat! Once in-game, you can even get your gear dyed by local dye merchants. We plan to make colors available by season and area.. so its completely feasible a rare color may only be available once every game year. There are a lot of jokes circulating on websites (like here: www.pvponline.com) about our "barber" class. Although our original intent was to have barbers in-game in the medieval function of their job (mainly as a kind of healer)... there is some discussion on our forums about also letting barbers do hair. I guess for special occasions that would be nice.. but would that come with a Dwarven makeover? =D Most if not, ALL MMO Games are constantly in a state of development, when it comes to crunch, production and release, there is always features that get tossed on the back burner, to be patched or implemented later. RoE suffered the same fate with a number of its skills, that even in the Character Creation screen's note "NOT IMPLEMENTED YET." Are any of these items that would detract from a players enjoyment if they wanted to play one of those classes? Not at all, for several reasons. First, most players consciously develop their characters by allocating development points to certain skills so they have control over where they put their points. Secondly, language skills and stealth are just bypassed right now. There's nothing that depends on them YET. That doesn't mean a forward-thinking individual is discouraged from allocating points to them. We had a guy put a TON of DP into armorsmithing even before the skill was formally in. Of course, once it was, he was instantly the master armorsmith. =] We have a link on our site from the Tree of Knowledge to the available skills list. It also has a short list appended at the bottom of skills not yet in the game. This month, much of that NIY list will be shortened so this really shouldn't be a concern at all by the time we're on retail shelves. Is there a way to "RESPEC" or sell skills and levels back in game, when features are implemented? Is there any type of time frame that is followed with a "Hit List" that most developers follow? Absolutely. You will find Lethe the respec spirit on the docks of Halerma at night. Players may (through quests) gain the ability to respec more than once per character lifetime. But these artifacts will be rare. If there is a significant nerf with a future update.. we'll certainly allow people to respec if they're affected. We're not unreasonable =) We keep our players constantly informed about what skills are coming in the next patch, near future, and far future. Discussions about these features are read by all the devs and we work with our players to make real well thought-out improvements. On the skill system, a player could become a "Brewer/Gladiator," in which he could make beer, and then fight in arenas? Can all skills and professions be unrelated to one another when a player creates their avatar? Could you expand more on these, it's a bit confusing. Huh? Brewer/Gladiator?! Players can either be a brewer OR a gladiator. Not to say a Brewer couldn't train to be tanky and ornery for a brawl in the arenas later. Gladiators could train alchemy to the point of making ale and identify themselves brewers. It's all skills-based. Yes, skills can be completely unrelated to one another from the class they started out with. With the freedom to customize your character more than ever before, you also have the freedom to royally screw yourself through bad decision-making. So choose wisely. =) Combat! RoE essentially has the first version of "Private Dungeons/Adventure Areas" when fighting NPC/MOB's with the disappearing combat system to prevent kill stealing, could you tell us more about this? We have a combat radius that's kind of like a sumo wrestling ring. If you manage to flee out of the circle, you've run away. The idea of the combat becoming its own little world is based on the real neurobiology of threat. When you're in combat, everything is ignored in the world around your player except for your party members and the aggressors. Once the threat is eliminated, your character may notice their friend has snuck up on them or there are new possible threats in the area. It adds a nice little element of surprise into how we handle our combat mode. The loot-griefing ends here, unless you're in the party, you can't collect loot from the battle in Rubies. How large is the game? There seems to be some varied aspects from real world history intermixed within the storyline. Do all areas of the game tie into an overall story theme, and are there "featured events driven by staffers in game?" The game world is about 16-20 zones large right now. Real scenarios and credible personalities are intermixed with the storyline to create a believable ongoing story. The official live-events are promoted by lore and driven by the development team coming in-game in certain roles to provide a real live-event experience. Major historic events occur once a month per server. It's also noteworthy that personal perception of what's going on may be affected by a player's own reputation and access to certain NPCs who are willing to share their thoughts about in-game situations. How is the community? At one time, we did a preview and our writer enjoyed the PvP system and focused on that, a few years go. How is PvP today? Can guilds battle guilds? Has there been a lot of PK Griefers detracting from the enjoyment of others, or does the community pretty much police itself with those who attempt to upset game balance? Our community is lauded as one of the friendliest gaming environments you'll ever find. There are no reported PK griefers yet. There is no noob-bashing or griefing found commonly in other games. Our GMs are very strict about harassers and we have little love for people that make it their business to ruin the game for others. The community polices itself pretty well and we have a report feature (in testing) that lets all players send their personal chat log to the GMs if there is an incident of serious harassment or griefing going on. We've really cut no slack for jerks here but the beauty of it is, the need for big-brother features are eliminated. You won't have staff emulating or spying on you in this game. Isn't that a liberating idea? PvP is live and well! You can PvP one-on-one or against other guilds and parties. (I'm not big on PVP to begin with so I don't have a lot to say about this particular topic). If people want to check out Rubies of Eventide where can they go, and are there any Trial Periods? Yes of course! We have a free 10 day trial period with all new credit card signups. The software download is also free. www.rubiesofeventide.com/signup We do require a valid credit card for personal identification reasons but a player can delete their personal billing information right in account management (login from our website www.rubiesofeventide.com) if they are not comfortable with it being on file once your account is active. We don't charge anything at all initially if someone is a new player in free trial. Seriously, there's absolutely NO risk involved here. If there are any questions about billing I've missed you can email rubiesfeedback@cyberwar.com and someone will answer your concerns directly. Care to cover anything else not mentioned? Not in particular =) Once someone has a free game account, they can post on our message boards so if there are any other topics I missed feel free to ask our players, GMS, and available Devs. Thanks for talking with us! No problem, thanks for your time! A thanks to Julia Howe from Cyber Warrior for talking with us, be sure to check out the official website to learn more about Rubies of Eventide! Discuss: Old School Traditions, New School Look.
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