Mide Province's Interview with Dave Kennerly
... 99.03.19On Friday, March 19, Mide Province www.mideprovince.com conducted an interview with Dave Kennerly, the director of the Dark Ages project. The interview covered topics such as role-playing, the development of Dark Ages, future plans, and other questions raised by members of the Dark Ages Mailing List.
Mide Province: First of all, let me thank you for taking the time to let me interview you; I know you have a busy schedule.
Mide Province: This interview is basically for the readers to get an idea of what the minds behind Dark Ages are thinking.
Mide Province: OK, first question: How do you see Dark Ages evolving over the next couple of months?
Dave Kennerly: The society will blossom. Social activities will appear. Characters will become involved in the world, in the form of religious fellowships, guilds, armies, political entities, and semi-governing organizations.
MP: With such complexity, Dark Ages seems to have an emphasis on creating a true online virtual world. How will you strive to maintain that atmosphere once the game goes into production?
DK: Dark Ages staff spends and will spend all their energy in infusing the game with the "magic" of the Dark Ages atmosphere. This comes about effectively in keeping the features, mundanes, quests, and creatures true to the theme. It also comes about through epic events within the world. The world will breathe, with as much breath as I have to put into it.
MP: In the "Dark Ages is Different" letter, you mentioned role-playing is required - how will this be enforced? Will people be removed for being out of character?
DK: Dark Ages is a community, and has smaller communities within it. Players will "remove" non-roleplayers from their communities. A great feat of testing, and one I've wanted to see in an online world for several years, is the subtle balance of power and responsibility required to maintain the atmosphere by actual members of the community.
MP: The thought being that the community as a whole will not respect or interact with non-roleplayers?
DK: There will be several communities. For example, a person may be exiled from Mileth for being extremely rude, hostile, and harassing to most he comes into contact with. He could go to Abel, or Rucesion, if he has not been exiled from there as well.
MP: Also, on the topic of the community: Will there be any justice system in Dark Ages?
DK: Yes. This is intertwined. There will be an OOC justice system and an IC justice system. OOC will only occur for gross contract violations (which, for example, sexual harassment is). IC justice will be moved into the hands of responsible players at the consent of the community they belong to. There will be a Mileth Justice system, an Abel Justice system... and so on. The OOC justice system will be hard, simple, swift, and rare. It has a rationale in Temuair: the "Shadow Hunger". When a character has become so evil, then the Shadow Hunger stalks him or her. It is a tough opponent at best. Yet (presuming it is technically possible) it can be made to spawn a second "Shadow Hunger" if a respected member of one of the communities chooses to do so. If the person is hated by a few persons and guilt is obvious, then death will be immediate.
MP: So in general, justice will be handled by respected members of the community rather than an archon/constable system such as Nexus:TK. (i.e. will we see "immortals" to the same extent that we do in Nexus:TK?)
DK: Yes. There will not be divinely-ordained positions. There will be no immortals. There may be something such as a Bailiff of Mileth, who has the power to fine, accost, or exile a character for a short duration from Mileth. The Bailiff, though is selected by mature qualities which can be recorded on a character, and will be selected by the community of Mileth.
MP: A lot of players have enjoyed the true role-playing atmosphere that Dark Ages provides. Will there be advancement in Dark Ages based on role-playing? (i.e. will there be higher roles to assume, with organization?)
DK: Yes. Previously I mentioned religious fellowships, guilds, armies, and politics. Real Temuairan societies, fully role-played. They will appear from the bottom-up. That is the lowest levels of the society, such as a local guild will appear, be tested and balanced, before going further. This is critical to maintaining balance. Balance is the best platform for roleplaying.
MP: Related to that, what is your vision for these societies? (i.e. what do you expect from the players in regards to starting one, and maintaining it)?
DK: The founder of one of the communities has to be the most dedicated, and best member for the role. The qualities that matter the most are: role-playing maturely, and having social organizational skills that are required to make that community come alive.
MP: So as to the actual "function" of the community, it might be anything as long as it is related to the Dark Ages theme.
DK: That depends on the specific organization. For example, a priest may at some advanced moment, begin a church fellowship. He'll have to pay rent on the church, defend the church and its people. Prove his worth to any followers, and continue to attract and hold followers and disciples. The role-playing of the priest is determined by which god he worships.
MP: In the same way that the wizard is determined by his choice of a specific element?
DK: A little more tightly, as gods have moral requirements, and elements, have loose personality requirements. You expect a Fire Mage to have an explosive personality. However, you expect the priest of Ceannlaidir to stand up, lead his followers to war against Undine and not stop until all are dead or enslaved.
MP: How will the community start these societies? Will it be completely up to the players?
DK: Leaders will have to display maturity and convince the would-be community that they are right for the position. Leaders will have to do this on a periodic basis. A mundane will, for example, be the head priest of Ceannlaidir's Temple. It's the would-be leader's challenge to outdo the ambitious mundanes not just once, but regularly, such as on a bi-weekly basis. Specifics will be determined by things that may be recorded on a character that exemplify their qualifications.
MP: OK, continuing with the development of Dark Ages, where do you see Dark Ages a year from now?
DK: Big. Dark Ages vision is: engrossing entertainment. Role-playing is the most engrossing form of entertainment. The online entertainment industry is just waking up. The world and features will progress delivering constant updates every month. The society will be stunning. A new Aisling will be stunned to see older Aislings with real histories viewable at a click of the mouse, and amazing personalities, more roles being played by real people. The literature and other culture is enough for a small library. It will feel alive, complex, and above all a magical place to be.
MP: Related to this, how big do you see the Dark Ages world becoming? How do you plan to deploy the "distributed world" architecture?
DK: It's already deployed in Nexon Korea for their game "Barami Nara" which is the original 'The Kingdom of the Winds'. "Barami Nara" doubled it's peak user level in six months, now topping 1400 simultaneous players. They are using 3 or 4 local servers currently. The mastermind programmer of distributed world technology, "Maisy" Min Seo, has programmed it like Unix. That means, it is flexible, expandible. It has no tested limitations. Practically, we expect 6 with no problems.
MP: And these six separate servers will be interlinked into one world? (For instance, will the different servers be transparent, or will you move from one to another just as you would travel from one kingdom to another?)
DK: Yes. For example, Mileth can be one local server. As a player travels to Rucesion, he could be going to another local server. It isn't noticeable to him. All characters are stored in the global server. Therefore, you won't hear things like "Which shard do you play on?" "Which server is your character on?" or "Sorry, I don't have a good character on that server." One world.
MP: So for instance, there could be a new town whose server was based in Europe, and another kingdom whose server was in Asia?
DK: If you're talking about in the real-world Asia and Europe, that would not be an efficient configuration. However, there are some ways to bring opposite ends of Earth into the same virtual world, given this technology and communications technology. Distributed server technology solves first and foremost the problem of how many real people can inhabit the same virtual world.
MP: But, with other games, the "shards" are created because current Internet technology makes it troublesome for players in Europe to connect to a server in America, and therefore give the game worldwide appeal. (Basically, does the distributed architecture refer to network load distribution, or computational load distribution?)
DK: I suppose they could be. However there are communications (not server software) solutions to that problem. I don't have insight as to why other online games are not using those solutions, such as private virtual circuits, which give the equivalent of having a presence in another location. Computational load distribution. The world itself.
MP: OK. Related to the technology behind Dark Ages, some players have asked if Dark Ages will ever be ported to Linux or MacOS.
DK: No plan at this time. We'd love doing it on both platforms, as our programs swear by unix, and respect MacOS. However, currently both combined represent less than 5% of potential players. It will have to be delayed until 5% is a large number to cover costs of development, and more importantly, maintenance of that code.
MP: Also, are there any plans to upgrade Dark Ages' engine to support 3Dfx or more advanced rendering technologies?
DK: No. Dark Ages is created with the role-player in mind. We demand as much from the player as the machine. Dark Ages is a role-playing experience. It's also pre-rendered sprites, so there is miminal requirements on the player's PC. Nexon does have another game in the works that is 3D.
MP: Related to upgrades, what we can expect to see next in the way of features and new developments?
DK: Refurbished interface panel. Optimized (faster!) client.
MP: There has been much talk about how customizable Dark Ages is. Can you elaborate on how players will be able to customize their appearance (i.e. will there be dyes, ways to customize clothing, etc)
DK: One can customize his/her hair style, hair color, clothing, weapon, shield, footgear, and 7 accessory items. There will not be clothing dyes. There may be ways to dye your hair later.
MP: I have here two miscellaneous questions from the DAML, if you'd like to answer them?
DK: My pleasure.
MP: First: "What is the category 'Master' for on the who list?"
DK: An extremely advanced Aisling. Dark Ages' Korean counterpart "Legend of Darkness" plans to use this feature for a player that has progressed through 2 or more of the classes, from level 1-99. In "Dark Ages" it will be left unspecified until there some players near that kind of character power.
MP: Second: "Will you ever implement arenas in Dark Ages? And will there be any player-killing at all?"
DK: A deadly dueling system between players is being considered. This won't be joy-killing. Dueling will be a serious event, reserved for disputes of love and war. There is a plan and function for guilds to declare war. Doing so, the two guilds may slay each other. Again, it is a grim event. Any Aisling not up to that can decided to not duel, and can remove themself from the warring guild.
MP: And lastly, do you have anything that you would like to say to the Aisling community as a whole?
DK: Thank you. Thank you for role-playing. Thank you for writing to me every day with your detailed reports and thoughtful insights. Your legend begins here.
MP: I'd like to thank you once again for taking the time to allow me to interview you.
DK: Again, my pleasure. The questions are excellent, and show that we care about the same goal.
Interview text (C) 1999 Mide Province. All rights reserved. May not be used, reprinted, or retransmitted in any form without written permission of the authors.
