Hi everyone,

This week we've got not just one but three new questions. Granted, the answers are a little shorter than usual, but we think you'll enjoy reading about them.

What kind of consumables will be in the game and how will they effect us? For example, will food and water be needed to maintain health? 
Like every other item in Earthrise, consumables will be integral part of the roleplaying and crafting system. While food and water will not be needed to maintain or recover health in order not to pressure the player into needless micromanagement, especially in the heat of the battle, he or she will be able to craft their own drugs and medicines that will enhance their physical and mental abilities for a limited time period.

The system will allow both for mass manufacturing of stock drugs without much hassle, but also mixing your own unique cocktails that will have multiple or enhanced effects. Mixing drugs is limited however to their toxic level which will have negative impact on character's overall condition if such drugs are used recklessly. We have some cool ideas in store what will happen to an intoxicated character.

How will territorial control mechanics work? In particular, what will "change" the ownership of an area from one guild to another? Perhaps more specifically, Will individual fortresses/mines/etc. be controllable, or will entire regions switch hands on the basis of a central capture point?
Contested territories will allow guilds to conquer, build and develop their own base of operation there, mine rare and important resources that will reflect on the global economy, use their own factory to easily produce specific items, have quick and easy access to the global markets, and defend it from the ambitions of the other guilds. In order to gain control over a territory, a guild must make it through the territory defenses and seize the territory's control building. Control buildings won't be easy to take over. The more upgrades that are placed on the control building, the more resilient to takeover it becomes and often attackers will have hard time taking over a territory without ensuring that they have destroyed all defenses in sight and the defenders won't come back again more powerful than before. Guilds will not be able to control portions of their opponent's territories, like conquering individual mines or buildings - once the control building is conquered, the whole territory passes in the hands of the conquering guild. This includes any buildings that were left behind from the previous owner, but worry not about your investments - buildings will not only be custom-built by players, but also able to be dismantled, though it won't be easy for the defeated guild to just dismantle and pack its assets before they acquiesce.

Some community members have expressed a desire to not participate in ‘storyline’ missions. How flexible is the content for these players – is it possible to do nothing storyline related and still enjoy Earthrise?
Absolutely. Storyline exists in Earthrise for several reasons. It offers players a sense of immersion in a rich science fiction setting with its own politics, conflicts, intrigue and a good dose of mystery; once players go through it, they will find answers to so many questions regarding the world they live in, the factions, the organizations. Despite its lucrative rewards that players will earn for their time invested in quests completion, the storyline in Earthrise can be seen as optional and players may participate in it as much as they want, or not take part of it at all. It's fully acceptable for a new player to disregard parts or the whole storyline and immediately start working on his skills while exploring the vast expanse of Enterra, become a recruited young member of a guild that takes care of it's development and security in the cutthroat world out there, or an apprentice crafter building the foundation of the next big brand in the world. Anytime a player needs a break from the main game mechanics with refreshing solo-friendly questing, the storyline will be there to provide that.

Thanks to the developers for answering our few short questions, and we look forward at seeing all of you at the developer chat this week.

~ M.

I'm not really digging the idea of static control points which influence territory ownership.  Rest sounds good.

If players don't actually need food or liquid will the game still feature them?  Will they have effects like drugs?

Me either.

Ya, kind of sounds like the SOI concept.

Fortresses may not get up and move but they don't exist until they're built and they can be completely leveled with the appropriate amount of force.  There's no rule that defensive positions need to be built on top of one another unless the choice of the site is just on extremely defensible terrain (in which case it would make sense).

Perhaps dynamic control points for territorial zones may be too difficult, and since I'm not a programmer I really have no idea either way, but it would at least be nice to have a selection of build sites which can be chosen after conquest to fortify into the base/capital of that zone.

Either way I'd still prefer it to be completely dynamic and just have player built bases provide their own "sphere of influence" which can increase in size depending on how much a base is built up.

This would mean that not only is the location of the base dynamic but also the territory it's meant to dominate.

In a perfect world...

I absolutely love the idea of guilds fighting for control over territory. I presume that territory includes mining nodes and herbs that are the source of some key raw materials. Why else defend territory unless there is something simple like a credit income per week for the guild.

A few concerns:
1) A small guild that tries to own a small territory with small defenses gets repeatedly wiped off the map. Members leave the guild because of the many setbacks and the guild folds. Everytime a small guild sets up buildings they are looted by the big guilds. Will this lead to a game full of giant guilds only?  Often small guilds are more friendly and more fun then the giant guilds. The small guilds need to be able to stand up to the big guilds in some way.

2) I assume that player defense as well as building defense is a factor in defending a territory. If a guild sets up a medium building defense then who defends it at 3am server time? DAoC had these off hour raids in order to capture relics that were too well defended during the day. Possibly some kind of dynamic system is needed here. If a guild territory is attacked and only a few guild members are online then more defending NPCs automatically spawn. If a lot of defenders log into the game then some of the NPCs might despawn or at least not respawn if they are killed.

3) Will crafters need to set up manufacturing buildings in guild areas rather than city areas? I do believe that a good crafter and a good guild work well together but some crafters are very independent. I don't think you should force all crafters to join guilds.

4) Whenever there is a big battle a lot players will either join in or at least go there to watch. This can generate a great deal of lag. Hopefully there is a plan to deal with the lag at these events.

This is stated in the dev answer that industry and resources and crafting are the major advantages to owning territory (as well bragging rights)

  Alliances, or several small guilds joining together to control territory, is almost certainly going to be a gameplay option.  Otherwise yes I would more have the concern that all territory control guilds would be very large if the game takes off. It's an interesting thing to consider, but several smaller guilds joining in to an alliance would eliminate that concern to an extent.  That stated, the fact of the matter is that in the long run there's almost NO way to control larger alliances having at least some advantage, it's true in the real world too.

I'm against actual NPC characters, but am for automated defenses.  I'd say OOG warning systems, or a base that can't be captured in the space of an hour for some reason (perhaps it takes X hours to actually hack the central building and gain control) would give time for a coordinated log-on of players of that guild to mount a defensive retaliation.  This has been covered by some of us extensively in the PvP forum

They probably won't. In particular available literature suggests that some areas will have an abundance of NPC controlled or at least pre-placed and permanent crafting locations for independant crafters.  Personally, I'm thinking that being independent in this game will be very difficult in some ways.

I'm sort of doubting the "watch" part (too much risk of being caught in no-holds-barred crossfire) but there's really nothing we can do expect have faith that the devs have a system in place.  Most people say Planetside was really good about lag almost all of the time, but Eve can be absolutely awful with lag at times.  Just have to cross our fingers here


Again, great info here!  Makes me excited to see some stuff that really falls in line with what a lot of us are expecting for a great game.

You have not seen real armour recycling until you've played EQ2.