Interviews
Star Sonata’s Adam Miller conducts a tour of the MMO space title
“We designed Star Sonata out of a nostalgic childhood dream of space adventure”
The universe is a huge place, and those who venture into it can weave a future as diverse as the territory itself. That is the philosophy behind Star Sonata, a massively multiplayer online game that features a deep skill tree, rare space craft, cloaking devices and a host of other items that will create what the developers hope is a deep and immersive gaming experience.
According to the Web site (www.starsonata.com):
“Star Sonata provides a rich fabric in which the players create and define the universe. Be a cunning trader of goods exotic and mundane. A scurrilous pirate preying on the weak. A bounty hunter tracking down the galaxy's most wanted vermin. An explorer searching lost planets for forgotten civilizations. A builder and administrator of space stations, colonies, and possibly even a famed empire. … Create your own team and raise it to dominance, eventually seizing control of the entire universe and being crowned emperor.”
Adam Miller, lead programmer, Star Sonata LLC, took time to talk with GameZone.com about the title.
Question: When you create a game like Star Sonata, what niche are you hoping to fill in the MMO genre?
Adam: We designed Star Sonata out of a nostalgic childhood dream of space adventure. Pirates, explorers, merchants, bounty hunters, monsters, mysteries from the black depths of space: they're all part of the fabric. From this archetypal design, we laid solid foundations for the kind of robust medium that would make us want to inhabit such a world: a universe in which the player not simply exists as an observer, but plays a direct role in the fabric of the online world.
Developing in 2-D was another fundamental design decision. We wanted to build a game that mixed strategic elements with action-based gameplay, and we felt that worked much better in two dimensions, where the user has a more strategic view of his environment.
Q: At first glance, this seems to be a much more cerebral game rather than twitch-oriented. Tell us a little bit about the empire-building aspect of the game? Will players be able to own planets or systems and how much impact will they have on the actual political or economic aspects of the universe?
Adam: Empire-building lies at the core of the Star Sonata universe. Of course, it takes new players a while to get oriented with the basic game mechanics. But as soon as they get a handle on things, they chomp at the bit to build up their own little empire.
The first step is usually to construct some slave ships. These are spaceships that you outfit just like your own ship, but then you can give them orders which they proceed to follow diligently. Having your slave trade for you is a common task. Instead of tediously flying back and forth for hours on end, you can get your slave to do it for you.
Slaves never get bored. And once players discover this first taste of building – of constructing an extension to their in-game persona – they tend to become addicted.
Space stations are the next step up from slaves. These can be attached to planets and moons to take advantage of their natural resources – minerals and other materials that stations can mine and harvest, which in turn can be sold to players, slaves, and even passing AI, creating a new entrant in the local economy. Over time, a player builds up the defensive capabilities of their station: a profitable location can be a tempting target for a passing pirate to destroy or even take over. For additional defense, players can deploy drones – automated defensive units – to protect their stations and trade routes.
If a space station is deployed on a habitable planet, a player can establish a colony there. A colony grows autonomously, buying and selling goods to the space station. Should a colony grow to a large size, a lot of money can be made trading to its inhabitants. Colonies can also fund archaeological expeditions to excavate any ancient ruins that might lie on this planet. They will sell the exotic goods they uncover to the attached space station, which can either be used on a player's ship or perhaps traded for even more money to another player.
Lastly, having established a successful colony in a system, a team can own it, which prevents anyone else from developing there. And if a system is owned, it can optionally be protected, which creates a safe haven for visiting low-level players to trade with the user-built space stations.
Through these different avenues of construction and automation, players and teams determine a significant portion of the landscape of the universe. Political and economic empires emerge, as teams fight for prime real estate and consolidate their power. This drives the narrative of the game.
Q: Tell us a little bit about the economic aspects of this game. Is this a barter/trade/import/export game, or will players be tasked with harvesting, and manufacturing?
Adam: The Star Sonata economy starts with the AI-controlled stations. There are two types of items in the game – normal gear that you equip on your ship, and commodities that you can trade. The line between these types can get a little murky at times through some interesting interactions, but this is the basic start. For commodities, we have a dynamic system that simulates a full supply and demand economy. Prices raise as goods become scarce, and drop as they become more plentiful. Local equilibriums develop where players, AI, and slave ships trade enough to equalize prices. This happens quite quickly in a safe zone. Of course, the greatest profits are found trading between two galaxies that might not have the safest route between them. The gameplay develops naturally out of this, and can get very exciting. Players will construct drones and stations to protect a profitable but dangerous trade route, and they have to watch out in turn for greedy pirates.
This free market allows all sorts of pricing strategies illegal in our world today but unregulated in the dark Star Sonata future, such as monopolies and artificial shortages.
At the computer-controlled stations, basic equipment can be purchased for static prices. By not entering these items into a supply and demand system, low-level players can outfit their ships at any station, instead of having to search for a buyer. The more exotic, powerful items must be purchased or otherwise obtained elsewhere.
Users have many opportunities to participate in the global economy as producers as well as consumers. Player space stations can harvest and sell goods. They can also be set up to sell valuable rare items that have been obtained from beating tough AI, exploring dungeons, constructed from blueprints, and so forth.
Q: Tell us about the combat aspects. Will players control fleets or just individual ship? How tactical is the combat?
Adam: The combat falls somewhere between first-person action and a more strategic approach. A player only controls directly their own ship, but they can bring more strategic elements into a battle by deploying drones, stations, and getting their slave ships to fight along side them. There's no twitchiness in ship-to-ship combat, although it certainly gets your heart racing as you unload a barrage of missiles into an enemy's hull, trying to discover their weaknesses, while they're busy returning the favor.
Terrain elements add to the combat, such as dark suns that cloak visibility and asteroid fields that block physical attacks. Good preparation is also a must: shield boosters, envelopments, ink bombs, overloaders, and other combat aids all add tactics to a good fight.
Q: What classes are available in the game, how does a player choose his or her class, and how do they advance their class?
Adam: As players level up they earn skill points, which can be used to train new skills at certain space stations. At the beginning, players just train the basics, such as ability to use better weapons or the skill to program a slave ship. Eventually, they may choose to specialize in different classes, which can lead to some powerful specific abilities.
However, a fundamental tenet of our design philosophy is not blocking off whole genres of gameplay to players who don't specialize in a skill that would be exclusive to another genre of gameplay. For example, even if a player goes down the path of Berserker – a crazed fighter class – he can still deploy space stations. The Station Master will just have better ones.
Outside of the core class system, there are countless skills one can train, both mundane and exotic. There is always something new to acquire, and players have to make intelligent decisions about their character in a world of limited skill points.
Q: Is there a winning solution to the game, or does the game continually evolve? Does the game have live events?
Adam: The primary goal of the game is to become Emperor and rule the universe.
For starting players it won't be their immediate goal. But they will definitely notice when a player and her team tries to take over the universe. If a player manages to win, the universe is regenerated (but players keep their characters and ships).
Becoming emperor is no easy task. There are a number of conditions that must be met in the whole universe before anyone can even start their bid. Teams will build up control of galaxies and trade routes. They will create colonies on planets for trading and other things. The population of these colonies will be their subjects, so the wannabe-Emperor's team needs to control the majority of the colonies.
Once the universe is ripe for the taking, an Emperor cannot be an Emperor without an imperial palace. So she must construct one and defend it. It's a very difficult task to defend a palace while still controlling the team's colonies scattered throughout the universe. This is a monumental undertaking that really brings together players. They have to work together, strategize, and plan out their defenses: preparation is a must. After the Palace is placed, they must defend it and keep control over their population for a very long twenty-four hours.
During beta testing, players on a team vying for Emperor were said to have divided up the time to be on watch in case other teams moved against them. There are many players from all over the world, playing in different time zones, so no one had to call in sick to work or ditch class to protect an Imperial Palace.
After defending for twenty-four hours, the emperor must fly the Emperor's Crown ship, a vessel with no engines. Using tractor beams, teammates pull, push, and defend the crown against last-ditch efforts to stop it from ever reaching Earth, where coronation occurs.
Currently we do not have many live events. The occasional outbreak of termites or other bad guys can bring players together, but we will be expanding our live events in the near future. One such fun event will be a Gelato race. A Gelato is a big cube ship that has no means of self-propulsion. Pilots will have to maneuver the oversized ice cube in a race against each other using only tractor beams. Players always get a kick out of watching a group of people trying to pilot their Gelatos around the universe!
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the game's graphics? What sort of engine does this yes, and what system specs will players need?
Adam: The game uses a custom 2-D sprite engine that requires DirectX 8. The flexible animation engine allows for cool vibrant ships, space stations, and planets. Particles are used heavily for engine, weapons, and explosion effects. The game plays reasonably well on a P3 800MHz machine with 64MB of RAM and a decent 3-D accelerated graphics card. A broadband connection is recommended, but a 56k modem is playable.
Although the engine is just 2-D, there are many times when hundreds of sprites are drawn in a single frame, not including particles. So it definitely helps to have better hardware.
Q: Does this game have PvP? If so, what is gained or lost? Are there death penalties?
Adam: PvP happens occasionally during normal play and extensively when a team is vying for Emperor. There are limits imposed to prevent player abuse – level checks stop the strong from beating mercilessly on the weak.
A "Death debt" system is used when a player actually dies. For instance, if her escape pod were destroyed, she would fall further in debt.
Climbing out of debt is not so bad, but it provides a temporary penalty for dying. We strove to make death relatively painless, but to still have some penalty so it has actual meaning. Also, player ships can't be permanently destroyed. They go into stasis and are unusable for a period of time. Later they can be reclaimed. When ships are blown up cargo can be lost. Often, it is the rare and expensive stuff that goes overboard, but paying money for "gear glue" can prevent this.
Q: What will be the monthly fee for playing? Is the game downloadable? If so, what is the cost to register to play?
Adam: Star Sonata can be downloaded from our Web site and is free to play up to a certain level. After that, there is just a $9.95 monthly cost. We currently are running a sign up deal through October 30.
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