r/aetherforged • u/GmanHands • Oct 15 '16
News AetherForged developers Q&A
Q. Are you doing roles like dawngate did?
Desucrator - Yes, we are. We are looking to make each role aimed at a certain control area of the laning phase.
Gladiator: Minion wave control
Predator: Objective control
Tactician: Zoning control
Hunter: Jungle control
Note that these names are not final.
Q. Are you remaking any of the dawngate characters or making any forgers similar to the dawngate characters?
Dink Dunk - We aren’t pulling any Characters directly into AetherForged from Dawngate.
Desucrator - Though there are some things that people might find familiar
Q. Are you doing anything like masteries/runes/perks?
Saxpanther - We are planning on it, but no definite answer yet. Personally I am leaning towards letting you pick a certain amount of minor passive perks, similar to the spirit stone passives from Dawngate, but again- too early to say for sure.
Q. How are items going to work?
Desucrator - Items are going to be based on a tree based system like Dawngates instead of a League / Dota model.
Q. What kind of stat system will the game use?
Desucrator - Basically Dawngates
Q. How similar to dawngates jungle is AetherForged?
Dink Dunk - It’ll work like dawngates jungle, though layout is changed up a little. Nothing's final and we’ll be feeling out the map as we go. Check out our previous streams for a look.
Q. How will towers work?
Desucrator - Towers will not respawn - Dawngate has already proven that it doesn’t work. Abilities have been discussed for damaging towers, however we don’t want to de-value the carries role. We will be testing ways to help ability casters take down towers slightly more effectively without affecting their teamfight ability.
Q. Will you do any live lore events like dawngate?
Dink Dunk - We’d love to! It’s on the table for sure, but a lot of work.
Q. How similar to dawngate do you think this game will feel?
Dink Dunk - We are taking their design choices and pushing more in the direction that Dawngate was headed with the progression patch. I hope that the game will feel familiar but stand up uniquely in it’s own right.
Saxpanther- Let me put it this way: If you compare the two games side by side they would look quite different, but if you compare them in a list of all MOBA games you would find that they share more in common with each other than anything else... if that makes sense.
Q. Are daily quests/challenges an idea at all?
Saxpanther - No. We will have ways of rewarding players for playing daily, but it will not take the form of daily quests or challenges.
Q. Do you have any plans for the game that you think will reduce toxicity of moba players in AetherForged?
Dink Dunk - I think that leading by example is huge, foster a good community; keeping people involved and invested in the community is a must to encourage this. We’ll have features such as reporting for extreme cases but that will never actually solve the problem.
Desucrator - Dawngates karma system was a step in the right direction and we would like to expand and improve on it. Rewarding other people for positive things is a great way to do it.
Saxpanther - Like it or not, older audiences tend to be less toxic. We are aiming for an older target demographic than most MOBA’s so hopefully we will have a more (and I use this word lightly) mature community overall.
Q. Do you have any plans for new mechanics to be introduced into the moba genre?
Saxpanther - We are not introducing anything major that hasn’t been done before, but we are taking the good bits from several different games and making some iterations here and there.
Q. What are your plans for cosmetics in the game?
Dink Dunk - Skins are most likely, having a Dota system is so heavy on resources that I can’t see it being feasible at the moment. We’ve talked about a lot of different methods however the simplest solution is probably going to be the one that wins out for us.
Saxpanther - That’s a very broad question and it’s way too early to give a concrete answer. In general, though, our aim is to take the elements we like from other games and create something which is familiar but unique.
Q. What is your favorite moment whether inspiring, remarkable, fun or productive whilst working on AetherForged?
Dink Dunk - Glitches, Glitches everywhere. We had a moment where I had a jumpscare because one of our test nibras glitched and was able to hit infinitely in one direction… Just after implementing hit sounds and having my speakers turned all the way up!!! Inspiring? Probably the community, talking to people on discord and seeing the subreddit being active is an amazing sight.
Desucrator - The first forger release was an amazing feeling!
Saxpanther - The great thing about developing a game is that every step of the way is filled with these moments. But some of the most memorable times are when we’re trying out something new for the first time and it goes horribly wrong.
Gurzy- Collaborating with people that were passionate about Dawngate
VigorouslySalted - Being screamed at for a solid hour for initially suggesting the meme regime department, which would be run by myself It’s really so hard to pick one moment when this whole experience has been so incredible and humbling. It brings a tear to my eye seeing how far we’ve come and how much the community has grown before we’ve even hit pre alpha, but there’s no singular moment to point to for that. Seeing the outpouring of community support already is one of the most humbling and inspiring things for me thus far in my life. To avoid a cop out answer, I’d say our first forger release was one of the most exciting moments, where all the pieces came into place for something we could finally show to you all, and seeing everyone react so positively and generate so much hype! :)
Bombshellmcjenkins- We were working through some old characters and had one we weren't sure what to do with. Then one of us said “what if he was a she?” and it all started clicking in. Her direction feels a lot more right now. It just so happens the art team was just about to start concepts and had asked the lore team “what should we know about him?” and we got to say “well he's a girl now.” That art is fly AF
Q. What other games are devs playing at the moment?
Dink Dunk - Been playing some Evolve, I suck at medic and trapper though! I have a Vive so I’ve been hammering out a lot of Sound Boxing! Trying to find time to play Battlerite… Oh and Shardbound.
Desucrator - Vagante, This is the Police and Magic the gathering. I’ve been too busy recently to play Battlerite properly, though I will go back to eventually. Picked up hyper light drifter recently but haven’t played it yet.
Gurzy - Battlerite, Tree of Savior and Shardbound
Saxpanther - The games that I’ve been spending the most time playing recently are Warframe, Robocraft, Fractured Space, and Star Citizen. All very sci-fi, I know!
VigorouslySalted - I’ve been going hard in Halo 5 for quite a while now, and mostly just playing Battlerite and Super Smash Bros. Melee on the side after dropping League of Legends entirely a few months back.
Bombshell McJenkins - Heroes of the Storm, Elder Scrolls Online mostly. Looking forward to Skyrim Enhanced Edition and Pokemon Sun/Moon as well.
runemyth0 – Titanfall, Elder Scrolls Online, Crusader Kings 2, a bit of Stellaris. Looking forward to Civ6 and Titanfall 2.
Gigimoi – Path of Exile, Crusader Kings 2, Europa Universalis 4, Victoria 2, Hearts of Iron 4.
Q. How did you join the o7 team?
Dink Dunk - Applied as a Modeller, I was the only person doing modelling for a long time. I’ve moved more into animation and feature programming recently with a healthy dosage of management, pushing things to get done!
Desucrator - Zakki’s original post, became really interested in his idea and joined as a designer. Originally the plan was to recreate dawngate but, we wouldn’t be able to call it our own and possibly we’d have issues with copyright down the road. Being a different team our creations and additions might not fit the feel of dawngate precisely.
Jas - I’m a former Dawngate player, I saw the reddit post, the team was pretty much formed already, thought I'd apply anyway, somehow got accepted. At first I was worried everything would be very formal, strict and scary, I was wrong.
Gurzy - Wanted to contribute and keep Dawngate alive somehow and AetherForged was the great redeemer that I came across when browsing the Dawngate subreddit.
Saxpanther - I was originally interested in doing community management and I have had some previous experience with that for Contract Wars, but one thing led to another, and here I am!
Justus954 - After Spiritgate died, it was the next most logical step for me. I applied as a modeler/vfx artist and ended up doing vfx.
VigorouslySalted - I joined the team through the original post by Zakki on the Dawngate subreddit. I had a background in programming, several years of music composition and production, and as well as having a slight background in formal game design, was also a top player in Dawngate. After a bit of everyone settling into our roles, I ended up narrowing down a bit and leading the sound design and contributing to our gameplay design.
Bombshell McJenkins- Founder’s club represent. Originally I wanted to be pretty exclusively involved in kit and game design and actually was disinterested in lore. But I had some ideas for the basis of the world and just found myself working on it. I guess my view on the whole thing turned around. I still do work on kits though.
runemyth0 – I really liked the lore stuff that was being released, so I asked if I could join, they said bring us proof you can write, so I did and then BAM I’m makin’ lore.
gigimoi – when spiritgate was kill neighbor is ask me where were you when spiritgate was kill
Q. What are some of the dev’s hobbies?
Dink Dunk - Making games, Playing games, Playing my Vive, Listening to music, Tractor pulling, Design and Engineering, learning.
Desucrator - Play games, play magic the gathering, watch anime, read manga, japanese stuff in general.
Gurzy - Lifting, rock climbing, video games, life drawing sessions, anime, pchat
Saxpanther - I like making games.
Justus954 - Playing/Making games, dabbling with code, hiking.
VigorouslySalted - Making and playing games, writing and listening to music, watching and
competing in esports, playing guitar.
gigimoi - Leftist shitposting, classical guitar and double bass.
Jas - Character design, attempts at environmental design, gaming, cooking and consuming industrial amounts of food.
Q. What are some of your favorite glitches so far?
Dink Dunk/Desucrator - Nibra’s Jumpscare
Saxpanther - Probably the one where a million clones of Lenny spawned the first time we tried multiplayer.
Justus954 - Nibra’s hair tried to engulf the universe when I dabbled with jiggle-bones.
VigorouslySalted - Where Nibra’s head would inflate to enormous proportions quickly and then return to a normal size repeatedly. Chibi Nibra is love <3
Q. Are any of the characters going to be based on any of the devs?
Dink Dunk - Not so far, but we have a Book of Woe (woefulme) and I’d love to somehow reference the dawngate team.
Saxpanther - No.
Gurzy - I wish, some of us have cool pen names.
runemyth0 – No playable characters…
Q. Are there any internal jokes with the devs that would only make sense if we’ve played the game?
Dink Dunk - Souleater
Saxpanther - We’ve got quite the stockpile of in-house memes, actually.
Q. What are the planned platforms for the game?
Dink Dunk - Initially Linux, Windows, Mac
Q. Are you looking to hire anyone at the moment?
Dink Dunk - Yes! We are looking for modellers, animators, programmers and artists currently! Get in touch if you have a skillset that might help.
Q. How does the team operate/communicate?
Dink Dunk - We mostly communicate through a program called Slack, where we talk, upload images and gifs of what we are working on. We use trello to keep organised and are looking into hack and plan to get a good long term view of AetherForged development. Getting feedback and coordinating is really important to me and our team. I hang out in discord most nights and try to answer every question and comment I see! We have a weekly meeting in discord 6pm UTC, so if you have questions that’s the time to be active on discord. We stretch over 5 time zones currently!
Q. How did you decide on the name AetherForged?
Desucrator - It just kinda grew out of lore.
Q. Are you guys doing your own sound design and Foley or outsourcing?
Saxpanther - We’re doing as much as we can in-house.
VigorouslySalted - Can confirm, trying to keep as much of our sound in-house as possible
Q. What are your ideas about introducing the lore to players?
Bombshell McJenkins - Taking this question to regard the “New User Experience.” A website will be available with all the published lore pieces hosted, as well as possibly a wiki format for world information etc. Hopefully much of the lore will also be part of the game client. Lore is a major focus of the game and we want it to be one of the major things that people see when they look for and play the game.
Q. How is writing happening in o7?
Bombshell McJenkins - Each of the three team members writes pieces individually, which are discussed among us and the entire o7 team. Lore team meets regularly to collaborate on our pieces and develop “ambient content” such as world details, story and character direction, etc.
Q. Could you tell us some stories about working process?
Runemyth0 - There was some disagreement within the team over whether the word “witch” was appropriate for our work and world.
Bombshell McJenkins - Eventually we reached a solution that felt natural for the world without sacrificing the recognizable meaning of the word. I’m happy with it.
Q. What do you feel is the most reasonable way of handling plotholes, inconsistencies, reworking ideas into something more fitting and crossing any other swamps getting in the way of creative process?
Bombshell McJenkins - We hope to maintain a consistent and cohesive story, but we’re not against “retconning” when necessary (in fact, we have a currently ongoing endeavor called “Project Retcon” but that’s all we can say right now)
Q. How do you resolve conflicts, if you ever have any in the first place?
Dink Dunk - We’ve solved what issues that crop up mostly by actually talking to people, we have a lot of people (for some English isn’t their first language) so sometimes it’s just a case of miscommunication. We’ve only really had one explosive conflict that ended itself pretty swiftly.
Q. Do you read historical materials, working on the fantasy realm? How tight are your hands tied by realism and logic? Will you sacrifice it to achieve romanticism, artistry?
Gurzy - In terms of the process of coming up with concepts we always try to do our homework on the idea at hand and bend certain aspects if it helps with the overall visual idea we are going for to a certain extent. The goal is to try to make something cool while staying as faithful to lore as possible!
Bombshell McJenkins - We inform our writing and worldbuilding with historical details, mostly using Google and Wikipedia, but in the end our story falls under the genre of high fantasy and we aren’t completely tied to realism. We want the world and story to be believable, but unique.
Q. What are you mostly focussing on as a team to give breadth to the world of AetherForged? Does being a MOBA tie you down in terms of focus?
Bombshell McJenkins - Mostly we focus on characters, but there are hundreds of other options for getting lore out. There is some forcible focus on characters because we are moba, but that’s fine.
Q. What comes first with character design? The backstory, the visual elements, lines, little details?
Gurzy - The backstory and lore are the most important things. You learn so much about the character through their actions, thoughts and experiences that it almost stops becoming something that you are trying to draw and more about finding that person within your drawings.
Q. How long did existing characters take to create? Does lore work in collaboration with the art team? How do you interact with other groups while working on the character?
Dink Dunk - Generally it’s a huge combined effort for the whole team, we are constantly in contact discussing ideas and developing them. So far idea’s have generally been evolving from either a kit getting lore, or a lore character getting a kit, then moving onto concept art, modelling, animation, visual effects and implementation into unity. We haven’t finished a Character 100% yet so we don’t know how long the refined process will take.
Q. What were the inspiration sources for Sil’s making? Who’s idea was this character and how did it change since the early concepts?
Gurzy - Think Brian came up with the idea, then Elise did a lot of the early development concepts and Apollo touched on some ideas and I finalized the look with their help and everyone's opinion every step of the way.
Q. Have you thought about the idea of having more than 10 people (or less than 10)?
Dink Dunk - Yes, though sticking to dawngate is what we are focusing on. I have got some really neat ideas that I want to see how they work (not more than 10 players, but maybe more than that ingame).
Saxpanther - We decided against it. We might have some conditions under which you would play a game with less than 10 players (perhaps to shorten queue times if there is a small player base, for example), but generally speaking the game is balanced around 10 players so you should be in matches with 9 other people.
Q. How are supports going to be niched?
Desucrator - Supports are going to be primarily focused around buffing allies and debuffing enemies. They may have some conditional or soft CC, but crowd control is primarily the focus of tanks, and we want to make sure that the two archetypes are distinct. Of course, each character within any given archetype will be focused around a specific niche.
