Q: In terms of experience, will anything be done to try to avoid games from becoming too lopsided? (i.e. team of 20th level characters vs a team of 1st level characters)
Marc: Great question! Experience is capped to level 10 per match. Each level gives the player the opportunity to increase an attribute with 3 percentage points. Attributes include health, mana, stamina, armor, damage, and regeneration. This means that at level 10 a player has a total of 30 percentage point increases and we allow a maximum of 20% in any given attribute. This means the disparity between a level 1 player and level 10 player is never too overpowering.
Q: When an "Action Player" is killed in combat will there be an opportunity to re-spawned and continue playing?
Marc: As the match time progresses the respawn time is increased upon death. Strategy plays an important role in this. If there is no respawn time and one team is pushing hard inside the opponent team’s base, all the dying players could instantly respawn to resist the attack.
Q: How many maps will Savage 2 ship with? Can user created maps be used in online play?
Marc: We will probably launch the game with 3 maps, all designed for small to large player sizes. The reason we will be launching with so few maps is that maps are VERY strategically important. An improperly designed and tested map will ruin the Savage 2 experience. We will ship the game with the map making tools and allow servers to run community made maps, however, our default server list will filter out servers playing user made maps as to not “pollute” newer player experiences by inadvertently joining a server running one of these maps. We will be doing monthly map making contests which will give winners cool prizes like cash and new PCs and making their map an official Savage 2 map.
Q: Do characters get to keep magic (Persistent) items they gain through combat or are the only good for the current match?
Marc: Persistent items can be saved at the end of matches in your vault, which has 5 item slots. When entering a match you may bring 2 of those items into the game.
Q: Are Purchasable Items transferred between matches? What are the purchased with?
Marc: Purchasable items are acquired with cash and are not transferable.
Q: Do characters from the winning team only receive experience points? Is there any other reward for winning? (i.e. special powers, gold, etc...)
Marc: The actual in match experience gained is saved to that player’s account when they either leave the match or the game is decided (won or lost). The winning team gets a minor experience bonus.
Q: What are the conditions for winning a game? Are there going to be multiple game modes (i.e. Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, etc...)
Marc: The game will initially have one mode, conquer. The objective of this game mode is to destroy the enemies main base (Command Center). We will soon add Domination (control all resource nodes on the map), Melee Arena (tournament based, Gladiator style combat), and Defend (one team has 30 minutes to defend the besiegement of their base from the offensive team).
Q: How large is the development team at S2 Games? Are you using an in-house created game engine or licensed one?
Marc: Our team consists of 6 core team members and about 10 outside contracted workers. We are using an engine that was designed completely in-house called the K2 engine.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions I am looking forward to seeing more of Savage 2.
