Earth and Beyond Interview

After having great success with games such as Command and Conquer, Westwood decides to set their mark in the world of online gaming. The designers of Earth and Beyond made it possible for you to survey over 100 distant sections of the universe, and, furthermore, it will allow you to explore the atmosphere and the ground from your ship of numerous planets that you may come upon on your travels. Discovering unknown parts of the Universe, taking part in dangerous mission assignments, and engaging in battles with thousands of 'live' opponents, are all pivotal to the gameplay of Earth and Beyond.

Eric Wang, producer of Earth and Beyond, took the time to answer a few questions for us regarding this huge and complex project.

Get ready to take off!

Well that looks like Earth back there, or maybe it's somewhere 'beyond'?

Action Trip: What inspired you to create Earth and Beyond? Uncover a little bit about your team's history.

Eric Wang: The idea for Earth and Beyond came from Brett Sperry. Brett has wanted to do a game like Earth and Beyond for many years. With the emergence of the Internet and the technology available on a PC it was the right time to build this game. Brett has been very involved in the development of this game and I know that we are remaining faithful to his vision. Personally, I've drawn inspiration from games like Elite, Privateer, Tradewars 2000, Starflight, and Starfleet Battles as I take the project through development. I'm also an avid movie fan and I love science fiction. For Earth and Beyond, all of the Star Trek movies and the Star Wars trilogy have been influential on our game aesthetic in various ways.

AT: Besides the standard races the player gets to choose from the start, will there be any other different neutral races throughout the game?

EW: We will have non-player characters throughout the game that players will be able to interact with. Players can get missions from NPCs and will also be able to get news and information about what is going on in this massive virtual world.

AT: After the player gets use to his customized character and advances him in certain skills, will he loose all of that if he disengages from the game at some point? How does the game look upon death?

EW: No, under normal circumstances, the player will keep all of the skills, items, and attributes he has acquired when playing after he logs off. The only exception to that would be if a player is losing a battle and tries to log off to prevent that from happening. In that case, the server would actually wait a brief amount of time before logging the player off, so that the battle loss would be recorded.

As for death, players cannot die, per say, in Earth and Beyond. Rather, the player's ship becomes incapacitated and is towed back to a space station for repairs. The player will not lose any of the items he has acquired before death but will, however, have to work off an "experience debt" before he can begin advancing his character again.

AT: This will be one of those MMRPG that features many details which will require a rather powerful 3D graphic system, especially if we consider such particulars as ships changing visually as the players advance their game status. Introduce some characteristics of the engine Earth and Beyond uses.

EW: The Earth and Beyond engine is based around DirectX 8. The graphics core is a proprietary engine that is being used in Renegade and in Earth and Beyond. We have two separate graphic engines. One that deals with outer space and one that deals with landing on planets. We have incorporated various Level of Detail (LOD) systems into the engine which should allow for reasonable performance across many different system specs.

AT: Describe how will the players be able to explore the planets? Will they be able to land on them?

EW: The player will not be able to land on planets, but will be able to explore the atmospheres and the ground from his ship. He will also be able to engage in combat, trade, and exploration in the planets' atmospheres just as they will in space.