Meta:StrategyInformer June 2006 talk with Miroslaw Dymek about Two Worlds

This Q&A was posted to the website StrategyInforme by Unknown on June 5, 2006.

Questions and Answers

Strategy Informer: Firstly, could you introduce yourself to our readers?

Miroslaw Dymek: My name is Miroslaw Dymek, Technical Director of Reality Pump. We are an established game developer, best known for award winning Earth 21x0 RTS games. Our team releases quality games for more than 10 years. My job as technical director is supervising the development and designing the games.

Strategy Informer: We've heard about some of the features of Two Worlds, Is there any that we don't currently know about that you'd like to share?

Miroslaw Dymek: Unfortunately we can’t tell any more up to now.

Strategy Informer: What can you tell us about the graphical and physics features?

Miroslaw Dymek: We profited from our work on “Earth 2160” and created a highly improved engine to fit the needs of modern RPG game. The engine is very efficient and gives great effects. We have high-density terrain, photo realistic vegetation and materials, real time shadows, stunning water, high dynamic range (HDR) and virtually any possible effect you can perform on the newest graphic cards. There are several really powerful in-house tools for generating landscapes, vegetations and particle effects. Their quality equals the best solutions on the market and are even more flexible and user friendly. The effects are really worth seeing, especially, when seasoned with real-time shadows and hi-res textures on hi-poly objects. Did I mention, there are mountains generated according to true geological algorithms? In my opinion, Two Worlds it one of the most graphically advanced games now announced.

Strategy Informer: What kind of support to you plan to give once the game is released?

Miroslaw Dymek: There will definitely be a support for the community. But up to now we are concentrating on the development of the game. We will publish more information about this later.

Strategy Informer: The game is being developed for both the Xbox 360 and PC, is there any difference in the content for both platforms?

Miroslaw Dymek: So far, there are no differences between versions for PC and Xbox 360 and it is rather unlikely there will be any. Two Worlds will look and play similarly on both platforms, with PC version more scalable for the comfortable playing on less powerful machines.

Strategy Informer: Can you tell us about the singleplayer aspect of the game?

Miroslaw Dymek: Two Worlds is a fantasy role-playing game with a huge focus on combat, but the story and free roaming are also strongly highlighted. What we try to achieve is to place the action in well-known setting and season it with unexpected story twists to keep the player interested. There is a good amount of places to go and explore. Most of them are completely optional if you follow only the main story, but to learn about the world, its past, mysteries, or maybe even to solve some of those mysteries, the player will have to seek for answers in places tucked away far from the main path. Needless to say, that the curiosity will be appropriately rewarded.

Strategy Informer: Can you tell us about the multiplayer aspect of the game?

Miroslaw Dymek: The multiplayer is for those, who want to play without too much consideration for the story and concentrate rather on questing and combat. The selection of multiplayer maps is big and so is the pool of quest. It should suffice for a long time of play, especially with randomly generated content.

The multiplayer is manly about cooperation. There is no separate deathmatch mode, but the same time the players can choose to fight each other. The multiplayer supports up to 8 people playing at once. You can group with your friends or attack them, exchange equipment, go on quests and so on. The quests are generated with respect to the experience of the participants. You can also choose the race and freely customize the look of your character. Whatever you earn, find or upgrade will be transferred between maps and quests, so eventually there is a chance to build up a real monster.

Strategy Informer: Can you give us an assessment of the health and long-term viability?

Miroslaw Dymek: Two Worlds contains two main modules. Single-player module is meant to offer a long, winded and quite open storyline with lots of side-quests and possible tasks. You are not obliged to follow the quest-line. There are incentives and tools to encourage players to travel free and exploration the world for themselves. The second module – the multiplayer mode, focuses on unrestricted character development, cooperative and competitive combat and questing. Many multiplayer maps and dozens of pre-designed and randomly generated quests together with thousands of items should be enough for many hours of play.

Strategy Informer: Could you tell us about the animals that will be featured in Two Worlds?

Miroslaw Dymek: There are three groups of animals present in the game world. First group contains all the ‘ambient’ animals like rabbits, birds, small snakes and so on. They do not attack you, but add a nice touch to the environment and can be killed for certain ingredients like hides, fangs or glands.

The second group of animals is more important. Simply, they will attack you when endangered. We do not want to rely too much on animal opponents (armed and skilled warriors are more fun), but the world needs some ‘natural’ opponents to be more vivid. Finally the third group – the mounts. There are several different ones with different parameters (like speed or constitution). The most important feature here is the possibility to fight from their back, with all the pros and cons of this style of fight like huge bonuses for attack in gallop and problems with manoeuvring when surrounded.

Strategy Informer: Could you tell us about the Artificial Intelligence that's said to be very Advanced?

Miroslaw Dymek: Instead of individually scripted behaviours, every NPC is managed with the same, global AI module. They go about their business, protect themselves and their property, sleep and work, go aggressive or flee in panic. They react as normal people with the variety known from real life. Some of NPCs have specific tasks and they do everything to accomplish them, some of them simply do not like you, some want to help. They are governed by simple rules but those rules combine with each other and sometimes generate unpredictable challenges and situations. Eventually, you can predict the results of your actions with a sensible doze of accuracy, but never feel the stiffness of totally scripted games.

Strategy Informer: Could you tell us about the Races that we'll get to see in Two Worlds?

Miroslaw Dymek: You start with human character in single-player mode, but in multiplayer, you may choose from quite a nice selection of races. Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Humans and Reptiles for example will be really different, not only in the visual department. As for classes, we prepared 8 different ones up to now, each with different set of starting skills and preferred weapon. Be it a fierce Barbarian or grim Necromancer, they are all well balanced and charismatic characters and offer lots to experiment and discover.

Strategy Informer: As a gamer, what's your favourite part of Two Worlds, what makes you proud to have helped create it and why is it a game RPG fans will want?

Miroslaw Dymek: Engaging combat and freedom are the best parts for me. Scripted quest solutions are almost not present in Two Worlds. We follow the style of design, where the player is given certain tools and a task. We just set the task’s conditions and possible (expected) results, but how those results will be obtained is completely up to the player’s resourcefulness. The same goes for combat. Will you use traps, magic, brute force supported with a crate of healing potions or more subtle style, everything is viable and sensible until used with some skill. There is an open space for imagination and I hope you will like it as much as me.

Strategy Informer: Do you think we'll see some changes to the current release date?

Miroslaw Dymek: We are right on track up to now and expect the release at the end of September.

Strategy Informer: What has been the hardest part of development so far?

Miroslaw Dymek: Horse combat, I think. We did not know at the beginning how many problems will yield one decision to make it possible in Two Worlds to be a mounted warrior. The more we are happy now, when we dealt with it and see it working as good as we imagined.

Strategy Informer: Well we've come to our last question, is there anything you'd like to say to the fans of Two Worlds which are egely awaiting the release of this great looking title?

Miroslaw Dymek: We all hope here in Reality Pump that Two Worlds will live to your best expectations and become one of the games you will remember for long time.

References

• Two Worlds: New interview on StrategyInformer 06/06/2006 at 1:47 pm.
• Gamewatcher Archive.