Interview with Chris "Chaotica" Carkner & Chris "Back Alley Brawler" Bruce at PAX 2008.

SI: Start with the essentials!  Can you tell me your name?

BaB: My name is Christopher Bruce, I am also known as Back Alley Brawler on the forums.

SI: And what's your job description basically, and how long have you been with the game?

BaB: My job description is senior animator and visual effects artist and I've been working on the game since shortly after Issue 7 went live.

SI: Wow!  That's a long time.  So, how are you guys settling into your new office space, by the way?

BaB: Oh, awesome!  You know, we are quickly, quickly filling out the space we had.  When we moved out, we had 15 of us.  I think we almost tripled in size since then.  Just constantly pushing out the boundaries like some Zerg swarm.

SI: What was it like working with the developers versus the publishers at this time?

BaB: What's it like working with the developers...?

SI: To actually be a part of NCSoft instead of a seperate little entity.

BaB: Oh, okay, I follow.  So yeah, being able to work under one management structure is a great benefit.  Being able to focus upon going down one pathway, getting the resources that we need to move forward, and do the best work that we want to do for the game.  So its been a great move, its been a bit of a transitionary period that we're still working through, but its going to be an overall benefit for the features of the game.

SI: So the obvious ones: Are you a badger?

BaB: Am I a badger?  Yes actually, I am!  I think I'm one of the few that works in the studio.  My main character, that I've collected... Ah, I've lost count now.  Many, many badges!

SI: Do you have a favorite AT?

BaB: Tanks!

SI: Which makes sense, given 'Back Alley Brawler'.

BaB: That's the whole reason I picked Back Alley Brawler for the post ender.

SI: So, this got touched a little bit in the panel discussion.  Have you guys had any further discussion on an 'all access pass' for all of your NCSoft games?

BaB: Uh, yeah!  There's always been discussion on that, but I don't know any of the specifics on it other than what was just said in the panel talk.  Its something that's a little difficult because the games are in different locations around the world, the currency exchange rates, but yeah.  Its something NCSoft is aware of fans would like to have, and is something they're looking in to how to make that a reality.

SI: Awesome.  Have you guys been planning on doing any changes to the Hamidon Raids to make them any more user friendly?  I know that, Rick James is one of our DJs who plays, and he says that its a little difficult to get an effective team together at this point in time.  So I wasn't sure if there was any plans to-- I'm not sure if this is an overall complaint, or him specifically.

BaB: Yeah, we were always looking at Hamidon because its one of the few encounters in the game we feel we can evolve over time.  We made the last evolution not too long ago.  We've had lots of feedback from players on what works, what doesn't work, and we're always looking for ways to further improve the encounter.  But nothing officially announced, so I don't know if there's anything else we can talk about there.

SI: Can you talk a little bit more about the new powersets that were announced with i13?

BaB: New powersets for Issue 13 that have been announced are Shields, which is a defensive powerset for scrappers, brutes, and tanks, not stalkers.  I can't go into too much more details about how the powers function.  The other set that we've announced is Pain Domination, for the villain players.  Corruptors and Masterminds.  Pain Domination is basically our villainous version of Empathy.  So a lot of players really wanted to have Empathy on the villain side for PvP zones, and to fill in the villain players' abilities to a tee.

SI: So its supposed to be a--their powerset, Pain Domination, is supposed to be antithesis to this almost?

BaB: Yes, yes it is.  Its supposed to be very similar to Empathy, but flavored towards the villain side.  We've been very careful about what powers they get at which levels, because we want to give them the similar sort of abilities that Empathy sort of brings for players in zone PvP at certain levels.

SI: Will the shields that are coming with the new powerset be available as just normal costume pieces, and not particularly part of the powerset.

BaB: I don't know that we've talked about that a whole lot.  My first inclination is probably to probably say no, just as the same reason we don't give broadswords to players as a costume option.  Because that's a very signature part of a player's powerset, its one of the things that helps him stand apart from all the other players.  The people who pick shields as a powerset will have lots of options and cool things to do their shields, but that will probably be something that is unique to them.

SI: Okay.  What was the reasoning behind putting in the option of Merits?  Was it to allow the players to get more specific recipes, to save up for, supplement the Veteran Reward System...?

BaB: I see.  I think basic idea behind Merits, and I can't go into a whole lot of detail about how the system works... The idea is to sort of... Rewards are sort of balanced around the concept of risk versus reward right now.  And what we want to do with the Merits is change that so that its based around the time you've spent playing the game, versus the rewards you get.  So we want to give players a more predictable manner to get the rewards they want out of the game, rather than repeatedly grinding through the fastest Task Forces through the game to get the random drops.  To give people to play any content they like playing, any of the taskforces or story arcs they really enjoy playing, and get a suitable reward for the amount of time they've put into it.  So that's the basic idea behind the Merit system.

SI: Awesome.  And just as a last one here, what made you decide to go towards a business model of microtransactions, with things like the booster packs you got done, the wedding pack... It didn't seem to be NCSoft's thing before Dungeon Runners entered the scene.

BaB: We actually started doing the microtransactions when we were still back with Cryptic.  With the server transfers, the character renames, and things like that.  Its just a way of providing services to the player that they might want that we normally would be able to provide for them... [Garbled]. The things like the Wedding Pack & the announced Cyborg Pack were things we wouldn't have had time to do in our regular issue updates.  Because we're selling them as microtransaction, because players are going to be paying extra for them, we can put a little extra time and resources into making things that are really cool, and slightly above from what you normally get from the free stuff.  We're not intending for them to replace the free issues, they're there to supplement the things that the players are used to getting for free.

SI: Thank you very much for your time!  I know you have to get back.