Page-2 | First Beyond Protocol Developer Interview | Interviews

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Will the game be available for digital download? Will we find it in retail stores? Will there be a pre-order program? How can we get our hands on this game?

We plan to allow for digital download. We are working with some retail chains to try and get the game box into stores. There will likely be a pre-order program that will include some special perks for those who sign-up for the pre-order. The specifics of those perks are still being worked out. The pre-order is really designed for guilds. It is our expectation to provide our pre-order players a unique hull that can only be designed by that player.

For the guilds, if a group of pre-orders exist, the guild will get to choose the type of planet they start and they are assured to be on the planet together. In addition, if the guild is highly represented, the guild will be able to submit a guild insignia that will be unique for them and installed into the code of the game. Our goal here is that the guilds need to be well-served and given the shear size of this game, they need to exist.

What has the response been like to the beta invitation?

Above our expectations. We have had an enormous response worldwide. It actually slowed our process down a little to go through all of the applications.

How do you think dyed-in-wool MMOG players, accustomed to turn based combat or browser games, will respond to Beyond Protocol's Persistence and environment?

It will likely be a shock to their system. Many of our alpha testers were rudely awakened when they found that a combat they were involved in continued to play on even when they decided to log off for the night. The action will be fast and sometimes very intense, however that should be balanced with times of lull where more thought and planning is required.

spacestation How was the game running before BETA? Are things pretty much ready to go or have some areas been left open just for the BETA?
The game has been running for several months now. We have been in a closed alpha that has been kept very secret. Only a very select few have been allowed to test the game while we continued to work through its development and squashed very nasty bugs. This closed alpha process is equivalent to other games’ Closed Beta’s. There are several key features intentionally left out of BETA to ensure that certain core gameplay elements work without those features. Things such as guilds are not currently in place to see how players handle non-guild situations. Later in the testing process, guilds will be added and some other important features may be removed to see the mechanics without those features. Other features are still in the design phase and are in question of whether they will make release, such as races.