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GameOgre.com
recently had a Q&A session with Neocron 2's Holger Nathrath
about this sequel to one of the first truly
controversial MMORPGs. Questions by GameOgre.com
are in bold.
Since the
MMORPG genre is extremely crowded right now, what
do you feel that Neocron 2 offers that other
MMORPGs don't?
Neocron is an
action-packed, cyberpunk online world where you
can fight, trade, work, love or just live your
digital life together with thousands of other
players around the globe. You can build up your
personal fortune in form of items, vehicles and
apartments as well as your character’s skills
and statistics.
Neocron is the worldwide
only MMORPG with a dark-future, Blade Runner style
cyberpunk setting combined with a first person
real-time fighting system. So there are no boring
elves and dwarfs with “point-click’n’get a
cup of coffee” combat.
Now we have just announced
the development of version 2.1 of Neocron. This
upgrade will enhance the features of the graphics
engine, and the graphic content of certain systems
of the game. For example we will redevelop the
complete vegetation of the game and will also
replace all important weapon models. We believe
this upgrade will bring Neocron to a next level of
quality.
How has the
sequel been improved over the original?
Neocron 2 is a consequent
successor of Neocron 1. It expands the game and
overhauls it in a lot of important aspects,
without changing the feeling too much.
Besides the new features,
we expanded the game world by a large factor.
There is a complete new city with its unique
atmosphere and all important facilities and of
course a lot of additional new space. The main new
location is the city of Dome of York. It contains
an enormous amount of new maps the player can
explore.
One other huge new
feature/location is the HackNet. Players, who are
specialized in hacking, can enter the Networks,
travel around, steal information and secret
blueprints of other companies, fight against
computer viruses or firewall programs and much
more. This is all realized in a completely
different style and feel.
Neocron 2
offers combat more like a first person shooter
than traditional MMORPGs. Does this help with the
dreaded grind that has become the bane of the
MMORPG genre?
In my opinion the leveling
treadmill is a weakness and strength of this genre
at the same time. On one hand it forces the player
to do similar things again and again. On the other
hand it’s a very motivating thing to increase
the stats of the own character. A MMORPG gives the
player a maximum of freedom to do whatever he
wants. If the player succeeds to create his
personal fun mix between leveling and playing
together with others he will have a perfect game
experience.
Based on our multi user
vehicle system I started a taxi cooperation in
Neocron once, had a whole clan who worked together
with me, doing marketing, driving peoples around
the Wastelands and selling vehicles of all kinds
to customers. That was a great thing and we had a
lot of fun.
Of course our action
combat system is one aspect which just makes the
game more challenging and more interesting.
Certainly if you choose a combat based profession
for your character.
Can you
explain the dynamics of your PvP system and how it
keeps the game interesting when players hit the
level cap?
You can basically kill
everyone you see, with two exceptions. Players
that do not wish to participate in PvP can wear a
special implant called the Law Enforcer. These
players can not be damaged by other players, but
in return also can’t damage any other players
nor help players engaged in PvP combat. The other
exception is when you are present in a so-called
safezone. In these zones, players cannot draw
weapons, so nobody can be killed there.
In any other situation,
you can kill anyone you see. But it’s not always
advisable to do so. While you can kill anyone,
killing somebody who doesn’t belong to an enemy
faction will bring penalties. You will lose
faction sympathies and the so-called Soullight,
which is used to determine how lawful/criminal you
are. If you kill several allied players in a row,
you will be considered a bad criminal and guard
NPCs will open fire on sight, while even allied
players may kill you not only with impunity, but
increasing their own Soullight value.
Both the
original and the sequel contain more adult content
(i.e sexual content, bad language, and drug usage)
than most other MMORPGs. Has there been
any major downside to having these elements
in your games as opposed to being more mainstream
oriented?
Neocron is living
city with different kinds of districts. There is
Viarosso as one extreme which is an exclusive city
sector with the bank, StockX or high-tech
companies. But there is also Pepper Park with
night clubs, pubs, crime, drugs, NeoFrag (ingame
virtual Deathmatch arenas) and, yes some naked
skin. This is something you would expect in a city
like Neocron is. You also won’t be surprised to
find such establishments in a Blade Runner
scenario. I think everybody agrees with that
because nobody ever complained. It’s a important
part of the overall game atmosphere.
Explain your
interesting "No More Elves" campaign and
what you want to accomplish with it.
We want to show
people that Neocron2 can be a brilliant
alternative if you are tired of all those elves
and dwarfs. And that’s exactly the reason why we
decided to launch a nice marketing campaign with a
lot of dark humor and we had a lot of fun
designing the banners and concepts. Of course we
hope people will give Neocron2 a try.
In closing, is
there anything else that you would like gamers to
know about Neocron 2?
The Neocron project is
like a child to us, to our development team. It
was born and is now growing while we are spending
a lot time taking care of it.
For people who like films
like “Blade Runner” or “Judge Dredd”, for
people who like scenarios like “Shadowrun” or
“Snowcrash”, for people tired of dwarfs and
elves, Neocron 2 is the only real option on the
worldwide MMORPG market.
For people who are tired
of point ’n’ click combat Neocron2 again is
the only real option. So you should definitely
give it a try.
Thank you for
your time!
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