Mourning Q&A #1
Interviews

Dan Antonescu: Well, that's exactly what I was talking about in that peek (#43 one, read the #44 one for more informations). A totally open skill system is one in which a player can acquire and master (max up) all skills present in a game. By allowing that, the players will become all the same, and that is a thing which strongly denies the main essence of a RPG (the trade between speed of reaction and in-character stored knowledge), because if all the players' characters are the same, the difference in battle is made via the speed of reaction rather than anything else.

As I detailed in those peeks, the best way would be to allow players to make the important decisions regarding the development of their characters, but limiting them in their choices. And the best way to do that, is to limit the number of skills a character can acquire during his life span.

Racial disabilities aren't the best solution, from gameplay's point of view. It's for sure a solution supporting the role play race differences, but it will greatly restrict player's options regarding the way they can use their characters. Most of the RPG players are searching for best way to build their characters in order to be highly efficient in one specific style of game play, and these racial differences will force them chose specific races for specific ways of game play, greatly reducing the in game character diversity.

As I explained in our last peek, this skill system limitation must go even further than that. By grouping the too-powerful-together ones, and the ones which mutually exclude each other (from a logical/role play point of view) and letting players acquire only a member of these mutually excluding skill pairs.

Dan Antonescu: Yes and no... :) Sounds confusing, doesn't it? Well, Yes because Mourning is based on a skill system, which means that in PvP the combat computations are made between skills, and not characters' levels. That means a character having a maxed skill in a sword style can fight with another character wielding a sword and having more maxed skills, and have a 50/50 chance. But usually the character having more maxed-out skills has more combat options available which can make the difference between life and death in a PvP encounter. Not to mention the latest one should also have higher developed attributes, better items (weapons and armor) and the most importantly, more game play knowledge and experience too. And from this point of view, comes the No part of my answer.

Practically an older more experienced character will have the first chance in such an encounter, as it should be! But it is important to note that the younger, not so experienced character which also has some maxed out skills, won't be an easy kill. And if this young and not so experienced character is manned by a good player, or comes with a friend or two, the older one should really think twice, as he will probably not slaughter them like lambs!

Dan Antonescu: Yes, it will be possible, even if in not directly and in real-time. We'll allow the groups of player having the necessary resources to ask Gods to build personalised settlements for them. And if the gods think that they deserve it, and are in a good mood, they'll do it for them ;) Of course this won't happen immediately at the release, players will need to learn the game and gain the needed resources for such a thing, and we'll also need to add some more models to support these custom settlements in Mourning's world.

Dan Antonescu: Yes, but as I told you above not in a "hardware" way, by modifying the geography of the world. Their changes will rather reflect in a "software" way, by influencing the political aspect of the world, and the way the storyline will evolve.

Dan Antonescu: We're not planning for a housing system at release time, because of the lack of time, but also because we didn't yet find an acceptable way to introduce that into Mourning's world without using the different world solution (Instances). That wouldn't help with the game's immersion, so we won't do it. When we've found a solution we like, for that purpose, we'll add it in (via the monthly updates or an eventual add-on).