Titan Quest Interview

Considering the massive success of the Diablo and Dungeon Siege franchises, it’s pretty amazing how rare it is to see a big budget action RPG being developed for the PC. Iron Lore Entertainment plans to fill that gap with Titan Quest – a fast-action RPG set in mythical versions of ancient Greece, Egypt, and China.  To learn more about the game before we see it firsthand at E3, we fired a handful of questions over to THQ’s Senior Creative Manager, Michael Fitch. The answers that came back to use were very detailed and even contained a spoiler or two, so you may want to use caution while seeking the knowledge within:

GB: First of all, how is the development of Titan Quest coming along? Are you still on track for a June release?

Michael: Everything is in the game, and we’re hammering on the last bugs, getting the final polish on the game, and refining the balancing. We are definitely on track for a June release, as we’re already having a hard time around the office keeping people from getting sucked in and playing all day.

GB: How is the game’s storyline structured? Will we be progressing through chapters or acts, or can we return to earlier areas of the game at any time to take advantage of side quests, etc. that we may have missed?

Michael: Really, it’s some of both. We have three main regions that the game takes you to (Greece, Egypt, and Asia), and each one is sort of like a chapter in the larger story. When you start the game, you’re really focused on how the events in the world are having an impact on the local scene, and as you follow the story, you gradually discover how these local events are part of a much larger development, so that as you move from region to region, the story unfolds and reveals itself, taking some twists and turns along the way. Once you’ve moved forward, though, you can go back at any time to earlier areas and pick up side quests, explore around a bit to found out more about what people are saying about what’s going on, or talk to storytellers who will give you insight into some of the myths and history of the region. There are certain main story beats that you will definitely uncover in the main quest path, but a lot of the subtle details are woven through the NPC’s and side quests, so that players can engage with the story elements to a greater or lesser extent depending on individual preferences.

GB: Can you give us a quick description for each of the game’s eight skill masteries? How does the game’s class system make use of these to allow for unique and diverse character builds?

Michael: Let me take a deep breath, because this might take a while. So, each of the eight masteries has a theme to it as well as a set of gameplay dynamics. Warfare deals with offensive melee attacks, including skills that allow you to build up your damage-dealing ability, like dual-wielding or going into a battle rage; Defense is centered around armor and shield skills, both skills that increase your ability to avoid damage or recover from hits and skills that allow you to counter with shield-based attacks; Earth is more magically focused, with a variety of direct attacks as well as some enchantments and a nice tank pet you can use to keep enemies busy while you nuke them; Storm is a somewhat different take on the elements, as it focuses on cold and lightning skills and has a bit deeper defensive and crowd-control element in that you can slow down enemies, inflict reprisal damage on them, or lay down some area-effect damage that also disrupts missile attacks; Hunting gives you skills that are related to bow and spear combat and also gives you some snares, as you might expect, and advantages when fighting beasts or beastman hybrids; Nature gives you a variety of pets as well as the ability to heal and grow defensive barriers and boost your character’s (or your party’s) recovery rates; Rogue mostly deals with poisons and dirty tricks, with a lot of active skills that make it a more tactical approach to melee combat; Spirit is all about manipulating life force, so there are a lot of skills related to stealing life, converting life into energy, and weakening your opponents.

Now, as you play the game, you get to choose any two of the eight masteries you want for your character, so the combinations can create a vast variety of different behaviors. For example, if you combine Warfare and Defense, you’ve got a classic fighter-tank, with a lot of passive skills that will pump your offense and defense and a few key active skills for troublesome situations, like when you get surrounded by a gang of monsters. On the other hand, you could take Rogue and Nature, which gives you a similar balance of offensive and defensive abilities, but a lot more active skills and tactical options. So, depending on how you like to play, there are different masteries that will feed into your style. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you combine Warfare with Earth, for example, you can make a damage-dealing machine who can not only rip up the monsters with swords but also with spells. Or, if you combine Nature with Spirit, you can have your own personal army of pets, and you can heal and buff them or sap and weaken your enemies, as needed. There are twenty-eight different combinations of two masteries, and each one has unique dynamics to the interactions of the skills within them, so players have this huge playing field of potential character development that they can explore.

Now, consider that when you go into multiplayer, you can have up to five other players who each have their own unique combinations of masteries and skills, and you can really go to town with all of the synergies. When you get a group of characters fighting through the world as a team, there’s just an incredible amount of action, with effects and monsters all over the screen, and the tactics available in terms of how you can set-up, manage, and finish encounters is truly phenomenal. The character development aspect of an RPG game is really one of the central, most compelling features, and I think people will have a blast discovering all of the interesting choices they can make with the way we’ve done this.

GB: Tell us a bit about how inventory management will work in Titan Quest, such as the multiplayer trading system, buying and selling from a vendor, and how encumbrance will factor into the game. Also, will there be any sort of “stash” for players to horde their favorite equipment?

Michael: Well, first off, there is no encumbrance. It’s a great stat for simulation purposes, but we were really focused on making a great, action-packed game and not a simulation. Inventory management will look very familiar to anyone who has played RPG’s before. There’s a limited amount of space that defines how much your character can carry, and items of varying sizes take up different amounts of that space. Rather than going for a static “stash” that you would have to go back to town to access, we’ve put in additional “bags” of storage space that are tabbed on the character inventory. So, you can keep all of your potions on one tab, for example, or all of your Relics, and if you’re carrying around some set items you’ve collected and you want to check the requirements, you can just tab over and look at them right away. You earn additional “bags” as you progress through the game, so as you find more stuff you just can’t bear to part with, you will have plenty of space to store it in. We have a secure trading screen for multiplayer, so you don’t have to dump your stuff on the ground, and buying and selling at the merchants is as simple as left-clicking to buy and right-clicking to sell. One small feature that we slipped in is that you can sell back items you buy (or vice-versa) without the price changing, as long as you are in the merchant interface, so no more losing that great item you didn’t mean to sell or losing money over items you didn’t mean to buy. Our focus has been on making everything as intuitive and easy to use as possible, so there are just tons of these little polish features in the game.

GB: How much of a factor will equipment have in the game? Will equipment effects and bonuses use a random prefix/suffix system, or can we expect to see mostly unique hand-crafted items?

Michael: Equipment is a major aspect of the game; for an RPG, it’s right up there with character development, story, and combat as one of the core mechanics, and we’ve devoted a lot of time to it. We’re using both a randomized affix system that will mix and match characteristics with base equipment and a large inventory of unique hand-crafted items. I believe there are over a thousand equipment models and something like eight hundred of those are unique for items with hand-tuned names and stats. We have equipment that is tailored to each of the regions, as well as equipment that is themed for different monsters, and equipment that is themed for different character archetypes, so there’s a tremendous range of visual style, as well as the range of stats and abilities that the equipment has. Similarly to the character development system, players will be able to explore the equipment in the world for scores of hours and will probably never exhaust the variety that we’ve built into the game.

Michael: Charms and Relics are very valuable, rare objects that contain the spirit or essence of powerful monsters, heroes, or even the Gods themselves. They are found as shards, or pieces, that can be combined to form completed Charms and Relics. You apply them to your equipment to get additional bonuses and new characteristics. Monster Charms are won by defeating specific types of monsters, and they have characteristics that conform to that monster type. So, for example, you may get a Boar Hide charm piece from killing a boar, and if you apply this to your armor, it will increase its armor stat. However, if you collect up five of them and combine them to form a completed Charm, it will get a bonus attribute on top of its base armor-boosting ability. Relics are more rare and can be found in high-level chests, occasionally by defeating monsters, and also as rewards for particular quests. Relics also tend to be more powerful, as they are more difficult to come by. Since only one Charm or Relic can be applied to each piece of equipment, and applying these to items is permanent, it becomes another interesting strategic choice that players can make.

GB: How intricate is the game’s quest system? Will there be a detailed journal entry for each step of a quest or will players have to put some thought into what their next step might be?

Michael: There are really two sides to the quest system, the main quest path and the side quests. For the main quest path, the last thing we want players to do is get stuck not knowing what they’re supposed to be doing next, so things tend to be fairly straightforward. The quest log always tells you exactly where you are in the main quest and what your next objective is; you can even re-play the dialogue associated with that part of the quest at any time you like. For the side quests, there’s more that is left open for the player to explore. You may be given broad guidance to look for someone in a particular area, or have a lead on a problem, which you then have to track down in more detail to be able to complete the quest. Everything is documented for side quests in the quest log, but the details are sometimes left intentionally vague to let the player discover how to proceed on their own.

GB: What steps have you taken to enhance the AI in the game? Will creatures make use of any strategies or utilize teamwork against the players?

Michael: AI has been a major focus point for us, as it both gives a lot of character to the monsters in the game and provides some of the tension and challenge of combat. Every AI has something like thirty variables in its controller that allow the designers to do all kinds of interesting things. For example, not only are monsters differentiated in what types of events and how much provocation will turn them aggressive, or “aggro”, but they can also be grouped to respond to similar threats against monsters of particular types, so a Boar may not care that you’re picking off the Carrion Crows that are half-way across the screen, but if you attack the Centaur, he will immediately rally the Boars to help him attack you.

There are lots of basic combat behaviors, like monsters using ranged attacks will try and keep some distance from you, and monsters with certain skills will buff and heal nearby allies, but there are also some very fine and subtle touches, like the Maenads are more likely to try and dodge if you’re attacking from a distance, and when you come into a camp, the archers will spread out, the spear-users will buff themselves and then charge you, while the sorcerer drops nukes and the huntress drops traps. None of this is scripted; each monster has its own AI controllers, and they react to the situation in fairly simple ways, but when you put it all together, it produces a very interesting tactical challenge.

And then, for the boss battles, we put a lot of work into making their abilities and their AI routines much more sophisticated, so their behaviors are even more complex, which is appropriate, since we wanted the boss battles to be memorable moments and challenging to players regardless of the type of character they brought to the fight.

GB: Tell us a bit about the adversaries we’ll be facing in Titan Quest. Any specific favorites “boss” monsters you can tell us more about?

Michael: There are something like eighty different monster types, many of which have several variants, including different mixes of skills that they can use against the player, and like with the equipment, the monsters have particular ties to the history, mythology, and environments of the regions in which they are found. In addition to the base monsters, there are also champions, heroes, and of course, bosses. I’m torn about describing the bosses. On the one hand, they’re really cool, and I’d love to tell you all about them; but on the other hand, I really don’t want to spoil the experience of discovery that players will get as they come across them.

Okay, how about this. You put up a BIG FAT SPOILER WARNING, and I’ll let you in on one of the fights. The boss that we included in the demo is a big, nasty Centaur. He’s pretty mean, in that he’s got a lot of hit points and does a lot of damage, but also in that he has some great skills and AI. When you find him, he’ll call some buddies over to help him, so right away, you have to decide whether to wade into the middle or try and isolate them and pick them off one by one. Either way is risky, because if you wade into the middle, you’re going to get whaled on, and some of his centaur minions can use net traps to stop you from moving, so if you get into trouble, you won’t be able to get away. On the other hand, if you run away and try to kite them, the minions will move in on you while the boss hangs back, so you’re going to have to take them out first; the trick is that if you kill all of his minions, he’ll blow his war horn and call some more. If you try to dodge around the minions to get at the boss, they can also summon traps that will fill you full of arrows. So, my favorite tactic for this one is to draw off some of his minions and kill them, but not all of them; having a pet is good for this, as you can use your pet to tie up the boss while you take out the minions. If you do this right, you don’t have to worry about the nets or the traps, and then you can gang up on the boss with your pet. Sometimes you may have to bail a bit to regroup or drink a few potions to help you through, but you can generally wear him down and emerge victorious.

Now, that’s just the first boss in the game. There are more than 20 bosses, some of which don’t even show up until Epic or Legendary difficulty, so there’s a lot of great gameplay around these guys that players will get to explore.

GB: Have you built a proprietary system to handle Titan Quest’s multiplayer component or will you be using third party software like GameSpy Arcade? What steps have you taken to deter cheating in the game?

Michael: We’re using GameSpy and Xfire for matchmaking in multiplayer. We’re not terribly concerned about cheating, as multiplayer is cooperative mode, so the worst damage that players can do by cheating is make the game not fun for themselves. If someone is being a nuisance in your game, you can always kick them out, or ban them, and if you just want to play with your friends, you can password-protect games on the internet as well as running local LAN sessions. You can also set player number and player level limits on the sessions you run, and search for sessions based on map or game name. It would be a different proposition if we were focused on competitive play or PvP, where we’d need to do a lot of work to make sure there was a level playing field for everyone, but with co-op, the best protection is just choosing who you play with, so we’ve tried to give players all the tools they need to do that.

Thanks for the detailed answers, Michael!