Frequently Asked Questions about "Precursors":
1. Tell us about game’s genre?
This is freeplay RPG with FPS\Space sim combat and economical component.
2. Tell us about main hero?
Main character of Precursors is a young pilot of Amarnian race, who just finished education. Accidentally, he got into a scrape at the time of inceptive war between two powerful intergalactic states.
3. Tell us about key features of the game?
- Various game worlds (jungle planet, post-nuclear world, desert, space station etc.) which you can travel without any loading screens;
- About 250 missions;
- Large variety of weapons: organic and inorganic, upgrading system;
- Space battles and first person combat at the surface pf planets, inside of space ships and stations;
- Set of usable vehicles: flying (interatmospheric vessels and spaceships) and ground vehicles;
- Possibility to set up a relation’s system with different fractions through the game;
- Trade significance.
4. Assumed system requirements:
Minimal requirements: AMD Athlon XP 3000, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 6600 GS 128 MB
Recommended requirements: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4G (E6600) 1GB RAM, GeForce 7600 GS 128 MB
5. What average play-time of the game?
Certainly it depends on gameplay style, but on average it will be about 20 - 40 hours for passing the main quests of story.
6. Tell us about plotline of the game and where game actions will take place.
The game plot starts when our hero - young pilot of Amarnian race arrives to the native Goldin (planet) after his graduate at space pilot’s school. There he gets known that recently galaxy had suffered series of terrible and mysterious events. One of such occurrences had greatly affected Amarnian civilization and fundamentally changed life of our hero. He will have to try his best to reveal disasters original cause and solve all concerned problems.
Great number of locations waits our hero in his journey – scorched deserts under the flaming star, exuberant green jungle, annihilated in destructive war planet of ancient high-tech civilization. Player’s scope of activity doesn’t limited with only planet surfaces – space flights and battles, ability to board vessels of various races or commerce with them displays features which will make game even more vivid and exciting.
7. In what way you had arrived at an idea to mix futuristic action with RPG and space simulation?
Actually, we always liked to perform experiments with mixing of genres. Since we consider that it’s not so interesting to make a simple shooters or sims. The genre progress nowadays usually comes to graphics improve, key features expansion, etc. That’s digging deeper into one sphere, in short. While genre mixing allows developers to use more extensive possibilities in incarnating their ideas and ambitions. By the way, we can name the book by Andre Norton – “Queen of Sun” as one of the idea inspirer. Surely, our game has no any concerns with the book plotline, we are going to deliver into the game similar atmosphere, that we liked very much reading this literary series.
8. Is there any prevailing element of gameplay or all of them are equally important?
It depends on your play style. If you prefer to spend most of the time in space controlling spaceship then it will be more space simulation game for you. But if you like to fight with monsters on the planets surface you will feel it more like shooter. Theoretically all of core gameplay elements are significant and equally interesting, but we consider “Precursors” as an RPG in the first place.
9. Tell us about combat part in detail.
There are two types of combat in game – ground-based combat and space battles. Land combat is a shooter with great amount of vehicles, destructible objects and developed AI opponents provided with virtual senses like hearing and vision. Concerning space battles, they are designed no only for hardcore players but for the general public, although they are not totally arcade style.
Since we got inspired by such games as Free Lancer, Free Space and X3, our flight model will be closer to simulations style more then to arcade one.
10. Is it will be possible to use vehicles in game?
Yes, of course. There are large set of usable transport presented in game – various armored vehicles, walking robots and many more, furthermore different space ships which will be used to explore galaxy expanse.
11. How many types of weapon and monsters expected in game?
There are about 15 types of hand weapon, differentiated by type and origin. Besides usual foot action you can fight using armored vehicle, spaceship or walking battle robot. In addition you will have an opportunity to shoot from stationary Plasma or Laser cannons.
Most of the weapon types from player’s arsenal will be available for AI bots as well.
However, don’t expect, that ordinary soldier will be armed with a very expensive gun. All soldiers of planetary army are supplied by usual order and only elite troops will be equipped with the best weapon. Moreover, gangster groups will be armed with very wide range of guns, from primitive one up to most high-tech rifles.
12. What you can tell us about AI system? Can we expect to meet really intelligent enemies?
There will be “combat” and “non-combat” AI in Precursors, as well as in White Gold. Combat AI based on two primary algorithms - virtual hearing and vision. That gives player wide choice of possible tactics – shooting to lure enemies from their positions, etc. However, enemies will not prove themselves like a total fools – they will be able to call for a help, hide to reload a gun, and run away if wounded. Concerning “non-combat” AI – we provided a system of reputation scale for NPCs which based on the player deeds.
13. Tell us about the fleet of flying vehicles. Describe diversity of the ships upgrade system.
There are several types of flying vehicles, such as: interceptors, corvettes, cruisers, battleships, transport spaceships, passenger transports, also space stations and satellites.
At the beginning of the game main hero, after finishing specific quest line will obtain a space ship as inheritance from his father. This ship will be used in future space trips.
Naturally, you can upgrade your spaceship. Engines, weapon systems, protection shields, decorative furniture, and life support system – all of those elements can be replaced or upgraded. Believe us, you will find a reason to spend your money if you want to drive a high-tech battle ship instead of heap of junk.
14. What engine “Precursors” is based on?
The game is based on Vital Engine 3. This engine supports shaders 3.0, various post - effects such as HDR, motion blur and many others. In comparison with previous version, Vital Engine 3 is significantly improved physics. Moreover, one of the engine preferences is breakable objects, which will come across everywhere in “Precursors” and “White Gold”.
15. The main issue in BP was the low frame rate in the city, have you improved the new engine or reduced the size of the cities?
The size of the cities are even bigger then before (BP). New engine is much more powerfull then old one and able to display more characters at once and larger ammount of decorative elements without noticeable FPS loss.
We are carefully working on the past issues using players feedback, thus game performance is one of the key elements in our current production.
16. Tell us something interesting about game RPG system.
This is our “home made” system. The main hero can improve his skills with the help of advanced system of perks, which gives an opportunity to create a personal and unique character, appropriate to your gameplay style. System core is simple – player gains experience killing mobs and completing various quests. When hero reaches next level you can learn new perk or improve an existing one. All perks can be divided in few
groups – pertinent to combat system, non-combat abilities and space skills.
Besides that you can upgrade space ship, some types of weapon and so on.
Surely there will be highly developed economical system and peculiar to our projects great amount of confronting fractions.
17. Info on perks would be nice. What they are, what they do, a full list...
There are about 55 various perks in “Precursors”. You will find perks for social and personal use among them, some responds for different kinds of resistances (drug, alcohol, adrenalin, etc), others for health amount, protection and efficacy of various abilities like “sprint”, “invisibility”, “jump”, “nigh vision”, etc. There are also combat perks which will make your character stronger and skillful in battle. Certainly you will see the full list of perks directly in release version.
18. What plot-line scheme is used in the game? Will it be non-linear plot or just common variable set of available actions?
Did you ever saw a real non-linear scheme?
In our game you will be always able to leave main quest line and start an investigation of new planets and locations. You can support or oppose any game fraction or complete optional quests in any order you like more and what is more, most of the quests can be completed in different ways.
However, there are fixed main plot in the game with single ending.
19. Is game plot-line will play usual secondary role or it will be presented as dominating element like in Dark Star One?
It will be one of the dominating elements in our game since all events in the Precursors world are concerned with the game plot and our main hero directly linked with scenario.
20. How many factions will be presented in the game?
There are about six various factions in the game. One of them will be aliens and the rest mostly presented by various humanoid factions which are splitted in different alliances and empires and usually fighting each other. You'll find more details in Precursors Encyclopedia.
21. Tell us about take-off and landing action at space ships? It will be manual (controlled by a player) take-off from the planet or some automatic pilot system?
During the spaceship take-off you will be automatically transferred to the orbit.
Then player should leave zone of planetary gravity using mid-flight engine in order to get access to the galaxy map and make a hyperspace jump.
22. What approximate size of the planets territory?
Territories available on planets for players to explore will be from 3 to 12 square miles.
23. It is said that you had already started Precursors optimization for Xbox 360 hardware? Is it true and what reasons for such implementation?
We consider Xbox 360 as extremely successful product - relatively inexpensive and very powerful platform. Moreover, development of Xbox version from PC is not so complex and expensive process in comparison with other platforms like PS3 and others. Generally, it’s not so wise to refuse such large and promising market nowadays.
24. Approximate date of release?
We plan to release project at December of 2008.
25. Is the second part of the game will be released as an expansion of the Precursors universe or it will be a standalone sequel? Concerning a standalone sequel, the main hero will be the same?
Second part will be released as an independent game, conected with Precursors (I) by storyline, game universe
and main characters. The main hero will be the same for both parts. The plotline of the sequel will continue Precursors
story right from the end of the first part. You will see some of already known characters or locations, but main game
action will take place at the brand new areas of the Precursors galaxy. It will be a new story with new questlines and characters, so even
new player will be able to play Precursors (II) without playing the first part.
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