WarCry had the chance to sit down with Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov to discuss Masthead's upcoming MMOG Earthrise. Read on for his thoughts on MMOG development, skill-based development and the struggle between Continoma and Noir.
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Wednesday, May 14th
Tuesday, March 18th
WarCry had the chance to meet with Technical Director George Petrov and Art Director Nikolay Stoyanov of Masthead Studios during our trip to the Game Developers Conference. We discussed Earthrise, their upcoming skill-based sci-fi MMO. Here is what we learned:
"[Earthrise is] a game that is about freedom," said Technical Director George Petrov. "[It is] not the usual fantasy MMO."
Their vision is most definitely a throwback to an era when there were many schools of thought in the MMO genre. Since World of Warcraft, companies have gravitated towards level based games that closely direct the player's experiences and they're almost universally fantasy. Earthrise rewinds the clock and is clearly inspired by Ultima Online, which rose to prominence a decade ago with a completely open skill-based system where players improve through using individual skills, rather than experience earned by killing monsters and completing quests.
Read it all after the click.
Friday, January 25th
Masthead Studios announced Earthrise earlier this week, a skill-based, PvP focused science-fiction MMO slated for launch in 2009. We spoke to CEO Atanas Atanasov about the game, why he believes they'll deliver on their ambitious design and more.
WarCry: For those unfamiliar with the project, give us a basic overview of who you are, the origins of Masthead and what Earthrise is all about.
Atanas Atanasov: Masthead Studios was founded in 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Our goal was to create a top quality game development studio, consisting of the best graphic artists and programmers in our region. There are a lot of IT specialists and graphic artists in our country who are involved in outsourcing; all we had to do was to pick the right people for the right job.
Being a MMORPG fan since Ultima Online and knowing that virtual worlds are the future of PC gaming, it was an easy decision for us to focus on the realization of Masthead's first project - Earthrise.
Read more after the jump.
