Interview with Sci-fi MMORPG Divergence Online Project Manager Ethan Casner

By Mobin Koohestani | September 8, 2009 | | Filed under: Features, Interviews | Tags: Divergence Online, Ethan Casner, Independent, RuneScape, Tabula Rasa

The MMO Gamer: What are some of the newer features gamers should from Divergence Online that you think is lacking in current MMOGs?

Ethan Casner: I’m quite frankly very surprised, and not pleasantly so mind you, at the current trend of both extremely simplistic character customizability and boring, numb combat in recent MMORPGs. Divergence takes the user back to a halcyon time where one could create a truly unique avatar different from those around them and when combat got your heart pumping.

Recent years have shown a lot of failed attempts at MMOFPS gameplay. Most notably “Lord” British’s “Tabula Rasa” and SWGs attempt at converting to such a system a few years ago. Games like these give the user very little credit in blatantly stating that people cannot tell the difference between real twitch-combat and simply having a crosshair and “appearing” to shoot a projectile in front of them, when in reality all you’re doing is initiating the tired “rolls system” common to MMORPGs since the dawn of the genre and passing it off as something else by attaching a particle effect to it.

Essentially, these games have attempted to “fool” the user by developing games that are an MMO first, and an 3PS/FPS second. Divergence, however partakes of no such deception. It’s a 3PS first and an MMORPG second, not the other way around.

Unfortunately because games such as these have attempted MMOFPS/3PSs and failed, even with their multi-million dollar budgets and big-names, it’s commonly believed that “because they couldn’t do it right, it can’t be done”. We aim to shatter that preconception.

In addition to this (what I perceive as a) seriously misguided attempt at merging the genres, the level of character customizability in games coming out nowadays could be called at the most generous, subpar and at the least kind, draconian.

An example one could use of this might be “Fallen Earth”, a 3PS MMORPG that despite what has been speculated was over 7 years of development and millions of dollars spent, allows players only the freedom to choose between a dozen or so faces for their character which could be described as angry neanderthals. Players aren’t even given an option to modify their height or build.

Really? Has the bar been set this low guys? With budgets exceeding ten times or more than ours, three dozen employees and often half a decade spent, as an indie developer, this for us is hard to reconcile when already our systems exceed these limits.

The MMO Gamer: Finally, as always, where do you see Divergence Online in the next few years?

Ethan Casner: Completed, hopefully. Most people don’t realize that it was never our intention to release Divergence in the setting it currently is in.

Our initial product model placed Divergence on a different planet, and further in the timeline than it is now, however when our initial funding source bailed on us 8 months into development, we had to sit down and budget a way that the project could still be completed at some capacity with now only 1/5th of the budget we were originally promised. The solution to that was a prequel, and after much deliberation decided on a first-contact setting centered around our most humanoid race, the Lokri.

Life as an indie developer, as we’ve come to find out, is no picnic and at times one must make drastic compromises for the long-term sake of the team and the project. It’s because of this that, although we will release Divergence: Online as a highly-functional game in it’s own right if the next few months deem it necessary, it’s main purpose is a structural and financial foundation with which to aid us in expanding the universe to the “massive” title we envisioned from the beginning; The game that the world MMORPG community deserves and that we’ve all been waiting for not just as developers of the franchise, but as MMORPG players ourselves.

The MMO Gamer: Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions!