Here is a copy of the interview between Ethan and Mobin Koohestani which is on The MMO Gamer


The MMO Gamer: Hello! Could you begin by introducing yourself and telling us what Divergence Online is all about and how you are involved?

Ethan Casner: My name is Ethan Casner, I’m the Project Manager for Divergence Online. It’s a hard-core 3PS Sci-Fi MMORPG we’re developing. In addition to performing the role of Project Manager, I’m also the creator of the Divergence universe in all it’s rough and ever-evolving glory so to speak. Divergence is a universe set a few hundred years into our future where human and alien civilizations collide, often violently and will carry an M-rating for violence, language, sexual themes and substance abuse. It’s currently a PC-only game but an apple port is something we hope to have the resources to attempt in the coming months.

The MMO Gamer: Now I’m sure some people who have heard about, or are just now hearing about Divergence Online are wondering what exactly a 3PS game is. Would you please explain what it is exactly?

Ethan Casner: A 3PS is what a lot of games calling themselves FPSs are. It’s a third-person shooter, very similar to an FPS, the primary difference being that by default your camera is slightly above and slightly behind your character. “FPS” however has become sort of a “catch phrase” thrown about nowadays to describe a variety of similar gameplay systems as it is not commonly looked at as it’s actual meaning which is “First-Person Shooter”. Gears of War( ), for instance, is not an FPS, it is a 3PS such as ourselves.

The MMO Gamer: What are some of the newer things you have added to Divergence Online to make it unique amongst some of the 3PS games out there?

Ethan Casner: The biggest difference between our game and other 3PS games would be that Divergence isn’t just a 3PS, it’s a 3PS MMORPG. To be fair, MMO combat will never compare to to FPS/3PS combat, so I’d hate to be compared in that department to games such as Gears’. Our goal is to get a close to the feel of combat in a traditional FPS/3PS as possible, with the capabilities of an MMORPG such as character progression and a persistent world populated by (hopefully) thousands of players at the same time.

The MMO Gamer: I know Divergence is independently owned, and you implement many of the things the community says into the game. How have you benefited from this remarkable decision that many game developers tend to ignore?

Ethan Casner: There’s an example I’ve been using to answer questions relating to this policy of ours and it goes like this.
When SOE gutted SWG of one of it’s best features; it’s skill-based progression, arguably 10,000s of players who chose to end their subscriptions were left without something they needed.
When it was proposed on our first website early in development before we had even begun to implement combat and saw how many people were desperately pandering for a skill-based system, we simply said, “Sure. If they don’t want those 10,000 subscribers, we’ll sure as hell take them!” and voila, skill-based progression was added to the roadmap for Divergence. No board meetings, no bickering with IP owners. The entire decision took less than an hour to indoctrinate.
Since then we’ve put many other key features to vote and in many cases were surprised by the outcome. I myself only begrudgingly agreed to put permanent-death on the docket thinking almost no-one would go for it, but at the close of polling it was discovered that something like 90% of everyone who took part in the poll was hoping for some form of permanent death. And once again, with a simple conversation that took no more than a few minutes I relented to the team (at the time), “OK, if that’s what they want. Let’s go with it.” and permanent death went on the same roadmap.
It’s great to both have that level of connection with your potential customers, and also the agility to make decisions in the blink of an eye.

The MMO Gamer: How is the PvP in Divergence online?

Ethan Casner: We have an open-pvp system going into affect that I’m sure will be at the least mildly controversial. The point of Divergence is “freedom”, and you can’t have real freedom without the ability to pull our your pistol and blast someone in the face when they insult you. Does that mean one can expect psychopaths to be kicking in the doors of dance clubs and spraying rounds at helpless patrons every day simply because they can? Unlikely when you consider that in Divergence, faction is everything. You’re given the freedom to do as you please, but with the understanding that you had best be prepared to reap the consequences of your actions, just as in real life. In that scenario, not only would that individual be KOS from then on to the guards posted outside and inside that establishment, but would be quite unwelcome in many other important places as well.

The MMO Gamer: Could you please explain the “Hybrid Interface” introduced in Divergence and how it adds in overall gameplay?

Ethan Casner: Absolutely. Our “hybrid interface” allows the player to switch between what we call “RAG Mode” (Run-and-Gun Mode), a 3PS style combat system with crosshairs where turning the mouse equals turning your character, and “MMO Mode”, which gives the player auto-attack fucntionality in addition to granting the user a cursor and essentially making the game operate and feel like a common MMORPG in terms of targeting, movement, and camera operation. All-in-all, we expect the player will most likely switch between these modes several times during each fight as the ads/disads each mode provides simply allow the player to let the game perform actions such as attacking for them, or take over total control of their actions and aiming.

The MMO Gamer: How is the balance between the two different forms of gameplay, PvE and PvP?

Ethan Casner: The difference between PVE and PVP is blurred in Divergence, first of all. The main balancing mechanism between PVP and PVE in Divergence is that In many cases the game simply makes no distinction between the two. This is for the purpose of giving the player a much more “immersed” feeling while playing. In many cases, a player will get the same amount of XP for killing a player as an NPC, and with the escalating feudal violence between the human factions, there will be no shortage of blood.
Players can also loot both PCs and NPCs, making botting and AFK macroing extremely foolish as another player discovering your character being “unmanned” would be like discovering a pot of gold. To allow players to still go AFK inside of the world without being a target for murdering marauders however is a new system we’re hoping to implement before launch. This system will, when your character goes AFK, temporarily convert your unmanned character into something of an NPC itself, allowing it to auto-attack assailants and defend itself as a normal NPC in the PVE world would do, further blurring the lines between PC and NPC, PVP and PVE.

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!