Piratesoftware interview 2024-12-13

On 2024-12-13, well-known Twitch Streamer and game dev Thor (PirateSoftware) interviewed Joel Bylos, the Creative Director of Dune Awakening

• Game design document, using Confluence for Dune.
• The general creative direction process for the game - letting directors
• Joel's history with Dune
  • From the books, the old Dune games
• The Funcom CEO being a huge Dune fan too, wanted a new project, then reached out to Legendary
• The beta discord has a Worm survivor support group channel!
• We start in Hagga Basin, behind the shield wall, which is somewhat safer than the
• In the beta, there are large guilds and solo players - the game can support both styles of play.
• Originally the game started out as a single world with server meshing, but changed given technical requirements
• There is no building in the social hubs. Hagga Basin is persistent and permanent, Deep Desert fully resets and changes weekly.
• Deep Desert is full open PvP, only take what you want to risk.
• There is an idea to create the "Coriolis Race" - a standard MMO pattern of activity from the weekend, down.
• The Coriolis storm happens on a Tuesday Night.
• The Cartography system can be used for players to create their own maps every week of the deep desert, and share it between their guilds or trade it
• There is a Scanner, which can highlight resources marked on the map. By default not all resources are shown.
• The Deep Desert has new eco labs, rock islands, shipwrecks.
• At mid-week, guilds would be scouting out the Deep Desert, setting up bases
• The Landsraad asks guilds to perform tasks, and then vote to implement a server rule for a week
• Joel wants a third faction, which is planned. Potentially not until after launch
• An example Landsraad rule is 25% reduced crafting costs for the winning faction for a week
• The deep desert does not have full loot drop, but "The Right of Salvage" could implement full loot for a week
• Loot Rules - Players drop a percentage of resources. All Spice and Solaris. Normally no other players can loot this though, even in a PvP Zone
• The Sandworm threat should remain even into late game.
• The traversal in the game should go from on foot, to on ground vehicles and then in flying
• Discussing the change of gameplay styles with flying vehicles
• The (Deep Desert) is mostly empty sand
• There is not a custom change to map (e.g. player-made markers) but it was discussed but was pushed out of scope for launch
• The doors to the Deep Desert eco labs may be locked at the start of the week, but then unlock after a certain time, to prevent the first-come-first-served advantage
• Levelling up - spending skill points on skills and technology points on technology
• But Unique Schematics have limited uses (once, for example)
• An example: In one week, an ecology lab has a special limited unique lasgun schematic. It respawns once an hour for a week before it goes away for a month. About 50 drops per week, until that eco lab comes back (random chance), whoever loots the schematic corners the market for it for that time.
• As an organisation runner, there isn't much to automatically prevent insiders, deliberately to encourage Dune Intrigue
• There is a permissions system within bases to restrict access to chests, doors etc. Guild leaders can lock everyone out to prevent it, if they're paranoid