Heroes of Telara interview

Concept art from Heroes of Telara's E3 press kit.Heroes of Telara

As you may have gathered from context, I came out of E3 2009 with an interest in Trion's Heroes of Telara; hence the earlier preview. It takes a few bold steps in allowing the player to switch classes on the fly, which has both obvious benefits (no, you're not looking for a tank or a healer) and drawbacks ("You heal." "No, you heal.").

I got the chance recently to ask a few questions from the staff, and interviewed Hal Hanlin, senior developer on HoT.

EXAMINER: What experience does your team have in working on MMORPGs?

Hal Hanlin: Members of the Heroes of Telara development team have worked on a dozen MMORPGs in a variety of genres, including Warhammer Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars, Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest and EverQuest 2, Lineage and Lineage II, City of Heroes, The Matrix Online, Shadowbane and Star Wars Galaxies.

EXAMINER: What subscription model do you intend to adopt with Heroes of Telara?

HH: The subscription model for HoT is not something we’re prepared to discuss publicly at this time. We’ll announce details closer to launch.

EXAMINER: In a game where any character can fill any role at any time, how do you intend to combat homogenization? Won't every character wind up feeling the same?

HH: We still have roles for players in any given group, and each class in Heroes of Telara has a role (eg the traditional Tank / DPS (Damage Per Second) / Healer / Crowd Control).  By allowing any character to switch to any class at certain locations in the game, we’re removing some of the barriers to grouping found in many other MMOs. In Heroes of Telara, it’s a lot easier to build a group that can handle any situation. We think there will be greater player character variety because of this flexibility. Plus, our sub-class card system makes diversity among player characters practically unlimited.

EXAMINER: What’s in the game to make somebody want to roll an alt?

HH: There are plenty of reasons to make and play alts in Heroes of Telara. For instance, you might want to play different races, play on multiple servers, play characters with different factions or join a different guild.

EXAMINER: How will subclasses be obtained in the final version of the game?

HH: Sub-classes are obtained through sub-class cards, which are items that players can obtain like any other item. So for example, you might get sub-class cards from trainers, as part of a quest, from merchants, as loot from enemies, containers, and so on. There may even be other ways to obtain sub-class cards that we’ll reveal later...

EXAMINER: How long has the game been in development?

HH: Trion World Network, as a company, was launched in 2006 and we have been developing the Trion Platform technology and Heroes of Telara since the beginning.

EXAMINER: When do you hope to release it?

HH: We’ve announced a 2010 release timeframe for Heroes of Telara. We’ll reveal more key dates – such as when we’ll launch our closed beta and when you can pre-order – closer to the appropriate time.