I've always been a fan of mythology, as the stories are all so rich in detail and imagination, displayed in its frighteningly envisioned creatures and supernatural tales of Gods and their frequent insistence to meddle in the lives of the people. Apparently some other people had the same feelings as I do, because Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising is tackling this same material in an upcoming MMORPG, and it not only brings a new world and innovative gameplay designs, but it looks absolutely beautiful. Thankfully for Killer Betties and you the readers, Stieg Hedlund - Design Director for Gods & Heroes - took the time to answer some of our questions about the game.

1. Unlike many MMORPGs that are set in a Tolkien-esque fantasy world, Gods and Heroes bucks that trend and goes for the more original Greco-Roman mythology setting? Why was this setting chosen and what do you think it allows for that other fantasy worlds can't?

I have to say, I find it a bit ironic that myth is thought of as being the “more original” setting—all that other stuff derives directly from myth, you see all the players—giants, dragons, the living dead, uprooted from their original context, so the mythic setting is original in the sense of being the origin…

Rome, its culture, military, technology and of course its myth, has continuously fascinated people around the world, practically since it came into existence. We chose it because of the ways it worked with the gameplay we wanted to create, which it does a terrific job of complementing and deepening. As far as story, and background, working with myth and history is tremendous—there’s so much material, and it all has a sense of being grounded instead of forced and artificial. People find familiarity in it and are drawn in and then we start to introduce some of the stranger and less familiar elements that I think people will find rather interesting.

2. One of the first steps a new player has to go through is picking their character. What types of Heroes will players be able to choose from? What are their traits? And which Heroes are ideal for specific kinds of players (i.e. who is it best to be for the player who wants to be a tank, etc.)?

Gladiators, Mystics, Priests, Rogues, Scouts and Soldiers are the classes that can be chosen for a hero. Here’s a quick description of them:

The Gladiator focuses on showy moves that do a great deal of damage in hand to hand combat, but he is can’t absorb heavy damage as well as the Soldier. He also has some crowd control abilities.

The Mystic is a ranged magic damage-dealing role. He gets a good variety of spells such as massive direct damage spells, area of effect spells, debuffing spells, summoning spells and crowd controlling spells. A Mystic can draw a lot of aggro by carelessly using their high damage abilities which is a bad idea since his hand-to-hand fighting ability is quite weak.

The Priest is the main healing and support class in GnH. He also has some offensive debuff and spell-casting abilities. The Priest has enough hand-to-hand damage-dealing- and taking capability that he can step into this role for short times.

The Rogue can use stealth to avoid enemies or to get the jump on them doing heavy hand-to-hand damage. He can also execute a variety of crowd-controlling abilities. The Rogue can’t withstand a great deal of damage, but can break out of combat and fade back into the shadows if he gets into trouble.

The Scout focuses on ranged damage-dealing and is very consistent in this ability. He is also blessed with abilities which will remove them from combat, making them very likely to avoid trouble. Additionally, the Scout is able to do some crowd control and forage for own food and drink.

The Soldier will be most enjoyed by people who like to play at the front line, with the responsibility of protecting others. While he is not great at dealing damage, he has the important role of managing aggro for his group. The Soldier needs to be very aware of the ebb and flow of combat and when to use his many different defensive abilities.

3. You will also pick a God to worship throughout the game. What are the purposes of the Gods and how will they affect gameplay?

Gods affect quite a lot of the gameplay. They become a part of your story as you progress through the game, demanding through his agents in the mortal realm that you perform tasks for them. If you do perform those tasks then you will receive rewards, including the ability to call upon his powers. These powers are very important to the game as they are sort of amped up magical abilities that are iconic to the god you have chosen, so that if you are aligned with Jupiter, lighting is a part of the powers you gain, but they are also made to go with your class, so that scouts gain benefit to their archery ability if they are aligned with Apollo. In order to wield these powers you must also maintain standing with your god, which can also be done by performing quests for him, or else by donating funds to his temples.

4. In many MMORPGs, after you select a class and job, there isn't much to customize beyond wearing different armor or brandishing different weapons to change your appearance. Is Gods and Heroes implementing anyway for players to change the general look of their characters, beyond choose from a few random samplings of things like hair color or face appearance, so that players are able to make their character more distinguishable so they aren't running across constant clones of themselves while they play?

GnH allows a high degree of visual customization for characters. There is a selection of basic faces, hairstyles, skin tones, and so on but if you want to you can use our slider-based system to fine tune things like eyebrow shape, nose length and width, age, and change the scale of different parts of your character’s body. We’re also planning on a variety of in-game customization capabilities, so that you can continue to refine your character’s look after he has been created.

5. Beyond battling to level up and competing quests for experience/money/items, will there be a central storyline to the game that players will be able to complete to the finish (like the story of a RPG)?

There is a central story arc to gods and heroes as well as several lesser arcs. We have really terrific writers and they really present a lot of very interesting and entertaining material through our quests. There are long story arc and short ones; some are a bit whimsical and others very serious, but all of them are quite involving.

Be sure to turn to page 2 for the rest of the QA