Interview With Dan Long of Animus Interactive, Developers Of Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises

I recently had a chance to sit down with Animus Interactive's PR Manager Dan Long to discuss their upcoming game Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises. We discussed why they decided to create the RTS before the MMORTS, content that will be in at the Early Access launch, eSports plans, and more.

How many people are currently working on Avalon Lords?

We’re a small team. Ten to fifteen people. Not everybody is full-time.

What inspired the move to releasing a traditional RTS before the MMORTS?

We really wanted to nail down the core gameplay first. An MMO is a huge undertaking. Since the main gameplay of the MMO would be the mechanics that we are currently working on, we really wanted to nail that down and make it as fun as it can possibly be.

How will the core gameplay of the RTS differ from the MMORTS?

Right now, there can be 1v1 or versus up to six. There can be a 2v2. There can be a 3v3. They’re short matches, basically. An hour. It can go longer. If you have six people playing, it can go a bit longer.

You know, it’s a 45-minute battle. You are building your buildings. You are making things to harvest resources. You have your workers harvesting resources while you build your army. You also build up your village. You build walls around your village. Gates. Also, siege weapons. Cavalry has been implemented so there’s guys on horses now, too.

How that differs from the MMO gameplay... these are just short matches.

Will the single-player campaign feature an overarching story?

Yes.

The main focus of the game right now is the multiplayer combat. There’s two different kinds of modes, but that’s the main focus. So the April 28th release will have that. The single-player campaign will be in further updates.

So when Avalon Lords enters Early Access, you will have the multiplayer working, a few maps, and a deathmatch-style mode?

There are two modes. Right now, they’re called combat mode and conflict mode. Conflict mode is where you start the match [and] you have a town hall or castle. You build your village. You recruit peasants to do the work for you. You build houses. You have to have your resources, which are population, food, stone, gold, iron, and wood. So what you do is you build different things to harvest your resources and eventually, you start building new, different types of troops and upgrading your troops. There’s a ton of different upgrades for the different troops and specialties.

Combat mode is where, before you even start, there are different amounts of troops that you can have. You pick a select amount of troops. You go through and have those pre-selected. Let’s say you have four longbow archers, five pikemen, three cavalry. Everybody picks their own. You can’t see what the other people are picking. Then, when the match starts, you just fight right away. All of your troops will come out of the town hall and then you just guide your troops to fight each other. Being on the high ground gives an advantage.

And the town hall is just a spawn point? You don’t have to destroy the town hall?

Oh, no, you do have to destroy the town hall.

Even if you kill all of the other player’s units, you have to destroy the town hall?

You have to destroy the town hall. At this very moment. Things may get adapted or changed, but at this very moment...

If you’re having a free-for-all of six people—which gets pretty insane—the match really only lasts about a half-hour. People are killing each other. They’re backing off. Everyone has different tactics on what they’re trying to do. You might let two people fight and stand back and guard your castle. If you send all your troops away, somebody may attack your castle.

This release is really focusing on the core gameplay. Making it fun. Making it work. Optimizing it to where you can have enough troops on there and you’re not getting a terrible framerate.

How much of the core gameplay is going to be available in multiplayer at the Early Access release?

All of the fighting gameplay for one faction will be available.

All of the units—everything—for one faction?

For one faction. All of the weapons, the siege weapons, the buildings, that will all be implemented.

And then from there, it will just be balance for that faction?

Yeah, from that point, it will be working on balance and then other factions.

Which faction will be implemented?

The Order of Dawn.

The Order of Dawn is more stereotypical medieval, King Arthur-type knights. So there’s not going to be much magic. The other Orders are different, though. The other Orders have different things. There’s magic and alchemy and that kind of stuff.

Will each faction be completely different in terms of units?

I’m sure they will be comparable because they have to balance out, you know.

I saw on Twitter that the plan is to turn the game into an eSport. How are you planning to go about that?

That is quite a ways down the line, but the basics are that we have an amazing spectator mode that anybody can spectate. It gives you all of the information about all of the factions, all of the fighting going on, how many troops, how many resources everybody has. It’s a completely different GUI than the normal gameplay GUI.

It’s basically made to where, say somebody’s a livestreamer, and you’ve got friends that are playing this or you love this game, anybody can shoutcast it. So as far as “how are we going to get this into eSports,” that is in the works right now. There are so many different ways to go and directions and people. We’re really figuring out which direction to go at this moment.

But that is not really our focus. Our focus right now is getting the core gameplay for this release.

Since you’re planning to work towards making the game an eSport, are you planning to hold events during Early Access?

Not right when the game comes out, but shortly after.

So there are multiplayer tournaments or something similar planned for Early Access?

Well, nothing is set in stone as of yet, but that’s the general plan. After April 28th—sometime in the near future after that—we’ve been talking about multiplayer tournaments. That’s the long term plan, but it’s not written in stone when or where or how as of yet.

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Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises will be launching on Steam Early Access on April 28th.