Scott Youngblood Firefall Interview: Your Game, His Words .

Do you wonder about the future of Firefall? Do you have questions about what’s going on and why? Ever really needed to know what’s the best battleframe for when you’re hung over? We recently sat down with Scott Youngblood, Lead Designer at Red 5 Studios to pose a few questions.

 

Firefall is out in the world after a long and varied trek. The Elemental Destruction Update has made its way into battle even more recently. How do you feel about the journey so far?

Scott: Firefall has been an amazing Journey so far. We’ve been lucky enough explore many nooks and valleys of ‘what could Firefall be’ along the way. The elemental destruction update was just one example of how we will be constantly continuing to improve the game with more and more interesting content for players to experience. Over Firefall’s course of development we have fostered a ‘try it and see’ attitude for many of its features. This has allowed us to experiment with different iterations of features, some of which made the game better, some of which did not. We still have many ideas that have yet to be completed and we’re always collecting feedback and ideas from our players. I would have to say overall for me this game for me has been a ‘dream come true’ experience. We’ve been allowed to try and complete some ideas that I’ve been thinking about even since the days of when I was working on the Tribes series, Shazbot! (Thinking of you Mr. Williams)

With the recent end of Codename: Crossfire I am sure players are eager to get their hands on more more more. What, if anything, can you tell us about the plans ahead?

Scott: While I can’t go into any specifics, I can give you some idea of what we would LIKE to do in the future with the game. You can definitely expect to see more events that breathe life into the open world of Firefall. Events like Crossfire allowed players to ‘change up’ their game play and take that ‘detour’ or potentially just spend all of your time chasing down that event if you so choose. Expect additional time limited events that offer their own reasons for participating in them over time. We are also open to any ideas that your readers may have as well… If you have something you would like to see in Firefall, post about it here.

 

The Firefall Calendar is full of weekends of stuff. Bonus weekends, Battleframe weekends. How do you balance that against player expectations for well… more stuff?

Scott: By, well… creating more stuff. Supporting a LIVE free to play game is much harder than say a standard subscription based game. Players are always looking for that next thing and they typically want it faster than in other types that release DLC or other purchased updates. The Events and bonus weekends are designed to encourage players to look at and participate in more than they may have been doing already. Playing a premium Battleframe free for a weekend is a pretty good way to try before you buy. Expect more events and bonus weekends going forward deep into Firefall’s future.

 

I myself am a huge scifi geek and I’ve always loved the background of Firefall. I don’t suppose you can throw lore geeks a bone or sacrifice a writer to us? Failing that, what would be your favorite part of the setting lore?

Scott: My favorite part of the Lore of Firefall is when the players finally make it the hallowed crystite cave discover Joseph of Arimathea’s wall writing chronicling the location of the motherload of all crystite in the castle of Arrrggghhh….. But seriously for me the coolest thing of Firefall’s lore is how players are going to be able to shape it over time. This is a world where the Players get to take it back. Through their actions the world will change permanently over time, creating a continually evolving experience.

PVP is always fun, but Open World PVP is only accessible at level 40. Do you ever see Red5 taking a route like the World V World system of Guild Wars 2 and letting people go at it from level 1?

Scott: I would LOVE to do that, it has been something that we’ve discussed in the past but we have yet to pull the trigger on letting people play pvp ‘all the way’ up as they level. There are some balance issues that you have to consider when allowing players of significantly different power ranges play against one another but we are currently working towards a solution that would allow us to offer that experience to players. We’ve also heard A LOT from our players about bring back arena style PVP as well…

 

It is, or should be, well known that you worked on Tribes. How much of the freedom of movement ideal from Tribes influenced your design on Firefall?

Scott: A LOT… Freedom of movement is one of the most important features in Firefall. When I came to work on Fury (before it was Firefall) there were no Jetpacks. It seemed wrong to have a sci-fi shooter without jetpacks. Players expect that freedom of choice now. We also came up with gliders which take the verticality of the terrain in Firefall and give players ‘opportunities’ to have fun while they are moving from place to place. Both of these features allows players to be creative about how they choose to fly or glide from location to location. By making sure it is just fun to run, jump and fly around, anything else that you add to that is even MORE FUN. Freedom of movement also allowed skillful players to do some absolutely amazing things and share them on video. I can’t tell you how many epic videos showing ‘across the map mid-air’ kills that I watched for Tribes back in the day. I’m just as pleased watching the Firefall videos that players are posting now days from their experiences and can’t wait to see where this goes in the future.

 

Extra Life is coming up very soon. There is almost certainly Firefall players out there raising money for sick kids. Did you ever think you’d see a game you had worked on turn around and work for people like that?

Scott: I’m thrilled that Firefall has the capabilities of doing something like this for the world. Typically you work on a game and you think…. ‘it’s all just for fun.’ But when people band together and do things like extra life I’m always amazed; games being used for good.

 

Not asking you to play favorites, except I am doing exactly that… what’s your favorite Battleframe at the moment?

Scott: The variety of the Battleframes allows me to switch to and use the frame that I feel would be the best for whatever I’m planning on doing next. Usually I’m partial to the Assault variants, where my mood depends on what I play. If I’m feeling precise and my shots are “on”… I tend to gravitate towards the Tiger Claw. If I’m hungover from the night before, or sloppier with my shots, I’ll go to the Firecat. One of the cool things that I do find about the variety of frames in Firefall is that there is almost always something at fits with what I want to do right now, whether that’s gloriously cratering groups of enemies from above or setting up my perfect turret thumper defenses or just simply shooting players in the face.

I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a hint about potential future Frames?

Scott: There will be some. Yes.

 

Money, time and effort no object… and of course not holding you to anything… but if there was one thing you would love to add to Firefall in the next year, what would it be?

Scott: More reasons for us to band together and blow stuff up. The Social aspect of Firefall is an area where I believe we can do more. Together we will take back the Earth. We just recently completed the push back of Devils Tusk, which allowed players over time to push back the melding and uncover new playable spaces. We plan on doing much more of that in the future, and right now we’re only limited by Money, time and effort.

 

Finally is there anything you’d like to say to our readers and potential Firefall Players?

Scott: Firefall is YOUR game. We built it but we built it for you. We will continue to work on it for you as long as we can. Please continue to give us feedback on what we got right, what we got wrong… and what we didn’t do at all that you would really like to see in the game. While we cannot possibly do everything at is requested we do read everything and integrate the ideas that make the game what we all want to play!

 

Thanks go to Scott Youngblood for taking the time to answer. If you have any questions you want us to pose to Red 5 Studios, feel free to let us know in the comments.