Jagex on Block N Loads free

Jagex's building and shooting mash-up Block N Load is making the transition to free-to-play and we caught up with design director Ben Smedstad to learn more about what changes are coming to the game as it makes the leap.

Why did you decide to go F2P, and what are you doing to reward your existing player-base?
   
It was a number of things that helped us to make the decision to go free-to-play, the largest of which was player feedback. Even during the beta a large number of players were saying, "This looks really cool, but why is it not free-to-play?"

The other main factor is that Block N Load lends itself very well to free because of how Heroes, skins and other elements of the game really separate the 'play' from the 'cosmetic'. We would only ever have moved to this model if we could guarantee it would never been pay-to-win.

You obviously believe that moving to F2P will help to reinvigorate the community, but how exactly (beyond the increase of player numbers of course)?  

Free-to-play is not just a business model, it adds a lot to what you can do with your game. We added daily challenges, a League feature, a Perks system and a whole host of new gameplay that really fleshes out how and why you play. It gave us an opportunity to add solid and compelling gameplay to an already creative and broad game.
 
Some players are upset that they will no longer get to play with friends in teams. Why did you decide to remove pre-made teams, and did you consider any alternatives? 

So at the moment we are limiting squads to solo/duo queue. That is, you can team up with a friend to play in the main queue. In custom matches you can do whatever you like, of course. We did this because, quite frankly, in off-peak hours you do get premade five-player teams vs. a group of random individuals, and those individuals will get properly stomped on. That is no fun for anyone - including the winning team - who aren't going to be challenged or fight hard for their victory. We will keep examining that though, to see if we can relax those rules, or even create a whole separate five-player required queue.

 
Players who have spent tens or hundreds of hours in-game will now have their levels reset. Why was it necessary to reset their levels? 

This was not just "make Heroes so you can buy there, now that's done, we are free-to-play." We redid, from scratch, all the levelling, both the rates and the rewards for all the Heroes and the player. We added in soft currency as a reward as you level and totally changed how rewards work in general. There was no clean way of converting player levels from the old to the new system. They would end up missing out on thousands of gold bricks in currency, and the actual rewards are all different for Hero levelling (and now it goes to 100 not 10), player level is a XP curve, not a sum of Hero levels anymore. They are just completely different systems.

Will players who bought the game start out with any of the soft currency, or do they start from scratch? 
 
Players who owned the game pre-free-to-play will get nine Heroes, all the skins those heroes COULD have had (even if the player had not unlocked them) all the block skins, as well as a bonus skin only available to people who bought the game previously. We have some bonus gold currency for watching the tutorial and playing your first match - enough to buy a Hero or a bunch of perks if you already have your favourite already unlocked.  If you owned the game before you have a positively huge headstart on everyone else.  

Since launch you have released a number of maps. Do players now pay for these in the future, or will maps remain free? And what about future DLC? 

Maps are always free, we don't want to create fractures in queues or the community over something like that, or anything really. This falls under the same kind of category as never being pay-to-win, sort of "Never be evil". Heroes will always be earnable in game, Perks are ONLY earnable by playing. Platinum currency (real money cost) will only get you cosmetics like skins, not gameplay-altering extras.
 
Which characters will new players start with? Will there be a rotation of some sort? 

Free-to-play players start with Sarge, Nigel and Tony and we will be rotating them. 
 
Can you reveal any details about the three new heroes and the upcoming features that you've already announced?  
 
The free-to-play re-launch is a total revamp of the entire Block N Load game. It's huge, from physics, to Heroes, balance and improvements across the board. Add into that, Perks (over 50, each with three tiers of upgrade), a League feature for climbing the game ranks, Challenges, new Hero and Player Progression, new user interface and improved matchmaking. The three brand new heroes are Yury the Russian Yeti - avalanches, ice and snow being his speciality; Kira Chan, a popstar-portal-using, kitty-launching, bullet-sprayer; and Vander Graff, an electric turret defender and master of funk. We've also got more heroes in development.

Have you considered releasing the game on new platforms? 

We are focusing on PC right now, but longer term, nothing is off the table!
 
Have you experimented with VR or anything like that?

For Block N Load, I cannot comment, but like I said earlier, longer term, nothing is off the table.
 
What have you got planned for Block N Load post-F2P? More characters, more maps, new game modes?  Where does Block N Load go from here?
 
Your list is a good start. We have planned even more Heroes, each more crazy and fantastical than we have now. They'll add to the roster and gameplay. New maps will be coming regularly every few weeks for players to run amok on, and we are experimenting with a few new game modes that we may release and see what players like. We are constantly listening to what the community wants and it helps us to prioritise not only what we are doing now, but plan out features for the future. If you want something like a map editor or anything else... speak up on the forums!