We recently spoke to Terry Michaels about modding, claims, recipes and more.

Are you ever going to have any limited-use recipes?

I don't know that we'll ever go that direction, but one of the things we are doing is limited-use crafting stations. You can only make certain things at certain crafting stations in the world. Some of them you'll find out in the world, and when you find it and you use it, that crafting station may only be able to make five things. There could be recipes on those so that [for example] you can make five dragon altars, or something like that.

Then the recipes are tied to the type of crafting station, not the character?

There are both kinds. You can unlock recipes on yourself and some recipes will only work on certain crafting stations—and those stations can have limited uses. If you want to make something, you may have to go find a crafting station in the world that spawns randomly... with limited uses. It's not quite the same thing, but it gets some of the same feeling... [for example], I only got three of these and I haven't been lucky enough to find another crafting station that lets me make this thing yet, so I'm need to be really careful about how I use it.

We definitely like the various ideas for achievements in the game.

Those are going to be tied throughout the entire game. It's an interesting difference in how you [can] give rewards to players. We're talking about the achievement system being one of the primary ways of giving rewards. In a lot of games, achievements are really just a side thing you can do, and you might get a reward every once in a while. We're looking at it as a central theme to the game, so that's the way in which you're engaging with a lot of activities is via your achievements.

You can grow the game a lot that way, too.

Yeah! Because they're not linear, your achievements can be just bite-sized pieces. It's not like I got to do hundreds of things in sequence in order to get to the last one. This is... 'Oh, I'm going to bite off this piece here today and that piece over there tomorrow'... and you're getting rewards and achievements as you're doing it all. It's all building to increase the abilities you have inside the game, whether it is new props, new recipes, or whatever it may be. That should be a lot of fun!

Are templates saved server-side or client-side?

They are server-side stored, so they're not on your computer, and they are tied to your account, not your character. If for some reason you decide that you didn't like your character and you deleted it and created another one—because remember, right now you can only have one—your templates would stay associated with [the account]. If we ever open it up to allow for more than one character, the same would apply—your templates would be [linked] across them. Not your resources, just the templates! Every time you place a template you have to have the resources for it.

Would templates then save between alpha and beta? Would you still have your templates?

That is our intention. The only thing that would pose a problem is: if, for some reason during the alpha, we determine we want to do something drastically different—due to feedback from players—then we might, because of system changes, we might have to wipe them. Unless something big happens, our intention is for your templates to carry over from alpha into closed beta, from closed beta into open beta, and on.

Do you think eventually we can have claims inside lava or water?

I would expect that over time we're going to open up claim zones to everything. Now, the only question would be... if lava kills you, well then... maybe not [there]. The idea of underground ones, or even ones that are partially underwater... who knows, maybe we'll add in something so that you can breathe underwater, and then we could let you have a completely underwater one. Once water is in, we'll see! It's all about building whatever you want. Some people want to build underwater, some people want to build underground, some want to build in the sky... whatever it is they want to do, we want to try and make as many of these things possible as we can through this game.
 

In our wrap-up, the interviewee became the interviewer!

Terry: I'm curious, what did you think [of the Landmark play session]?

Ann: I'm really bad at building, but I'm working on it! It's fun... right now I'm trying to figure out all the little quirks, like... the corners [of selection volumes] I find difficult to grab.

Terry: Well you know, you can grab the faces as well!

Ann: Yes, I was doing both that and the reverse face grab. That feature is really cool. It's just a lot to remember!

Terry: It's not simple, but it's not supposed to be. We want it to be something people learn how to do in-game and get good at, so that your accomplishments of creating something are actually accomplishments.

Thanks to Terry for taking the time to chat with us at the Landmark Alpha press event. SOE is running a Landmark livestream this evening at 4pm PT/7pm ET on Twitch, so be sure to tune in!

Ann "Cyliena" Hosler, Managing Editor