New Dune: Awakening Interview Dives into the Alternate Timeline and Creative Freedom it Gives the Su

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New Dune: Awakening Interview Dives into the Alternate Timeline and Creative Freedom it Gives the Survival MMO | MMORPG.com

A new interview with Dune: Awakening Creative Director Joel Bylos dives into the alternate 'what if?' timeline and the creative freedom it provides in making the Dune survival MMO.

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ShinyFlygon

Fear not! Even though no one will be able to wax pedantic about how the game is not true to the events of the novels, you'll still get plenty of nerd blather about the exact carrying capacity of an ornithopter or the correct Pantone shade of a Fremen's eyes.

Angrakhan

True.

I will say it would have been smarter to do the SWTOR trick and set the game maybe 1000 or as few as 200 years in advance. That would have let them sidestep the restrictions of the lore of the movies/books without pretending like they didn't happen. They could even have done some plot stuff foreshadowing the events in the novels/movies. As it is the alternative timeline trope feels very throw-away.

Robokapp

I don't see any evidence of an endgame on their website... what will the play loop be like 1-2 years after launch?

Scot

We can't be sure from this but what they have come up with seems quite ridiculous. Look at how they deal with factors from the IP that are inconvenient to what they want to create. The Fremen are the indigenous people of Dune living in the deep desert and towns of the planet. Apparently for this game the Fremen "are missing". I kid you not.

For me, Funcom has always been strongest when it comes to story and lore so I have no idea what went wrong here, I can only assume the people making this are not the same as those who made former Funcom titles. You guys who know your studios may know better.

harken33

Scot said:

We can't be sure from this but what they have come up with seems quite ridiculous. Look at how they deal with factors from the IP that are inconvenient to what they want to create. The Fremen are the indigenous people of Dune living in the deep desert and towns of the planet. Apparently for this game the Fremen "are missing". I kid you not.

For me, Funcom has always been strongest when it comes to story and lore so I have no idea what went wrong here, I can only assume the people making this are not the same as those who made former Funcom titles. You guys who know your studios may know better.

Now they did remove sand walking because it apparently looked stupid in a video game (they only show it for like 10 seconds in the new movies as well).

As far as the Fremen go being absent from the early game that was not the developers decision at all. Its what they were told to do by the draconian folks that own the rights to the IP (which for years was Frank Herbert's son, now i think some conglomerate). They didn't want the game to impact their $$ from the movies.

"Looking silly and being slow isn't the only reason sandwalking has been yoinked. Bylos also said Dune: Awakening was originally intended to release before Dune: Part One did. To avoid movie spoilers, "They told us not to show any Fremen stuff in the game," Bylos said. "So we kept Fremen out of the development cycle for a long time."

This delay on building the Fremen into Dune: Awakening means they won't appear in the game at launch, either. "They're not the main focus of the game," Bylos said. "Because they're not there at the beginning. It's when you get to the deep desert and later areas you start to interact with them. So the Fremen abilities, they're not really available to players right from the start."

harken33

Robokapp said:

I don't see any evidence of an endgame on their website... what will the play loop be like 1-2 years after launch?

From what i have gathered it will have the deep desert which will be different levels of PVP and also PVE. Kind of like other PVP games before it high end resources (for crafting, base building) will be in the PVP area and the deep desert apparently *shifts* so resources etc wont be in the same spot.

There will also be Dungeons called ecologies or something like that.

Here is a *fan* video from April this year which captures information from developer interviews as to what end game entails.

Dune Awakening Endgame Features Confirmed By The Devs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLTiI7idVyc

Scot

harken33 said:

Scot said:

We can't be sure from this but what they have come up with seems quite ridiculous. Look at how they deal with factors from the IP that are inconvenient to what they want to create. The Fremen are the indigenous people of Dune living in the deep desert and towns of the planet. Apparently for this game the Fremen "are missing". I kid you not.

For me, Funcom has always been strongest when it comes to story and lore so I have no idea what went wrong here, I can only assume the people making this are not the same as those who made former Funcom titles. You guys who know your studios may know better.

Now they did remove sand walking because it apparently looked stupid in a video game (they only show it for like 10 seconds in the new movies as well).

As far as the Fremen go being absent from the early game that was not the developers decision at all. Its what they were told to do by the draconian folks that own the rights to the IP (which for years was Frank Herbert's son, now i think some conglomerate). They didn't want the game to impact their $$ from the movies.

"Looking silly and being slow isn't the only reason sandwalking has been yoinked. Bylos also said Dune: Awakening was originally intended to release before Dune: Part One did. To avoid movie spoilers, "They told us not to show any Fremen stuff in the game," Bylos said. "So we kept Fremen out of the development cycle for a long time."

This delay on building the Fremen into Dune: Awakening means they won't appear in the game at launch, either. "They're not the main focus of the game," Bylos said. "Because they're not there at the beginning. It's when you get to the deep desert and later areas you start to interact with them. So the Fremen abilities, they're not really available to players right from the start.

So there will be Fremen in cities for example, like Arrakeen? But not in the near desert, as they weren't just in the deep desert. Otherwise what will they populate Arrakeen with, or is Arrakeen "missing"?

I find the given reason suspect, if they were originally releasing before the film presumably all the factions they had and their outfits etc would have had to have been given the seal of approval by the IP holders. So why would they say, its Ok to show Atreides, but not Fremen?

It seems more likely they have had to cut the IP to what they can manage at launch. Which is fair as far as I am concerned, I don't expect the Dune universe from a game like this. If the Fremen come in later its stretching the lore but there has to be give and take. Just much better if they said that's why it was happening rather than coming up with "reasons".

harken33

Scot said:

Scot said:

We can't be sure from this but what they have come up with seems quite ridiculous. Look at how they deal with factors from the IP that are inconvenient to what they want to create. The Fremen are the indigenous people of Dune living in the deep desert and towns of the planet. Apparently for this game the Fremen "are missing". I kid you not.

For me, Funcom has always been strongest when it comes to story and lore so I have no idea what went wrong here, I can only assume the people making this are not the same as those who made former Funcom titles. You guys who know your studios may know better.

So there will be Fremen in cities for example, like Arrakeen? But not in the near desert, as they weren't just in the deep desert. Otherwise what will they populate Arrakeen with, or is Arrakeen "missing"?

I find the given reason suspect, if they were originally releasing before the film presumably all the factions they had and their outfits etc would have had to have been given the seal of approval by the IP holders. So why would they say, its Ok to show Atreides, but not Fremen?

It seems more likely they have had to cut the IP to what they can manage at launch. Which is fair as far as I am concerned, I don't expect the Dune universe from a game like this. If the Fremen come in later its stretching the lore but there has to be give and take. Just much better if they said that's why it was happening rather than coming up with "reasons".

I don't know who will be populating the cities, if there will be fremen servants or whatnot at launch. I know there will be an Atreides faction and a Harkonnen faction and some third faction, all fighting for control of Arrakis and the Landsraad.

Yes i agree with you for sure as with any IP made into a game there have to be some let's say artistic modifications, some cuts, some changes to story etc. The land vehicles i can get past if its well done, personally to me the Fremen are Dune and i am annoyed they wont be in at launch, specifically as a faction.

Just looked it up again and it was Legendary Pictures the movie IP holders who wanted the fremen kept out to save exciting items like sandworm riding for the 2nd movie, as mentioned by the game developers and by Funcom themselves. Those of us already familiar with the source material and original movie know about things like the sandworm riding but i guess they wanted to save that for potential *new* fans of the IP in the movies.

"As reported by TheGamer, Funcom was instructed by Legendary Pictures to not feature the Fremen culture too heavily, as Dune: Awakening was originally set to release before the debut of Dune: Part Two. In case some fans aren't familiar, the second movie features the Fremen much more heavily, while they remain somewhat mysterious in the first one. It seems that Legendary Pictures wanted to save the most exciting aspects of the Fremen, like sandworm riding, for the movie. While this plan didn't work out due to the game's launch date being pushed well beyond Dune: Part Two's release, Funcom confirmed that sandworm riding and other Fremen-related additions will be seen in a post-launch update."

mikeb0817

I'll just leave this here, it's a guide on what to expect.

ShinyFlygon

So Funcom, believing the game would launch on schedule, agreed to excise all the most interesting lore from the game for the sake of keeping the movie sequel "fresh"? Even though no Funcom game has ever launched on schedule? Wouldn't it have made more sense to move the game's release date back to accommodate the film release?

Why even do any of this if you're not going to do it right? Players want Fremen in the game. They want to PLAY as Fremen. Atreides battling Harkonnen in the desert with survival elements is not Dune -- it's just Conan with lasers.

achesoma

Robokapp said:

I don't see any evidence of an endgame on their website... what will the play loop be like 1-2 years after launch?

This is Funcom we're talking about. I'd be truly shocked if they actually put any thought into endgame 1-2 years from now.

Robokapp

harken33 said:

Dune Awakening Endgame Features Confirmed By The Devs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLTiI7idVyc

so 500 players per map.

it's no EVE Online in the Desert... but it's better than 20 or 50.