What Avaria developers lack in sleep, they make up for in ambition and the MMORPG world of Endless Ages
By Michael Lafferty

Long hours with little sleep over several years may sound like a crazy way to live, but for four guys in a small development company, that routine may add up to immense satisfaction, and pay some big financial dividends as well.

Avaria Corporation is working on a massively multiplayer online role-playing game called Endless Ages. It is due out in 2002, which is just around the corner. The folks at Avaria are hopeful that this game will break new grounds in the MMORPG genre, offering ideas, creatures and environments never seen before.

The storyline, simply stated, is something like this: Beings move beyond their current existence (whether through death or in a dream is the question pondered on the Endless Ages Web site – www.endlessages.com) and all find themselves in a different world, or different plane of existence. It is up to each creature to decide whether to live peaceably, or violently. In other words, the struggle of life and death is renewed.

Justin Gonzalez, vice president of Avaria Corp. recently decided to forego some nap time, crawled out from under his desk and talked with GameZone about Endless Ages and the company he works for.

Question: There seems to be a bevy of online games being released, and by many smaller companies. What makes this genre so attractive? What does your game offer that will set it apart from the competition?

Gonzalez: “The pure size of the project and environments within the game itself make this type of project so attractive to us, along with the massive interaction between a very wide array of individuals from all around the world. This has been our dream project; to be able to create and build (for the most part) your own entity in a virtual environment; to be able to interact within that environment in real-time, and with others. We haven't seen another game out there like this, and we don't believe anyone else has either. Endless Ages offers 30,000 unit spherical radius of world space per zone. That equates to about 100 square miles of game play world space with no load times in that space. That allows us to create not only massive seamless areas on a horizontal plane, but also in complete 3D-world space within that sphere. There is no zoning to enter caves, buildings, outpost, and any type of structure within a 100-square-mile area. There is one other zone area that is placed underground for release that is equivalent to the 100-square-mile area above ground. These are mostly ‘dungeon’ types of areas, from ancient ruins to the most hyper-futuristic environment.

“There is also going to be 20+ individual skills for release in February. Some examples would be shape shifting (shift into many of the different creatures found around the world; while in a shifted form you will acquire the attributes of the creature, plus your attributes added onto them; you also will retain form if you log back on after logging off while shifted.), alchemy (bartending, chemistry, potions, liquid bombs, potions, etc.), engineering (build guns, jet packs, jump boots, vehicles, etc.), smithy (blacksmith; forge swords, armors, anything of a metal material), mind control (specifically for the Amphibious Race equivalent to the Weapon Teach skill; mind control creatures to turn them into weapons and tools), melee (specifically for melee weapons; gives you bonus on melee attacks), hiding (stealth abilities; completely hide yourself from all AI and players), and weapon tech (the ability to use range/projectile weapons), and there are a lot more currently in the works. These are skills that will be in for the gold release. We have the ability to add new skills dynamically as the game goes on. The special part about how the player interacts with the skills is unique in Endless Ages. Any race can practice any skill, but of course certain races will have their advantages and disadvantages. To start a skill, you simply just attempt it. You can learn as many skills you want, but if you spread yourself too thin you will gain slowly. Endless Ages will also have vehicles, pets (taming), and housing along from all of the other skills within the game. Vehicles will consist of mining vehicles/rigs, flying space ships, boats, submarines, and hovercrafts. The pets you will be able to tame and ride. They also will travel with you when you zone into the other half of the world, or when you log back on.

“We will also allow people to place houses. The space will be limited at first, but we are already planning on the expansion, which will have plenty of housing space. But the best part of this type of game is that we can update it at pretty much any time. And, of course, Endless Ages has many different types of quests to venture on. There are quests for everyone, from the individual to the group. The majority of the quests are multi-tired. A lot of them involve many mini quests within the major quest. One other element that Endless Ages posses that makes it different from any other MMORPG, is that we, as the developers, are going to be intertwining the actual players into the history of the game. Whenever there is pivotal event to happen within the game, the players involved with that event will be written into the history of the game in the library system. You, as another player, can actually read up on other players and key events. We believe this will just increase the interaction between the game world of Endless Ages, the development team, and the game itself. Many other elements are already planned for the first expansion pack. We plan on this going for a very long time.”

Q: Tell me a little about the technology of the game – is there anything new or groundbreaking?

Gonzalez: “Well, we use our own proprietary game engine which has come to be known as the Aura Engine. This has been the life-blood of the owner/lead programmer of Avaria, Aaron Boucher. The Aura Engine has manifested over the period of about five years. The most impressive aspect of the Aura Engine is how complete it has become. And it doesn't require a supercomputer to run it. One of our test machines while developing was an old Pentium Pro with 128 megs of RAM, and a Matrox MG200. It ran at 30 fps solid while emulating multi-texturing on the world. Aaron, being a 3D artist himself, sought to program a very powerful engine that is integrated to work with the artist. The Aura Engine is completely friendly with 3D Studio Max. The Aura Engine has allowed us to create and input with little effort. We have an extremely powerful bones/skeletal animation system within the engine. We can put as many bones in any structure with any type of mesh. If you can build it, the Aura can run it. The Aura Engine also allows us to create massive worlds with tons of polygons.

“Endless Ages has 30,000 unit spherical radius zones. With that amount of space, we can build any imaginable shape or design of world structures and make it all seamless with each other. We have approximately 2,000,000 polygons in our main world for Endless Ages with no load times – inside-outside worlds and exact collision on most meshes. Endless Ages is the main reason that the Aura has evolved, or is it the Aura Engine is the reason Endless Ages has evolved. Not sure. The engine is always evolving. Aaron is always on the job. It will just continue to grow over time.”

Q: What will gamers see when they launch your game? Is there a learning curve? What about the storyline?

Gonzalez: “Well when you first launch the game, once you get past the patch server, you will be warped into the login screen. Then you go to the character selection screen, where you can choose any characters you have already created. We are allowing up to three characters per account for the beta period. We are contemplating on allowing people to create up to five characters per account. You can go to the character race selection/character creation screens. Choose your race and customize your characters look. There are three races (four characters in all) you can choose from. There are many different types of combinations of looks for each character race. Some of the races have more combinations than others. For instance the Bloblic race has the least amount of combinations; you only can customize the face, mouth, hair, and body. But on the opposite end you can choose the amphibious race, which has thousands of different combinations. You can customize everything from the head, eyes, torso, arms, legs, feet, and hands.

“There is a learning curve with Endless Ages just as any other type of game in this genre. Dependent upon which race you choose to play, you will spawn in their starting city. We have setup all kinds of help within the game (and out) to assist the newcomer. You will have a help menu that covers all the main points, aspects, and controls of the game. This menu will respawn every time you die and are respawned into the world for the first 45 minutes of your account, along with a description and map layout of the area that you are in. We also provide an entire world map. There are also AI NPC bots that you can approach and speak to for all kinds of information. They can teach you how to do specific actions like configuring your controls and how to use them. We have found that if people get frustrated with your game, no matter how good it is, within the first hour or less of playing it, you can count on losing that gamer.

“The story line is pretty interesting. It takes place in the very distant future. The exact date is not known. You, as a player, come to the world of Iia, which is a realm the living pass to once they have become deceased within their normal reality. This is the place where all creatures and beings come to. All creatures and beings have the capability to obtain and use the same level of intellect. This is not to say that all beings do use it. You as a being can co-exist within the realm of Iia however you choose. Exist peacefully or violently.”

Q: Please tell us a little bit about your company.

Gonzalez: “Avaria consists of four individuals: Aaron Boucher (Founder/Owner/Lead Programmer), Justin Gonzalez (V.P./Production Manager/Lead Level Design), Davis Beasley (Lead Animator), and Daniel Vasallo (Lead Character Design). Avaria, formerly known as A.B.T.S. Intelligent Group, was founded 1996 by Aaron Boucher. Aaron by himself programmed and built the flight simulation shooter Evil Core – the Fallen Cities in his bedroom. It was picked up by a small publisher and distributed throughout the U.S. and parts of Canada. This allowed him to attract funding to expand into Avaria. Aaron and Justin ventured into Avaria together in 1998 and picked up Davis Beasley in 1999. Daniel Vasallo joined the Avaria group in 2000. All of the members of Avaria are self-taught in all of their areas, everything from programming to the 3D design. With a team so small, everyone has to wear many different ‘hats’ in order to get everything we need done. We outsource some work, and have some very dedicated individuals that work with us part-time.”

Q: What is your background in the world of games?

Gonzalez: “Of course all of the members of Avaria are hardcore gamers at heart. As for actual gaming industry experience, the Endless Ages makes up most of that for the majority of the Avaria group. Aaron Boucher taught himself C++ programming and 3D design using 3D Studio Max and Auto CAD, beginning in 1994, where he headed up the drafting department at Thermocarbon. Justin Gonzalez had worked with the advertising industry since he was 15 (1992). Justin taught himself music design and studio work in 1997 for working on the Evil Core soundtrack, and then began learning the 3D end of game design with Aaron and Avaria in 1998. Davis Beasley has been an avid user of 3D Studio Max since the age of 18 (1996) and Photoshop since the age of 16 (1994). Davis's gaming experience consists of the Endless Ages project. Daniel Vasallo gaming industry experience began in 1995 working with the early Quake and Doom2 mods doing level design. Daniel also experience working with the likes of N-Space (Duke Nukem, Rugrats) and THQ, then working for Full Sail teaching game design and then working for Alias Wavefront. And of course the Endless Ages project with Avaria.”

Q: What is the cost to play Endless Ages? Where can the game be found? What is the timeline for release of the game?

Gonzalez: “The cost for playing Endless Ages initially is $39.95 for the game itself, and $10 dollars a month. Anyone that purchases the game at full price will get the first month free. For initial release the game can be found and purchased from the Endless Ages Web site (www.endlessages.com). Beta testers that sign up and participate in the beta test before February 1, 2002 will be able to purchase the game from us at half price ($19.95). Endless Ages official release date is February 15, 2002. The beta test will be going all the way to release.”

Q: What were the biggest challenges in bringing this game to life?

Gonzalez: “Keeping our sanity. Working with an extremely small amount of resources, everything from monetarily to manpower. Another main aspect we had to deal with was developing our engine (Aura Engine) further while developing Endless Ages with four people. It has been a very, very long (yet at the same time short) 3 years in development. Lots of sleeping under the desk, lots of Ramen noodles, staying up for days on end, working 130 hour weeks, et cetera. It has been kind of surreal. It is rewarding to start to see the public’s reaction on something that you have put your entire time, sanity, and brains into. Being such a small team, everyone has to wear many different ‘hats,’ but this has just made us better as a team. This has been equivalent to our college educations.”

Q: Ultima Online really broke ground and showed the shortcomings of a game that was overwhelmed with players without having servers ready to handle the onslaught. What lessons, if any, learned there are incorporated into your game and the way it is set up?

Gonzalez: “Well, this is something that we have seen happen to many new online games that have released in the past couple of years, too much hype and not enough technology or planning to back it up once gone gold. This is something that we are very much aware of that could hurt us if not ready. We are having a limited initial release. We will only be selling 3,000 copies initially – with an aggressive expansion plan – but we won’t overcrowd. We are also getting our own T1s in January (2002). The game (Endless Ages) server technology is very efficient – we have been testing it for months now with live testers. As the customers build up, we will build what we need as we grow.”

Q: What are the system requirements for the game?

Gonzalez: “You can run Endless Ages on a modest P2 300mhz with 128 RAM, 3D accelerated
video card, approximately 350 megs of hard drive space, Windows 98/ME/2000, and DirectX 8 or 8a.”

Q: Have you set up or planned for the evolution of the game?

Gonzalez: “Most definitely, the server technology has been setup to allow us to do all of the real-time updates on systems and skills, quests and such dynamically. We can add new elements to the game everyday if we wanted to. As our customer base increases and spreads out, so will we with the servers, technology, and artwork. We will not oversell our product for the sake of selling it. We want to make sure that we have a fun, playable product throughout the entire life of it. Also we have the next few worlds conceptualized for the next few expansion packs. We plan on growing right ahead of the game and what the people playing expect and desire. Also what we desire as gamers. With the way that the Endless Ages environment is set up, we hope to see it evolve to places that we couldn't even imagine with the help and interaction of our customers. Getting the customers directly involved with the evolution of your product is the best way to make sure that you make a publicly desired and loved product.”  

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