Stars Reach Producer Rod Haza Dives Into Quests, Contracts, Housing, Shops, And More In New Interview

As Stars Reach brings its Kickstarter to a close next week, the upcoming sandbox MMORPG finds itself on the receiving end of over 3 times what Playable Worlds was trying to raise. This has led to the inclusion of a number of stretch goals being added including new races and customization options. While all of this was going on, the team has been dropping interviews with various team members to give players additional insight to everything going on behind the scenes. Interviews with people like VFX Artist Johnny Ow have provided details into the game's development, plans, and more.

In a new interview today, we are treated to Producer Rod Haza talking about a wide array of features including quests, the game's contract system, housing, player shops, how players impact the world, and so much more. Like previous interviews, this one clocks in at about an hour, so grab a drink and kick back before pressing play.

I won't detail EVERY point examined in the video, the heaviest portion of the video focuses on how planets differ anyway, but there are a few items I do want to call out as I found them kind of interesting as someone following the game.

First, in a sandbox MMO, you can sometimes be overwhelmed a bit by the amount of freedom you actually obtain. At least, I do. I'm very much a theme park MMO baby. When it comes to sandboxes, sometimes I find the lack of any real direction to be too much for me to actually enjoy. Stars Reach will offer quests and contracts, though. That's not to say that there's a full direct progression path, but quests can serve to provide a modicum of direction for players like me. They haven't been in game yet, though. Initially, this direction will come as a simple barter system, "Go get me X and I'll give you Y."

Expanding on that in the future, the system will allow more than 1-to-1 trading. However, don't expect huge like "dungeon run" type quests. They could come later, but they really aren't on the table right now. Somewhat on this same topic, right now, loot just drops on the ground and anyone can grab it. Playable Worlds will be playing with options like instanced loot in the future.

Second, yes, you can learn every skill in the game if you have the time to dedicate to leveling all of that.

Finally, there is a plan to make bosses in the world more "spontaneous." In the context of MMO's, Haza meant that fights won't be as scripted as most MMORPGs implement. You won't have a "tank needs to do this at this time" type thing. Instead, you'll have to work together to almost figure out the "puzzle" of the fight. It sounds neat, but I'm not exactly sure how that's different from me going into a WoW boss fight and just not knowing the mechanics the first time. Unless Haza meant that bosses can have different mechanics each time I come across them, I'll have to see thig to be able to grasp exactly what he meant.

Check out the full interview below to see a lot of planets and the housing system in action and yes, they do confirm that early access will still likely see wipes. There won't be as many as there are now, but they will still need to happen.