CCP Molock et les Arcs Pirates

CCP Molock, content lead, answered our questions about the new arcs pirate missions.

1. Will the new pirate arcs use new mission triggers?

There are a few new triggers and events that players will see, yes. Several of these were built for the purpose of the new NPE arcs we built, but they’ve found a place in our larger mission repertoire.

2. How many missions will be in the new pirate arcs?

Players will see about 10-12 missions by the time they finish, depending on the branches they choose throughout the arcs.

3. In which regions will these new missions take place?

The Guristas arc is in Venal, mostly, although it has starting points in Arment, Orvolle, and Taisy. The Angels arc takes place in Curse, although you can get into it from starting agents in the Egbinger, Sendaya, and Konora systems.

4. What will be the standing requirements with the Guristas and Angels for these missions?

Players with appropriate empire factions will be able to access these arcs through their agents in losec empire space, so even if they don’t have the appropriate pirate faction standings, they will still be able to do the arcs. The Guristas arc is accessible with decent (i.e., 4.65 or higher) Gallente or Caldari standing, and the Angels arc is accessible with decent Amarr or Minmatar standing. Keep in mind that these arcs are designed for roughly the same difficulty as good level 3 missions, so these standings thresholds are appropriate to that level.

5. Will the players having the same mission all have the deadspace location of their mission in the same solar system? Or will you add a more "random" aspect (meaning that the solar system could be different)?

The mission sites will be distributed at random within a set distance of the applicable agent, just like normal agent missions.

6. Will the players get the opportunity to get any special (faction and/or new) loot from these missions?

Yes, absolutely. And we’ve also done another pass on the existing rewards for all of the previous epic arcs from Apocrypha and given them some pretty nifty boosts.

7. Do you think you will add more epic arcs after the release of Dominion and for which factions?

Yes. We have another 7 arcs written and ready for authoring right now, although time will tell how much bandwidth we have to produce them. I would expect, with all of the other content we’ll be building in the new year, that we’’ be able to get 2 or 3 new arcs out with each release from here on in.


8. Are the pirate arcs a test to see how players welcome them before perhaps releasing epic arcs for the other pirate factions?

To some extent, yes. We will be keeping a close eye on how often these arcs are run and on what kind of feedback we get, and those things will determine what arcs we build in the future. Of the seven I mentioned earlier that we have written already, three of them are arcs for other pirate factions.

9. Which parts of the Guristas and Angel background did you try to put forward in the storyline of these missions?

The fact that pirates are not very nice people, of course. There’s a lot of backstabbing, intrigue, and predation involved. We love it.

10. What would you tell to the players who played (or even to those who didn't) some of the other epic arcs as an incentive to try these new ones?

Well, the coolest thing about these arcs is that they’re all built for players in interceptors. We’ve dubbed them “speedboat” missions, and that is what they are. Given that they occur almost entirely in nullsec, they require people to be fast and agile in order to escape roving gangs and gatecamps on their way to the missions. But in an interceptor, that’s a real possibility. And unlike arcs we’ve built previously (although, as I mentioned, we’ve fixed that now), these ones have some really awesome rewards as incentive.

11. Do you think it will be possible to make in the future some "cross epic arc" ? like between pirates arcs and faction arcs ?

If by that you mean arcs that give players a chance to alter their standings wholesale and shift over from working for one faction to another — “betrayal” arcs, if you will — then yes. We have lots of plans for that kind of thing in the future.

You will find more informations about missions content in the fansfest 2009 interview of CCP Jasonitas.