Trove is about to celebrate its first birthday; this free-to-play MMO combat adventure game is played by millions of gamers on the PC, spanning over a 100 different countries every month and it’s still growing! And announced today is the news that Trove, the game that has blended both MMO plus the building sandbox genre rather seamlessly, is coming to the PS4 and the Xbox One! Villordsutch recently managed to speak with Andrew Krausnick (Executive Producer of Trove) about this upcoming Next-Gen release…
Villordsutch: Hello to you Andrew and thanks for taking the time to answer these questions for Flickering Myth. To start this ball rolling could you give us a brief look into your gaming life? What’s your background in the business and what are your personal gaming achievements?
Andrew Krausnick: I started off as an MMORPG designer on Vanguard and since then have created game systems in other MMO’s such as RIFT and even an FPS.
My personal gaming achievements include beating Dark Souls and some hard core server firsts while raiding in World of Warcraft.
V: I myself have played Trove on PC, but what would you say to those newcomers who take an initial glance at it and snort, “It’s just another Minecraft clone!”, other than, “It isn’t”?
AK: It’s so much more! We have class-based action combat, levels, equipment, PvP, and collecting.
On top of that we have all sorts of fun social interaction which comes with being an MMO. There’s competitive leaderboards, running dungeons with friends, and joining player made Clubs.
V: You’re bringing Trove as free-to-play on both the PS4 and Xbox One – what was the thinking behind this? Was there a point where you considered making it an off-the-shelf release or did you always want people to run around the sandbox freely like on the PC?
AK: Trove is the most fun when you’re playing alongside thousands of other people, so the more people who can play Trove, the happier we are. Free-to-play lets us bring the game available to biggest audience. The next-gen consoles have a greater degree of support for these types of games than ever before, and we’re looking forward to being a part of that.
V: One thing I noticed within Trove was there was a rather large community ready to help. One example is when I began playing I had problems finding answers to a few basic questions within the game. I called out in chat and somebody physically rode over to not only help, but they stayed with me to show me the ropes. Is there going to be any chat features available within this version of Trove to help the community converse or will you be relying on emotes and voice comms only?
AK: We’re going to support quick-chat and voice in order to make communication as easy as possible. Then on top of that players will be able to use a keyboard if they want in order to communicate in more depth.
We’re incredibly proud of the awesome and helpful community of players that support Trove and we’re looking forward to welcoming console players as well.
V: Have you had to leave anything out of the console version that was in the PC version? On the same topic is there anything in this version that is rather special and only within the Console release?
AK: We’ve left nothing out. We’ve done a ton of work to make sure all of our existing game features are supported by the controller interface. On top of that, as an action RPG it is a great deal of fun to be able to play on a controller! This is something our PC players have yet to truly experience and we’re looking forward to delivering to the consoles.
V: Finally what is the future for Trove on the X1 and PS4? Is there a rather detailed, expansion filled, long-term plan laid out or are you going to watch how the game takes off for the first few months?
AK: We have a great many plans for the future of Trove across all platforms. There are big expansions, frequent content releases, and new features in store for the future.
Of course, we’ll also be watching this new release and responding to player feedback – we always do, and it’s exciting to be able to bring Trove to an even bigger audience.
To find out more about Trove visit their main website here, also Follow them on Twitter and Like them on Facebook.
Flickering Myth and Villordsutch would like to thank Andrew for taking the time out of his day for the interview and also Tom for arranging the interview.
@Villordsutch
