Ruin Online, Preview and Interview with BrokeAss Games Dev.

Ruin Online is a Massively Multiplay Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) set in the near future, in a time that follows the apocalypse of mankind. The concept seems not too original, but let's face it, it's a great basis for a MMORPG. The game takes place somewhere in CentraL Asia and Europe following the Apocalypse of Mankind, where resources such as Duck Tape, and AK-47 are both useful, and rare.

Ruin Online is a unique game, as it runs on the Torque Engine, which has much potential, but is often shrouded away as an underpowered engine. Torque is a common engine for singleplayer or minor games, but if you want to see how it works and how friendly it is to the MMO environment, be sure to head to the developer's website, Garage Games

The developer we sat down with, Jon works for as "Manager" and "Producer" at BrokeAss Games, the company that has developed, financed, and ran Ruin Online through its four past betas, and upcoming Beta 5. He was kind enough to answer the questions I had for him today.

Thanks again for the opprotunity of the interview, Jon!

Alex Macen: For our readers who don't exactly know what Ruin Online is, and BrokeAss Games, can you give us a short sentence or two on what the game is?

Jon: We're a small indie dev team working on an mmo.

AM: What kind of team do you have for Ruin Online? In both Numbers and Skills?

Jon: Our team is made up of guys that have been working with Torque game engine, character artists and a couple of programmers who's specialties lie in physics and network architecture. There's five of us at BAG, plus a short list of online developers we've met through the RUin community who also help out.

AM: Okay, and how long have you guys been developing the game?

Jon: Its been almost 5 years now. Fortunately, the engine we've been working with has a lot of upgrades done to it over the years, and is once again looking very up-to-date.

AM: How is it progressing? What kind of features have you been working on?

Jon: Its going well. Slow, but progressing. We've mostly focused on major frameworks in the engine that we needed before we could sit down and develop the gameplay features that Ruin online needs. We've also had a lot of downtime porting up to later versions of Torque, but now we're starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

AM: We've been hearing about a new product called Ecstasy in the works at BrokeAss Games, what is it, and what does it do?

Jon: Its a character animation tool we're developing. A dynamic motion synthesis application priced for indie developers. There aren't many programs that handle traditional animations, ragdoll and other physics elements , collision and AI, and also tie into a game engine. Those that are out there are not really priced to be indie-friendly. That's where we come in...

AM: So with Ecstasy, are you going to be improving animation quality for Ruin Online?

Jon: Yeah. We hope to improve animation quality for a lot of projects, not just ours. :)

Keep Reading for the rest of our interview with Broke Ass Games' Jon!

If you cant wait, Click here to see a combat video of Ruin Online in action!