Launching today, DUST 514 promises a better deal for console gamers. But can it deliver? We interview executive producer Brandon Laurino and game designer Eino Joas to find out.

It’s a significant operation that’s grown over time, and now demands some serious data crunching power. “We work with Hadoop and Big Data to allow us to do analysis on the data sets that we’re collecting, and it also allows us plenty of space to add more hooks, so we’re constantly developing. And since the beginning we started out with things that we thought were absolutely necessary, and we have now currently five times more compared to that.”

While EVE Online’s economy is almost completely player controlled, DUST 514’s is currently controlled by NPCs selling goods at set prices. It creates a balancing act – if prices are too low, money isn’t a constraint as everyone has everything. If prices are too high, the game becomes an exclusive club where only the rich can afford anything. I asked Joas how he manages to pull this off without going blind under an avalanche of data.

“I think it’s kind of a two pronged approach. First, I take a lot of my cues from the social sphere, what people are actually saying. It might not be what’s actually wrong, but it will inform me that there’s something that I need to look into. The other thing is designing a set of key performance indicators for the economy is really key as well, so that you decide what you’re going to be looking at, and then you can just concentrate on those data points until you get informed of something else. This is not a static process; you always keep on updating it. And I’ve found that’s a pretty good approach. It kind of gives you best of both worlds and the social side also informs your future development.”

Player Versus Markets

Although the eventual goal is for a full player economy in DUST 514, the team is currently focused on the impact of planetary conquest and how corporations establish a foothold in this new window on New Eden. Once that works out, Joas is initially looking at allowing ISK transfers, with a Tobin Tax (financial transaction tax) to act as a sinkhole. A second phase would allow item trading, creating a secondary market outside the established NPC traders. The final phase would result in unrestricted trade and cash flow, but Dr Guðmundsson is in no hurry – he’d rather get it right first time.

But with players able to buy ISK for real money and then transfer it into DUST 514, would this create a ‘pay to win’ scenario where players can trade cash for power? Joas doesn’t seem to think so – anything you buy can be destroyed by others.

“I think a common factor in both EVE and DUST is your advancement as a character is always tied to time, and basically there’s no way you can override that factor. Training up skills in EVE requires time, and getting ISK won’t let you actually get rid of that restriction. The same principle applies to DUST although it’s slightly different, because in DUST you can actually buy skill boosters that give you accelerated skill gain. But even that is to a degree, and it doesn’t allow you to jump ahead. So it’s always time gated, and that I think is a very important factor when it comes to overcoming all difficulties with ISK.”

The crucial part, though, is the power of a strong corporation is much greater than an individual. “In EVE, you can’t get friends with ISK. Or actually maybe you can [laughs], but not very loyal friends. It’s also about the social networks, and support networks that we have in the game, so I would say there are things that money can’t buy.”

“If your goal is to be powerful as an individual then, to a degree, you can definitely fund yourself with PLEX. You can get nice ships and everything. But even in terms of the world scale, you probably can’t, because you can only go so far, and the game mechanics – if you get in with your group of friends, your alliance, and then band together and start to conquer the world, that will be much more efficient than trying to pay yourself through it.”

Would players be able to fight against the markets, destabilizing systems and creating volatility? Joas explained that he’s keen to avoid the extremes of incredible predictability or unstable market crashes. “I think the sweet spot is somewhere in between, where people feel that they can actually get an advantage, where established powerhouses can actually collapse so that new players can arise. Everyone should have a feeling they can make their way in the economy; that they have a chance, and I think that kind of volatility needs to exist for things to be interesting.”

“About rocking the boat, I think we should build systems that allow players to rock the boat. We shouldn’t be rocking the boat, but we should allow players to destabilize the systems to a degree, so that new opportunities emerge. Achieving a perfect equilibrium and a perfect balance should be – if possible – should be short-lived.”

All that said, Joas doesn’t think that DUST’s economy will be for everyone. “I think it’s going to be similar to EVE, really. I think people are similar in that sense. You have groups of players that really like the challenge, like playing with the economy. And then other players care about other things, like shooting people in the face. So you’ll get some people who absolutely don’t care about it, some people who are super excited by it, some people who are kind of dabbling in both, but I think in similar terms to EVE, it’s a gameplay feature that we offer, and some people will be excited about it.”

Console Commander

On May 6, just prior to launch, CCP unleashed its biggest update yet for DUST 514. Uprising brought in a ton of enhancements to the game including completely revamped and retuned graphics, a new node based skill tree and progression system, new dropsuits and vehicles, and that delicious Planetary Conquest feature that will allow corporations to stomp boots across the galaxy.

The price of this update? Zilch. Nada. Zip.

This naturally led to a bigger question: how? According to Brandon Laurino, it’s because of Sony that they managed to launch DUST 514 as a free-to-play game, with regular free updates to keep the experience both fresh and deep.

“We wanted to be on console and reach an audience that we don’t reach as an exclusively PC based game company, so that’s one reason. The other was Sony was willing to make the adjustments to their platform, to the PlayStation network, to the PlayStation store, and to the PS3 SDK itself, in order to support a true MMO, and true game as a service, and true free-to-play micro-transaction based games. So we worked in very close collaboration with them to do that. And it was also their openness toward communication between the PS3 and the PC, and between our games - literally completely open, in that we aren’t restricted in any way between the two of them - that made the choice easy. Whereas this is currently, still, restricted on other platforms.”

While Laurino wouldn’t commit to launching DUST 514 on Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 4, he did have a few interesting things to say about the console. “I think it’s a fantastic platform. Moving to an x86 architecture as a developer makes it a lot easier, and the specs are really attractive. I can see that system having strong legs on it for a good console lifecycle. And again it makes it a lot easier as a developer to develop for, frankly, as opposed to proprietary hardware, which while cool and very interesting to work with, just adds a lot of complexity into the pipeline.”

“So the combination of moving to x86 and more of a PC-like architecture, but also the things you can tap into in terms of getting access to the metal as they say, and the power you can get out of it is also really excellent. All of the platform features they are providing are awesome, like the cloud services, the social services, the store services. It’s really adding something to the experience and not putting a roadblock in it. So I think Sony’s doing a fantastic job, and I think PS4 is very exciting as a platform, both in terms of development, just ease of developing for it, as well as just a gamer and where its place in my life and my living room would be. I’m very excited for it.”

For Laurino this isn’t the finish line, but instead just the beginning of a long cycle of updates, improvements and enhancements – CCP hopes to be celebrating the second decade of EVE alongside the first decade of DUST 514. The first cycle is already starting to take shape, with images of space station invasions and capital ship boarding parties being presented during FanFest. For a free to play game, there is certainly a lot of weight behind it.

The only question that remains is if those legions of first-person shooter players will take up the challenge of becoming a DUST mercenary, accepting CCP’s offer of a better social contract instead of buying in to a new franchise every year. Even though the invitation to ‘Enter the Vicious Cycle’ is an easy one to accept, the Icelandic developer certainly has an uphill task ahead. But, if anything is clear, they’re in it for the long game – it is the war, not the battle, that they’re focused on.

Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer, Senior Contributing Editor