People like battling each other in videogames, rather it is a friendly game of something like Wii Sports or a heavy deathmatch in Halo. Videogame players also like to go a bit more cerebral when looking for competition, playing a more interactive and engrossing form of a mental chess match with someone who is hopefully their intellectual equal. When players are looking for that cerebral challenge, they usually head towards the realm of real time strategy games, and with SAGA heading to the PC very soon, players just might have found their game of choice in this troop trading, spell flinging, persistent real time strategy world. Killer Betties got to Jason Faller some questions about the game, and here is what he had to say.

What is the storyline of SAGA?

Loosely speaking, the storyline is that each of five gods created a race of beings to cover the world: elves, orcs, dark elves, giants, and dwarves. Wars began in the names of the gods, and the saga continues... each player is a lord dedicated to one of the five factions, and is sworn to fight against the other factions.

Can you give a general overview of the gameplay setup just to start, because there is a lot of things going on with the game?

Saga uses a more or less traditional RTS model, but played out in two phases. Battles are in realtime, whereas the city-building and resource management are played out persistently, over extended time. Saga is a MMO to the extent that you exist in a persistent world with the other players, and can trade, fight, chat, email, guild, party quest, or send a variety of espionage missions against the other players. Troops gain levels, and can be equipped with weapons and armor found on quests... troops can 'die' in battle, which doesn't mean much in, say, Starcraft, but when in a persistent world the stakes are naturally much higher...

SAGA is quite unique in that there are no monthly required fees to play. However, players will have to purchase troops, in what sounds like a Magic: The Gathering card booster pack system. How do these troop booster packs work, and must you buy them to succeed at the game, or is it possible to never pay a dime. For instance, are you given any basic troops to get you started?

You begin with a starter pack, which comes with the game. This will have enough troops to get you started, and should you never want to pay a dime, you can do so, and with some hard work you have all the game elements available to every player in the game. Players who spend nothing will naturally take longer to get the exact army they want, through the market (using gold mined from your lands...), than the players who buy booster packs of troops and spells. I will not at all be surprised if a player who never buys a single booster becomes the number one ranked player.

How will the troop booster packs work exactly? Anyone who has spent a great deal of time with those card battling games will tell you that you can spend quite the money purchasing booster packs, looking to find that one card (or troop as in SAGA's case) that they need. We know there is a trading system for the troops, where players can swap troops, but say somebody never traded troops, are there any plans in place so you aren't forcing players to spend all their money trying to get a certain special since the idea of booster packs regularly is you are gambling on what you're going to get?

Firstly, I would like to suggest that every player make good use of the market. It will be much easier than buying pack after pack trying to get exactly what you want. With trading cards, it's difficult to trade for just exactly what you want, because you only have so many friends to trade with... but Saga's online market will have thousands of traders, and it shouldn't be too difficult to outfit your army the way you want to... so, in a sense, getting one rare card should enable you, theoretically, to gain the rare you really wanted, perhaps with a few commons thrown in.

Beyond trading troops there is also going to be an auction house setup. We're assuming that it will all be real currency base and people will actually be buying troops from other players. Are there going to be any steps to prevent say another player from price gauging another for a rare troop, or will it have an eBay vibe where if they are willing to pay it you're willing to let the seller sell it for that?

The auction house is in-game, using in-game gold and in-game troops. It will be a free market system, whatever someone's willing to pay... in in-game resources, troops or spells.

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