GR: How much can players really do without buying into the game's "hard currency" system with their real dollars?
DJ:Everything, if they are willing to trade in additional effort and time. This seems eminently fair, to me, and has the nice effect of eliminating any secondary market opportunities such as you see for WoW, with folks being paid $1/hour to farm gold that's marked up for sale at $5/hour to wealthier players with little time. Players in Puzzle Pirates trade their time for the equivalent of around $0.25 an hour - so they must be having fun earning the money!
GR: What are the main challenges in creating a player driven economy like the one in Whirled and how is Three Rings addressing them?
DJ:I think the principal challenge is enabling people to make things easily. We're hoping that we get a leg-up by using Flash, which is a ubiquitous authoring platform already well-understood by a great number of talented people. We're also building tools to allow folks to easily do everything from remix an avatar by changing its look, to modding a game with a team of collaborators.
GR: Is Whirled a poor man's Second Life?
DJ: Hah! I think Second Life is awesome, so I'd rather not make a direct comparison. One could say that Whirled is about web-based ease of use for gameplay and creative fun, rather than a 3D interface and metaversal metaphors. If that makes us poor, so be it!
GR: What's the most interesting player made creation you've seen in other Three Rings titles?
DJ:We're very early in alpha, but people are making some fun things. The other day there was a sheep innocently hanging out when a flying saucer flew in and opened its tractor beam over her. That cracked me up.
GR: What advice do you have for players interested in joining the beta?
DJ:Go ahead and sign up at Whirled.com, we are going to invite more people over the coming weeks and months. And start brushing up your Flash skillz, ftw.
