Ruin’s developers are quietly building a wide, deep social network designed to keep you interacting whether you’re on the couch, on the bus, or someplace in-between. Travis Williams, Ruin’s energetic senior producer, walked me through the game’s social ambitions several weeks ago at a media showing in New York City. From the earliest days of Ruin’s development process, Williams told me, the development team was motivated to find a way to make its multiplayer competitive mode accessible and socially sticky — important considerations given PS Vita’s always-on wireless connectivity and the game’s Vita-to-PS3 cross-platform support. “We were obsessing over find a better way to do PvP (Player vs Player), a better mechanism for getting items that you wanted from other players,” Williams said.
Enter the Lair. The Lair is your inner sanctum, your pride and joy, your seat of power. ”It’s an extension of you. It’s an outwardly facing construct that other players interact with,” Williams explained. “You’ll spend as much time equipping your Lair as you will your character.” The significance of your Lair is twofold: it adds to your offense when you’re playing, and it acts as your defense when you’re not. “If you and I were rivals, you wouldn’t attack me,” Williams said with a mischievous grin. “You’d attack my Lair.”
Your Lair is deeply customizable, enabling you to tweak everything from its physical layout and visual style to the types of monsters and bosses that protect it while you’re off conquering the world. As you earn enchanted relics, you’ll be able to place them in your Lair to grant synergistic bonuses that enhance your character’s defensive and offensive options. You’ll be able to swap these items in and out of your Lair’s sockets at will, and where you place them in your Lair can radically change their effects. “There’s a relic called the Poison Ivy Trophy, and you could place it in your Armory and any weapon you use will drip poison,” Williams elaborated. “Or you can put it in your Beastiary to enhance your Lair’s monsters with poison damage.”
As you encounter other players over PSN, your Lair also becomes a vehicle for advertising your social status. Case in point: If you meet another player who is adorned with spiked armor, it’s a visual clue that his Lair is equipped with a powerful relic called Heart of Titan. “If you want to take that item from him, you can challenge him,” Williams explained. “You can bet on his Heart of Titan with another valuable item. If he agrees, the game will put both items into escrow while you beat the hell out of each other’s Lairs over the next 24 hours.” And, 24 real-world hours later, the player with the highest aggregate score will claim both items – and bragging rights. “The best part,” Williams said, “is that the competition and stakes were mutually agreed upon.”
