SpellForce Interview

GameSpot has conducted an interview with Volker Wertich, lead designer for Phenomic and JoWood's SpellForce: The Order of Dawn. An excerpt to follow:
Q: The game has a persistent world, so there are events occurring on different islands at the same time, even if you're not around to witness them. How is this managed without being overwhelming? How can players manage all these events at the same time?

A: Persistency in SpellForce is actually quite like in any other modern RPG. But let me explain how exactly this persistency works in SpellForce.

The world of SpellForce consists of islands that are connected by magic portals. You could compare these islands to a typical map in any real-time strategy game. On each map, you pick up quests. Some of these can be solved on this map alone, while some others require travel to other maps. So if you go to other maps and return to the first one later, of course, all the quest and nonplayer character (NPC) states will still be the same as when you left. Of course, you have a journal, which keeps track of all the active quests and their current states, so it's actually very easy to stay on top of things. There are no things happening in the world in your absence.