I am Mark Jacobs, Co-founder of City State Entertainment, Founder of Mythic Entertainment and Adventures Unlimited Software Inc. AMA!

Folks,

Okay folks, time for me to go. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to talk to me. I'm sorry I need to go now. I'll see if I can drop by again and answer some more of these questions but time is really tight right now.

I hope some of you who haven't backed our KS will at least check out our video, especially if you played and enjoyed Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. We really need more of players of my older games to help us out over the next 70 hours. If you can help, CSE and I would be grateful.

Thanks again!

As MMOs are very progression-based, how will you keep the interest of players in focusing on horizontal progression? What will the carrot on the stick, so to speak?

Some of it will come from the more traditional rewards (skills, abilities, etc.) but we also have to do more than just rely on them to keep our players happy. We can draw on some historical methods such as titles, land grants, etc. and I plan on doing just that.

I often used PvE as a time waster or something to do when RvR was slow. What will you provide us to keep us busy when things get slow? What can we expect to do when we need a little break from RvR?

Crafting is one possibility but at the end of the day, this is an RvR game. However, we also recognize that there will be "quiet times" on the server and we have some ideas on how to deal with that as well.

I know you have talked about in game money, but I'm still unsure as to how it will work exactly. Could you go more in-depth about currency and how you get it? What will you be using gold for besides buying items from other players?

All players will have the ability to access mines, crafters will do it better though. :) RvR players will be rewarded through their actions in RvR as well. Gold will be used as the primary method of exchange in the game but there also could be a informal barter system between the crafters & warriors too.

Hi Mark, I was a longtime DAoC subscriber playing mostly on Lancelot and Mordred. With Camelot Unchained, will you be looking to pull in elements of both RvR and world PvP or stick mostly to the RvR concept? If sticking to RvR, any thoughts on having a Modred-type server in Camelot Unchained?

If there is enough demand for a Modred-type server, I'd love to put one up. One of the nice differences between 2001 and now is that we can easier spin up new servers with services like Amazon.

As you know, I've always been in multiple rulesets for MMORPGs and even going back to the late 80s and GEnie, have had them in my games. I'd love nothing better to take another shot at creating a Modred-type server.

Can you speak some towards the progression system you have planned? Will leveling unlock new complementary skills in the sense of Realm Abilities, or more along the lines of fundamental skills, like a Sword/Dagger specialization? Will you see a large difference in combat where newer players will be at a very large disadvantage?

The key for CU progression system is that it is a horizontal, not a vertical progression system. There will be a difference between every experienced players and new players but it cannot be so great that if the experienced player breathes on the new player, the new player dies. Without the safety net of a PvE leveling system, our players will need to get into the fray right from the beginning. Since I've also said that CU will be an open world game with no instancing, we have to ensure this.

Hi Mark! Can you tell us a bit about how sound design and music will be handled? As an old Daoc player i still remember the intro song from heart... but also how the sound effect of a heal was! It was a deep and rich casting sound... i loved it. When you would listen to your surroundings you could even hear where the heal from an ennemy came from... I'd love to see the same detail in CU. The last games i played lacked a bit on sound design. Thanks already for answering my question.

We really enjoyed Michelle choice of music during her demo. You should let her help pick out some game music for sure :)

Sound and music have always been important to me on both a personal and professional level (I'm a major movie music buff) so CU will have great music/sound design even if I have to put up additional money to make that happen.

Has any thought been given to the maximum server capacity for the game? Since it's a purely RVR game, it would be really awesome if there could be 10k active players per server or some outrageous number like that.

I couldn't agree more with you. I have no doubt that we can better than we did at Mythic because as you correctly point out, the RvR nature of the game should mean that we can get a lot more players in our "server/shard" (as opposed to the word 'server' to refer to a box/blade/etc.).

Folks, we're going into bonus territory here. I'll stick (not /stick) around here a bit longer since there are so many great questions.

Crafting / RVR question.

Say you are a Viking and you Capture a TDD Town and they have really cool buildings / prefabs you haven't seen or thought of making yourself before.

Would you be able to make blueprints for enemy buildings, or save cool prefabs of theirs that you like? Is this one of the cool possibilities for deconstruction rather than destruction?

You wouldn't be able to blueprint them but you would be able to deconstruct them and get cool bits from them which you could use in your own buildings.

Solo classes are somewhat controversial in MMO games. What is their purpose? Why play solo when playing an MMO? etc. etc. What is your opinion on solo classes? :D

I agree that a solo class, especially in an RvR-focused game like CU, Dark Age, etc. can be controversial, I want to give players in CU the ability to solo but, because we aren't going to have PvE leveling, they should also try to engage in RvR.

<3 Infil :D Thanks for taking the time to answer, I really appreciate it.

You're more than welcome.

I know you said no tunnels underground because they'd be abused, but what about inside a building itself? Like hidden doors between rooms, or a secret hallway?

Maybe. :)

For those of us who were religiously into DAOC (mostly before the new frontiers), what can we expect from this release to bring back the magic that was DAOC? I know you don't want to call this a sequel or a redo, but most folks, like me, want to see some of that magic brought back for this.

Thanks!

Part of the magic behind Dark Age was the fact that it was the first of its breed, an RvR-centric MMORPG. For some people, there will never be a better game because it was their first. If CSE and I can bring back some of that magic and create our own unique feel for the game, I'll be content.

Don't underestimate how many people are looking forward to this. I know you want to keep it "smallish", but this is what a ton of people are looking forward to. The epic relic raids of the old frontiers were never matched in any game I ever played. Even the fights in Hibernia at the albion MG were a blast, every single night.

I cannot wait to see what comes of this. Hopefully the RVR battles are just as intense and epic as they were in the old frontiers.

I remember seeing 7 keeps drop at the same time, and the panic that came over the entire realm knowing the relics were in jeopardy. Ahh the memories :)

Thanks! It was an awesome game with a great community and I hope these same players (even a fraction of them), will help make CU a reality by supporting our Kickstarter. That would be awesome and, as I've already shown our backers, I will be very grateful for their support and trust.

Hey Mark ! I'm sorry I couldn't mail for the Mark-a-thon, but here's my question :

Which size do you plan on for the open RvR map, give or take ? 1 Emain-Macha, 5 Emain-Macha, 10 Emain-Macha ? Even more ?

Good luck for the last rush on KickStarter !

As you might imagine we have only begun to visualize the map for the game (I hope to talk about this tomorrow) but it will be big. We have some interesting ideas for how to make it a more dynamic map (physical landscape changing) that might be very interesting.

How is weapon progression going to work?

Will there be abilities gained as I get better using my weapon? And are those abilities linked to the weapon (regardless of class) or are they linked to the class rather than the weapon, just unlocked by using the weapon.

What kind of stats will be gained from weapons?

New abilities will be unlocked as you get better with your current abilities. Stat gain from weapons will play a role but not as significant in other games. I want to give crafters something else to create on the item besides the usual +s.

Will crafters have any fighing skill?

Mark also mentioned previously that they would be able to put up defenses to protect themselves while mining. That could mean traps, shields, turrets, etc. He probably isn't sure exactly, but having someway to protect themselves so they aren't completely fresh meat is in his mind.

Correct.

As a person who is very saddened by the direction of the MMO industry and is very excited about the prospect of CU I would like to know what it would mean to you personally and also to the industry to see a project like this with such an ambitious goal fund?

For me, it would be a chance to not only make a great game but a bit of redemption too. I've never shied away from my share of the responsibility of studios I've headed or ran (even under EA). That's one of the reasons I'm putting up 2M of my own money for CU if we fund.

As to the industry, well, no matter what CU does (fund, not fund, fund & succeed,etc.), the industry will go on its merry little way. However, if we do fund, it will send a message to other developers that MMOs can be funded on KS (just as Pathfinder Online, Star Citizen, etc.) and that is a good thing for all developers.

In one of your stream´s Andrew says "Viking´s are least comfortable with the dragons" does that mean another realm could even be in favor with a dragon ? Could dragons be some kind of moving RvR objective ?

Well, without talking too much about the story. Let's just say that the what happened between Sigurd and a dragon ended both badly and unexpectedly for the dragon. :)

The DPS combat system in Dark Age was mathematically brilliant. Is the person responsible for designing that system on CSE's current team or are you looking at bringing them in to help/consult/design the system in CU?

Like a lot of things in any MMORPG, lots of people touched various systems. We will need to be equally brilliant here too.

Is it possible for me to make my home anywhere? If I wanted to make a hut in the mountains and call it my home, can I do that?

Yep.

Crafting Question: Can crafters differentiate their armor/weapons from other crafters either through design or branding?

Absolutely. Crafter's marks are confirmed for the game and we are working on a system to add more than just stats to different items.

Can you better explain the role of "hunting and gathering" play in the game? You've mentioned animals dropping materials for crafting, is this a way to engage in PvE without leveling from it?

Animals can be skinned, sheared, etc. to get some materials from. They will not have drops though.

From someone who loved Warhammer when it first came out, thanks for Nordenwatch.

I'm glad you liked Warhammer, it had a lot of great things in it. As to Nordenwatch, I can't take any credit for it but I'm sure the guys who came up with it appreciate the kind words.

With items not being lost on death and materials being salvageable from crafts, the sum total of material wealth will increase over time. How do you plan to prevent market bloat?

Item decay is one way, another way is the fact that players will be spending money to repair/have things repaired after the mean, nasty other realms burn it down to the ground. :)

One of the things to keep in mind is that by eliminating PvE, raids, etc. players will be generated less wealth & slower than they do in a game like WoW for example because the results of RvR will be a lot less predictable.

You stated there won't be many instant attacks in this game. Melee do not incur the type of ability penalties that casters usually have in mmos (having to root yourself A LOT). What I would like to know is, how much more powerful will caster classes be than melee, since casters will be forced to root themselves to cast many of their spells?

Casters will definitely be more vulnerable and given some additional power as a reward.

Given your experiences (many positive, many negative) what do you think has been the greatest POSITIVE change in hte games industry over your career.

In the last decade, Kickstarter. It could be the most positive game changer I've seen in a long time.

So no PvE leveling, but will there be big monsters in the world that you need your realm mates to help bring down, for rare crafting materials? (not tierred raiding, more open world raiding like DAoC had) will you be able to skin those monsters and put them in your house as trophies? (insanely fun part of DAoC)

We know there is a ton of crafting for downtime, but sometimes you just want to go through a dungeon with friends (even if its out in TDD territory and there's a danger of being hit from behind, or other groups already being in there!)

Our plan is right now that in The Depths, the big NPCs will be guarding access to certain areas that will yield lots of good stuff for the side that control it. Some of these could also yield scavenged/skinned materials but they will not have drops or anything like that (I know you really didn't ask it but I figured someone else would after reading this).

Thank you and good luck!

Thank you!

Hi MJ,

you had a "no comment" position around the setting of the game (past/present/future) which kind of give the answer away. - Will you give the official answer before the end of the KS? Or is it something to develop over the coming 2 years? - Can you at least confirm no guns? Or at the very worst medieval/steampunk ones. Please no long lost M16 lying in The Depth! :P

No answer now since that will be revealed over time but no steampunk and no long-hidden weapon that if you push the red button ends the world.

You are going for player driven economy, player driven world and story- sounds a little like EVE to me.. should we expect EVE like need for alts?

If you mean alts for crafters, yes. If you mean alts for like buffbots, no. Crafting will be a slower process than most other MMORPGs and you will have to want to be a high level crafter in order to succeed.

I would like to hear something about healing - can you say anything about mecanism yet or setting at all ? what can we expect, healer like in daoc where they had solid amor and where kind of hard to kill or more like wow priests , where they where more squishy or at least looked like it ;)

I'm interested to hear a little about healing as well any possible BSC ideas? I've always loved playing healers.

Healers won't be as squishy in this game since they wouldn't survive long. Healers will play an important role in CU and we need to get them right and survivability is a big part of that.

If leveling is horizontal, will gear be also? Will there be requirements through leveling placed on gear to avoid "twinking" if it's not horizontal?

Unless I was willing to go with a ton of BoP/BoE items (which I'm not), I think that there will be some twinking. OTOH, because items will be created more slowly than in traditional MMORPGs and we will have item decay and eventual breakage, it will be less of a problem (I hope).

AFTER (not if) this game funds :) what can the community expect from CSE as far as communication. We have had a blast this last month with all the internal testing of Andrew's engine and Michelle's Art live streams. After this funds will we still be as much a "part" of CSE as we have been during this kickstarter and will communication be as open as it has been this last month? Will there be preferable means to communicate back and forth I.E. via backer's forums. Is it possible for CSE to set a side specific days for progress updates and questions?

Thanks Mark and Andrew and all of CSE

We will definitely have "Dev Days" but we will also be active on the backer forums. If you saw how I was with Dark Age and Warhammer (pre-EA), I was a very active forum guy. That won't change when we fund.

is there a way to get my soul back...lets say someone ran off with a pc and now he hasn't logged in a month (i feel empty thinking about it) is there a black market i can buy a some soul to fill the hole in my soul or does your soul grow back (ponders the universe)

Your soul will grow back over time absolutely. I don't want to gimp the player because they were doing what they needed to do by engaging in RvR. Also, pieces of soul may not last forever in an item.

Camelot Unchained:

What single feature of Camelot Unchained do you feel is the most important to get right?

Personal:

What other games are you currently playing?

The easy answer would be RvR but that is too broad. I'll narrow it down to the character progression system.

Right now, I haven't played any game a lot in the last month or so, before that it was GW2.

As a person who enjoys playing a healer will there be a chance to maybe have a different style than the arm flailing caster, maybe a bard whose music could heal the group versus the sound class always being the speed class?

Did you see Michelle's awesome Arthurian drawing session yesterday? It was great.

In terms of healing, our 4th class which will be a sound-based class won't be a healer. At launch I want our healer class to be the only healer in the game.

SERVER(S) - Hey Mark, really enjoyed the principles, and all the updates since then. For my question, I think the best place to start is DAOC and WAR. The RVR lands in DAOC (2001-2004) felt very open and spread out, which I loved. In WAR (and I did love many things in there for years), the RVR lands/areas always felt very "claustrophobic" feeling. I wasn't too fond of that at all. Also DAOC and WAR had multiple servers.

Will Camelot Unchained have a single server/shard, or multiple servers? I ask this also, because I've been playing EVE the past 6 months, and the thought of a single shard MMORPG of the type of CU could be really interesting. The thought of the world being big/epic enough that I could plop down roots in a remote area of the game, and probably never or unlikely being stumbled across really interests me. Not too fond of the mmo's that try to "channel" everyone into small/confined spaces just to simulate conflict. If you've ever played EVE, you'll know that even with a single server, people can be VERY spread out. =)

We hope to have a larger land mass, higher pop servers, etc. but I do think that the EVE approach isn't the right one for CU.

Everyone likes customizing their UI, but addons take fun of game. You have to look at the colorfoul icons / bars instead of enjoying fight.

Because of upcoming html / javascript layout and because of so much possibilities coming from this approach to that topic will you prevent making addons that affects gameplay like addons that takes fun of making moves yourself (like the one that decides which spell to use based on enemy / ally HP)?

Andrew has spoken about how we are going to take our UI design to the next level but we are both concerned about automating actions in the way you described. However, part of that will also come down to good design as I've committed to our combat system have positionals, reactives, combos, etc.

After your experience developing Dark Age of Camelot, can you explain what you think were the good ideas, bad ideas etc, and how the affects CU? Thanks!

/Level 20 - Bad idea Fighting gold farmers - Good idea. Realm Ranks - Brilliant idea. DF - Brilliant idea. ToA - Unbelievably bad initial execution.

@MJ: When do you plan to put up the crafter/builder tear for 500$ you talked about :) ?

Still thinking about it. I want to make sure that the tiers above it are still good values when compared to the crafter tier. If my darn Mac hadn't picked today to have a nervous breakdown I would have been able to get that done this morning.

Will the 'Name Reservation' (coming from the FPs) reserve the name(s) on all servers?

No, one server. One server only Vasily. :)

What will you do to make sure the crafting/housing and pvp wont be dumb down beforee launch ? Also will you give each class group utility so they wont be left behind by other players for the best competetive play ?

Well, the first thing we'll have to do is not be dumb-a***es about it. Luckily, there will be a whole lot of backers who will happily jump up and down on my body if they think we are going in that direction.

One of things we have going for us is that if we fund, we have a built in audience that is waiting to support our niche game and that we are not trying to attract hundreds of thousands of people to pay so the pressure to make those kind of changes won't exist. Such a nice change.

As a healer in CU how will they get money/loot if they are actually only healing realm mates and not hitting the player? Also in gaining realm ranks? Will it be like healing rps in DAOC?

Multiple ways of doing so including rewards from your realm.

I'm already a backer because i think this project definitely deserves coming to light. My biggest question is how you plan to keep people interested in a purely RvR oriented game in the long run. Gear rewards? Special events? Earning points that can be spent on special skills/enhancements? These are the things that separate a 'normal' multiplayer game from an MMO: persistent changes, claiming keeps, etc. Stuff that makes people want to throw their subscription money at the screen :) What ideas do you people have to keep people hooked on the game over the course of 3-4 years rather than 3-4 months?

Good luck with this project! Thank you for the work you did on DaoC!

You're welcome. Hopefully my answers about progression answered some of this question. Another way of doing this will be adding new content and challenges for the players and we have to do that, especially as a subscription game.

How is the control scheme going to work? It's the one thing I don't like about DAoC: strafing is slow, /stick and /face are necessary crutches because of the acceleration/deceleration, you can't turn without changing direction etc. and almost all other MMORPGs with the exception of WoW have made similar mistakes.

Don't get me wrong, DAoC is more than forgiven since it's still the only MMORPG that has a functioning PvP system, but if it had WoW's controls it would simply be perfect; so here's the chance to get it right with CU. :)

This is one of those that I want to talk to our backers about. /Stick was very useful in certain situations and it has both its supporters and detractors of course. I honestly don't have strong feelings myself on it.

1.You recently talked about spell crafting in a live stream, are you able to go into more detail about what you mean? Example: do you craft just what your spells look like, or are you able to also to make how powerful the spell is (stats of the spell per se)

2What is the longest duration you feel you could make a crowd control last? ( I realize this will be up to change but just your opinion on this would be nice) thanks again

1. That's a long answer. I'll try to cover it in an update in the next 70 hours.

2. I don't have an exact number but it will have to have some significance otherwise it is useless.

One thing I have always wondered about the past... there were talks of making a truly classic pre-SI classic server. When you announced the idea you were overwhelmed by how much response it got from people.

As it dragged out and got pushed back, eventually you said it wasn't going to happen. You claimed the reason was "not enough interest" which ran counter to your initial statement.

What was the story behind why it didn't happen? Not enough interest for EA? Not enough manpower to do it right? Was this a similar reason for why Imperator was killed? I'd just like to know a bit more backstory as to why other projects died, as kind of an assurance that this one won't.

I can't talk about anything regarding EA decision but killing IO was my call and it was the hardest one I had to make regarding a game since it was my concept. I made that call because if we continued work on it and it failed, Mythic would have been in deep financial trouble. Also, it wasn't coming along the way it needed to so I made the call to kill it and put the team to work on WAR rather than continue to burn a ton of money and if the game flopped to have to layoff the entire team.

Hello Mark,

I've shot you a message regarding getting in contact with a member of City State's PR department. We'd love to get Camelot Unchained up on our site.

Thanks.

KK. You can also reach me through the KS mail system.

1. Will all contested territory allways be contested, or can a group of people conquer a territory to make it a temporary safezone for them?

2. What are some of your biggest "lessons learned" from your previous games? If you could go back and change one thing what would that be.

3. What can you say about the mass joining of subscribers during release and the mass release of subscribers shortly afterwards from WAR, Is there something you would of done differently?

Please break this question up and I'll answer some of these individually. :)

Your housing demos (which were done in like 2 days) were awesome, I can't how good the final product will be. I hope weapons get the same treatment.

In your Founding Principals you talk about consequences. Would you consider adding some type of consequence for "crafting realism" to weapons?

For example, 2 crafters both start out with the same metal. One crafts 2 dirks which are short and pointy, the other crafts a bastard sword. Due to their size/material weight the dirks attack faster but the sword hits harder.

It seems these days there are a lot of anime swords that are 2 feet wide hilt to tip and 10 feet long that get swung around like sticks.

I would like crafters to be able to craft these, however due to "crafting realism" consequences they would be very hard to swing and no one would buy them or use them due to poor performance.

Not all items made by crafters will be alike and there is going to be the chance of a critical success or critical failure as well.

I see you have no underwater combat but can you commit to at least the basic swimming ability/animation? I could forsee you guys shying away from using water in the game because of this without at least letting us swim ascross whatever

Swimming will be possible but please, swim responsibly. Don't swim 30 minutes after a fight, have a swim buddy and make sure you take off your plate mail! :)

If you had $1 billion dollars and a team of 500 working on the game, what are 3 features you definitely WOULDN'T include :D

Raiding, LFG and /level 20. :)

Do you plan to reward defensive WvW by some ways? Imo, walls and traps are not efficient enough (u talked about ladders) in terms of time for example (no fast travel for backups, and respawn). I'm affraid the crafters, rebuilding again and again the same walls, the same defensive structures, will soon be fed up if the chance of "building a new world" (roads?!, towns, even cities ⁾ is not given to them. And i'm really afraid to see the majority of RvR players constantly attacking each others because, as in many games, defense is less fun, rewarded and easy. (And, with unique world servers, the chances of devastating raids during the night (others timezones) are quite large). Thanks, and sorry for my english ;)

Your english is just fine and I agree with you. Defensive stands must be rewarded.

Hey, thanks for doing this AMA!

I know there has been some confusion about this being a "no PvE" game - particularly for the people who don't just want a 24-hour gankfest. Can you speak to your feelings about PvE as a way of making a richer world to explore (even if it's not used for leveling)?

To be more specific: we're not going to be walking around a big, empty world if there are no other players around, are we? is The Depths going to be a big empty dungeon with mining nodes in it? Will there be NPCs? Will there be interesting MOBs?

Thanks so much for your time. :)

You're welcome. The world won't be big and empty of course. The Depths will be full of very interesting things and the world will also have guards, animals, etc. The biggest difference between this game and the vast majority of MMOs is that you can't level off of NPCs.

Brad McQuaid said he got a lot of his inspiration for EQ1 from Sojourn (another MUD which later split off into Duris). I didn't know you also got your start with MUDs.

Is this fairly common with some of the big name designers of the original MMOs or are you two the oddities?

Incredibly common. Rich Vogel started on MUDs and and lots of the "old guard" did, including mine. :)

Are there any plans on having different subscription tiers for casual players vs. a normal "unlimited" play tier?

I am a backer and want this game to fund and succeed, but I am unable to dedicate enough time to an MMO to justify the typical $15/month subscription fee. A lower cost tier with a limited number of play hours per month would be awesome for casual players who only get a few hours a week to play.

CU will not have a sub fee as high as others in the industry, Mark has stated numerous times in the kickstarter updates and other media. We're guessing this will mean somewhere between $10-12 a month.

He's also said there will be different options, so I would suspect a 'weekend' warrior type of user will have a sub for them. As well, family discounts would be available.

Hope that helps.

Correct.

I know there will be no GPS map. Will there be any in game map? I would love see a map that works something like Shadowbane's that showed player settlements and their relative size as well as guild claiming.

I could see a map in which you place a marker by an area you have visited.

Is it possible to alter the CSE-designed LL or Mountain Tier homes at a later time if want to make changes and/or improvements are made to the building program? i.e. new textures

Yes.

How will dyes be for weapons and armor. Will it be a system similar to Dark Age of Camelot or Guild Wars 2?

Hopefully better.

Can you specifiy how weather will impact the world?

Movement speed, visibility, turning into a toad, that sort of stuff.

Veilstorms, you know I hate them! :)

Kidding about the toad thing. Maybe.

You keep what you kill man.

When you talked about "The Depths" the new version DF, which btw was amazing, some of the best stories ever came from there.

Say side A takes over the depths and spends some time building up defenses and it gets attacked and taken back. What kinds of time frames are you guys shooting for. IE how long do you expect it to take to build up defense's and another realm to come and take it, few days for defenses? Few hours?

I remember in DF you could grab a group and take it back in well under a hour unless it was heavy defended.

We want to give the side that controls the depth a reasonable amount of time to explore it before TD starts getting pissed off.

Is CSE going to do a livestream (or something) during the last hour(s) of the KS-Campaign?

Hopefully.

Yesterday you said on stream that there will be also some 'static keeps' not build by players. How is the system of keeps will work? If the realm lose their keep will it affect them? Will there be any bonuses connected to keeps?

Losing a keep will hurt, it has to, especially to discourage keep trading. You will not want to lose a stabilizer/artifact, especially if you are on the numerically superior team.

Are you tired of ducks yet?

Nope.

Mark, do you plan to have a global cooldown in the combat system?

I can't source if for you, but he's stated unconditionally no.

Also can't source, but I can confirm.

Me too!