Legends of Norrath Events Interview with Game Designer Chuck Kallenbach

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Legends of Norrath Events Interview with Game Designer Chuck Kallenbach

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Posted January 23rd, 2008 by Cody Bye

Questions by Cody “Micajah” Bye, Managing Editor
Answers by Chuck Kallenbach, Game Designer for SOE Denver

Massively multiplayer gamers are often some of the most competitive people you’ll ever meet in a virtual space. They like having the best equipment, stats, and strategies, and they’re often willing to do whatever it takes to attain that. However, there’s rarely any way for these gamers to climb to the top of the ladder and show the world that they are the best.

Sony Online Entertainment’s Denver studio is trying to change that with their recently launched Championship Qualifier tournaments and general tournament ladders for Legends of Norrath. Although it may not be a true MMOG, the Legends of Norrath online trading card game is home to many MMOG gamers, especially from EverQuest and EverQuest II. Recently Cody “Micajah” Bye sat down with SOE Denver game designer Chuck Kallenbach to discuss what’s next for the LoN card game and what sort of events we may be seeing in the future!

The new cards in the latest LoN expansion have energized the play environment.

Ten Ton Hammer: With the Forsworn expansion launch, what’s next for Legends of Norrath? For those that may not check the official website every day, what sort of events are you planning for January?

Chuck: Along with four Winner’s Choice Tournaments, a Loot Re-Roll, a Promo Weekend, a Draftmania Weekend, and a two-day Championship Qualifier, cards for the Trakanon Raid Deck start dropping in the MMOs on the 18th. These cards will let players build a deck to host a 1-versus-4 raid, and play as Trakanon himself!

Ten Ton Hammer: How has the Forsworn expansion gone over with the general public? Are players excited about the new cards?

Chuck: The new cards from Forsworn have energized the play environment. Zealotry and Bag of the Tinkerers, just to name two cards, have spawned exciting new deck types. The big news items, of course, are the multiplayer formats, which we’re getting rave reviews for.

Ten Ton Hammer: The staff at Ten Ton Hammer has played through a number of the raids, and they take a massive amount of precision from the players. Have you had any requests to lower the difficulty of the raids?

Chuck: While the raids do require players to cooperate both in deckbuilding and discussing tactics, we haven’t had requests to lower the difficulties. I think the players like the bar raised high on these fun challenges!

Ten Ton Hammer: You have several “loot” oriented weekends planned in the future, including several promo cards dropping in EQ and EQ2. Have you had success with these sort of events in the past? Are these cards exclusive to players that play EQ or EQ2, or will the card-game-only players eventually have access to the promo cards?

Chuck: Promo card weekends are always exciting times for all of our players. Since we have an interesting blend of TCG players and MMO players who are fans of LoN, cards travel pretty quickly from one environment to the other. So the cards that drop in the MMOs can be found in the Trade lobby for players who only play the TCG, and vice versa.

Every month the LoN developers add two new loot cards into LoN for EQ and EQ2.

Ten Ton Hammer: On January 11, you did a loot re-roll. Why did this occur? Are you just adding two new cards to the booster packs? Or are you substituting two pieces of loot for two different pieces of loot?

Chuck: Every month we add two new loot cards (one for EQ and one for EQII) to the loot tables of unopened booster packs. This is in addition to the loot cards that already exist. We also distribute the new loot cards among the already opened packs. This means that any player that's ever opened a booster pack has a chance to get one of the new loot cards on a Re-Roll Day, automatically. It's a lot of fun, and the players look forward to the new loot cards every month.

Ten Ton Hammer: Several new tournaments are listed over the next few months; how have the tournament brackets been received by the community? Are players pleased with the way things are progressing?

Chuck: The players love the variety and challenges provided by new tournament types. We’re doing our best to provide fun events for all kinds of players, whether you’re from a TCG background or you’ve found us through the MMOs.

Ten Ton Hammer: What’s involved with a “Loot Tournament Weekend”? How do players win the special cards? Do they simply enter the tournament, or must they win something?

Chuck: During a Loot Tournament Weekend, anyone that participates in a Loot Tournament receives the special promo card and loot card just for participating. Unlike our fixed start-time events, Loot Tournaments have ongoing queues that run day and night for several days, so players have lots of opportunities to pick up these cool special cards.

Ten Ton Hammer: You recently held your first LoN Championship Qualifier, and the prizes for the qualifier are pretty staggering: $500 for the winner plus airfare to GenCon Indy is nothing to sneeze at. Who was the previous winner and what kind of deck did they use to win? How many players were in the tournament?

Chuck: In Day 1 of the the first LoN CQ held in mid-December almost 200 hopefuls entered the tournament. The top 16 players then continued on to Day 2. The winner was Leto, an experienced TCG player who came to Legends of Norrath from another of our games, Star Chamber. He played a 50-card Scout deck with the Wood Elf avatar that can exert opposing units. His deck provided plenty of health and defense for his avatar, while protecting himself with Lethal Resolve and dealing the killing blow with Barbarian Hunters.

If a players wins a Championship Qualifier, he gets a free trip to GenCon Indy.

Ten Ton Hammer: The next qualifier begins on the 26th of January and runs into the 27th. What can we expect from the next round? Will the number of players increase? How will the new cards impact the next round of play?

Chuck: New deck types are emerging every week as players find ways to integrate Forsworn cards into their deckbuilding strategies. I expect we’ll see more players in the next Championship Qualifier because the metagame is less stratified now, and that gives lots of players a chance to win.

Ten Ton Hammer: When will we be seeing details on the next Legends of Norrath expansion set? What sort of cards might be included?

Chuck: It’ll be a month or so before any previews for Set 3 are released. We’re deep in design right now, and I can’t give you any juicy details at this point. There are a few character classes from the MMOs that we haven’t featured yet, so you can expect LoN cards that feature them in the next expansion.

Ten Ton Hammer: Finally, is there anything else you’d like to tell the Ten Ton Hammer readers about Legends of Norrath and all of your upcoming events?

Chuck: Make sure you keep an eye on our Event Calendar, because we have all kinds of different events coming up. You’re sure to find something fun to fit your timetable and play preference. Drafts, championship tournaments, participation promos and MMO tie-ins, we’ve got it all coming up in the next few weeks.

Have you played in any Legends of Norrath tournaments? Would you be interested in participating in one? Let us know on the forums!

Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for Legends of Norrath news and articles!