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Questions by Jeff Woleslagle, Executive Editor

Answers by David Rosén, CEO and Executive Producer, Lockpick Entertainment

For original players of Lockpick Entertainment's Dreamlords, it's been a long eight months. That's how long the game has been offline with the developers reworking the game to make it a real powerhouse in the strategic MMOG department. Now that the game is again available to players, Ten Ton Hammer's Jeff Woleslagle decided to have a discussion with Lockpick Entertainment's CEO and Executive Producer, Davin Rosén. Lots of questions are answered, and David's responses are very informative. Check it out!

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Ten Ton Hammer: Eight months ago, Dreamlords went on hiatus while Lockpick Entertainment made some major adjustments to the game. With Dreamlords: The Reawakening, the game has been reintroduced with a free-to-play revenue model, a fully integrated client, lots of customizations for the Dreamlord (which will now fight in every battle, not just princpal storyline events), and many more tweaks. Were you able to make all of the changes you set out to, and is the game now closer to your original vision for Dreamlords?

David  Rosén, CEO and Executive Producer, Lockpick Entertainment

David Rosén: Simply put: Yes. We were really happy the way our original gamed turned out and apparently both players and media too, judging from the feedback we had. Being our first game though, we gradually realized there were bits and pieces that could've been done differently. We also listened to the community and their feedback on various features in the game and started thinking about how we could improve on the original game. We went back to our cave and plotted, pondered and planned based on our original vision and what our players told us they were looking for in a game.

The Reawakening is the result of this endeavor and I must say it delivers on all points: it is a truly awesome game and the lovechild between us and the community.

 Ten Ton Hammer: While the game is now free-to-play, players can buy tribute points. What can players buy with tribute points, and how do you avoid imbalancing the game so that the player with the most cash to spend wins?

Players can buy tribute points in Dreamlords to speed up the pace.

David: Tribute points helps you speed up the pace a bit and decreases the need to work hard to get your army gear etc. There is also a premium account that gives you cheaper tribute and more trait points. This is designed not to create any undue advantages.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are players now able to customize their Dreamlord avatar? Was that a red female Dreamlord I saw on the installation splash screen!?

David: Yeah, we love how the avatars came out, we really wanted to separate us from the average humanoid features since you play a demi god, who in fact is the very soul of the land that constitute the players' empire. We will however add more customization options in the future.

Ten Ton Hammer: The rules of the game were also streamlined to make the game "easier to learn, hard to master." Could you provide an example of a rule or rules you scaled back for simplicity's sake, and will these changes seriously impact returning players who perhaps have a set playstyle?

David: An RTS combined with Empire Management and add some RPG features is bound to be complex, too complex even. We brushed off some rough edges but to be honest it is, due to the nature of the game, still a bit hard to get into. We have some awesome GMs/Moderators and us, the devs are frequently in the chat to talk with the players so there is always someone to ask if it's confusing or you just need a brush up on your tactic choices. The greet spirit of the community has spread so it's quite common that a player you helped yesterday is helping the next one the day after. This is the type of behavior that gives us devs a warm and cuddly feeling all over J

The Dreamlords developers attempted to make the game easier to learn but remain hard to master.

Hrm, a bit off topic perhaps, sorry about that. Now to the question, returning players will surely have to adopt their strategy a bit if they we're dead set on one setup as the management has changed but since the game now is much better I doubt we'll see any sad faces for that reason ;)

Ten Ton Hammer: What would you say to players who maybe feel a bit jaded by their initial Dreamlords experience to encourage them to come back and play Dreamlords: The Reawakening?

David: I would tell them to check out The Reawakening not only because it's totally free but also because we, and the community, has managed to develop a truly unique game. After the original Dreamlords we went back into our cave and plotted. We involved our community and asked "What kind of game do *you* want to play?" The Reawakening is the result and it's made by gamers…for gamers.

But don't take our word for it, check it out yourself.