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Questions by Padma “Lady Lotus” Fuller, Editor
Answers by Axel Schmidt, PR Manager, Frogster Interactive

The free to play MMOG marketplace is full of perils and pitfalls. For many gamers that have tried out a F2P game, they may have experienced a title full of translation issues and incredibly grind-heavy gameplay. However, there are a number of companies throughout the world that are trying to improve the standard of play for F2P games. The publishers of Runes of Magic are one of these companies, and they’re hoping that their localization efforts combined with a high quality of gameplay in Runes of Magic will insure a solid play experience for gamers. Recently, Ten Ton Hammer’s Padma Fuller had a chat with Axel Schmidt from Frogster, and the following interview is a result of that interaction. All of the information you could need for a solid knowledge foundation for Runes of Magic is available in the interview, so please enjoy!

Once you're finished up with the interview, don't forget to head on over and check out our exclusive screenshots!

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Ten Ton Hammer: What kind of impact do you think Runes of Magic will achieve within the highly competitive MMOG market?

Axel Schmidt, PR Manager

Axel Schmidt: In our view, Runes of Magic is a highly competitive online RPG that combines a rich variety of features that all the MMOG aficionados out there long for. The game will be launched with a housing system, mounts, pets, a gripping PvP system with arena combat, dungeons, raid content and a broad range of six main classes with a secondary class to choose. But it gets even more astonishing, when you consider that this huge feature package is free to play!

Ten Ton Hammer: What are the six main classes that players will be able to choose from?

Axel: In Runes of Magic players can choose to play a warrior, ranger, cleric, knight, mage or rogue. Each of them disposes of individual skills with impressive combo attacks and can use mounts later in the game. When players reach level 10, they will be able to select a secondary class, which increases the possible class combinations up to 36 individual character types. Within the towns of the game world Taborea, players can switch between their primary and secondary class, which gives them interesting tactical choices about how to approach their next tasks. Consequently the primary and secondary class will level independently from each other. So the dual class system of Runes of Magic functions like two characters in one. Moreover, Runes of Magic offers new special classes, different class ranks and special skill decks for advanced players. We will announce more details about these features in the upcoming weeks.

Ten Ton Hammer: How will PVP work?

Axel: Basically, Runes of Magic will have a common duel system and arena combat. Within the open game world, PVP is only open for players who actively “flag” themselves for it. If somebody wants to peacefully play PVE only, they can simply un-flag themselves. As a result, the PVP system of Runes of Magic won’t interfere with the game play experience of players focused on PVE. It’s only an additional feature so to speak. But there will be PVP only zones and when a player enters these, he will join PVP automatically. Within the arenas, players are able to take part in tournament style battles.

The Taiwanese developer Runewaker also plans to implement faction based PVP and guild wars. In addition to that, they are developing server vs. server combat as a very special feature. When this feature is ready, the whole community of one server will be able to fight the players of another in a massive server war. All results of PVP fights attribute to the players’ PVP scores, which derive from acquired wealth, title and class, and will decide his overall ranking in the game.

You can choose between six classes in Runes of Magic.

Ten Ton Hammer: What can you tell us about the in-game Collector’s Cards?
 
Axel: The Collector’s Cards are very precious items which will be rare to find in Runes of Magic. Collecting these cards, players get to know secret information about special species in the game. Runewaker even plans to give players the possibility to conjure these species as a pet to escort them.

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you tell us more about the mount choices players will have?

Axel: As shown in the first teaser trailer mounts will be mighty horses fitting well into the atmosphere of the game world. But there will also be some very special mounts in the game that we want to introduce later.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will players be able to have pets?  If so, what will they be?

Axel: Pets will be connected to the Collector’s Card as earlier mentioned. So watch out carefully in the game to find them.

Ten Ton Hammer: How will the Teleporting system work?

Axel: Generally, every character will be able to teleport in Runes of Magic. But the precondition for teleporting is that you dispose of the right rune stones and special powder to use them. With the help of the magical powder you are able to bind the stones to locations and thus, to define individual binding points to jump to, which will generally be villages or towns that you have to visit more often. As you can imagine given the immense game world, you can save some long walks by teleporting back to these locations. In some bigger towns there are also female magicians that can help you to teleport.

Ten Ton Hammer: When you do think the English version of the client will begin beta testing?

Axel: Runes of Magic is technically already almost complete in the original Taiwanese language. That means that all the content must now only be translated into an English version. But with the game featuring 600 individual quests right from the start, you can imagine the amount of translation work that needs to be done. But we are set to get it done quickly. At the moment, we are heading for a launch of the closed beta phase later this year.

According to Schmidt, the most interesting part of RoM for him is the amazing variety of features.

Ten Ton Hammer: Personally, what is your favorite aspect of Runes of Magic?

Axel: Primarily, most astonishing for me is the abundance of features considering that it’s a free2play game, and particularly the broad variety of possibilities to shape and form your character. You can level up your attributes and every single skill if you want to. In combination with the second class, players really have an extremely broad range of choices to build up their avatar. When levelling up, completing quests or succeeding in combat, they will get new skills and talent points that they can distribute individually on their skills and spells. And the runes are really a key feature to improve your character as well. Using them wisely players can enhance their armour suits, dye their clothes and so on.

Secondly, most of the quests in Runes of Magic are directly connected to the interesting background story. Players who follow them attentively can really experience the lore first hand so to speak. If you follow a quest, jump into PVP or arena combat, prepare for the rush on a dungeon or a big raid – it will always be a thrilling experience and a lot of fun to play.