As the
massively multiplayer online gaming marketplace continues to expand,
developers are continuing to push the boundaries of the "standard" gameplay
that we enjoy. A prime...

As the
massively multiplayer online gaming marketplace continues to expand,
developers are continuing to push the boundaries of the "standard" gameplay
that we enjoy. A prime example of that is THQ*ICE's upcoming 3D side-scroller,
Dragonica Online. Recently unveiled to the public via its open beta test,
Dragonica is a mixture of cartoon style with fast-paced action. Ten Ton
Hammer recently sat down with Product Manager Ben Serviss to find out more
about this fantasy-based action MMO.

Ten Ton
Hammer:  What’s the biggest goal for the Open Beta test? Are you just trying
to get as many people into the world as possible? Or something else?

Ben Serviss:
The difference between the closed beta and what we are doing now, is that
the closed beta saw a limited amount of people coming in so we were getting
people who had been researching the game were already pretty much up with
what was going on.  This is the first time that we’re opening the doors. 
It’s the first time we'll really get a critical mass of people to experience
the game, and thus we'll get a widespread amount of feedback.  We are also
opening the cash shops for open beta too.  I would characterize open beta as
a good period for us to really see what people think of it and come up with
ways to make it better.

Ten Ton Hammer:
I’ve had an opportunity to play some of the early levels of Dragonica, but I
haven’t really been able to get into the later parts of the game.  How does
the game change from the newbie to the end game experience?

Serviss: The
gameplay changes, but it’s more variations of what you’ve already been
experiencing.  Early on in the game you have an easy central area with
enemies that don’t pose a huge threat to you.  It’s more of a way to get you
acclimated to the game, combat, and how things work.  You start to encounter
more and more levels that have greater emphasis on platforming and
maneuvering through the environments as opposed to the more straight forward
side scrolling.  You’ll see enemies that use a bigger variety of attacks as
well. 

Specifically at
the end, once you’ve maxed out your character and have explored everything
and see everything there is to see, the boss dungeons have these giant
enemies.  But before you get to see these monsters, you have to go through
these long and elaborate labyrinthine levels.  It's more along the lines of
a raid in a typical MMO.

Ten Ton Hammer:
What would you suggest is the hardest content in game?  What can players
hope to achieve if they beat this sort of epic monster?

Serviss: That’s
going to come near the end of El Grego, which is the first major continent
in the game.  Lavalon, a man-made magma drake, a giant dragon created by an
evil scientist who really intended to rein destruction upon his enemies, has
somehow developed a mind of his own.   There are a number of challenges with
this boss. First off, they have to reach this guy. Then they have to manage
to face off against his incredible destructive power.  A lot of the
challenge is taking everything that you have learned from all of the prior
combat encounters and transferring that into a more epic experience.

Ten Ton
Hammer:  Is this going to be something where you definitely need a group of
players to beat it, or is he soloable as well?

It would be
very difficult to solo.  The best way to experience anything in the game is
with a party.  Depending on how you make up your party, everyone has a
consciously built character who compliments each other’s traits and
weaknesses, and even then it’s still going to be a tough battle.  By banding
together in this way though, the true gameplay starts to shine.

Ten Ton
Hammer:  How does the loot progress in Dragoninca?  When you beat a mob like
this, do you just get more or better armor, or is it something even crazier
than that? Maybe he'll drop armor and cosmetic equipment?

Serviss: The
cosmetic stuff you can buy in the shops if you so choose.  We saved a lot of
the actual content, the real stuff that will boost your stats and will have
meaningful in-game effects, for people who play the game.  We don’t want
anyone with a bank account or a credit card to come in and just buy the best
stuff.  The only way you’re going to be able to do this is to get in game
and get into these epic encounters.  With bosses like this, once they are
defeated they may leave behind different kinds of resources that can be
molded into more powerful weapons and artifacts.  If you want to come and
challenge yourself this way then you can definitely build your character up
like that. 

Ten Ton
Hammer:   From what I’ve been told, you’ve got dozens of sub-classes that
players can choose from. How can a player choose the end game class that
they will want to play with so many options available to them?

Serviss: When
you create your character you pick one of the four archetypes.  The warrior
focuses on melee and is kind of the tank, the magician is the spell caster,
the archer is the ranged projectile attacker, and the thief is more the
sneaky guerilla tactic style class.   Once you’ve picked one of these
classes and have gotten a feel for it, their style of attacking and their
style of defending and just how they compliment the group, when you reach
level 20 you have the opportunity to undertake the class promotion quest. 
This is kind of an arduous task but once you are done with it, you can take
a look at the different options we have.  There is no time limit on when you
have to raise your class, it is really all up to you, and so by looking at
the different characters in game and checking out the different options you
can pick one of two paths for your character.  By that choice, further down
the line, you can continue to progress your character and upgrade abilities
along that line.  Say you are a magician character, you can choose to either
become proficient in more damage spells or you can work more towards the
healing arts.  They are very understandable choices that we present to the
players so once you’ve decided to go down one path or the other you’ll be
offered multiple opportunities to continue upgrading.

Ten Ton Hammer:
You’ve spent a lot of time localizing Dragonica Online for North America. 
What would you consider to be the biggest changes that you implemented
compared to how the game plays in Asia?

Serviss: The
first thing you’ll notice is the text.  Well actually, you won’t notice it
because we think we did a pretty solid job of making sure that everything in
game makes as much sense as it should to players here.  In some of the games
you’ll play, maybe they’ll have focused more on graphics on the technical
side but we really wanted to make sure that our first impression is positive
and that people can play the game and not think that this just got off the
boat but is a game that was developed, made and crafted specifically for an
American audience. 

Even more
importantly than that is how the experience could work.  When we first
looked at the game being developed in Korea, there was a focus on grinding
through levels and doing a lot of repetitive tasks so we wanted to take
everything that was great about this game and remove some of the burden on
the player.  What we’ve managed to do is adjust the curve enough so that you
are not pressured to do the same thing over and over.  It’s okay to explore
at a pace that you find fun. That’s pretty much the biggest thing that we’ve
done in terms of localization.

Ten Ton Hammer:
I’ve been told that Dragonica can get a little “grindy” towards the later
levels, what would you say that person was talking about?  Are you fighting
lots of monsters all the time or grinding through missions over and over?

Serviss: You’re
going to get that no matter what MMO you play, especially one that relies
heavily on combat, and Dragonica Online does have a lot of combat.  Because
it is implemented in such a different way where it’s more like a console
sidescrolling 3-D kind of a game, a lot of that is the draw. People like
getting in there and chaining together their attacks.  The biggest thing
we’ve done to really alter that is what I mentioned before; change out the
experience curve so that there’s not an emphasis on doing the same thing
over and over again. 

You’ll see much
quicker returns for your efforts like in any other game that may not have
had the same kind of treatment. Even if you’re just playing through the
game, there are tons of different ways to progress.  You can take quests
from NPCs in town, you can do some of the instanced raids, and you can do
some of the incidental quests that are offered through the open world maps. 
One of the things we have is the monster count, which is when you are on one
of the field maps in the open world shared areas by defeating certain number
of monsters, you will unlock different awards.  It’s kind of like this
ongoing quest that never really ends and you never really have to commit to
it.  If you just want to see how high your kill count can go or see how many
chests you can collect, there are all sorts of different ways people can
interact with the game.

Ten Ton Hammer:
Could you tell us a bit more about the open world?   Is it really open
world, or are these maps limited to a certain amount of players at a time?

Serviss: It’s
not open world like a sandbox game.  The field maps are shared areas where
you can run around and explore, make friends and interact socially while at
the same time taking quests and encountering the different things in game. 
From the field maps you can access the mission maps which are the instanced
encounters.  You’ll come to a field map to meet people, team up, and then
bring them into your instance and to wherever you are in the current quest
storyline.  Just by meeting people and playing together you can add someone
as a friend then join the same party you earn friend points which are
exchanged for even more experience points so there are all sorts of
different ways you can interact with the world and with players to explore
the game together.

Ten Ton
Hammer:  How do the friend points work?  They sound neat, but I’m a little
worried that they could be exploited.  How do you get experience points for
becoming friends with people?

Serviss: It’s a
pretty basic system, and implemented pretty well.  You meet someone online,
you add each other as a friend, and then you join a party.  Just by doing
that and wandering around the world killing monsters, undertaking quests, or
whenever you earn experience in any other way, a percentage of what you earn
you save as a friend point.  Eventually you accumulate all of these points
and your friend point pool becomes full.  You go back to town and you
exchange them, along with a small fee in gold, and redeem them as actual
experience points that can help level up your character.  It’s just another
way to maximize your return by playing with friends.  The developers really
wanted to make sure the players were experiencing the game as intended, as a
social game, as an MMO.  You’ll have more fun if you play with other
people.  This is just a way they have built in an added incentive to make
sure people get the most out of the game.

Ten Ton
Hammer:  Interesting!  So how does it avoid being exploited?

Serviss:
It avoids
exploitation because it’s only a certain percentage, and it isn’t directly
doubling your experience whenever you go; it’s kind of like a cash back
system.  You’re paying into the system just by playing the game and you’re
getting this bonus just for bringing people along for the ride.

Ten Ton Hammer:
What made THQ*ICE decide to decide to tackle free-to-play gaming?  It seems
like a step forward towards MMOs for them but at the same time you don’t see
a lot of the bigger companies picking up free-to-play games to bring over to
the west.

Serviss: We are
actually seeing more of a shift in that kind of thinking.  EA has been
starting to get into online free-to-play like a lot of other North American
publishers.  They are watching the space and getting more and more
interested. 

THQ*ICE is
interesting because this was an opportunity that presented itself and it
just made sense.  THQ was looking for a way to enter this kind of space to
see what it’s about.  ICE in China has the rights for Dragonica there, and
the Chinese version of the game has been out since February so it just made
sense to combine and create this new entity and what better game to start
exploring free-to-play with than Dragonica Online?  It just made sense from
all the partners’ points of view to bring this game over and see what
free-to-play is all about.  The way that everything has been shaping up the
reactions we have gotten from the closed betas and the open beta, everything
Is pointing towards something interesting going on here.

Ten Ton Hammer:
How has the game been doing over in China?

Serviss: I’m
not as up-to-date on the specifics.  I think when it debuted it was the
number one or number two game in China for a while.  After the initial rush,
I believe it’s still going strong.  People are responding to the gameplay
itself, the sidescrolling 3-D world, and the art style.  We’ve gotten so
many compliments on the art style alone.  You’ll also see the game is not
only just in China but also in Europe, in Singapore, and it’s coming to
Russia soon.  Being a part of bringing this game out to the world is a real
interesting thing.

Ten Ton Hammer:
Is there anything that you’d like to talk about that we haven’t covered here
yet?  Can you share specifics on gameplay for our readers?

Serviss:
Without giving too much away that you’ll want to experience for yourself in
game, we found that there are lots of ways that players, just by creating
different classes and types of character and playing together over time,
figure out the strategies that complement each other really well.   If you
have a warrior class character partnered up with a magician when you’re
exploring the game the magician will kind of hang back and do spell casting
and healing.  We found the ways that they can share the best of each class. 
As an example, in one combo the warrior will do a basic combo then a juggle,
since every class has a basic juggle where they can toss the enemy up into
the air, then once the enemy is in the air the magician can come and hit him
with an electricity spell or an ice attack.  Just by experimenting and
seeing all the different ways that in the gameplay system, you can
experiment with enemies and animation.  It’s going to be in the air, on the
ground, walking towards you or distracted and walking away, there are lots
of different things that you can do to create these new tactics and we have
only seen the starting inklings of what is possible!