Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

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!