The Family Needs You!
A
style="font-style: italic;">Sword of the New World: Granado
Espada Q&A Focusing on Unique Player Characters
Question by Cody
“Micajah” ByeAnswers by Jonenee
Merriex, Senior Game Master for Sword
of the New World
By integrating a three character party system into the
foundations of the game, the developers behind
style="font-style: italic;">Sword of the New World: Granado
Espada
have created a uniquely different MMOG that may surprise the world with
its popularity. However, the multi-character control (MCC) system is
not the only unique aspect of SotNW. As part of the MCC system, you can
add other characters to your party whenever you wish, which allows for
a huge number of character combinations.
On top of all that, the SotNW developers also created Unique
Player
Characters (UPCs) that a gamer can recruit through quests of varying
lengths. We’ve shown you pictures of one UPC, Panfilo the
Chef,
in our SotNW preview, but there are over 40 characters to get in the
game with more being added! To answer our questions on UPCs, we ran
down Jonenee Merriex, Senior Game Master for SotNW. Jon answers our
questions concerning UPCs and really lends some details on what UPCs
can do for a family.
alt="A Fighter Charging in with Sword Blazing"
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There are 40 UPCs that you can recruit into your family.
Ten Ton Hammer:
Unique
Player Characters seem a strange concept for a game based around
families…how do these UPCs fit in? Are they temporarily
hired?
Or will everyone be toting around a UPC in there group?
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon:
First off you have to understand what a UPC is. A Unique
Player
Character is a Non-Player Character who has sworn allegiance to your
family. They will stay with you through thick and
thin.
They can level, die, and be promoted to Veteran status. They
can
learn stances and equip items and armor. You can even get
specific costumes JUST for them.
UPCs
are full time
companions who have joined your cause either for personal gain or
because they believe that YOUR family will make a difference in this
new world. At no point will a UPC ‘leave’
your family
unless you decide to delete them.
Ten Ton Hammer:
How "unique"
will the UPCs be? Will everyone have access to the same UPC, or are
there a limited number of UPCs that only the best and brightest can
collect?
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UPCs can be obtained through quests of varying
difficulty.
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon:
Well, everyone one will have UPCs, but with over 40 of them and only 36
Quarters slots, not everyone will have them all. Generally,
you
get UPC cards for helping UPCs with quests or missions in
game.
There will be several UPCs that will be harder to get than others.
One
in particular
is Catherine. There are several very long and very difficult
quests revolving around acquiring Catherine. She also has an
interesting story of her own (like all the UPCs) so by the time you
finally get her, she will feel like family.
alt="Elementalists doing their thing."
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Advancement with UPCs works just like advancement with
a normal member of your family.
Ten Ton Hammer:
Will UPCs be
stronger, faster, or better combatants than a player's family members?
Or are they just offered as a unique and creative alternative to
players looking for different gameplay?
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon:
Both. There are UPCs who are stronger than their base class
counter-part, but usually they will have a limited amount of stances or
will have some other balancing drawback. Catherine, for
example,
can be put together to have high Strength, but her other stats will be
lower than her Fighter counter-part.
Ten Ton Hammer:
With UPCs will players be able to exceed the three character party
limit? Or will the UPC take the place of a family member?
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon:
UPCs are apart of your family and not in addition to your
family.
So they will not adjust the number of characters you can take into the
world with you.
Ten Ton Hammer:
Are UPCs available in guild vs. guild or player vs. player conflicts?
Or is that limited to only family members?
alt="Big Blasts of Lightning" title="Big Blasts of Lightning"
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Guilds will want to insure that their members have the
best UPCs available during PvP conflicts.
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon:
They are a part of your family. Everything your base classes
can
do, UPCs can do as well. They will be a vital part of PvP and
many clans will want to ensure that their players get their hands on
the harder to get UPCs.
Ten Ton Hammer:
How many UPCs are available in SotNW?
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon: Currently over
40 and the development team is always adding more.
Ten Ton Hammer:
Will UPCs have any sort of personality, or will they be more like pets
found in games like WoW or EQ?
style="font-weight: bold;">Jon:
MCC isn’t really about having ‘pets’. But
more about
having 3 characters you are always controlling. While there
are
times that you will not want to focus on one character so you can do
something else with another. The longer you ignore that
character
the more likely they are to die. Unlike in other games not
having
a member of your team is a BIG deal. And while the in
game
AI is good, it really isn’t there to allow you to use your
characters like ‘pets/heroes’ found in other games.
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">That
said, UPCs work just like the base classes. If you treat them
like a ‘pet’ you will be dead early and often.
Ten Ton Hammer:
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, and I hope we can
talk to you soon!
Ten Ton Hammer is your
unofficial source for Sword
of the New World
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/181/all">news
and features!
Make sure you check out Ten
Ton Hammer's
style="font-style: italic;">Sword of the New World
In-Depth Preview!
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Sword of the New World Game Page.
