Weve seen a number of meaningful changes and improvements made to Dragons Prophet throughout the open beta period this summer. These run the gambit from easing the dependency on a characters Charisma attribute for dragon captures, to the addition of the massive Wintertide region. Most recently there have even been additions such as a much needed increase to the number of potential inventory slots that can be unlocked for your characters.
With the North American launch of Dragons Prophet just days away, Senior Producer Todd Carson was awesome enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer some of our questions about post-launch plans for the game.
Throughout the open beta period, weve seen a continued refinement of the new player experience for Dragons Prophet. Will efforts continue in this area following the game launch, and if so, are there any specifics you can discuss?
We definitely plan to continue making improvements to both the existing player experience along with creating new content post launch. We dont have specifics to share for past launch, but are always looking to the players to provide feedback. Many of the changes during Open Beta have come from the players; of particular note are changes like capturing Dragons, the use of dragon soul points, and the new interface which allows easy transition for summoning different Dragons to fight with your character.
How frequently can players expect to see new content or major game updates deployed post-launch?
Our plan is to update the game every two weeks. Players should expect to see new in-game events, Holiday events, Marketplace updates, new quests, new zones, and of course, new Dragons. Not all of those will be in every update, but we hope to have new content and Dragons at least once per month.
How closely will SOE be working with Runewaker on determining what areas of the game to improve, refine, or expand upon based on content consumption trends in the live game?
Our relationship with Runewaker is really good. We have worked very closely with both Runewaker and Infernum to provide feedback, which has resulted in quite a bit of game changes. In addition to daily communication, we have held two summits in Taiwan where we reviewed new content, discussed change requests, and made final decisions about the game as a group. Runewaker is a very unique partner and is great to work with for these reasons.
Dragons Prophet will be launching just prior to a major holiday. Can players expect to see in-game events inspired by Halloween heading into October, or other major seasonal events moving forward? I totally want to get some witch / warlock costumes for my characters if they become available.
Players should definitely expect to see holiday inspired events and costumes in the coming months. We have already submitted ideas for Halloween and RW is in the process of getting the content ready.
During PAX we briefly discussed alliance dragons. Will there be additional or special lair slots allotted to Highlords for these dragons, and should an alliance split will you lose access to the alliance dragons until a new alliance is formed?
The Highlord feature is one of the trickiest pieces of the new Frontier system, and we are still working with Runewaker to make sure that the rewards for winning the Alliance PvP battles feel balanced. There are quite a bit of factors to consider, but if an Alliance breaks up there could be consequences. For example, currently with the system, if an Alliance completely breaks up, they will lose control of the Citadel.
Bonus Question: The #SuperMetal stuff released so far has been awesome. Are there any plans to release a full-on metal soundtrack for Dragons Prophet?
Thats a great idea. It has been really well received by the community. We are definitely looking into the possibility of releasing the current tracks so our players can get #SuperMetal even when they arent in the game.
Wed like to thank Todd for taking the time to answer our questions, and the rest of the team over at SOE for their tireless work on getting Dragons Prophet primed up and ready for launch. If you dont already have an account and want to dive into the game when it launches this Wednesday (September 18th) be sure to head over to the official site.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Dragon's Prophet Game Page.