Questions by Cody
“Micajah” Bye, Managing Editor

style="font-style: italic;">
Answers by Chuck
Kallenbach, Game Designer for SOE Denver




Creating innovative additions for their massively multiplayer online
games has become something of a trademark for the developers at Sony
Online Entertainment. The list of features that have been implemented
along their entire line of products are too numerous to count, but some
notable ideas (both good and bad) include the /pizza command and the
entire concept of a raid. However, the implementation of a full blown
trading card game into the action of style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest and style="font-style: italic;">EverQuest II takes
the cake. After nearly four months of official release time under their
belt, the Legends
of Norrath
developers have taken the next step in their
development and have created a brand new expansion for their recently
released game. Dubbed Legends
of Norrath: Forsworn
, this 250+ card set features a whole
slew of new cards and card types, and we sat down with style="font-style: italic;">Legends of Norrath
game designer Chuck Kallenbach to hear his explanation of the new
expansion!




Ten Ton Hammer: The
release of Legends of
Norrath: Forsworn
comes right on the heels of the release
of the full game! Is this a pretty common timeline for collectible card
games? Or was the release of Forsworn pushed forward quicker than
typical card game expansions?




Chuck Kallenbach:
Four months is a fairly typical window between expansions in the TCG
business.  This is a little shorter than that, so as to
release the new content in time for the holidays.


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 136px; height: 165px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/14439"
title="Antonia Bayle"> src="/image/view/14439/preview"
width="150">

style="font-style: italic;">The development
phase for the Forsworn expansion was a bit shorter than normal due to a
desire to release before the holidays.

Ten Ton Hammer: The lore
behind the storyline of the expansion focuses on a group of very
powerful individuals that have given up their oaths to the Seventh
Hammer, thus making them the Forsworn. How will these characters be
integrated into the game? Will they be units? Or are they the new raid
encounter bosses?




Chuck: The
Forsworn are first encountered in our story as enemy avatars in the
scenarios, but also appear as raid bosses. We’ll be revealing
lots more about their backstory in the near future.



Ten Ton Hammer: Speaking
of raids, how are these parts of the TCG going to play out? Will
players simply take turns fighting against an incredibly strong NPC
deck? Or are they each fighting their own individual battles?




Chuck:
Players actually get to team up with one another, each bringing their
own deck to the game, to battle a very strong NPC deck.  The
coordination and community problem-solving when playing together as a
team has been one of the highlights of testing and playing the new set.



Ten Ton Hammer: Will it
be in the benefit of a raid party to have the archetypal raid set up,
meaning one class from each of the four classes: Priest, Scout, Mage,
Fighter?




Chuck:
It’s not completely straightforward (and I’m sure
players will find all kinds of great combos that haven’t been
discovered yet), but the builds that are most effective in playtesting
have been one of each archetype. However, players are allowed to bring
anything they like. Take four Mages to fight Trakanon if you want to,
but I doubt you’ll survive.



Ten Ton Hammer: If a
player defeats the raid boss, it’s been said that the gamer
could then take the role of the raid encounter boss against the other
players. This seems like an incredibly cool mechanic. How is it going
to work? What will prevent the new “raid boss
player” from making it an easy encounter for his friends by
playing a poor selection of cards?




Chuck: There
are a couple of modes of play – as with the single-player
scenarios, you can earn reward cards for completing the raid scenarios
against the AI.    One of these reward cards
will be a ‘Raid Boss’ avatar that lets you take on
teams of players in the casual games lobby.  We’ve
got additional raid avatars and entire raid decks that we’ll
be giving out to players in some upcoming activities in January, as
well.



Ten Ton Hammer: How are
the multiplayer fights set up? When you’re playing a one v.
one game, you only have two sets of quests to worry about. Will there
be four in the 2 vs. 2 scenario? Or will each group have to fight to
complete those particular quests?




Chuck: In
games with more than two players, there are always three quest
locations. A player normally can only reach two of these quests. (In a
four-man raid, the wing players can only reach one.) If a player on a
team is eliminated, then the remaining players sometimes are able to
reach more quests. Depends on where they’re sitting.



Victory in the team 2 vs. 2 game is based on eliminating all the
opposing avatars or just one of the players on a team completing four
quests. Players still place level tokens and complete quests on an
individual basis.


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; width: 136px; height: 165px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/14436" title="Gormung"> src="/image/view/14436/preview"
width="150">

style="font-style: italic;">Mages will be
receiving a number of new "necromancer" oriented cards.

Ten Ton Hammer: Two new
Avatar races are being introduced in Forsworn: the High Elves and the
Iksar. Should we expect two new races in every single expansion?




Chuck:
We’ve got a plan for the first seven sets that introduces two
new races with each one. Who knows how many new races
there’ll be in EverQuest
and EverQuest II by
the time that runs out? We’ll try to catch up and keep things
fresh in the meantime.



Ten Ton Hammer: What sort
of abilities do the High Elves bring to the table? Will we see any sort
of “Power Elf Mage” type combinations like we saw
in early release?




Chuck: High
Elves are the first created avatars to have game text tied to the Light
faction. The most popular one in testing awards extra health to the
avatar.



Ten Ton Hammer: What
about the Iksar? Are they going to be portrayed as vilely evil as
everyone thinks of them?




Chuck: Like
their counterparts the High Elves, our new Iksar also have game text
tied to a faction, but they’re naturally more Shadow aligned.
You’ll find the kind of nasty skullduggery the Iksar are
notorious for.



Ten Ton Hammer: Four new
keywords are being introduced to the game: Overwhelm, Sentinel,
Reinforce, and Mounts. Can you explain these keywords for us? How are
they going to impact the general LoN gameplay?




Chuck:
Overwhelm adds extra level tokens when you apply an ability at a quest
where you have more units. That rewards a player who is focused on both
questing and playing lots of units, which is hard to do in a single
deck. If you can make that work, then Overwhelm will work for you.



Sentinel is a great new ability that adds +2 defense to a unit when
opposing units are played there. It’s a good way to gain
valuable time while your opponents wait for it to go away at the end of
the turn.



Reinforce lets your unit travel to another quest location where your
other unit is beginning combat. The reinforcing unit joins and gets to
add its attributes to the battle. In multiplayer games with three quest
locations, this keyword really shines.



Mount is a new restriction for the game, and the ones that are in
Forsworn provide flexibility for your deck without using up one of your
valuable restriction slots. Also new for this set is a Back restriction
armor item, and three of the archetypes get Legs armor for the first
time.



Ten Ton Hammer: Each new
archetype is also getting a wide range of new cards that specifically
focus on one of the classes (Fighter gets new Paladin cards, Mage
– Necromancer, Priest – Druid, and Scout
– Ranger). Why did you decide to start creating specific
cards for the archetypes?




Chuck: This
was always part of the plan for
Legends of Norrath
. In fact, many of the href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/9945">cards in this
set with the Nature trait were designed for the first set but
held back until we could offer them all at once and do a good job for
the Druid fans. These “class-based” cards are not
restricted like the way we restrict archetypes, they’re just
a group of cards with a lot of synergy.


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 136px; height: 165px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/14434" title="Ralthazor"> src="/image/view/14434/preview"
width="150">

style="font-style: italic;">Frogloks are making
their first appearance (as units) in the Forsworn expansion.

Ten Ton Hammer: Should we
expect more “class specific” cards in each
expansion?




Chuck: For a
while, anyway. The next set will have cards for Bards and Monks, for
example. We still have a few classes to feature after that. There are
lots of exciting directions for this game to take based on the years of
content available to us from the MMOs.



Ten Ton Hammer: When will
the next expansion be?




Chuck:
Sometime in the first quarter of the new year.



Ten Ton Hammer: Finally,
is there anything else you’d like to tell the Ten Ton Hammer
readers? Or things that they should be aware of in the coming months?




Chuck: If
you haven’t given Legends
of Norrath
a try, get a couple of your friends and join up
to try the multiplayer formats. They’re something new and
different for online TCGs and also a ton of fun to play.



What do you think of the
new expansion? Want to try out the game? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?p=191983#post191983">Let
us know on the forums and
Micajah will gladly square off against you in one-on-one combat!



Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for style="font-style: italic;">Legends of Norrath href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/396">news
and articles!



To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Legends of Norrath Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

Comments