WonderKing’s Closed Beta launch can be best described as wild and entertaining. I am hesitant in using the term “wildly entertaining,” because it was both mayhem and a joyous event at the beginning of Closed Beta. Imagine over 1,000 users playing in one area competing with each other to kill one rabbit for a quest. That could not have been entertaining for certain users, given that their mob kills were stolen from them occasionally, but those who managed to complete the quest right away were satisfied indeed. We also created characters and joined them in the chaos. It was definitely fun for everyone interacting with each other.

The beta reception was amazing. We had positive reviews from a large majority of our community. The competitive nature of our players urged them to reach the highest level and explore every area that the game had to offer. Rare drops played a big role as users boasted in the forums about obtaining rare equipment such as Jackpot Rifles and reaching high levels of Enchantments for their Saw Sabers. The Mission features of WonderKing were highly praised by users as they ventured into personal portals with their friends and fought off legions of mobs.

Our objective for Closed Beta was to test the game at a larger scale and see how users would interact with each other, what the various things we needed to change were, and hear what the community had to say. We had users submit bug reports to help us in our efforts to create a more perfect WonderKing. Also, we were eager to have users participate because we wanted to see if they would encounter any technical difficulties so that we could try to fix the problem as soon as possible and continue providing enjoyable game play.

One of the major bugs we fixed was the passive nature of boss mobs inside mission portals. Most boss mobs would just stand around while users would unleash a flurry of attacks and reap the rewards from its remains. This posed no challenge for users to gain high quality items and the boss monster could be farmed. Now, users must face an aggressive and challenging boss monster that will only relinquish its items to formidable players. One of WonderKing’s biggest features, PvP, also had a major bug in certain maps. Upon accepting a challenge from another player, the map would not allow players to participate in PvP and would disconnect them. We wanted PvP to be a prominent feature in WonderKing so we resolved the issue quickly so that users could enjoy battling each other. We are now able to witness epic duels between players.

It was a bittersweet sensation to see Closed Beta come to an end. But to every ending, there is a new beginning. Closed Beta II has launched on August 13, 2009 and we are very eager to see what adventures our users will have in it.

Describe the different character classes for us.

The four classes in WonderKing are the Swordsman, Mage, Scout, and Thief. Each of these classes may take one of two paths that fit their play style.

The Swordsman uses either a melee weapon and a shield, or a two-hander to fight enemies. The Swordsman’s main attribute is strength, which mainly adds to the attack power of the Swordsman, but we also wanted the Swordsman to play the role of tank in WonderKing. Generally the Swordsman class has the highest HP and defense, thus, unofficially, vitality is another main attribute of the Swordsman. The Swordsman eventually may take the path of a mighty defender, the Knight, or, an offensive juggernaut, the Warrior.

The Mage brings powerful elemental spells into combat. It is the only class to be able to break through elemental weaknesses of enemies. Their defense against physical attacks pales in comparison to other classes, but they have the highest magic defense to make up for it. They also utilize their intelligence to bring about the most firepower in their spells, while accruing wisdom to increase their mana pool. The Mage will have the option of taking the path of either the benevolent Saint or the fearsome Wizard.

A Thief in Windus believes fortune is grasped by one’s very own hands. The Thief class utilizes its luck attribute into masterful display of critical strikes and evasion. Using twin daggers and ninja stars as their weapons of choice, a Thief fights with nimble strikes and meticulous calculations, knowing thatluck is on their side. A Thief will be able to take the path of a merciless Rogue or a deadly Ninja.

Lastly, Scouts set the foundations of all ranged attacks in Windus. They depend on a sure hand and a sure shot, thus relying heavily on their dexterity to pull them through. They are able to use nature’s energy to blast away enemies that get too close to them and use traps to make sure they never come near again. The Scout’s eventual path leads them to the slick and reckless Gunner or an Archer, the child of nature.

What influenced the design of the characters?

We were influenced heavily by putting ourselves in a user’s perspective. We wanted to give each of the basic classes a specific role to play in WonderKing, but we wanted to keep in mind that users would want to expand on each class’s strengths or even erase their deficiencies through skill and stat points, thus defying class descriptions.

Additionally, many of the designs of the character skills can be found in roots of Asian/European history and Japanese animation. For example, a ninja is a warrior with unorthodox combat capabilities. The art of illusion, misdirection, and espionage is in its historical roots. The usage of gunpowder was more for trickery to real ninjas, but we tweaked it up a bit to use gunpowder to couple with ninja stars so that we can use them to create an explosive fire impact in a fight. Another example of Asian history being prevalent is the variety of Warrior/Berserker skills. We designed a Warrior’s skill to project more of a dragon in fiery form.

The base design of character appearance came from Japanese animation. From the determined big eyes to the cute hairstyles, these can be found in various Japanese animations. Our Gunslinger class has a more futuristic “mecha” type of look as well. Overall, our imagination and alterations of images from different roots came to be the design of the many aspects of WonderKing.