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Dragon Oath Interviews: Interview With Martin Tan
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller recently spoke with Martin Tan, the General Manager of ChangYou.com (US) about their upcoming item shop based MMORPG, Dragon Oath.
By Garrett Fuller on November 22, 2009
| MMORPG.com: | Give us the status of Dragon Oath right now, how is the game moving along? |
| Martin Tan: | Dragon Oath entered Open Beta on Nov. 5th. We have met all of our internal goals for Closed Beta and this good trend is continuing. We are still seeing a steady rise in new players. Our team is now preparing for three things, (i) A Thanksgiving update that will encompass 2 weeks of holiday events, (ii) the launch of Dragon Oath's Item Mall and (iii) the launch of Dragon Oath's first expansion pack in Early February. |
| MMORPG.com: | The classes in Dragon Oath are very interesting; tell us a little about the name and idea behind your favorite class. |
| Martin Tan: | Dragon Oath has nine classes: Pyromancer, Lotus Order, Royalty, Minstrel, Taoist, Voodoo, Assassin, Beggars Alliance and Shaolin. I love "The Pyromancer" most. Pyromancer Kung Fu is characterized by preemptive attacks; they give up defense for a short while in order to have the most powerful attack among "The Nine Classes". Pyromancers believe the Holy Fire will bless them to be reborn and will choose to die in combat rather than flee from battle. Pyromancers' slogan is "When hungry, eat rice. When tired, close your eyes. When being attacked by murderous enemies, keep fighting." I just like mixing it up in hand to hand and the ability to summon huge gouts of flames to destroy my enemies! Lotus is also very popular as it has healing abilities, and I also like the poisons offered by some of the other classes. Actually, in Dragon Oath, players will always find a class that suits their distinct gameplay styles. |
| MMORPG.com: | What type of feedback have you gotten from players in Open Beta? |
| Martin Tan: | The feedback we have got from users so far is that Dragon Oath is of comparable quality as some of the better MMORPGs in the U.S. Our users are especially interested in our huge variety of pets and mounts. Not only can they breed their own pets, but they are also thrilled by the 24/7 continuous live in-game events. These are features they typically will not find in other games. We are delighted with some of the positive feedback received and the momentum we are seeing in the game. |
| MMORPG.com: | Give us an idea on how your development team works with the feedback they receive. |
| Martin Tan: | As we moved into Open Beta and receive even more suggestions from players, we will look at the possible ways in which we can utilize players' feedback for future releases because we are always interested in creating games with features that players would like to see. With the game having been in operation in China for over 2 years, the current version of our game already incorporates the ideas of many players. For example, when we first launched the Chinese version of Dragon Oath in China, it didn't have as many pets and mounts as we have in the game today. It was only later, after our users told us what other types of pets and mounts they would like to have in the game that we added these features in. Same for armor sets. We believe players in the US will benefit from all these add-on items that will make their playing experience more fun and fulfilling. Also, we will be opening up many new features for the Open Beta, such as "Martial Arts Battle", an event in which every class will choose contestants to represent the class to fight and at the end of the battle, all members of the winning class will receive 3x of the normal quest rewards for a period of time after the event. In celebrations of the Open Beta launch, we will be holding special events both in-game and off-line, and will be giving away many great gifts. For more updates, players are welcome to visit our website www.DragonOath.com. |
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| MMORPG.com: | The Martial Arts battle is a very cool idea. Tell us about how it works. |
| Martin Tan: | The Martial Arts Battle is a huge PvP event that pits each class against one another to see which one is truly the strongest. It opens every Thursday from 7:00pm to 8:00pm and every Sunday from 3:00pm to 4:00pm. Every class will choose contestants to represent the class in the battle. All members of the winning class will receive 3x the normal quest rewards for a period of time after the event. It's really fun to represent your class and show your dominance over other gamers from the other eight classes in the game. It's very rare to see class-based PVP in an MMORPG, but it works very well in Dragon Oath and our players like it a lot. |
| MMORPG.com: | Tell us about some of the other events that occur in game, which is your favorite? |
| Martin Tan: | Dragon Oath has over 100 automated in-game events running 24/7. We have added yet another exciting new event to Open Beta - the Kung Fu World Soccer Challenge. This is a monthly event, scheduled for the first Sunday of each month. It is my favorite! Players bring a strong team of three or more players to the arena for a soccer match like no other. More like a soccer nightmare, they will have to fight the way past a seemingly endless onslaught of ferocious soccer balls before earning the right to battle their captain to claim the ultimate prize in this game for soccer supremacy. Players that participate in this event will gain MASSIVE amounts of experience points, rare item drops, and the Chance to take down the Soccer queen! Careful, she bites. |
| MMORPG.com: | What is something you'd like to say to players who might not have heard of Dragon Oath before? |
| Martin Tan: | Dragon Oath is the English version of TLBB (Tian Long Ba Bu), one of the most popular online games in China. It is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) set in ancient China. The game allows players to engage themselves in ancient Chinese folklore and take part in captivating quests that tell the tales of warriors and diplomats from this time period. It emphasizes teamwork and community and boasts over 300 different martial arts skills, 136 armor sets with up to 116 million combinations of weapons, over 200 pets with up to 80,000 combinations, and 100 automated daily in-game live events 24/7. Dragon Oath offers many features, but I think what U.S. players will value most about the game is the Community. The combination of martial arts and community building has a strong appeal. Fighting-based games often have high player participation when they are launched due to the excitement level of the content, but users may leave rapidly as their initial enthusiasm fades. Conversely, community-based offerings can experience more gradual growth as they build their relationships with each other. They also tend to have longer life spans since these bonds strengthen over time. From the very beginning, Dragon Oath was built to be a community-based MMORPG that promotes players to form teams to complete quests rather than simply moving up levels by fighting. Therefore, players who thrive on interactions and cooperation with others will definitely find Dragon Oath appealing. |
| MMORPG.com: | There is a deep cultural influence in Dragon Oath with classes like the Shaolin, and Taoist. Explain some of the history behind the game. |
| Martin Tan: | Dragon Oath is adapted from a very popular Chinese martial arts fiction "Tian Long Ba Bu" (Tale of Eight Demigods). The game incorporates many missions and activities that follow the original storyline. The main thematic element of the novel concerns the complex, and often troubled relationships between the great multitude of characters from various kingdoms and sects, and the inherent bond that underlies the struggles of each. Ultimately, the novel examines the cause and effect that forms and breaks these bonds on five uniquely corresponding levels: self, family, society, ethnic group, and country (dominion). These elements allow players to develop their own personalized experiences, and also to foster virtual social relationships, which we have designed to appeal across a diverse range of interests. |
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| MMORPG.com: | When can we expect to see Dragon Oath ready for launch? |
| Martin Tan: | We will hit "retail" release very soon. Our item mall will be open at the end of November. We will make further announcement on that. |
| MMORPG.com: | How will players be able to get into the Open Beta if that have not already done so? |
| Martin Tan: | It only takes a couple of steps, as easy as pie. First, head over to our registration page to register an account. Second, download the client. Dragon Oath isn't a cheap flash game, so you're going to have to download it onto your computer! Head on over to the download page via direct download or Bit Torrent. Then you need to decide on a class. We've laid out a class breakdown on our website that will help you find the right fit for your play style. You may also want to register on our forum to view updates and take part in discussion forums. The Dragon Oath staff really takes players' opinions into consideration when modifying the game. By keeping a sharp eye on our forums, you will find information on upcoming events, so that you can make every preparation necessary to dominate and win some prizes. Actually, everything you need to know about how to enter the world of Dragon Oath is in our starter's guide. Come explore the rich culture in Dragon Oath's recreation of the ancient Chinese world. The game is deeply ingrained with facets of Chinese history and mythologies. Enjoy stunning visuals of the ancient cities, and traditional and not so traditional ancient clothing for your avatar. You will also experience beautifully rendered avatar skills, with stunningly vivid effects. |
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I'm currently looking for a new game to play, and this is a new game. However, the concept of this game sounds generic in this day and age. There's a whole list of F2P MMORPG's that focus on Chinese folklore and martial arts. There's only a couple things that may set this game apart, but all of these games have at least 1 or 2 things that set them apart. It doesn't make them worth playing though. The person said that the community is the biggest draw, but I haven't had good experiences with the type of community F2P games draw.
I'll keep checking back to see what the community here has to say about the game. Perhaps some people here has played it and has some convincing argument why this game is worth playing, especially over all the other F2P games.
I haven't played it, but here's what I envision when I think of playing it.
* I get excited as I download the game, because I get to try out some new class concepts.
* After a few hours of play, I find out that I played this class concept before in a different game, under a different class name.
* Combat is similar to other games, as is the collecting and doing of quests.
* I start to hear that the game gets really grindy later on, and that you can lessen the grind by buying xp boosting pots.
* Knowing that I'll never reach high levels in a timely enough manner to reach the good stuff before the next MMORPG is released, which may offer better features, I quit and uninstall the game.
* The I reflect back on the wasted time I spent in the game, that I could have used to advance a character I already created in another game that had better gameplay and more features.
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'* Knowing that I'll never reach high levels in a timely enough manner to reach the good stuff before the next MMORPG is released, which may offer better features, I quit and uninstall the game.'
This is, sadly, the state of MMO's. People try to enforce their single player console mentalities on a genre that was meant to be something more. Considering how long it takes to get one character to max level and experience even half of the quests in any particular game along with the ridiculous number of MMOs that are released every year, it sounds fake to say things like this. It sounds as if you want your MMO to allow you to reach max level and experience all content in a week because that's about how soon the newest game took to come out. Looking at how quickly games fall out of favor it seems like most players take this attitude with most MMO's so to waste time trying to make it sound like this game is especially bad/bland/whatever is just bad form.
Things are much more complicated than a mere simplification of one comment. For instance, if a person is a group oriented player, that person must keep up with the majority of the community if they want an easy time finding a group. Normally, that person may not care if it takes 1 or even 2 years to level up, but because that person wants to experience all the content in the game, that person must be the same level as the majority of group oriented players. So when the major source of your team mates are hardcore gamers, who spend 6-8 hours a day leveling up their character, you must also adopt a hardcore attitude or except that you'll be left behind and will have to spend potentially long periods of time finding a group.
So yes, here and now is a bad attitude to have for a MMO and I didn't mean it the way you took it, but on the same token todays community is the result of that mentality anyways. Besides, we're talking about Asian MMO #200, and we all know how fast they push those games out. What's impressive is that each year a F2P game comes out with interesting features that's better than the games before it. So your comment also isn't fair when you consider that the market is flooded with MMORPG's and not enough time to play them all. When that happens, a person must either pick and choose which games to play, missing the majority of them, or the games must evolve to be beaten in a shorter amount of time. With P2P MMO's the former is especially true. In F2P MMO's, the former can hold true if the game is actually worth investing time in, but the latter usually holds true.
For instance, I challenge you to find me unique F2P MMO's with dedicated communities. I can name Runes of Magic, Atlantica Online, and Perfect World. On the face of each game, they are all different from each other significantly. However, there are 3-5 F2P MMO's a year that promise the world and fail to deliver. The above 3 games didn't get their good reputation over night either. It took a while for them to distinguish themselves as better than their competitors. Even still, F2P MMO's are easily replaced by better ones, making all that time invested a big waste of time.
Smart people don't foolishly blow their time on something that won't be worth that time in a short bit of time. Why is a F2P MMO not worth the time usually? Because the F2P community migrates from one game to the next, always moving to the next best thing, since the barrier to entry is low. So you may get to level 30 for example, and then the next best thing comes out and most people move there, making the 30 levels you gained a big waste of time. So the speed at which a person should be able to progress through the game isn't really about how impatient the person is, like you seem to intepret, yet it's about how you MUST level fast if you're to see all the group content before the majority of the community jumps ship to the new game.
well I was in the closed beta on this game and what I can tell you is, the game don't have anything new, the lack of information can make you choose a class you will not like, like I choose the taoist more for the history of a taoist and because they use swords, then later I find it more like a mage class, he really don't use his sword at all, its nice and all but, I don't feel like it bring anything new, I normally would play more but after I hit the lvl 15 I just log off and uninstall the game.
motives for it, the same thing I said when they asked me on my e-mail, lack of information of the classes, and the game have nothing new, go here bash monster, spawn skills, low on mp or hp rest a little ad go back. lack of that feeling you will see something new, to make a party is the normal setup. in the end I don't find this game fun, just because have a lot of better F2P games out there, if this game as come like 2 or 3 years before they would have something nice.
if you think its a nice game and want to test it go ahead is free anyway.
"So the speed at which a person should be able to progress through the game isn't really about how impatient the person is, like you seem to intepret, yet it's about how you MUST level fast if you're to see all the group content before the majority of the community jumps ship to the new game."
Never thought of it like that. I guess having only played a few F2P MMOs, and usually solo at that, it must suck to be stuck in that rut.
All i want to say is i play dragon oath and i love it, there events make it well worth playing just check it out before you actually judge the game people!