Sword of the New World: Interview with Phil Maurer
In this first in a series of articles, Phil Maurer, the Operations Team Lead for the upcoming MMORPG, Sword of the New World joins Garrett Fuller to answer his questions.
| MMORPG.com: | Granado Espada has had tremendous success in the Asian Market. Can you tell us the reaction you have had from players in the U.S.? |
| Phil Maurer: | So far our focus groups have shown incredibly positive response to Sword of the New World. The game play is fast and fun, and the graphics make people want to keep exploring to see what is in the next area. In fact we have had some problems with how much fun the game is. We are currently doing in house testing and more then a few of our support staff was staying up late playing sword and not sleeping, we ended up having to place limits on some accounts. |
| MMORPG.com: | How do you feel the game will translate into the North American market? |
| Phil Maurer: | I feel that there will be no problems translating Sword to the Western Market, it has all the things that we expect as players from American or a European developer, such as we have a huge quest system, trading houses, diversity of classes, and depth in game play. In addition Korean Developers place great emphasis on PvP, and this game has a huge PvP system that will offer something to every type of player. What we do not have from the Korean side is the dreaded grind, that Korean titles are often associated with. In Sword the level progression is similar to other MMO's released over the past few years in the American market. |
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| MMORPG.com: | Why was the choice made to add the title "Sword of the New World" to the game? |
| Phil Maurer: | We decided to go with a new name to differentiate our version from the currently existing versions of the title that are offered in other markets. We will have additional content as well as a more involved storyline and expanded quest system from the other versions of the game. |
| MMORPG.com: | The Victorian theme in the game is certainly a different step for MMO genres. How did you come to using a Victorian style in the game? |
| Phil Maurer: | I was speaking with Hakkyu Kim the developer of this game at a press event, and he told me that while he was visiting London on a press demo for a previous title, and was struck by the architecture of the area and decided that he wanted to build a game around that look. |
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| MMORPG.com: | Can you tell us about the Families in the game? How do players set up and use their Family to accomplish quests? |
| Phil Maurer: | When you first log into the game after creating your account, you will be prompted to choose a Family name. From that point on all characters you create carry that as their last name. |
| MMORPG.com: | What type of engine was used on the graphics? The look of the game is very colorful and crisp. |
| Phil Maurer: | It is a proprietary engine that IMC developed for the game. The engine scales very well on low end systems, the system requirements are actually surprisingly low for the quality of the graphics. |
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| MMORPG.com: | In the game players can adventure with a three person team. How does this balance out and work in the PvE environment? |
| Phil Maurer: | Actually the game is based on always having control of three characters, and is very well balanced. With the stance system in the game, and the fact that these level up with use, you characters become strong to fit your game style. So even if you have 3 players with identical classes at the max level they will play very different as they most likely chose to use different stances. So far no stance or set of characters seems over powered. You may be able to deal lots of Damage with 3 elementalists in your group, but you will not be able to heal tank or use crowd control. |
| MMORPG.com: | Will there be a plan at some point to link East and West server so players can interact? |
| Phil Maurer: | Not at this time, as we have adjusted many things in the game and they have somewhat different content. In the future who knows what might happen, we listen to our player base and try to add things that they want. |
| MMORPG.com: | What other plans are there for Granado Espada in the future? Give us some insight into the next several months. |
| Phil Maurer: | This is hard to answer as we have a lot of ideas in development and we are waiting to see what the players want so we can roll out the features that are really going to improve the experience of our players. The motto of K2 Network is "Gamers First" we listen to our player base and add in features and web assests to meet the needs of our players. I can say we have some surprises set up in terms of events for the players that we are currently keeping under wraps. There is one other thing I can tell you, on our website we plan to offer a clan and player social networking site that players will be able to manage and facilitate communications between clan members easily and privately. |
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You didn't ask the most crucial question. "Are you going to suck at hosting this game as you have so many others in the passed?"
they can not answer at this time...i can say YES they will suck....
Somewhere between the parries/dodges and half-answered questions, I think. Did he actually SAY anything? I mean, like stuff we didn't already know, or even mattered really.
ive played sgGE(SotNW is a rip off to me) closed beta and i must say its very well done with almost NO bugs
its very very easy and still challenging when doing some dungeon quests
i didnt even play 100hours total and im an addict already lol
Sorry i cannot answer that at this time. Jeez.
Does all the asian games have the same artist? Characters always look the same. Looks bland. I think i'm done with asian MMO's. Especially if they utilize stalls to sell items and supa-malls to buy items with cash.
Hey Mr. Wood is there any possiblity we can pu together a list of questions to ask next time. Not that I didn't love your questions but, some of them weren't really what I was hoping we would get.
Any, I just thought it'd be cool if the community could get a couple questions in
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Jeez Garrett, why not ask him the one question everyone wants to hear, what about K2's dismal performance in the past?
The shame of it is, it seems to be a pretty good game, unfortunately going to be run by a bunch of yahoos whose only aim in life is to exploit the playerbase.
Uh..where's the interview?
Apologies, but why on earth did you even bother to post this, Mr. Wood? My interest in this title is vague at best, but that's not exactly an interview worth the screen its displayed on. So they have a proprietary graphics engine. Let me try not to be too sarcastic... That the game will scale well on low-end machines is possibly the only piece of information in the whole piece.
Hey, why are *all* asian MMOs either anime-esque or a bunch of white-haired pretty boys towing along a bunch of supermodels with over-sized jubblies jiggling about?
(not that I mind over-sized jubblies flopping about)
Also, to the interviewer - the art style of the game is Baroque, not Victorian. This is based on 1700's, not 1800's. Just an FYI.
Two good pieces of information:
No Lineage II style grind
Art engine scales
I've been reading ever GE site I could find, and could never find clear comments on leveling. Here's hoping to get in the next crop of Singapore GE beta testing.
chee, he couldn't even answer why they changed the name to SoTNW -_-
that's the second most controversial topic D:
How about calling it:
"Big Potatoe Shines Bright"
HAHA....
if i could choose to play a mmo i really like (say WoW, EQ 1, Vanguard etc) with the asian characters that would be awesome...as far as i know asian design looks so much better then americans...but every game has to have different styles...
just think of it this way...some or most of the cartoons on television is coming or originating for asian countries...
To the person who mentioned the Asian art style: I do agree, the characters are pretty much becoming cookie cutters of bland, uninteresting archetypes. But I think with some people it's just matter of preference, I for one like my male protagonists to lack in the muscle dept.
I played the sGE closed beta fairly briefly, and I have to say the gameplay is pretty fun. The game has an implemented style where you can leave your party grinding while you go out for a walk, etc - the downside to this being that while you're in this mode people can challenge your family to duels and kick you back into town with a loss on your little family ladder record (if you're there you can decline the duel, but it auto-accepts after a given time) also your party will not pick up gold/items - some might find that pointless, but I for one loved it. It seemed sorta geared to a casual player like me who might perhaps shower or go outside on occasion (just messing with ya, I'm virtually a hermit).
Hope I answered any questions anyone might have, I only got to lvl 20, so I don't feel like I got really into the game.
p.s.I have no experience with this company, but I'm really sad what seems to be such a lackluster group in charge.
Whoa... the post was updated. Someone actually awnsered the million dollar questions:
Why the name change
and
Will we be able to play with SG players.
One question missing...
Will there be an IP block?
Thanks MMORPG for asking the first two and getting an anwser :).
Pro: multi character is a major ++. It gives alot more versitility and combination of play.
Con: The AI is plain retarded. Smart AI my @ss.
Pro: Great graphics and i believe the best music and art ive ever seen in any MMORPG.
Con: little character customization (atleast early on). Actually now that i think about it... there is NO character customization. (in terms of apperance ofcouse)
The cons in GE's case are generally already established standard in other games. The odd fact is, i wonder why none of it is implemented.
And reguarding a post inquring about the title "The Sword of the New World".
The game takes place in the baroque period, quite close to the time of imperialism and when Europeans were making the 'New World'. And as a character in this New World, your the 'sword' (weapon) in this world. Hence the title.
hello every1 i'm new here, i wana ask a question is this game f2p (free 2 play) ???