Late last month, the upcoming indie MMORPG Ravendawn Online made the leap into its first open beta. The game features deep character customization and crafting systems along with old-school tab-targeting combat and a charming 2.5D pixel art style. In order to dive deeper into the game’s development and its systems, I had the opportunity to chat with CEO and Director Nicolas Schrik.
MMORPG.com: Can you please introduce yourself, studio, and provide a little background on Ravendawn Online?
Nicolas Schrik: My name is Nicolas “Knighter” Schrik, I’m the CEO of Tavernlight Games and Game Director of Ravendawn Online. I’ve been an MMORPG fan since I was very young, almost exclusively playing MMORPGs for the majority of my life. There are very few MMORPGs that I have not played in some capacity, others significantly more such as FFXI, WoW, Archeage, Tibia, and RuneScape to name a few (in order of playtime).
Ravendawn has been in development since 2017, with a year of concept phasing leading up to 2017. In late 2020 the project was publicly announced and in August of 2021 we had our first Public Alpha (Alpha 1). We have since had 5 total Alphas & a Closed Beta over the last 2 years, and two weeks ago went into Open Beta! It has been amazing to see our Discord community grow from 1000 members to over 26000 members since Alpha 1.
MMORPG.com: Immediately after logging into Ravendawn for the first time, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia from a few games I used to love in the past. Were there any specific inspirations that you drew from when designing/developing Ravendawn?
Nicolas Schrik: Absolutely, we like to say Ravendawn is a melting pot of all our favorite aspects of various MMORPGs! We’ve taken inspiration from many projects and tried to finetune systems and design principles we felt were strong from each project but perhaps had their own weaknesses either on release or discovered post-release. The most obvious inspiration (as the visual of a game is often the most apparent and powerful) is our unique Perspective and Pixel Art style that was inspired by Ultima Online & Tibia, additionally, the grid style for combat and movement. While both of these can be jarring for a modern MMORPG player, it allows us to do very unique combat situations, puzzles, and world-building elements, which is always our focus first and foremost. The perspective, while can take a 60-minute play session to get used to for some, but the unique perspective allows us the ability to add more depth to our pixel art as a whole, allowing for a 2.5d hybrid as opposed to simply flat 2d assets.
Our studio, Tavernlight Games, follows our own internal mission of building MMORPG experiences focused on depth of gameplay, community worldbuilding, and unique character design over “empty graphics”. We feel the true value of an MMORPG has been lost over recent years. It seems many developers now have a hyper-fixation on the way the game looks, rather than the things that we feel make an MMORPG great, community, customization, and world-building.
In terms of gameplay, we have taken combat inspiration from WoW & BDO alike. Class and Trading system inspiration from Archeage. Crafting and Gathering inspiration from FFXIV, and world-building from Guild Wars 2. We feel there is tremendous value in learning from the titans of the industry, and then applying that learning with our own Indie touch.
MMORPG.com: Now Ravendawn just entered its first Open Beta at the end of last month. What was the journey like getting there and how has reception been from the public?
Nicolas Schrik: The journey to Open Beta has been an adventure! We've faced our fair share of dungeons and dragons, metaphorically speaking of course. But jokes aside, we’ve been blessed to have had a very smooth development process, especially in our public phases of testing. While we’ve had issues come up of course, majority of our time has been able to be focused on purely improving, expanding and refining the world of Ravendawn to be the best it can be.
Throughout the process, we've had an exceptionally close relationship with our community, even with 26,000 active members, we are very engaged, speaking daily directly with the community. The community is the lifeblood of a good MMORPG, so we spend a great deal of time listening to our community’s feedback and making sure Ravendawn evolves in a direction that resonates with them.
As for the reception of the Open Beta, it's been overwhelmingly positive, which has been both humbling and energizing for our team. We've seen players dive headfirst into the world of Ravendawn, forming new alliances, building their homes and cultivating their land, conquering challenges, and exploring all (or attempting to atleast) the customization it has to offer! It's a true testament to the passion and dedication of our team at Tavernlight Games. But rest assured, we haven’t and won’t let it go to our heads – we celebrate the milestones, but we’re always focused on perfecting and expanding the world of Ravendawn to ensure we build the best possible project for years to come.
MMORPG.com: How large of a game is Ravendawn Online in its current state, and what plans do you have for it by the official release and future development?
Nicolas Schrik: Determining how Ravendawn measures up in size compared to other games is of course quite subjective. While it’s easy to create a gigantic world where a significant portion consists of empty, purposeless space, in designing Ravendawn, we prioritized ensuring that every part of the world served a purpose and told a compelling story. With that, the Ravendawn world is incredibly dense with content that continually changes and evolves through dynamic events.
Furthermore, every area of the world is accessible to players, from the deepest caves to the farthest reaches of the ocean and every island in between, all rich with secrets and mysteries to be discovered.
Quests are another prime example. In Alpha 3, we removed a considerable number of quests from the game in favor of a more engaging and immersive approach. Instead of offering monotonous, uneventful tasks, we ensured that every quest provided insights into Ravendawn's lore and captivated players with unique storylines along the way.
What we can confidently state is that our game's modular design allows us to develop captivating content at an impressive pace. Our community members, who have followed our progress from Alpha 1 through to the Open Beta, have witnessed the rapid addition of vast amounts of new content to our already expansive world. However, to answer a difficult question a bit better (without the usual buzz things most MMORPG studios will say “The biggest world ever, 1000000km of world, blah blah”) in over 100 days of available gameplay testing uptime to date, no one has explored more than half of Ravendawn’s content yet.
MMORPG.com: Upon logging in, I was surprised with how many players were wandering around the initial start zone and how active the world chat was. Around how many players did you have during the beta and did this meet or exceed expectations?
Nicolas Schrik: We've definitely been taken aback by the reception of the Beta thus far. It's been incredible to see the spread of excitement and the rapid growth we've experienced from the last test phase to this one. Over the weekend, we surpassed 40,000 unique accounts playing the Beta, a huge leap from the 22,000 we had throughout the entire previous phase. We're thrilled to see our community and player base expand so swiftly as we get closer to Ravendawn's full release later this year.
We take a very organic approach to our marketing, and work hard to build up content creators, no matter their size, instead of simply throwing money at ads and paid content creation. While approaching release we will have a serious marketing push of course, we’ve been exceptionally pleased with how large the community has already become and the amount of active accounts considering it has been virtually all word of mouth to this point. We believe that by focusing on investing in building a game rich with depth, customization, and world-building, players will naturally share their excitement. Every MMORPG enthusiast can relate to the thrill of being utterly captivated by a new world and feeling the irresistible urge to share that experience with friends to come play with them! There's no advertising strategy stronger than the organic buzz generated by a captivating game that fosters a strong sense of community.
MMORPG.com: During my time with the open beta, I was impressed with the complexity of the skill/class system in Ravendawn. The option to mix three different classes together provides the option for a ton of distinct build ideas. What other unique or creative gameplay ideas does Ravendawn have or are planned for the future?
Nicolas Schrik: While our Class System (AKA Archetype System) offers tremendous depth, the true depth comes with our Ravencard System. To TL;DR for the reader, In Ravendawn we have 8 Archetypes that each represent a playstyle, each with their own ability and passive trees for the player to build in. In Ravendawn you have the ability to use 3 Archetypes at a time to create your “Class”, which is really just a representation of your chosen 3 Archetypes, how your playstyle is within that class is based on how to explore your Archetype ability & passive trees.
While this is already a sizable amount of character customization, we also have collectible cards within the game called Ravencards. Each Ravencard is a full card art illustration of a creature from the world of Ravendawn, these cards can be equipped in spells to further change how the spell performs or behaves, allowing for an enormous additional level of customization to your character. This was inspired by my personal nostalgia for Pokemon and other TCGs, where we wanted to add a collectible element to Ravendawn while also continuing to build on our depth of customization design principle.
I could ramble for 2 hours on the amount of customization and player choice here such as our Reputation System, Managing your own non-instanced land & housing, Outfit Customizations, and more, but I will leave that for the reader to explore by playing
MMORPG.com: Speaking of content, endgame activities are usually important to keeping an MMORPG player base engaged over the long haul. What will the endgame be like in Ravendawn?
Nicolas Schrik: Late-game content is undeniably essential for the longevity of an MMORPG, and it is a big focal point of how we develop the game to ensure a strong content cycle at late game. We believe that the most effective approach to creating engaging and endless late-game content is by developing robust player-driven endgame systems [that] build upon and complement each other in an organic way.
Rather than imposing a rigid definition of what endgame should be, we provide the foundational elements that facilitate a dynamic and captivating experience. In Ravendawn, endgame content revolves around several key systems: Dynamic Events that unfold throughout the game world, the Political System that drives diplomacy and conflict, the Castle Siege System which promotes thrilling Guild vs. Guild PvP battles, and the Tradepack System that fosters player conflict and cooperation.
By offering these diverse building blocks, we empower our players to shape their own endgame experiences, ensuring the long-term appeal and success of Ravendawn within the MMORPG landscape.
MMORPG.com: Another thing I was curious about is the planned monetization of Ravendawn. At the moment, Open Beta access is free but players can support the game through optional packs that provide cosmetic bonuses. How will this change once the game officially releases?
Nicolas Schrik: Currently we have not finalized monetization plans for Ravendawn's release. Our team is exploring various ideas and actively engaging with the community to strike the right balance between sustaining the studio and the project long-term, while also being the least invasive to the user experience.
Until now, our primary revenue stream has been the sale of "Founders Packs," which include a range of cosmetic items and granted early access to Ravendawn, dating back to our first Alpha test phase two years ago. With the Open Beta, these packs are no longer required for accessing the game and serve as an entirely optional purchase for those interested in acquiring the cosmetics from the packs.
MMORPG.com: To build on the last question, it seems that Ravendawn has a sister game in Raven Quest that has some unique monetization concepts, mainly using blockchain and NFTs. Can you briefly explain RavenQuest and how it’s related to Ravendawn?
Nicolas Schrik: RavenQuest is a development fork of Ravendawn, meaning they share the same core updates in terms of content and game design. However, RavenQuest is designed as a "Web 2.5" game. While not fully based on blockchain like Web3 games, it does incorporate some blockchain elements.
Allowing for both of these titles to fuel and build upon each other has opened enormous doors for the project as a whole. It has allowed us to rapidly grow the studio and team behind developing the world of Ravendawn and create the best Traditional MMORPG with Ravendawn, and a unique Web 2.5 MMORPG with RavenQuest, each having their own strong communities and userbases.
We recognize that many traditional gamers may be wary of blockchain games, which is entirely reasonable and understandable. We're committed to respecting these preferences and maintaining clear boundaries between the two projects. We never push RavenQuest or blockchain gaming upon our Ravendawn Community and the classic MMORPG fanbase we have behind Ravendawn. Since announcing RavenQuest a year and a half ago, while also having its own quite large community and userbase behind it, we do not cross-promote RavenQuest upon our Ravendawn community for respect of the individual communities' preferences of game styles.
MMORPG.com: I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions regarding Ravendawn Online. Is there anything else you would like the MMORPG.com readers to know about your game?
Nicolas Schrik: Certainly, it's always a pleasure to carve out time for opportunities like this. Our studio is immensely passionate about the world we're crafting, and we value any chance to spread the word about Ravendawn. We truly appreciate your efforts to provide the MMORPG community with additional insights into our creative endeavor. Thank you for helping us share our vision with a wider audience!
In the end, we wholeheartedly encourage everyone to dive into Ravendawn and experience it firsthand! While I could wax poetic for hours about our team's unwavering passion for Ravendawn and the importance we feel it has in the current MMORPG landscape, the most important thing is that the game is fun to you the player!
We hope you enjoy the world we have built, while unorthodox in many aspects, but brim with heartfelt dedication behind it. Happy Adventuring!
