MMORPG: Give us your philosophy behind OverSoul. The game has some great aspects to it.
Milton Pool: First, I'd like to thank MMORPG for interviewing us about the OverSoul game. I've been following your site ever since I discovered MMORPGs. As a gamer myself, it's surreal to actually be on your site talking about my own game. I've always loved strategy games that are slightly unpredictable. Card games interested me because of the randomness of drawing cards from a deck and using them to the best of your ability. I noticed a lot of the battle cards games didn't have a lot of visually interesting affects to show the actions of the cards. So that's how OverSoul began…I wanted to add living characters to the concept that you could see carry out the card's actions in glorious combat!
MMORPG: How are you combining elements from Collectible Card Games with MMORPGs in OverSoul?
Milton Pool: You find and collect your characters in PvE. You explore a world map to find new characters. The characters you encounter can be really random. Once you defeat a character, you have the option to possess them. Possession also has a chance to fail. Rare characters are harder to find and to possess. Many players become hunters in that they want to collect all the difficult to find characters, which can be quite difficult.
Currently, there are over 100 characters in-game. All of them can be captured and leveled up. Many of the characters have Rank ups where they can upgrade that character's look and card deck. There are four possible ranks up: Apprentice, Veteran, Master, and Legendary.
Players start off in a home town where you can chat and duel with other players online.
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MMORPG: What are some of your favorite cards in the game? Which ones did you enjoy creating the most?
Milton Pool: The special cards are the most fun to make and play. I had the most fun adding the Ice card specials. It started out the most underpowered element. But now it has the most synergy. You can build up a great defense and take that total defense number and unleash a massive attack with it. It's a fun tactic! All the elements are powerful in their own way. Once elemental counters are in effect, every element will have a nemesis!
MMORPG: Players can have some intense competition in the game. How does PvP work?
Milton Pool: You have two choices in how to enter PvP: you can click on your opponent and submit a request to duel them directly; or you can click the Random PvP button and get placed into a battle with a random player in town. You have the option to turn off all PvP requests as well.
PvP will be a major feature of OverSoul. You can take your collection of characters and battle other players found in town. A leader board is in the works so that the highest ranking PvP players will have their names and statues placed in the middle of the town for everyone else to see.
Soon we also want to add team play, where players can queue up multiple friends and characters to battle against other players.
The players have gotten really good and I’ve have a hard time keeping up with the competition in-game now. I use the same cards as the players have access to so I don't have any instant win cards...yet. So I get to see my loss posted all over social networks. Oh, the humiliation... it's a good time!
MMORPG: Can you give us some background on the OverSoul world and lore?
Milton Pool: It stems from my character, Nulgath the Arch Fiend, who started in another Artix game, AdventureQuest Worlds. Nulgath had a secret lair that only a small population of hardcore players knew about and could actually find. He gave out quests that were extremely difficult but had great rewards.
Nulgath had a war against his apprentice, Dage the Evil. After a brutal battle, Nulgath ended up defeating Dage (at least that's how I remember it). Content with his victory in AdventureQuest Worlds, Nulgath came to the land of OverSoul to conquer a new world and devour more delicious souls. This is where you as a player begin your journey.
Essentially, you start the game already dead... Nulgath has killed you, but there's some good news: your soul escapes oblivion. You soon discover you have the ability to possess other physical beings as great as dragons or as small as a pixie and anything in between. You are an OverSoul! You hear that there are seven Crystal artifacts, imbued by ancient magic, that may hold the information you desire to restore your body and soul to their original condition. But no one knows where they are, of course. So your search begins!
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MMORPG: How can players get involved in the collecting aspects of the game? Where can they find rare cards?
Milton Pool: Currently, card customization is in the works. Once this feature is complete, you'll be able to find cards on monsters you've defeated or purchase them through NPCs. There'll also be many hidden dungeons with boss monsters and secret NPCs for you to find that will hold special cards for you to collect. As of now, characters are collected for the card decks they already hold. Soon, you'll be able to add new cards to the character's deck.
MMORPG: Players not only can act as heroes in the game but also can play as monsters. How does that work?
Milton Pool: Any character, monster or beast, can be possessed in the game but there will also be an alignment system. For instance, say you're playing as a good Paladin but later decide you want to play as an Evil Undead. You'll need to work your way into being evil aligned before you can rank up and use your Evil Undead character. You can still possess a character of any alignment but within the rank up system you will be limited by your alignment.
MMORPG: What are your plans for OverSoul moving forward? How are you approaching the new year?
Milton Pool: OverSoul has just started and despite all the interesting and challenging things you can do, we have so much more to add. It's crazy, each week we are working to get new features into the game. Currently, we're working on the leader boards, quest systems, character stats, artifacts, dungeon crawls, elemental counters, friends list, and smarter monster AI. Not to mention, constantly adding new characters to find to an expanding world.
We’ve already started developing the storyline and quest features as well as card customization. I'm really excited for card customization as it'll allow players to truly build the unique play style they desire with any character they own!
OverSoul is the first game I've developed and it's been a blast! I'm excited to see it evolve and grow! OverSoul is Free to Play so I encourage any gamers to give it a try to see if it's for you: http://oversoul.artix.com/
Again, I'd like to thank MMORPG for being the first to take a look at our game and seeing what we're about. Thank you from the OverSoul team: Artix, Warlic, Rolith, Klunk, Dilligaf, and Revontheus!
