Runes of Magic: Dev Chat Log
On November 15th, MMORPG.com hosted a dev chat with the folks from Runes of Magic. Today, we post the log from that chat in its entirety.
MMORPG_Kunou: Howdy and welcome to MMORPG.com's Live Dev Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I'm your host, MMORPG.com's Community Manager Richard "Kunou" Cox. Joining us today are members of the Runes of Magic dev team!
MMORPG_Kunou: Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question at a time, and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded. Feel free to add another question to the queue once yours is either asked or rejected.
MMORPG_Kunou: To submit your question, please /msg MMORPGBot yourquestionhere. If your question was deleted, it's probably because someone else asked the same thing first.
MMORPG_Kunou: This room will be moderated during the chat; if you want to talk during the chat, feel free to visit #rom.
MMORPG_Kunou: Now it's time for introductions! Feel free to start sending your questions to MMORPGBot while our guests introduce themselves!
Kerensky: Hi everyone. Good to be here. My name's Jörg "Kerensky" Koonen. I'm the Community Manager for the English speaking "Runes of Magic" community.
Danatros: Hello, I'm Daniel "Danatro" Ullrich the Director Product Management at Frogster Online Gaming. - Nice to be here ;)
MMORPG_Kunou: Ok then, here we go!
Question: flying4torpedo asks, "what kind of crafting skill wil there be ?"
Kerensky: There are 3 gathering skills and 7 crafting skills that allow to "create" - like carpentry and tailoring
Kerensky: You can gather materials and refine them into armour, weapons etc.
Question: vinn asks, "Are you planning add equipment buyable via Item Mall - like armors, swords? What sort of items will contain Item Mall. Maybe small example? Like new carpet to house or something like that?"
Kerensky: We are planning to sell furniture for the player housing and materials that help casual players with certain tasks.
Kerensky: There will be no weapons or armour that give paying players any advantages
Question: russandjenn asks, "When will receive more information about the "Cash Shop" items on how they affect the game and how they will impress us to spend money to keep ROM up and operating?"
MMORPG_Kunou: Just a reminder, to send in questions, please /msg MMORPGBot yourquestionhere. If your question was deleted, it's probably because someone else asked the same thing first.
Kerensky: Like I said: we are still testing a lot of things with the item shop. When these test are finalised, we'll let everyone know. Please understand that we can't pass on any information about something that we are still improving and changing at the moment.
Question: SirDayne asks, "Is there an experience point penalty when your character dies?"
Kerensky: There is a penalty - but you don't lose experience.
Kerensky: You will accumulate debt that you will then need to pay off.
Kerensky: A certain percentage of newly gained experience will go to paying off that debt. - We are still fine-tuning the details here as well.-
Question: sofia asks, "As a person who has never heard of your game up until about 10 minutes ago, describe what your game is, and what you hope to achieve in the next six months with it as far as innovative gaming goes."
Kerensky: "Runes of Magic" is a classic fantasy MMORPG. We are telling a story, it's quest driven
Kerensky: we've got a deep background story, many different themed zones... the main difference is that we don't charge a monthly fee :)
Question: vbathory asks, "will the be any pvp battle grounds in rom like there is in wow?"
Kerensky: There will be battlegrounds in Runes of Magic. But of course I don't want to compare RoM with other games. The battlegrounds will have different pvp-rules.
Question: fumi asks, "how be look pk on PvE server?"
Kerensky: I can't say much about this at the moment, as this is changing. We have had a PK-system that allowed people who flagged themselves "PK" to attack non-PK-flagged players.
Kerensky: This didn't pan out as we wanted it to be - so we are changing the system right now.
Kerensky: There's a good amount of tweaking to be done here.
Question: vinn asks, "How many raid dungeons are you planning to add in Open Beta and how will boss fights looks like? Is there gonna be tactis or simple tank & spank?"
Kerensky: We have two raid dungeons still in development, some dynamic dungeons and open ones in our current beta. But of course we would like to add a couple of others till we go to Open Beta. As you know we are planning large content for quests, pvp and of course pve-raids.
Kerensky: The two above mentioned dungeons will be opened during open beta - which starts early December. (That's the plan.)
Question: Jkooler asks, "Is it true that this MMO will surpass any free2Play MMo out there?"
Kerensky: That's a good question. :)
Kerensky: Of course we want it to be the "next big thing". Runewaker - our developer - are doing their utmost to make RoM the best MMORPG out there
Kerensky: We do need a lot of feedback from the community - the opinion of our players is still valued and we are trying to make the game appeal to as many western players as possible
Kerensky: You can still apply for beta access and join us in open beta - register on runesofmagic.com ^^
Question: CryoCode asks, "will you be able to get epic gear through pvp?"
Kerensky: You will receive epic loot and you will be able to earn some kind of epic material a epic crafter can transform into something very cool.
Kerensky: You can find runes that you can combine and then incorporate into your equipment. So you can customise your stuff any way you want.
Kerensky: That's what we are doing for a couple of months now. We are working closely with Dynamedion. These guys wrote e.g. the soundtrack for 10.000 BC and more. They are writing the music and ambience sounds, some of which is already in the game.
Kerensky: Runewaker is reworking most of the sound effects at the moment. Surely we'll have changed most of the sounds before Open Beta.
Kerensky: Oops.. I seem to have answered a question before it was posted. *blush*
Danatros: Kerensky you are too fast ;)
Kerensky: I can look into the future. :)
Question: Guest1701010664 asks, "Is this a game that is an RP/PVP game? :o"
Kerensky: RP/PvP? Well. If you you mean that PvP is part of the storyline of the game, then yes. But if you are asking whether it a Rp OR PvP game then... well
Kerensky: I can't give you a final answer - it is still work in progress and we keep changing aspects of the game according to the feedback of our players
Question: Shafylus asks, "How old is runes of magic?."
Kerensky: Runewaker is working on Runes of Magic for the last 3 1/2 years. Most of the work was put into the netcode and the engine which is completely self-developed.
Question: sofia asks, "What niche do you hope to fill in the already heaving fantasy MMO market, and how will RoM be different from anything else currently on the market at this moment in time?"
Kerensky: Runewaker has put a lot of effort into the game. They themselves are avid gamers and have taken a lot of great ideas...
Kerensky: ...and improved them. We hope that - if you guys give it a try and like it - RoM will not be a niche game.
Question: airado asks, "Will the lvl cap be higher"
Kerensky: There are no plans to raise the level cap yet. The max. level is 50.
Question: SirDayne asks, "What will you do to combat botters/cheaters?"
Kerensky: There are many safety measures implemented by Runewaker - so potential botters and cheaters should have a hard time.
Kerensky: Should somebody try to exploit bugs or anything like that, we will be banning accounts in no time.
Kerensky: (Hope that
Kerensky: ... is phrased right :)
Kerensky: We have seen botters and cheaters in many games ourselves and we are as disgusted by this as our players would be
Kerensky: As Danatross comments: Runewaker developed a lot of the game server-based. So if you would like to hack the client, you will not receive any efforts because the server itself will block your hacked client. Many games need tools like punkbuster or other cheat-protection. Any tests concerning the cheat and hack topic have been finished with a goal for the developers.
Question: WongHungLo asks, "Is there an official open beta release date? We've heard Dec. 9th, 16th, and 31st from various sources."
Kerensky: Yes... there has been some confusion in the past.
Kerensky: We are aiming to open the beta test to all registered users as early as possible.
Kerensky: The initial plan was to release in the first or second week of December but Runewaker has added a lot of new content and we want to have that in the game when we go "open"
Question: Guest6150 asks, "Will RoM be regular updated with new quests regarding the background story?"
Kerensky: Yes. We are already scheduling monthly (smaller) updates - there will be new dungeons, quests or maybe just stuff for the shop.
Kerensky: And we are planning for quaterly add-ons - which then will add a significant amount out new stuff and content. This might be new races, zones or such.
Kerensky: We will announce more at a later date because right now we want to release the game first. ;)
Question: vinn asks, "What sort of PvP content are you planning to add? Arenas? BG's? We know, that there will be Server vs Server PvP -- could you tell us something more? How often SvS will be? Will there be any PvP Armor Sets?"
Kerensky: Runes of Magic will have a lot of PvP modes: Open PvP, PvP Zones, Arena fights, open guild vs. guild, instanced guild vs. guild, reputation pvp, battlegrounds, castle sieges and server vs. server vs. server.
Kerensky: We will not be able to release all these pvp modes right in or shortly after the Open Beta but we'll add more and more PvP content like with any other content too.
Question: Affebaffe asks, "are you guys going to improve the pvp/pk system, because I saw on the forums that alot people didn't liked it that much"
Kerensky: I think I answered that before. Yes. This is something that is being worked on as we speak. :)
Question: Darkcloak asks, "What will the end game look like, will there be anything to do after you reach the level cap, raids, "epic" items, community events and such."
Kerensky: Yes.
Kerensky: No... /jk
Kerensky: We have already planned for community events and such. Of course the quartely updates will give you new things to do, new content to explore and of course there will be enough endgame.
Question: jkooler asks, "When are you planing to realease RoM?"
Kerensky: We cant' give a specific date yet. We are looking forward to gather much more player feedback in the open beta.
Kerensky: As I said before: runewaker and we want to make a very good - if not the best - game that appeals to many people.
Question: MMORPG_VPellen asks, "From what I gathered from some really, REALLY base research, Runes of Magic is a .. localization? Of a Chinese MMO called Radiant Arcana. My question(s) is/are: How independant is the ROM team in regards to development? Do you have free reign to develop content specific to the English versions, or is the primary concern of the ROM team simply translation and porting?"
Kerensky: Runes of Magic is _based on_ Radiant Arcana. After Frogster and RuneWaker met for the first time and talked about the US and European player community, we decided to do something like a "spin-off" and develop a second "western" version of the game. Radiant Arcana is targetted at the asian players and one is Runes of Magic for all western players.
Question: maxxie asks, "What is the most difficult ? Being Englsh CM in Germany or German CC in England ?"
Kerensky: :)
Kerensky: Someone knows my past, right?
Kerensky: To be honest: It was harder being a German CC in England - you know... the food and such...
Kerensky: But having worked there for 3 1/2 years I have grown fond of my friends and former colleagues there - so the hardest part was _leaving_ England :)
Kerensky: I would say both things have their merits. :)
Question: Emill asks, "how about other coputer systems? would you consider of making linux version of RoM, if game gain popularity?"
Kerensky: We are still talking with possible partners for building a Linux and Mac version. This too is work in progress and we will have to see how the demand is, once we are in open beta
Kerensky: jep
Question: kelkin asks, "Is the environment RP Freedly or is it more geared to Hack / Slash?"
MMORPG_Kunou: Ok folks, 3 more questions after this one!
Kerensky: "RP-friendly" is always what players make of it.
Kerensky: I can't really see that RoM is "unfriendly". There are fights against Mobs and even other players but we also have taverns, player housing and many places that Roleplayers might appreciate.
Question: fumi asks, "I heard about fight like server vs. server. How do it work?"
Kerensky: It's "Server vs. server vs. server" - so there are players from 3 servers fighting each other
Kerensky: There will be a map that players from these three servers can capture certain areas and have to defend them against the others.
Kerensky: Once they control a certain area they can then e.g. mine special ressources there which then in turn will help them craft epic items
Question: russandjenn asks, "Will soloing be viable to the cap and if so will there be any dungeons that will allow soloing content?"
MMORPG_Kunou: one more after this one folks!
Kerensky: It is possible. But as this is a Massively Multiplayer game, there is more content suitable for parties.
Kerensky: many epic and boss mobs are not really soloable until you outleveled them a fair bit. :)
Question: popalx asks, "Will there be voice chat in the game ?"
Kerensky: It is not yet implemented but again it is something that Frogster and Runewaker certainly want to implement.
Kerensky: Here again we are talking to potential partners to put this feature into the game.
MMORPG_Kunou: This concludes the MMORPG.com Runes of Magic Dev Chat! Thank you Kerensky and Danatros for your wonderful time and expertise! Thank you Coldfront for hosting us! And thank you everyone for joining us! Logs will be posted on MMORPG.com asap.
Kerensky: Thank you Kunou and the staff of MMORPG.com for this great opportunity. And thank you all for your questions and your time!
Kerensky: Please don't stop sending emails, private messages and creating board threads with you opinion. Maybe sometimes it seems that we won't answer or give you a standard answer but we are really accepting feedback, critic and even commandations ;) We definitely read the board and every incomming ticket. And of course, we really need your opinion to improve Runes of Magic and making it to a really good game. So we would like to thank ever
MMORPG_VPellen: "don't stop sending emails, private messages and creating board threads with you opinion."
MMORPG_VPellen: Be careful what you wish for~
Kerensky: yone .)
Danatros: ;) Kerensky can handle it ;) Thank you very much guys .. hope to see you ingame ^^
