Runes Of Magic: Chapter III Interview

07 Apr 2010 at 10:43:04 by Bill Vaughan

IncGamers recently got together with Frogster to talk about the fantasy MMO Runes of Magic and its upcoming Chapter III update. We had a few things to ask about the game, here's what they had to say:

Hey, please introduce yourself for our readers.

Hi IncGamers readers! I'm Jörg Koonen, the English (EU) Community Manager for Runes of Magic at Frogster Online Gaming!

It's a pleasure for me to introduce the coming Chapter III - The Elder Kingdoms and give you a bit of background information on the new content and features. Of course I do not want to give away too many spoilers, so please understand that here and there I may be a bit vague. We'll give you the full scope on things in the coming weeks until we finally release Chapter III in May 2010.

Well then, let's get started!

So there's a new continent in chapter III - The Elder Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Dalanis; How big is it and what's the main story in the area?

Dalanis once was a small kingdom, existing in peaceful coexistence with its neighbors on the continent. When the great King Kalume rose to power he united all the lands and was the founding father of a flourishing Kingdom known by the name of "Dalanis". When the last king Motwas died, his son Callaway was forced to succeed him at the age of 14. However when the king died, the rulers of the several provinces saw their chance to become supreme leader of the "Zavill Lands" as the continent is called now.

The new continent will be bigger than any existing zone we have so far. We are looking at a size of multiple zones.

What sort of enemies will players find themselves going up against here?

We have a number of factions on the new continent that will try and hamper the player's progress of exploring the world and restoring the kingdom's old glory.

Amongst other things, the players will encounter canine, feline and rhino-people. Some of those will be friendly, some will attack the player on sight, making a visit to the new continent a challenging voyage through the ancient and recent history of the new areas.

We will introduce the "Dungeons of Dalanis", a huge new instance, a new PvP battleground, tons of new quests and much more to keep our players excited.

Apparently there's a new zone concept, where you've moved away from the closed themed territory layout. What awaits players in terms of landscape in The Elder Kingdoms?

As you might know, the existing areas in Runes of Magic are rather confined areas with only one or two entrances. The new continent will be one big zone with different areas. The themes of the certain areas varies from the mountainous north where according to legend an ancient race once erected a huge underground empire to the southern plains, with their frugal and mild climate. There lies the kingdom of Dalanis. In the west the players will find the Janost forest.

So there's a wide variety of environments for our players to explore.

Alongside all the new content, a number of gameplay features have been tweaked and added. One of them is the new skill system, can you explain how that works?

When we started designing the Elite Skills, we wanted to give our players a wider choice of options to skill their characters. With now almost 50 different combinations, we decided that it was time for a more tactical system. Thus, Runewaker started working on a skill extension that will offer more versatility and customization options.

It will not replace the existing system but add greatly to it. And while we're still working on the final touches, we can't divulge more. But we will have more details in the coming weeks.