Regnum Online Interview - Part 2

Jonric: What about quests? Are there various types? Do you have any GM-driven or event-related ones?

Nicolas Lamanna: There are two different types of quests, including "epic" ones that tell the story of the realm and involve favors for NPCs. While you can level without completing any, they offer great rewards.

One of the things we want to explore is the possibility of the realms being invaded. That was planned a long time ago, but hasn't been implemented it due to its complexity.

They're currently PvE-only, but we plan to integrate it into the PvP by creating some that lead you to the War Zone, which is becoming the de facto place for the GM-driven ones we run as events, where players can participate and win extraordinary rewards.

Jonric: Do players derive benefits when they're in parties, and have you implemented any group-oriented features worth noting?

Andres Chilkowski: Regnum, like some other MMORPGs out there, has a feature called auto-grouping, which is a system that automatically groups multiple players that are fighting the same monster, and doles out the rewards according to their participation. Soloing is possible, but you get a bonus in a party.

Jonric: Without getting into fine points some readers won't understand, what would you like to say about your engine and overall technology?

Nicolas Lamanna: Regnum was built from scratch using our in-house engine, ng3d. This technology was created with MMOGs in mind, so we incorporated features like asynchronous digital asset management, support for a large, continuous world, content pipeline tools for map editing and adding content into the game, and a shader-centric design providing scalability for older setups.

Regnum's technology has matured with the game. As such, its requirements scaled from hardware that's three years old to current. Also, it's multi-platform, with native clients for both Windows and Linux.

Jonric: What about noteworthy features on your server side? What's the capacity in terms of simultaneous users?

Nicolas Lamanna: Our server side was designed to support 1,000 to 1,500 users on a single multi-core machine. Regnum runs on multiple threads, and has built-in monitoring tools that let us verify the states of the game and players.

The technology was built with a data-driven design, giving as the possibility of adding new content without having to resort to recompiles or long server downtimes.

Jonric: How do you communicate with and support your player community? Do you approach these critical tasks differently from other teams?

Andres Chilkowski: Due to the small size of our team, we had to attend to the community's needs personally, which created a situation where users' questions were answered directly by the programmers and artists. This was a double-edged sword that ended up being a good thing for the players as they felt their concerns were going to the right people.

As the game grows in size, and with a new community manager in place, this is starting to change, but we intend to keep this family feeling by going into the trenches, so to speak, as much as we can. As crazy as it sounds, many on the development team play the game and know various players in person.

Jonric: Since you brought up your team, would you care to introduce NGD Studios? How was it formed, and many are you? Also, is there much game development in Argentina?

Andres Chilkowski: NGD Studios is an independent game development company based in Buenos Aires. It was founded by in 2002 by combining three amateur development teams for the purpose of creating the first 3D MMO made in Latin America. As a startup, we where a real garage-like company, a crazy bunch of guys who wanted to make an MMO in only six months, with no money or experience. Regnum was actually released almost five years later.

Our size has varied from five to 11 people during development; the average was seven. Right now, we are two separate teams, with 10 people working on Regnum, and nine more on a yet to be announced multiplayer game.

The game industry in Argentina is still in its infancy, but growing at an incredible pace. We hope you'll see and enjoy many more titles developed in our country.

Jonric: What do you regard as the primary reasons why fans of massively multiplayer games should consider trying yours?

Andres Chilkowski: First of all, Regnum is a very good alternative among PvP- and RvR-style MMOGs as it's completely free to play. Besides that, there's a small but passionate community around it, with people from all around the world playing on the same servers. Also, the game is designed so players who don't have a lot of time to play can get ahead by buying premium content.

Jonric: What do you have planned in terms of improvements and changes that players can expect to see as Regnum Online moves forward?

Andres Chilkowski: Even though we launched a year ago, and trying not to end on a cliche, we believe Regnum has a lot potential and room for improvement before we're comfortable with the gameplay, technology and content. One of the things we want to explore is the possibility of the realms being invaded. That was planned a long time ago, but hasn't been implemented it due to its complexity.

The other things are features that were left out due to time constraints, and of course, general polish, bug fixes and the eternal balance tweaking.

Jonric: To conclude the interview in an open-ended manner, do you have anything more to tell our readers at this time?

Andres Chilkowski: We just want to thank RPG Vault for noticing our game, and to invite people from all around the world to try out our game for free, and to join our community.

If we assume the Regnum Online player community is as helpful and informative as Andres Chilkowski and Nicolas Lamanna have been in answering our many questions, that would be a significant reason to check out NGD Studios' massively multiplayer endeavor, particularly for those who enjoy inter-realm conflicts. We're grateful to both developers for the effort they made to enlighten us about its notable features and elements in this length two-part query session.

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