Regnum Online Interview - Part 2

Jun 24, 2008

In 1816, the South American regions known as the United Provinces of the Rio Plata declared their independence from Spain. They split into four countries including Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and the largest, Argentina, which borders those three as well as Chile and Brazil. Officially the Argentine Republic, it covers a land area of roughly 2.75 million square kilometers, approximately one-third the size of the US. The terrain is quite varied, from the rich plains of the Pampas in the north to the flat and rolling Patagonia plateau in the south, and the tall Andes mountains to the west. Key sectors of the nation's economy include manufacturing, oil and natural gas, fishing and agriculture. The population is estimated at somewhere over 40 million, with the largest concentration, nearly one-third of the total, residing in the vicinity of the capital, Buenos Aires.

This cosmopolitan conurbation is home to NGD Studios, a team we've been aware of for the past few years; it's the creator of Regnum Online, which has been in live service since launching quietly May, 2007. Its name is based on the Latin word for realm, so it's not surprising that the central theme is the conflict among three domains. Alsius is a bleak, icy land. Ignis is uninviting as well, but volcanic in nature, and Syrtis is predominantly forest. The gameplay focus is PvP, with forts and castles that can be captured; they stand within a central zone where the major battles take place. Offered on a free to play basis, the title now has close to 275,000 registered accounts. We sought out General Manager Andres Chilkowski and Producer Nicolas Lamanna in order to learn what has attracted them.

Includes five exclusive 1440x900 screenshots

Jonric: Does having your character die incur any penalties like dropped items, lost experience points or temporarily decreased abilities?

Andres Chilkowski: The only real penalty Regnum has right now is that you get an attribute called Necrostacy, which decreases your primary attributes by a percentage. This is temporary, and can be dissipated by killing monsters.

While Regnum has defined class types such as tankers, damage dealers, crowd controllers, etc., the range of skill options allows you to adapt and override these roles. This makes the game much richer and more varied

In addition, you respawn at your current save point, forcing you to return where you died. This is key in the war zone, leading to some interesting strategies. We have plans to incorporate an enhanced system in the near future, involving not only penalties, but rewarding those who stay alive longer.

Jonric: Does Regnum Online have many friendly and neutral NPCs, what functions do they fulfill, and how important are they?

Nicolas Lamanna: There are various NPCs in the world. Most basic items can be bought from merchants. They'll buy your stuff too, and also repair items, for a price. Quest givers are mostly located in the main towns, and will give players some really good rewards.

The other important NPC type is trainers, which will let you advance your character in both disciplines and skills. There are also others that play auxiliary roles, such as teleporters, those that allow entrance to the coliseum, etc.

Jonric: Is there any kind of pet system? If so, are there different kinds, and restrictions on using them? And are mounts available?

Nicolas Lamanna: There are two kind of pets in the game. They play an essential part for specific sub-classes. The Hunter can tame certain monsters in the world according to how advanced she is in the required discipline. The Conjurer can use summons, but they are spawned directly. There are differences between the two but the way they are used is similar.

The game also has mountable horses, although they are part of the premium content. Unlike the class-specific pets, anyone can ride them.

Jonric: How about equipment? Are there lots of different weapons, armors and items in general? Can they be customized and upgraded?

Nicolas Lamanna: Players may find a very wide variety of weapons and armor parts. All combat items provide visual representations, and on top of that you can paint your armor different colors, giving characters a great range in terms of customization.

Also, items have variants that add attributes according to their material and quality. Most of these can only be obtained through loot drops.

Jonric: Since you use a micro-transaction revenue model, are the items that cost money different from those available through play? What are some examples?

Andres Chilkowski: Indeed, Regnum uses a micro-transaction model with a virtual currency called Ximerin. You can buy it via the official website, and then use it to purchase the premium items inside the game.

Special care was taken to reduce to a bare minimum the possibility of these items breaking the balance between paying and non-paying users. Some examples are horses that let you go faster, boost scrolls that give you additional experience, armor paint, tunic dyes, and teleport scrolls. The main idea is that the premium content gives you less downtime, accelerates leveling, and adds uniqueness to your character.

Jonric: How does magic factor into your game design? Is it part of your skill system? Are there different types? Does casting require mana or anything else?

Nicolas Lamanna: One of the major aspects of the character progression in Regnum Online is the skill system.

There are currently more than 250 skills, divided into several disciplines. All of the initial classes have four base disciplines.

The Warriors' are tailored to attacks with different damage types. They may specialize into Barbarians or Knights. Mages have various options ranging from charging your staff to crowd control. They may develop into Conjurers or Warlocks. And finally, the Archers' four are oriented to combat techniques with long and short bows, and tricks. They can become Hunters or Marksmen.

All characters need mana to cast their powers. While Regnum has defined class types such as tankers, damage dealers, crowd controllers, etc., the range of skill options allows you to adapt and override these roles. This makes the game much richer and more varied when fighting different players.

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.