Mage Knight Apocalypse Q&A Feature

Based around a miniature tabletop game, Mage Knight Apocalypse, due early next year is already looking an extremely interesting and accomplished game, which is being coded by InterServ International from Taiwan.

Following the events of an upcoming Mage Knight storyline, a mysterious power has issued an ominous portent and the call has gone out for stalwart heroes from all reaches of the Land to battle against an army of pure evil. Leading this army is The Apocalypse Dragon, a seemingly unstoppable five headed juggernaut of destruction that has been reborn and set loose on an unprepared populace. Taking the role of one of 5 characters, the player must band together with other legendary heroes to face this Dragon and defeat the forces of Chaos in the Mage Knight universe.

Derek dela Fuente spoke with Chris Wren, Senior Producer at Namco, about this fast paced RPG action offering.

Please tell us about InterServ International, the personnel, team, creating the game and what they have worked on collectively or individually before?

Interserv is a Taiwanese developer. They have been around for over 10 years, but just recently started making games which sell here, in the States and in Europe. They have made some excellent games for the Asian market, like Meteor Blade and a cool MMO called M2. We looked at a product they were working on last year called Iron Phoenix for the console, they had some really great art and technology driving that game and we decided these guys were the ones to make the Action RPG we wanted. The design and direction of the game is coming from the team here at Namco, but there are some great designers at Interserv which are adding a lot of great stuff to everything weâ??re working on. They clearly have a passion for making great art and technology as well as the know how to make the game fun and challenging.

What is the vision for the game, is Diablo for instance a good comparison in certain ways and how much planning and design work have been done before coding commenced? How pivotal is the story to the game and does it play a major part as the game progresses?

The pace of the game is akin to games like Diablo and our top goal was to make a serious RPG and strip away all the things that slow you down. We have towns and you will be spending some time chatting with NPCs, shopping and upgrading, but the main focus of the game is getting you out there to tear through hordes of enemies and take down big bosses while developing your own play style and skills.

We framed the progress of the game around a major event in the Mage Knight Universe, and we put the player in the role of one of 5 heroes sent to put an end to the madness.

The story goes something like this: An ancient dragon egg has been stolen by the powerful Apocalypse Cult; they have used their powers to hatch the egg and are raising a 5 headed dragon to lead their armies across the land spreading destruction and chaos in an effort to bring about the apocalypse. A mystical race, the Solonavi, has intervened and has sought out heroes from all the factions of the land to go on a clandestine mission to infiltrate this cult and find a way to stop the apocalypse.

There are five unique character classes to choose â?“ can you briefly tell us how they differ and about some of their qualities and a few snippets pertaining to who you are facing/confronting?

The five playable characters come from five unique factions in the land of Mage Knight. Normally these guys would not get along, but under the circumstances they have all made an oath to serve the Solonavi to save all of their cultures from destruction at the hands of the Apocalypse.

While the number of playable characters is limited to five, there are infinite ways to customize not only how your character looks but how they behave.

There are some basic customization options when you first choose the character, like hair colour, skin tone, eye colour, as well as some race specific traits, like beard shape (if you happen to choose our Dwarf).

Beyond the basic options to start the game your character will begin to evolve even in your first mission. You will earn new skills based on how you play your character, and if you focus your efforts on a particular discipline, your character will begin to take on physical characteristics of that discipline. For example, with our Nightblade character, you can develop her to be a necromancer, a vampire or a stealthy melee fighter (as well as any combination of the three). As you progress up the Vampiric tree, the Nightbladeâ??s eyes will begin to glow red and her skin will become paler.

Finally, there is the loot: there are hundreds of types of armour and weaponry available to the characters throughout the game which further customize how they look and complement their abilities.

One of the goals here was to have your characterâ??s appearance not only reflect your personal style, but also the abilities of your character and how advanced they are. So for example in a multiplayer game, another player can immediately tell that not only are you a Nightblade with white hair, but you are an advanced Vampire with some Necromancy proficiency as well.

Here is a basic rundown of the abilities of the five heroes:

- We have a Nightblade of the Necropolis Sect; she is a stealthy combatant who uses her training as a necromancer and her vampiric talents to deal out death.

- There is a Dwarven Gunner who can specialize in guns, brute melee or explosives!

- The Elf Guardian can focus on protection spells, melee weaponry or ranged combat.

- The Amazon is our main warrior, a master of all weapons, armour and combat. She uses her animal stances to focus on strength, speed or range attacks.

- The Draconum is a powerful mage who can develop elemental magic discipline in Storm, Fire or Earth magic, including taking on dragon forms among the more advanced skills.

We want people to be able to form really unique groups and combat strategies for multiplayer co-op, the huge combinations of skills and proficiencies available will allow for this.

Was team play one of the real focuses for Intersev and can you tell us about any elements pertaining to this you are pleased with so far? Also can you expand on the unique character leveling â?“ skill system that features in the game?

Both in Single and Multiplayer weâ??ve put a strong focus on the team aspect. In single player, you start out with your character, but as you progress through the story you will acquire the other heroes in your party as NPC sidekicks. These are AI driven party members who for the most part take care of themselves. They also add unique disciplines to the party to balance it out and allow you to take on bigger and bigger challenges. In addition to this weâ??ve put in â??combo attacksâ?? which allow two or more party members to perform joint attacks on groups of enemies. This is fun in single player, and in co-op multiplayer it adds a lot of team play and further expands on the play styles available.

With the skill system, we really like the notion that you develop your character over time and the choices you make determine how your character plays. We removed the layer seen in previous action RPGs whereby you distribute points to various statistics and abilities and came up with a more natural progression. We call it ACD, or adaptive character development, and it basically means that what you do defines what you will become. If you swing a heavy sword a lot we will reward you with more strength and stamina as well as more advanced sword proficiencies and abilities. If you cast a lot of fire spells we will grant you better mana regeneration and more powerful fire skills. We start the player with a broad range of abilities, and depending on which ones the player focuses on, they will begin to develop that skill tree and become more proficient in that discipline.

Can you tell our readers why you decided to adapt the tabletop game Mage Knight? What makes it so appealing and interesting for a PC title and what have been the hardest aspect to ensure get right?

Itâ??s a really diverse universe which gives us a lot of freedom to make cool and interesting worlds and creatures. Mage Knight is grounded in Fantasy, so you will have the orcs and dwarves and elves you might expect, but unlike other Fantasy worlds it also adds in some cool blackpowder and steam technology as well as amazing future technology like lasers and flying cities. Throughout the story of this game you will get exposure to a huge range of enemies each with their own technology. Whether you are facing a forty foot Orc cyclops, a giant mechanical golem, a mutated creature, or an undead magician, itâ??s the variety that sets this world apart from the traditional fantasy RPG.

The hardest thing from the story standpoint is to introduce the player to the Mage Knight universe in a single game. It is such a huge world with so many factions and history that to explain this and still make it a fun experience has been a challenge. We know that a lot of Mage Knight fans will pick up this game, but we really want to show this cool world off to people who have maybe heard of Mage Knight but never explored it.

Could you please elaborate on some of the skill progression lines available to the player throughout the game?

The skill progression allows players to really specialize their characters if they want, and the rewards for this are some really amazing abilities high up the skill tree. The Draconum character will gain various Dragonforms once he is proficient enough in a certain discipline, this allows him to change into a dragon and grants him new dragon like abilities. Some other examples are the Nightblade will get powerful pets to command once she learns enough Necromancy, the Dwarf will get to use cool things like napalm when he develops his explosive skills. Weâ??ve spent a lot of time making sure that the high level skills are balanced and rewarding so that we do not encourage a player down any particular path, they should all be equally appealing, leaving only the playerâ??s preference to decide what to specialize in.

Players who want to continue this game beyond finishing the storyline will be able to develop multiple disciplines by playing through the game again or going into multiplayer to play with friends. So that a player may have two main specializations like Necromancy and Vampirism, again this adds to the unique teams for multiplayer weâ??re looking for.

What game modes will be on offer?

Storyline mode is the primary focus of the game. You can play this solo or co-op with friends. We also have a multiplayer mode which allows you to play any mission from the game with multiple scenarios available for many of them. I imagine most people will play through the Storyline once, and for those people who want more, there are lots of optional quests as well as loot and skills to gain once the story is finished. I think the draw of developing your character and getting better loot will keep people playing beyond one run through the game, weâ??ve made it really easy to continue on with your character or start a new one.

One thing we put in to extend replayability is a dynamic enemy spawn. The enemies of a region will dynamically scale their difficulty to the strength of the party facing them when you start a mission. The drops will also go up in value as you face harder monsters, so this means you can play any mission of the game over again and get a challenging experience. Additionally, creating alternate scenarios for many of the missions allows us to make unique experiences for the player in a region they may have already explored. They may be fighting entirely different enemies and the layout of bosses and drops may differ considerably.

Can you tell us about one exiting event/incident in the game that really conjures up the spirit, excitement and concept of the game?

Weâ??ve put together some elaborate battles in the game which are truly epic in scale. The battle for Silverholt in the Dwarven region for example involves huge steam tanks and golems, waves of Atlantean troops, a big pile of dwarves wielding cannons and all of this takes place inside the huge mountain citadel, so youâ??ll be witness to blowing up houses and infrastructure as you try to stop the destruction of the city.

Could you please tell us a little about the technology behind Mage Knight Apocalypse?

The game is beautiful. The team has really found some great ways to make this game shine on the PC. When you wade through the water it will create realistic ripples, all the while reflecting the environment and objects around it. The lighting and blending in the world lends itself to some really panoramic views seeing mountains and trees off in the distance, they look like paintings until you approach them and they seamlessly blend into crisp objects and terrain, there are no tricks going on like LODs or object swapping, they just have a really good system of light mapping on objects and aliasing textures and geometry. The FX system gives us things like leaves falling from trees in the oak forest and really amazing spell and combat effects. With multiplayer we are really barely scratching the surface of what we can do here, right now we can get 5 characters into the game with no problem, but we know the engine supports a lot more so weâ??re playing with some ways we might be able to take advantage of this and extend multiplayer to larger groups.

Can you tell us a few interesting facts about the world you are placed within â?“ some of its qualities and perhaps unique aspects?

Weâ??ve got some amazing regions in this game. Each one is completely different from the others, we expect people to be really looking forward to unlocking the next cool region just to see the environment and interesting creatures that dwell there not to mention revealing the next chapter of the story. You start out in the Dwarven region: mountain passes swarming with slave traders and Dark Dwarves, abandoned quarries, and the huge cavernous Dwarven capital city make up this region. Our Amazon region is set in the jungle with monstrous temples filled with zombies and orcs. The Nightblade section is in the desert with cliff dwellings and undead secrets. The Draconum section of the game is high in the mountains amidst spires and caves. Our Elven region is in the icy tundra on the roof of the world. Finally, we have the Vurgra Divide, a volcanic wasteland, the perfect place to watch the apocalypse.

Finally, one sentence to sum up the game?

A fast paced adventure where a small band of heroes take on all the armies of the apocalypse, mastering their disciplines of magic and combat, racing against time and across vast regions of the land to stop the end of the world from happening.

TVG would like to thank Chris Wren for taking the time to answer our questions; weâ??ll have further coverage on Mage Knight Apocalypse later in the yearâ?¦