We had the opportunity to talk with Dragonica Online's Community Lead for THQ*ICE at Comic Con. We asked him some hard questions and got some great information.

Last Friday we had the opportunity to talk with Dragonica Online's Community Lead for THQ*ICE, Evan Berman at Comic Con. We asked him some hard questions and got great information in return about a number of design decisions that were made, future content and some new merchandise coming to the ICE Store.

Make sure to give the entire interview a read and if you're into unique games with ultra cute graphics, give Dragonica Online a try.

ZAM: Thank you for chatting with us about Dragonica Online.

Evan Berman: It's my pleasure.

ZAM: First of all, we're just a little curious about why THQ*ICE is somewhat behind the other English ports of Dragonica Online - both the European and the SEA-ANZ versions of the game have been out in open beta for at least a month or two.

Evan: I'm actually rather new to the company, just to put that out there. But in the time that I've been on board, basically, we've been working on localizing the game, making the quests more, I suppose, 'approachable' for the Western gamer. Originally, the game had more 'cut and dried' quests, but instead of "kill 10 rats," we want it to be "kill 10 rats because they spoke ill of your mother." We want to give you a reason to want to go kill those rats. So that's been why it's taken a little bit more time. We're also fixing additional bugs and minor graphical things - the things that really will give the game the polish it needs to really succeed. This is part of why we've been taking a little bit longer to release it. We actually just got out of closed beta test about a week ago, and we'll be going into open beta in late summer.

ZAM: One of the problems that some of the users have found with Dragonica Online is the fact that the most efficient way of levelling is just F3 and F4 grinding dungeons. This is because it lets players level up the fastest and still get the best gear for your level. Questing doesn't seem to be very appealing or efficient, except, perhaps, the main 'hero' quest and any supplementary quests that involve dungeon running. Was this intentional?

Evan: Well, as we are still in the beta phase, we are still examining the game and its playability and how the players enjoy all elements of it - not only mission maps, but also the quests. We have actually been receiving feedback within the forums and in-game, in regards to the quest rewards being a little underwhelming or not enough to make people really want to go out and do them. Although they do add to the storyline, we want to make sure that people also feel that the reward for doing a 'job well done,' is appropriate. So we'll be re-evaluating the quests to make them a little more appealing as people grind past the 20s and into the 30s and 40s. Mission maps, in addition, are definitely the fastest way to level, and that's because we want to encourage people to want to explore the bigger bosses we have available, and also potentially to party with other players and get some camaraderie going on in-game.

ZAM: Are there any in-game events planned for Dragonica Online; Arena, PvP or Dungeon running?

Evan: Well, we actually just had two test events in PvP during our closed beta event, and what was good about that was that we had a fantastic response, we had a lot of applicants - multiple tiered fighting system, and a lot of people had a really good time all together. They found out that this game, which could be perceived as a, at times, single player game or solitary game for an MMORPG, actually has a lot of potential for a PvP community as well. It was great to actually see that. As for the events in the game, again, during CBT (Closed Beta Test), we had a number of events, including an 'end of the world' event, where we had monsters spawning in town and players fighting them and just creating that real sense of finale to this closed beta test. As for OBT (Open Beta Test), we're planning on doing some holiday events and some story progression events. These quests would be either a week long or daily events with items that you wouldn't get otherwise. On the fourth of July for CBT, we had hot dogs and hamburgers, and Uncle Sam hats for people who could get to X level on X day.

ZAM: Are there any plans for different kinds of dungeons?

Evan: Yes, absolutely. As we expand into additional continents - currently we have the one continent available, we'll have the second continent available in OBT, but I don't have a precise time when. What that's going to do is introduce new levels, new monsters, new items, new areas to fight and, of course, new dungeons.

ZAM: There have been a lot of rumors about the 'secret' job class changes available to players who don't class change until level 30, like the 'Duelist' for the Swordsman, the 'Gunslinger' for the Archer, the 'Doctor' for the Magician, and the 'Bard' for the Thief. Are these classes real, but perhaps not implemented yet, or are they really just rumors?

Evan: We too have heard those rumors, and we find them quite... intriguing. That's pretty much all I have on that at the moment.

ZAM: So no confirm or deny?

Evan: No confirm or deny.

ZAM: One of the biggest problems with ported over MMOs that are developed in other parts of the world is the fact that the country playing the 'ported' MMO tends to see updates much less frequently than in areas where the developers are. For example, another Korean F2P MMO I used to play is now in version 3.4 in Korea, whereas the North American version did not get an update for almost a full year, and is now, finally, in version 2.9. Do you think Dragonica Online will suffer from this, or do you think that users can expect the same quality of updates across all versions of the game?

Evan: To answer that, basically, yes we are aware of ported games - that is definitely a concern because you have a developer on the other side of the planet. When it's day for you, it's night for them and vice versa, which makes communicating interesting. I'd also like to clarify that, however: we have a fantastic relationship with our developer. We have constant communication and builds are coming out on a very regular basis. Again, to answer this very plainly, the updates that they're seeing elsewhere for other producers and publishers of Dragonica, they can expect to see very rapidly stateside as well.

ZAM: What do you think are the three best things about Dragonica right now?

Evan: It's definitely unique to each player, because there are a lot of elements you can find that are very appealing about the game. One I would say is the game's accessibility. The game is appealing to seasoned MMO players, your new MMO players and people who played casual website games. Dragonica has an approachability which I feel is very unique to its class; unlike other titles, which can be very grind heavy or don't offer much in the way of story. The visuals are another, because, again, when you have a free to play MMORPG, often the graphics are not given much love, or not given as much love as most would like. In this game it's completely opposite. You have a beautiful candy-coating shell of a pastel color palette with super deformed chibi characters; monsters that barely deserve the name because they're so awfully cute or outlandish. You have sharks that are using swordfish as swords, you have badgers with plungers on their heads; these things are very eye catching and unique. But the best part, and I suppose this is the third thing, is that there is an underlying, very sophisticated combat system that can really appeal to the more sophisticated gamer as well; the gamer that's looking for a real challenge, to chain their combos together and get that arcade feel. That's really one of the biggest attraction points of Dragonica Online: when you do an attack, the game attacks, when you combo this and this, the game does both of those at the same time. The game goes as fast as you want it to go.

ZAM: Even though the game just came out, are there any plans for new content before the end of 2009 that you haven't talked about today?

Evan: Yes, actually. I mentioned it briefly, but we're going to open up the second continent to players. It will not increase the level cap immediately, which is at 60, but we will introduce, again, new maps, new monsters, new items and a whole new part of Dragonica which players haven't experienced before.

ZAM: In terms of the overall content available, could you give a percentage in comparison to the new content?

Evan: While I have a sense of it, I would not feel comfortable putting a percentage to it. It's just that we are eager to roll it out, but we are still exploring just how vast this new section is. It's going to be a great expansion.

ZAM: What is in store for Dragonica Online in terms of micro transactions?

Evan: We'll have a cash shop which will use ICE cash for currency. Players can purchase cosmetic items and consumable items. When we were planning Dragonica Online for a North American release, we really wanted it to be so that people couldn't just buy their way to the top. We didn't want someone to just buy a Sword of Wounding +5 and be able to destroy everyone else in the game just by purchasing a single item. The idea was that we wanted to make sure that people could enjoy the cash shop for cosmetic items and for the ability to reduce the downtime in the game. As you said, with a Korean game, there is a lot of grind often, but we have cash shop items available which will reduce that downtime to a very small amount. Health Potions with a half a million hit points on them, allowing players to slam them whenever they want to. So they can keep going, and if they find themselves low on health and they want to finish a combo, they can use these items to keep going and not slow down. In addition to that we also have server-wide megaphones, which will allow players to broadcast messages to the entire server so that they can promote their in game shops. We also have licenses for shops with regards to our player economy, which will be fully player run. It's where players can put up their own items and other players can purchase them; it will be an emergent economy.

ZAM: Thanks again for talking with us about Dragonica Online!

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
ZAM.com