Dave Georgeson on Mage Knight: Apocalypse
Feature
Inspired by the Mage Knight trading card game, Apocalypse looks to unleash a whole new experience on Mage Knight fans. We talk to Dave Georgeson to find out what the game is about.
Dave: MKA uses GameSpy as its matchmaking service. We have a client-server model, so gamers can easily (with the push of a single button) set up dedicated servers for players to game on. It’s quite easy to find the games available that way and we like the stability of dedicated servers, rather than peer-to-peer connections.
Hooked Gamers: I can still remember the days that I played Diablo in co-op and my fellow players collecting the ears of my character. As a close-combat fighter, it can often be very frustrating attacking an enemy and being hit by the ranged attacks of friends. In Mage Knight: Apocalypse, do ranged attacks hurt friendly characters and what about splash damage?
Dave: If you play multiplayer on the default settings, then no…friendly attacks don’t hurt other players.
Hooked Gamers: Unlimited customization is a substantial boast in the era of MMOs and other multiplayer games. What makes the characters customization for Mage Knight so ground breaking?
Dave: I don’t remember ever saying “ground-breaking” regarding customization. Perhaps we’re ground-breaking in the way we handle your player character’s party of friends, or the way we add story to a traditionally combat-oriented genre, or perhaps even just the simple addition of a free camera, but our customization elements are more traditional, yet still quite extensive.
You select a character from one of five archetypes: dwarf, amazon, vampire, draconum (a humanoid dragon), or elf. You can then adjust their features, like skin color, hair styles, eyes, etc. Once you’re in the game, your appearance changes a lot depending on what armor pieces you pick up and which weapons you wield.
Perhaps the one area we depart from the usual is in how you gain your skills and experience in the game. MKA doesn’t use “levels” of advancement for characters. Instead, we record every action you take in the game, and we increase your character attributes (Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc.) depending on what you do. So, swing a sword a bunch of times and you’ll get stronger. Cast a lot of magic, and you’ll gradually gain Intelligence. And so on.
Then, skills unlock from your various skill trees automatically whenever your attributes gain certain minimum levels, as well as after you have used certain prerequisite skills a minimum number of times. This leads to a system where melee skills unlock naturally…if you use other melee skills. Want more spells? Then cast a bunch of spells and you’ll unlock new ones. Want to become a better archer? Then fire that bow!
Simple, yes?
Additionally, each skill can be advanced (through usage) from Rank One up to Rank Five. So the more you use a specific skill, the more powerful that skill becomes. Thus, you are continuously refining your character and becoming more powerful in the style of play that YOU choose to pursue, and your character quickly becomes unique and different from every other character of that archetype that you’ll meet on-line. Okay... maybe that is a bit ground-breaking. It certainly is fun.
Hooked Gamers: What part of the game do you feel really should be mentioned, but has not been given enough attention by the gaming press yet?
Dave: As folks get preview builds, they’re twigging into the fact that this isn’t just another soulless clickfest with loot. There’s a lot of story and personality to the game, and that makes it more fun to enjoy as you grow your character over time.
What those preview builds haven’t revealed yet (because the reviewers haven’t had time to play them extensively yet) is how different the various characters are from one another. Playing the vampire assassin (Kithana) who utilizes sneak attacks and stealth is a dramatically different experience than playing the amazon huntress (Chela) who can barge her way into huge melees and yet still find a way to emerge alive. The other characters are all different in their own ways and players can spend a lot of time trying out the various characters, even playing through the epic multiple times in order to experience the game from those other angles. As I said before... it’s a big game. You should be able to enjoy it for quite some time.
Hooked Gamers: Thank you for participating in this interview. Good luck with the game and we're hoping for a very successful release later this month.