Eager to get more information on one of his favorite Free to Play games, Pwyff managed to get an interview with NDOORS CEO Peter Kang and found out about the past, present and future of Atlantica Online!

It's no secret that I'm a pretty big fan of Atlantica Online. I love innovative spins on the MMORPG genre and I adore any game that has a solid amount of support and development behind its PvP meta-game. Not only that, but it's very rare to find a game that does all of the above and inspires a great deal of nostalgia within my cantankerous soul. Thus, it also follows that anytime I find a solid combination of the above aspects, I tend to like to check up on its development every now and then to see how it's going - and my curiousity is your gain! Today we managed to catch up with Peter Kang, CEO of NDOORS Interactive and altogether a swell guy for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat with me about the future of Atlantica Online. So if you're at all interested in Atlantica Online, then read on to hear about some of the present development choices being made by NDOORS, and what direction they are planning to go in the future. Onward!

ZAM: Hello and thanks again for taking the time to chat with us!

AO: Thank you.  It's always a pleasure to sit down and answer the community's questions.

ZAM: How would you gauge the enthusiasm of the Atlantica Online Community - are you happy with the number of players currently playing?

AO: We're fortunate in that we have a very active, very passionate community.  Atlantica's players are always helping us improve the game with their own thoughts and ideas, and they're very welcoming to new community members.  Of course, there's always room to expand, and we're confident that any new players will be greeted with open arms.

ZAM: It's been a few months now since the release of the highly anticipated Titan Server. Are you happy with how the weekly Titan Tournaments have gone so far?

AO: Aside from a few technical hiccups, the tournaments on Titan have far exceeded our expectations.  Whenever you have a game with PvP on multiple servers, the question of who is the strongest inevitably arises. In the four weeks since Titan was opened up, we've seen battles that ranged from intense, to harrowing, to downright epic.  There has yet to be a single player who has risen to the top unopposed, and we've even seen an underdog or two unexpectedly claw their way to the final round.

ZAM: With this patch came a significant increase in physical damage during PVP Free League. Do you think that physical damage and skill damage is well balanced as it is, or are there discussions of future damage changes.

AO: Atlantica Online is a game that is constantly evolving.  With each new content patch, we may be adding things like new skills or new mercenaries, along with new gear that has a variety of new effects.  Balancing the game is one of our top priorities, and you can expect future damage changes to keep combat fair with each new release.

ZAM: The most recent additions to the cash shop have been 'straight' upgrades from their previous counterparts. For example, Wings of Light are a direct upgrade of Wings of Darkness, or the Gryphon Mount is a direct upgrade of the Mercury Mount. Prior to this, players used the Armed Raptor, Armed Tiger and Armed Elephant mounts because each had unique stats, but none of them were clearly superior to the other. These days, it is clear that you want the Gryphon to be superior to all other mounts. In the future, Will later cash shop mounts and wings be more along the path of upgrading to the 'superior' item, or are there plans to diversify cash shop items like with the Armed Raptor, Armed Elephant and Armed Tiger?

AO: With each new Cash Item release, we strive to create an item that the players can really get excited about.  Part of this is making items with a greater "cool" factor - wait until you see our next mechanical mount, a successor to the Mercury Rider - and part of this is giving it useful stats.  Of course, PvP and PvE balance is always a top priority, so even if your enemy has a great mount it won't put you at a disadvantage, and even into higher levels you don't need the cash shop decoration items in order to do well.  For the short term we don't have any plans to include mounts with varying stats like the previous Armed mounts, but we are always listening to our users' suggestions.

ZAM: A few months ago you released two new mains, the Maniac and the Musician, with their mercenary counterparts already announced for the Korean version of Atlantica Online. Are there plans for any new mains or mercenaries after the 'anti-Musician' mercenary (Hwarang) and the Maniac / Musician mercenaries?

AO: Currently we don't have plans to add new main characters, but we do have six new mercenaries in line to be developed soon.  This past GDC, we announced Hwarang, Minstrel and Punisher. Currently, we are balancing those mercenaries and we are planning to release them around August. In addition, we are conceptualizing three new mercenaries, including an African concept mercenary. We hope you will all enjoy the new mercenaries.

ZAM: Rumour has it that you want to release new mercenaries every few months to add to the diversity of Atlantica Online. Is this true, and if so, will they be difficult to attain, like the Pirate, the Spartan and the Elementalist, or will they be more like the level 40-95 mercenary recruitment quests?

AO: Yes, that's correct. Since the addition of the two new main characters (maniac and musician), we feel that mercenaries that can counter them would be an exciting and interesting addition to the game.  We are fully dedicated to balancing the PVP aspect of the game and feel that one such way of balancing is introducing countering mercenaries that will not only spice up game-play, but keep the game fair.
At GDC, we announced three, new grade C mercenaries, but we haven't decided the other three mercenaries' grades yet.

ZAM: In a recent announcement, you said that you were developing a huge combat zone for players, unlike any other combat that anyone has seen in Atlantica Online. Could you elaborate a bit more on this?

AO: I think you are talking about the Tactical Battle System. All I can say is that we are currently developing this unique system and we ask for your patience before we make any detailed announcements.

ZAM: Finally, you've recently released a new quest line that allows players to learn the history of the Shaman mercenary. Are there any plans to expand these 'history' quests to other mercenaries?

AO: Of course! Mercenaries are the most important aspect of Atlantica. Compared to other games, we feel that mercenaries should be the "rare items" and so we spent a lot of time and put a lot of emotion into developing their towns and quests.  In the near future, we will be adding a few other mercenaries' towns to the game. We hope that players will become familiar with the hidden story of their mercenaries.

ZAM: Well, that's all for now. Thank you so much for this interview, and congratulations on the successful launch of the PVP Titan server!

AO: It was a pleasure.  We hope to see you on Titan sometime!

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
Allakhazam.com