Interview with LD Outstanding CEO Fruit: "Taris World" aims to restore the original appearance of MMORPG
* IGN China original content, original author Kamui Ye, unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
The MMO mobile game "Taris World", which adopts the classic Western fantasy world view, has opened a new round of closed beta called "Expedition Test" on June 8, including new content such as the new class "Brute Fighter" and the 10-player team copy "Root of Corruption", which has also greatly improved the experience on both PC and mobile phones.
As the test unfolds, the core concept and actual content and performance of the game that return to the original experience of MMORPG have gradually gained more recognition from players, but on the other hand, there are still many people who lack some basic understanding of this game and are still in a wait-and-see state. IGN China recently conducted an interview with the actual developer of the game, LD Excellence, covering the project background, gameplay design, future prospects, etc., hoping to help players better understand the game.
- What is the meaning of "Taris" in "Taris World"? As one of the few Western fantasy world view games in the current market, what are the main features of "Taris World" in terms of setting? Why did you choose this track?
Musical excellence: "Taris" refers to the name of the in-game world, representing the situation of the planet Taris under the three-god world view, and the player plays the role of determining the fate of this planet, and the fate needs to be in their own hands. At present, there are not many Western fantasy products on the market, but under the influence of "Dungeons and Dragons", "The Lord of the Rings", "A Song of Ice and Fire", etc., there are still many users who like this theme. In this environment, players usually play as ordinary people, through hard work and cooperation against dragons, ancient gods, demon kings, etc., enemies that are several times stronger than themselves, and win the battle between good and evil.
One of the main reasons for choosing this track is that our development team is almost all depth lovers of this genre, but also deep MMORPG players, and we have heard a lot of different players over the years on some of our favorite related works, and we hope to revisit the MMORPG category through our perspective on the work "Taris World", and make some bold attempts to change the stereotype of players about the genre we love.
—— "Restore the original appearance of MMORPGs" is the game concept that the production team has been emphasizing, want to understand this concept, and what are the future goals of this product?
Motion Excellence: This philosophy is really related to the current state of MMORPG games. Early MMOs mainly used a time-based mechanism, and the game content often required multiplayer cooperation, and was difficult and rich in content. This is what MMORPG is all it is. However, with the change of categories, games are becoming more and more fast-food, stand-alone, and commercialized. In order to bring players the so-called fast-food-style pleasure, the difficulty of the game is getting lower and lower, the interactive content is getting less and less, and you can quickly get a large number of cultivation values by paying.
We believe that in the fun of MMO games themselves, the first growth should not be obtained through payment, but through the player's own efforts, wisdom, and cooperation, and should not be afraid that players will not pass the level loss, so they will repeatedly reduce the difficulty of the game, there should be appropriate difficulty, and have the fun and passion of challenge. It may not have to be as difficult as it used to be, such as a boss card that won't last for months, but it shouldn't be a level that can be passed by automatic combat.
The content of MMO games should be different from standalone, and players should be encouraged to meet more friends and give teammates more trust.
Therefore, our products will be developed with rich and interesting game content, challenging levels, improved operation to grow, make friends to cooperate, and pay only to get appearance and function. The same is true in the future, striving to give players the fun that MMO games should have, and return our game world to its original appearance.
—— In the previous demo, there was a lot of multiplayer quest content, and I saw special mechanics such as "Fairy Tale World" in the boss battle session, can you introduce more similar designs. What was the main idea of the production team in adding variety and variety to the boss battle process? What difficulties have been encountered in the process of practice.
Musical excellence: We don't have a boss that can be passed by standing on the pile, and in addition to simple skills such as running positions and killing mobs, all bosses have a variety of tactics and cracking methods. For example, the Root of Corrosion No. 2 BOSS, the player needs to block the light, but the blocking time is too long, the higher the damage you take, you need someone else to replace you, the normal difficulty is still 2 rays, the elite is 3 rays. Root of Corrosion No. 4 Boss is composed of two boss characters, the tank needs to know when to change targets, DPS must also grasp firepower, when to fight the eagle boss, when to fight the iron wolf boss.
The Root of Corrosion No. 5 boss is more complicated, first NPCs will help players in battle, but players can also choose not to need NPC assistance to get special achievements. After the battle begins, a team of people will enter the portal inner field to heal the Heart of the Ancient Tree. When the time is up, it is necessary to come out of the infield and enter the infield by the team that changes the outfield, which puts forward high requirements for the player's personal operation and strategy and the close cooperation of the team.
And the idea of this design is also to make "Tares World" a game with a good reputation and rich and interesting gameplay, and I don't want to do many fast food games on the market today. In the process of practice, due to the complex mechanism, the planning and program have been jointly adjusted many times, and more people and more rounds of rigorous testing are needed internally, and more use cases are used to deal with various different situations, and different professional talents are matched to deal with the complex mechanism of each BOSS, of course, this also brings high development difficulty and high research and development costs to the project.
—— In addition to PVE, what new experiences will the product bring to players?
Awesome in Action: In addition to PVE gameplay, we also offer a lot of puzzle and PVP gameplay. Puzzle gameplay requires players to cooperate alone or multi-person to carry out various puzzles to get rewards, this part of the content is relatively light, suitable for players with more time to study, but don't think that light is simple, many decryption gameplay is still very brain-burning, and strive to bring players different dimensions of in-game fun. On the PVP side, we made arenas and battlefield gameplay.
Arenas tend to be more cooperative and fair in squads, and battlefields tend to develop different tactics according to different battlefield rules, and earn higher points to win. In order to dislike PVP players, we have made reward isolation, PVP produces equipment and ranks, these rewards are only related to PVP. PVE gameplay does not affect.
—— Want to ask who is the main group of Taris World? What are the main features compared to existing MMO mobile games on the market?
Musical Excellence: "Taris World" is a self-established MMORPG with PVE copy reclamation as the core. This is what our team loves and strengths. So the players we hope to attract are also the group of players who like PVE gameplay and classic MMORPG games. And as a two-end game, we also want our users to be not only mobile users, but also bring PC gamers back to the MMO experience.
—— Not selling numerical props has always been the core concept of Taris's main focus, in fact, many players have a wait-and-see attitude towards this, "Taris World" is not a point card to sell game time, MMO does not sell values is it really feasible? So what are the main ideas used in the commercial design of the game? The approach to the commercialization of free-to-play games has changed a lot over the years, from simple and crude to skillful guidance, what do you think of this market trend changing? What is the impact on product development and design?
Mobil Excellence: So far, no multi-platform MMORPG game has really managed to sell value, and Taris World is going to be the first.
In fact, what everyone is worried about is that if we don't sell values and don't make money, the game may eventually change to sell values or stop moving. Only selling appearance and functional props, there are many competitive games on the market that are popular and have successful operation cases. While we all know that competitive gamers are generally more than MMORPGs, we have assessed that as long as we maintain a certain number of players, we can maintain operations and profitability by selling skins.
Therefore, in order to really bring users a fair game world experience: first, we simplify the content, so that the gameplay and tasks are moderate and interesting, the levels are carefully planned, the copy needs cooperation and skill, do not do the task of moving bricks and hanging up, and really let the interesting content of the game retain players. Second, compared with point card MMOs and terminal game MMOs, we have removed the threshold for point card payment and added mobile phones to attract and add more players to join. Third, we don't sell values in terms of payment, the game environment will become fairer, and more free and small R users will stay. Fourth, we adopt a season-based game structure, so that players can be relatively casual after graduation and do not have to catch up every day. Come back for the new season. The game is less stressful and less investigative. Fifth, we will also design and develop convenient functions that do not matter the value, such as larger backpacks, more props for trading grids, etc. to supplement payment. This is also some of the strength of our commercialization dare not sell values.
As for the market trends mentioned, I believe that in recent years, the market will definitely still be dominated by games that sell value, but we do want to make some games with different experiences to bring players and return to the heart of MMORPGs.
—— Successful MMORPG products tend to have a long life cycle of years or decades, what do you think is the main reason why they can continue to attract players for such a long time? As a new entrant to the MMORPG space, has Taris World learned any lessons from these success stories?
Audio-Excellence: A game that can attract players for decades, he must have an absolute advantage in gameplay and quality, or in the environment at that time. Therefore, if we want to build "Tares World" into a long-life cycle product, we must make an MMORPG game with exquisite content, pure and fair environment, season system, cross-platform and other new structures in the current environment of numerical payment, rolling server mode, and exchange products, so as to maximize the advantages of our game.
—— Many successful products on the market have both PC and mobile versions, what do you think will change in the future from PC to mobile to dual-terminal interoperability? What is the technical support?
LD Excellence: Mobile is the big trend, and gaming on PC is better. I believe that as long as the development cost of future game products allows, most high-quality games will definitely be released in multi-terminal versions. At present, compared with the existing multi-terminal products on the market, "Taris World" still makes many user differences, such as different interfaces for different clients, different operating habits, and even different functions. In order to ensure the experience and quality of multi-terminal users without specifications, it is also a great test for the development team's core competitiveness of a series of technologies such as game engine mechanism, rendering, and research and development of art specifications.
—— At present, the popularity and attention of "Taris World" in the market are very high, and the recent test players are also very enthusiastic, can you disclose the relevant data.
LD Excellence: It can be revealed that after two rounds of testing, the feedback from our players and the market has indeed lived up to the R&D team's love for this category, living up to our four years of sweat, and living up to the expectations of players. But at the same time, I believe that there is still room for improvement for our team to continue to climb and reach the next level.
Does the size and form of the game represent a new understanding of MMORPGs and where the future is headed? What is the current configuration of the R&D team?
LD Excellence: I think the form of this game really represents the company's understanding of MMORPGs, an optimized understanding of the current market and some of the previous classic and great MMO products. Hopefully, Taris World will be more aimed at the mindset of today's players. The content is truly fun and challenging for players who love the genre. No need for krypton gold, no need for too much liver, no need to be tied to the game too dead, even if AFK can still come back to play MMORPG at any time for a period of time, return to the heart. At present, the R&D team of the overall project is currently between 200-300 people.