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9 Dragons: Dev Journal: Monsters, Part II

DanaDana Member Posts: 2,415
in News & Features Discussion

Ken Johnston, the CEO of Persistent Worlds, pens the third 9 Dragons developer journal for MMORPG.com. Once again, Ken takes aim at the monsters of this martial-arts MMORPG.

image 9Dragons is the first authentic martial arts massively multiplayer online game. Think of the world of House of the Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or even Kwai Chang Caine from TV’s Kung Fu series in the 70’s (If you are old enough to remember it!).

That world was ancient China in the Ming dynasty. They were dangerous times; the land was filled with bandits, wild animals and worse monsters.

In the last article I took you through the general monsters that are around and also some of the specific monster clans that are in the game 9Dragons.

If after reading this article you want more information, take a look at the North American site www.9Dragonsgame.com or for the European site go to www.9Dragonsonline.com. Acclaim and Persistent Worlds are launching the game simultaneously across both America and Europe later this year.

You can see the full article here.

Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios

Comments

  • Distortion0Distortion0 Member Posts: 668
    The added art helps this article TONS! It's kind of like in the last article the text left me thinking "So, what makes this different from other games? They have theives and assasians." Now I just look at the art, and it like "Oh, that does!". I think these groups were a bit cooler and more origional too.
  • acrienacrien Member Posts: 18
    Ok, I've been tracking this game for a while now, mainly because the $10 million development cost, kung-fu themed style strikes home.  Still, I have no idea what the core value of this game is. 

    It is a very professional article about the monsters and historical backgrounds of where they came from.  The monsters themselves does offer some traditional Chinese folklore and cultural feel to the game, I grew up in China and I've taken Asian mythology class so I have some knowledge in that area.

    But the article raises more questions then it answers.  First, it's great to have background info on the mobs, but will those background stories be closely integrated into the game story line or quests?  Like World of Warcraft for example, VERY rich story as back drop for the game.  Starting from Warcraft I til frozen throne in Warcraft III, the story sucks you in.  But in WoW, the story completely fell apart, as a hero of the game, I am only doing quests for the reward and experience, I don't care about the story at all.  So my point is, giving away background info doesn't tell how the game is going to go with these info.  It seems to me like right now, the 9-dragon team is building up nice stories for these monsters to create hype, feels like they crunched some nice story out for the interview, doesn't sound like they've taken this out of the game. 

    Second, monsters rarely change a player's opinion about a game.  FFXI, people I played with complains about fighting the same crab from level 1 til level 60, (if anyone played FFXI, you know that's a long time to level that far) and despite the complaint, no one quit because of it.   Right now, it's all about the marketing, not about the market.  Which makes me think if these guys know what it means to be player oriented.  Show me the part of this game that is actually fun!


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