Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second, Interview with the game developers

Over the weekend of License2Play (L2P), we caught up with Korean game developers over a cup of tea and coffee to ask about the long awaited Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second. (RO2).

SGCafe: Why did they decide to change the original RO2 (Ragnarok Online 2: The Gate of the World) concept to its current one?
Gravity: Before Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second, there was Ragnarok Online 2: The Gate of the World (a couple of years ago), in which the game developers find that it was not really complete.

Our team felt that the game was incomplete, and started to change the theme and its gaming engine. And with the new change of members to our team of game developers, it too resulted in RO2 being changed in certain ways, as well as giving the game a new ending.

Which part of the engine did your team change? 
Formally we were using the original game engine used in creating RO, and have since changed over a few times for a more efficient engine used to create RO2.

Is your team planning to bring back the Third class and Rebirth class system to RO2?
Third and Rebirth system class will be reintroduced again in RO2. However there will be some changes made to the Rebirth class system. In RO during one Rebirth, the character would start from the beginning again, whereas our team find it hard to start over and they find that Rebirth is a process to change into Third Class rather than from the beginning of the game again.

With this, we are planning to do a level of update whereby the Third and Rebirth Class will be introduced by stages. The Third class system somewhere in the first half of 2013 and the “Rebirth” shortly after.

Why did your team change the ability to customize the character stats when gamers first create it in RO1 and to how it is now?
The original team tells us that they find that most people during the stage of customizing their character’s stats, are more prone to ‘spoiling’ their characters by misplacing the few stats points by mistake into the wrong category. We are trying to give the feeling of RO in RO2 by improving parts from RO before carrying it forward into RO2, and find that with fixed stats added to our character creation helps to make things easier. This also eliminates the possibility of making minor mistakes that might attribute to our character creation in the later parts of the game.

What is the Dual Life System in RO2?
In RO2 the concept is like reality whereby people need to work to continue living on. For example, merchants job class are people who control the economy and everything else. The professions that allow the characters to sell something and to earn from it, and another part of the duo life is to encourage interactions among the characters that have been created in the game.

Card System of RO vs. RO2: Why the limitation of 12 vs 5 cards?
The Card System is something important in RO content, and depending with the way gamers use the card, the equipment can become something ‘god-like’ whilst it become strong than other weapons originally created of higher level.

Gamers also know that there are special cards that can only be bought at the cash shop. We also do not want gamers who do not purchase in-game items to be too underpowered compared to gamers that are able to attain the card via in-game purchases. This is a way/their way of leveling the playing field and to make it fair for everyone.

With the current Card System retained fr0m RO but reducing the number of slots, it enabled us to develop a new system called Rune Slots, that helps to upgrade the equipment in RO2. We wish to allow new gamers to RO2 the chance opportunity to try out the game for themselves before they start experimenting with Rune Slot combinations that their character could use to find the best combination for their equipment to suit their pre-selected stats and Character Class.

What can we expect in RO2 (Based on the Korean game server)?
There will be new race updates for Korea server come mid December. For the rest of the months, an update on collectible items can be expected on February 2013, followed up by adding more levels for your Character to level come March 2013. There will also be a major update during April, and we have planned to re-introduce Wedding System on RO2 in May 2013.

What is the most significant changes that your team have made between RO and RO2?
In RO, emphasis on single play, creating cohesion amongst big communities and harmony across all the different Races were most significant.

In RO2, we emphasize on the Role-Playing element of the game, where each character or player will have a role to play in the world of RO2. The system within RO2 also encourages players to also interact and coordinate with one another.

How is the Party System like this time in RO2?
The more people in your party the more experience points that you can get. Different areas bring different experience points and perks, and it also requires certain group or party of Characters to join in as to kill different types of monsters.

Share your comments on how fans of RO shared with us on similarity in game system of RO2 & WoW
We ensured that the game interface of RO2 is more similar to that of RO for everyone to draw more relation to as compared that of WoW.

As the game of RO2 progresses, there will be more links and similarities that gamers would start to draw more from between RO into RO2.

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The close beta servers will cease from 12 December 2012, and open beta servers will commence this weekend, 15 December 2012.  Players who hit Level 25 during close beta will get to keep their Character name, that should be brought forward onto the open beta.  All other player data will be wiped during the transition from closed beta to open beta. Until then, look forward to the latest updates Ragnarok Online 2: Legend of the Second from SGCafe!