Interview with Vanthia’s Maciej ‘nea’ Hirsz

Lumio — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:52:34 +0000

Today we bring you an interview with Vanthia’s main man Maciej ‘nea’ Hirsz. The game in recently in beta and has received a good grade from us. Today we are talking to him about the game and what to look forward to as the game continues to grow.

Enjoy…

MMOcker: Vanthia is currently in its second phase of closed beta, can you give the
players any ETA on when you plan to roll out the open beta?

nea: Things are changing directions a bit atm, and we will have a bit longer

nea

development cycle in the end. I can’t give you any ETA on open beta, I
wouldn’t except it this year for sure.

MMOcker: An up and coming dungeon was announced titled “Temple of the Spider
Queen” where players will be able to take on the boss together. Will these
players also be able to take on Non-boss encounters?

nea: That’s one of the things we would like to do, but it’s kind of tricky
given the way random encounters are done now. We will do the group mode
for bosses first and then see what can be done about normal mobs. It’s
highly possible that the way random encounters work will change later.

MMOcker: You recently met with investors in Paris, what are the immediate
changes/improvements you are making?

nea: Obviously one thing we are touching on is the business model. They want to
invest money into the game, so it would be good if the game can make
money eventually . There will be a lot of changes going on now, some
stuff I’ve ditched before since I didn’t have resources to do it is
coming back to the table.

MMOcker: What do you imagine the finished product of Vanthia will look like
contrasting with what it is in 8.0?

nea: Experience we have now is fairly simple, go out, kill mobs, boost
stats, advance your class. We will obviously add a lot more content,
but that’s definitely not enough to make a great MMO experience. One
feature I’m really looking forward to implement is 3v3 pvp arena with
elo ratings, but we will of course have a quest system and all that
fuzz you can expect from a modern MMO.

MMOcker: What in Vanthia are you most proud of?

nea: I’m pretty much proud about the whole thing, especially from the

nea's dog nuka, who does all the programming

technical side. If I’ve to pick one thing, that has to be the combat
system – coming up with new abilities and thinking about potential
tactics and/or synergies they might produce is really a pleasure .

MMOcker: How long has Vanthia been in development, starting from the initial
concept?

nea: A long time, but it’s hard to compare the development to any other
game since we are not a studio that’s working 9 to 5 (at least not yet
). The current version of the game server in python was done (or rather
rewritten from php) about a year ago, the game client has a bit longer
history.

MMOcker: Did you play Vanthia during your meetings in Paris?

nea: Not really, just for showing some stuff and the discussion went on.

MMOcker: Cake or Pie?

nea: BEER!

MMOcker: Thank you so much for your time, we look forward to Vanthia’s release!

nea: We all do .

Thanks again to nea for doing the interview! Good stuff.

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Interview with Vanthia’s Maciej ‘nea’ Hirsz