War of Legends

War of LegendsWhen you think of successful publishers, Jagex is not necessarily the first name that pops into your head. Launched back in 1999, it was primarily formed to support the development of an innocuous little free-to-play game called RuneScape. Ten years down the line and Jagex employs 400 staff, has published over 40 games and is considered the largest independent publisher in Britain. Their games have been played by over 165 million people world-wide. They have even appeared in The Times ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list. Twice.

War of Legends is a multiplayer real-time strategy game set in feudal China, and represents the latest incarnation of Jagex’s free-to-play model. Created by Chinese developer Ultizen, it is also Jagex’s first foray into the world of third-party publishing. Like their previous titles, War of Legends is entirely browser-based and can be played on any PC connected to the internet. With RuneScape recognised as the most successful free-to-play MMORPG of all time, fans are anxious to see if Jagex can work its magic on the RTS genre. I spoke to Jagex’s Adam Tuckwell and Christian Reshoeft to find out why War of Legends might conquer your heart as well as your kingdom.

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RU James: How did you stumble across War of Legends?

Adam: We found out about War of Legends through one of our partners who did graphical work on RuneScape. It’s a game we played and instantly enjoyed. It’s targeted at a slightly older audience than RuneScape, and is obviously aimed at different interests. RTS is a niche, but it’s a very big niche and one Jagex have been meaning to fill for a long time.

RU James: What is the gameplay focus of WoL? Is it pure RTS, or are traditional MMO staples like questing and treasure-hording included?

Adam: I’d say it’s a mixture. We’re trying to make a game that will suit a variety of players whilst making RTS games a bit more accessible. One of the things that RTS games are usually hindered by is the social interaction aspect, so we’re bringing elements of RuneScape in to deal with that. Obviously battles are a key part of the game, and there is an underlying empire building message. We’ve designed the game in such a way that it will appeal to those who enjoy building and managing cities. At the same time, it should also appeal to people who love epic battles and are interested in forming alliances and trading with others.

RU James: What is the historical setting going to offer gamers who are tired of facing off against elves and orcs?

Adam: We’ve been working with the developers for the last year to make sure that the game is culturally geared towards a Western audience without losing its novelty. The storyline is based in Chinese mythology, so we’re trying not to change the name of characters or places. There is a tradition in the West of Arthurian knights and medieval games, so we believe that people will be genuinely interested in similar themes based in a slightly different culture. There are already a lot of titles available for people who like Tolkien-esque games, RuneScape being one of them. This time we’re focusing on legends. There’s a back story involving a battle between dynasties and players are encouraged to choose an allegiance very early in the game. We’ve tried not to make it too text and story heavy, but there is plenty of that in there if that’s what interests you.

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RU James: How do alliances function within the game?

Christian: This is a persistent world, so alliances are very important. The world continues after you logout, so you may well get attacked while you are offline and unable to defend yourself. In that event, your friends can use their resources and armies to protect you. To be successful people will really need to organise themselves and figure out how they are going to look after one another. When you start the game your cities are protected for seven days, so you’re not going to login on your second day and find all your work undone. You also unlock protective items in the game, so there are ways to circumvent being destroyed while offline.

Adam: It is a very tactical game. When you logout you set up your city’s defenses to protect it while you’re away. Alliances are a key part of that protection. We’ve also built in an aspect that we think western audiences will appreciate involving range. Something we’ve learned though RuneScape is that we want the new player experience to be an exciting one, but also a relatively safe one. As you progress you have a ‘range’ of people you can target and attack. So, if you’re level 5,000 you might be able to attack people down to level 3,000 and up to 10,000 or 20,000. You will have to work together with other players to attack bigger targets. There will be about 2,000 players per world, so the idea is to fill these worlds up with users starting at roughly the same time. We feel this is better than joining an already established world full of extremely high ranking players.

RU James: With all these empires and alliances, are we going to see cyber-governments forming within the game worlds?

Adam: When you start to build up your armies you will recruit Legends and organise people to fight for you. As you grow you will build empires, and as your empires grow you will make arrangements with players as to whose cities you will and will not attack. You can also share resources if you choose, so I guess it’s similar to a commonwealth in that respect.

RU James: You say that you’ve always used the free-to-play model, but WoL includes micro-transactions. Does this mean that paying users will get superior content? Won’t this stack the odds unfairly against free users?

Adam: There is the option to use micro-transactions in WoL. This will allow you to purchase items or time. Essentially, half the micro-transactions are time sensitive. For example, if you don’t want to wait an hour for your house or city to go from a level three to a level four, you can use these micro-transactions to speed up the process. However, there is no content you cannot acquire if you choose not to pay. We have an in-game economy which allows you to buy exactly the same types of potions and items through the world currency. We wanted to experiment with micro-transactions without forcing players to spend their money if they didn’t want to. It’s down to time pressure really. If you’re only logging on for 10 minutes and you really want something to happen, you have the option to pay to speed things up. But, at the same time, we don’t want people to join a game, spend tonnes of cash, instantly get to a high level and then get bored because they haven’t lived through the storyline or earned their way to the top.

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RU James: With the rise of games like Evony and your own RuneScape the free-to-play market has become a competitive one. How does WoL stand out from its peers?

Adam: I think we’re at an advantage because we actually understand what the free-to-play experience means. When we launched back in 2001 publishers didn’t understand the online publishing space, and I’d argue that some of them still don’t understand it today. The RuneScape free-to-play experience is huge. Our highest level free-player has played for 17,000 hours without paying a penny. Despite the marketplace being competitive there aren’t that many high quality games. Many of the free-to-play experiences out there are very shallow. The ideal of a free casual game usually means something you play for 10 minutes on your lunch break and then throw away. This is something we are really trying to move away from.

Christian: We already have a massive community – RuneScape accounts number around 160 million – so that’s a big advantage. A lot of other games will have a couple of hundred, maybe a couple of thousand people playing at any one time. RuneScape account holders can log straight into WoL, so we can funnel a massive community directly into this game. It’s a lot cooler to start out in a busy world rather than one that is not as populated.

RU James: What updates can WoL users expect over the coming months?

Adam: In addition to straight empire-building we have included a number of tasks you can complete, similar to traditional MMO quests. These will be updated and tailored to suit specific types of players; for example, players who favour city-building or players who focus on PvP. We’re very much in a working partnership with the developer for the long term, so we’ll constantly be adapting the experience via the updates. We really see ourselves as developer / publishers. WoL isn’t something we’re just going to pack up, drop off and stop caring about.

Many thanks to Adam and Christian for talking to Ready Up. War of Legends is available from today. Click here to join the battle.


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5 responses to “War of Legends”

  1. Markatansky avatar

    I’m playing this as part of the Beta just now and I’m enjoying it much more than I enjoy some of the non-browser based RTS games. Think Heroes Of Might and Magic meets Dynasty Warriors.

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