Search article
DEVELOPER'S BLOG
Questions and Answers about TOS #8
I am syKim. I will answer the questions that we received during the last week and also introduce a few other classes. TOS is currently under development so the answers that are given below can be changed in the future. Q) I know that the characters can jump in the game. Can they also climb onto roofs of the buildings in the game? A) Yes you can. You can also climb onto other objects besides the buildings. Q) Can melee classes also evade monsters’ attacks? A) If you accumulate “Agility” stats, you can evade monsters’ attacks. And it does not only apply to the classes that are specialized in melee attacks, but it applies to all classes. Q) Are there any other classes that can use summon skills other than Necromancer? A) There are a few other classes that can use summon skills besides Necromancer. Such as Sorcerer… However, the methods of controlling summonees are little different. Q) Are there skill trees in the game? A) Most of the skills are exposed without any requirements, but a few skills that are related to the other skills can be learned after training those other skills first. As I told you before, it is possible to train your existing class instead of advancing your class to higher class. When you do that, new skills and attributes can be learned. Q) After advancing my class to higher class, is it possible to go back to the previous class? A) You advance your class to learn new skills so even if you advance your class to higher class, the skills that you have learned will not disappear. It is also possible to wear the costumes that your previous class used to wear after advancing your class to higher class. Q) Are there any limits on where I can go? For example, are there any places that I can’t go before I reach certain level? A) We are trying to allow players to move freely except for a few specific cases. However, if a player enters a map which requires high level, then it will be hard to play on that map. Q) I really like Wizard (♀). I hope you make it in GIF. We will introduce you a few classes in the game. ▲“Cataphract” is a cavalry class which is specialized in breaking through a group of monsters or barriers. Its attacks can reach long ranges and it is useful in facing multiple enemies. When Cataphract is mounted, its attacks become stronger. It can use skills while it is moving which is very unique for Swordsman type classes. ▲“Chronomancer” is a class which controls time. It can increase movement speed, and it can also temporarily increase attack speed as well. It can stop the enemies’ movement and it even restores the time back to a few seconds so that the environment around you are the way they were when they were a few seconds back. ▲“Quarrel Shooter” is a class which is specialized in using crossbows. When it uses a one-hand bow, it can either use a sub-weapon or a shield on the other hand so that defense which is the archer’s critical weakness can be enhanced. When it uses a Pavise, which is a shield that can be deployed in the ground, it can protect enemies’ long range attacks so more strategic battles are possible. ▲“Bokor” is a class which uses Voodoo skills. It can either attack a monster that it chose as a target from long ranges or it can curse the monsters so that they can turn into zombies. Zombies attack the other monsters that also turn into zombies. Zombies are very slow and they are hard to control so by placing Veves which summon Lwas, you can help those zombies and order collective commands to the zombies. This week’s post was delayed a bit due to some internal issue in our development team. Therefore as compensation for your waiting, ▲Initial design of “Swordsman Class” by AD Maggi So that’s it for this week. We always listen to your suggestions and opinions so please forward your opinions or questions to TOS Facebook or Developers’ blog. Thanks.
The answers for the questions received after CBT1
I am syKim from TOS dev team. First of all, I would like to say “Thank You” to all of you who had participated the first CBT (CBT1) and shown us a huge interest during CBT period. We were able to verify the problems that are currently present in the game and also get some ideas for our future development direction. I answered some of the most frequently asked questions after CBT1 briefly. Since our fans outside Korea were not able to participate the CBT, some of the questions may not be clearly understandable for you at the moment so please just read them casually. Q) Right now, the game can be only played by the keyboard. Do you have any future plans to include mouse control as well? A) In fact, that was the most debated topic inside our Dev team, and at one time, there was a suggestion to make controls different for each class. For example, when you are playing with Wizard, you move your character with the mouse and when you are playing with Archer, use WASD + mouse targeting. We tried several different versions, but none of them were well suited for TOS since characters’ directions of sight are very important in the game. Therefore, we concluded that all classes will be played by the keyboard. We do not have any future plans to add mouse controls. However, for the next CBT (CBT2), we will try our best to make the game compatible with the gamepad. Q) Why is Stamina system in the game? What’s its use? A) During the beginning phase in the game, it is used to limit your character’s movement speed, but as your character’s rank increases, it may also influence your character’s skills depending on your character’s class attributes. For example, there’s a skill called Shield Charge used by Rodelero which you will use while moving. The skills like this will get influenced by the amount of Stamina you have. Stamina will also be consumed when you are controlling your companions so eventually Stamina will be another parameter that you will have to manage in the game. ▲ Rodelero’s “Shield Charge” consumes stamina. Q) When a class which uses dual-wield swords changes its job to a class which uses a spear, I am not able to use the skills that the previous class used to have and the changed class does not feel stronger. The same goes for Wizard type classes. Is it going to be like this in the future? A) The reason why there are distinct skills depending on which type of weapons you equip is to express each weapon’s uniqueness. Also when you are in PVP situations, you can guess what kind of skills your enemies will use. Since some people feel uncomfortable about this, we will add swap feature which you will be able to change your weapons easily. ▲ I think it will be some like this. Q) Do you have any future plans to add voices to each character? A) The voices that are currently available in the game were worked for CBT1. We will do recordings for the voices again based on the feedbacks that we received after CBT1. Q) Why are boss monsters so easy? A) There were two problems. First, we misadjusted the game’s difficulty levels. We were trying to make the game easy in the beginning phase so that more people could adopt the game quickly and meet harder bosses as they progress through the game. However, lots of testers adopted the game pretty sooner than we had initially expected. The other problem was that many of the bosses’ patterns were not functioning as we designed during CBT1. We found the underlying causes for those malfunctions and fixed them so the bosses will be different in CBT2. Also, during CBT1, boss monsters telegraphed the locations where they will attack in advance, but this function will gradually disappear as players progress in the game and only Oracle (the class which foresees the future) will be able to see where monsters will attack. Q) I know that there are already lots of classes that are disclosed to the public, but are there any other classes that have not been disclosed? A) Yes. I think we have more classes to be disclosed. For example, ▲ Plague Doctor ▲ Proto sketch (AD maggi) There are a few classes in TOS that are able to change their stances by wearing a mask. Plague Doctor is one of them. It involves in your allies’ or enemies’ abnormal status or use a skill that purifies polluted areas. Q) What was the maximum level that players could reach in CBT1? It seemed there were lots of territories in the game… A) There was no limit on the levels. However, we just included the quests and the other contents up to 4 Rank. The number of territories that were included for CBT1 was about one fifth of the OBT version. Q) When I looked at the client, BGMs were included as MP3 files. Can I copy them and give them to my friends? A) You can give them to your friends as long as you and your friends don’t use them for commercial purposes. But, some of those BGMs still need be balanced and go through Mastering process. Also some of them may not be completely worked at our side. It will be better to use them when you have the client for CBT2. Q) There was a BGM called “O Deive” in the game during one of the boss battles. What is the language in this music and what is the meaning of the lyrics? A) Sevin, who is the chief sound director of TOS, composed the music and Jung Hyun Jin from our Dev Team wrote the lyrics. Martinas, who gives us advises on Lituanina settings in TOS translated the lyrics. Soprano Ji Young Kim and two Lituanians, Christina and Arnoldas, did the vocals. If we get a chance to produce OST CDs for TOS in the future, we will also try to add the music score that has the lyrics in it. ▲ Recording in the studio. Q) Can we name our party? So we can easily search for it? A) Initially, we were going to have names on each party, but we concluded that it’s better to have names on guilds so we excluded that feature from our future plans. Instead, we are planning to add descriptions on each party so that they will be easy to find on Party Search interface. ▲ I think it will be some like this. Q) Are you planning to add party quests or boss monster raids in the future? A) We observed closely how testers play each other in “Party Events” during CBT1 and we are planning to emphasize this feature during CBT2. Besides hunting for bosses, we will try to add various missions and quests. ▲ Boss Hunting Mission which was exclusive for one of the Party Events during CBT1. Q) I hope there are more diverse types of Companions in the future. A) Right now, there are only two Companions that are purchasable at Klaipeda. We will add more Companions in the future that will be distinct in each village. Q) Please give us options to change characters’ eye colors or hair colors. A) We already have a feature to change eye colors or hair colors of characters in the game. But instead of making them possible when selecting a character, we want players to obtain them in the game. We hope for your understanding for this since we believe that players will be more affectionate to their characters when they become unique and distinct from other players’ characters after a long period of playtime instead of just allowing diverse customization options from the beginning. Q) I want to know when your next CBT schedule is going to be. A) We already started to prepare for the next CBT, and probably we will open up to Rank 6 classes for the next CBT. The detailed schedule has not been set, but I think it will be around this spring. Bonus Image: ▲ The goddess of fire, Gabija (AD maggi). You probably have seen her if you reached the highest level of The Magicians’ Tower during CBT1.
Updates on the International Test
Hello. I am Hakkyu Kim, CEO of imcGAMES. We have been silent about our International Test Version for some time, so we will share you our current process with our overseas fans. ▲ English Version (under development) We are currently working on English translations inside, but since there are too many texts, it will take too much time if we focus on accuracy. However, we wanted to open the international test server as quickly as possible. Also we didn't want to outsource translations to 3rd party who does not have deep understanding of the game so we came up with a new idea called OTC (open text client) The basic idea of OTC is to put all in-game text data into different language folders in the client so that it will be easier for our fans to see and edit them directly. To explain briefly about it, (inside the folder) (Please note that for territories where we already decided on our publishers, we may not support the languages in such regions. ) If a language pack is put inside the folder, (selection screen in the game) Players will be able to select a language pack within the game and they can also change to different languages real-time. Each language pack contains Unicode plain texts that are in .tsv format. (Tab Seperated Values) (tsv example screenshot) Inside the file, text ID and translated language texts (foreign language) are matched like the above, When these texts are modified, then the modified texts will be applied in the game. When you find awkwardly translated texts in the game, just locate the cursor on the texts and press Ctrl+Shift with a mouse click. (These could be changed in the future) The editor program will pop up and it will take you to the texts automatically. When you modify the texts from the editor and save them, the client will reload only the modified texts automatically. Each folder contains the fonts that are adequate for different languages so other languages besides Korean and English can also be applied in the game if there are other language data inside each folder. Our plan is to distribute the client which you won’t have a big problem playing the game so the English texts in the game may feel awkward at the beginning. However, we will receive better translations and expressions from the testers and continue to apply them in the game. It would have been the best to provide the completed language packs from the beginning, but we believe that we will shorten our time to prepare for the International Test by utilizing this method. Furthermore, when communities that use other languages besides English submit new language packs to us, we will officially distribute them as client patches after going through our examination and verification process internally. For the purpose of sharing translated texts between our fans and imcGAMES and to submit and manage those texts, we will first create OTC Repository (such as github.com, not tested yet though) and disclose our texts to our fans. We hope that OTC becomes an efficient way for our non-English speaking fans to enjoy TOS in their native languages sooner than any other ways. We are currently undertaking various tests to decide where to locate the servers for the international testable version. Possible candidates are Amazon AWS and a few overseas service providers. We are looking for the most optimized solution so that we could secure stable Pings for all our fans. Furthermore, for our overseas fans to register securely and conveniently, we are currently developing a feature to register via Facebook and Google+ accounts. By the time when we are finished developing the feature, we think that we will be ready to open up the test server. We think that one server location will not be enough to cover all territories, so after reviewing our first test results, it is very likely that we will decide on our 2nd server location. We haven’t decided the exact date for the International Test, but we think it will be after CBT2 in Korea. The detailed schedules for CBT2 in Korea will soon be decided. We welcome your questions or opinions.
Questions and Answers about TOS #9
I am syKim from “Tree of Savior (TOS)” development team. This is 9th post on Questions and Answers about TOS which answers the questions and the suggestions from all of you who are waiting and cheering for TOS. TOS is currently under development so the answers that are given below can be changed when we start the official service of the game. Q) I want to know if there’s day and night system in the game. A) There is no day and night system in the game. Q) I heard that we can climb onto the objects in the game. Can we also find hidden items or do some special actions when we climb onto those objects? I like looking for hidden dungeons or items. A) We have some hidden contents at the places that are not clearly visible in the game. Q) Is there marriage system in the game? A) At the moment, we don’t have marriage system in the game. However if there are lots of users who want this system, then maybe in the future, we could think about adding this system in the game. Please give us your suggestions. Q) I have a question on costumes. Do the costumes exist for collection purpose or dressing purpose? Or maybe do they exist to add some options to the characters? A) In TOS, each costume makes your character look different from the others. Therefore, they are different from the armors which have defensive attributes. Even if you don’t wear the costume that you newly obtained in the game and stay in the previous costume, there will be no disadvantage in terms of stats. Exclusive costumes for each class can be obtained from Class Master NPC when you advance your class to higher class. Q) I saw Chronomancer’s skill which restores the past time. Then is it possible to revive the friends who are dead? What about the items that we acquired before we restore the time? How about the monsters which are dead? Do they resurrect? A) First of all, this skill can’t be used often since some time needs to be passed in order to use this skill again. However, if there were dead friends or monsters, they will resurrect. The items that you acquired before you restore the time will remain even if you restore the time. You can understand it as in Sci-Fi movies where the main character who go to the past using time slip still has a cell phone or other things in his/her pocket which are not possible to be existed in the past. So now more class introductions. ▲“Thaumaturge” is a class which can change attributes. Monsters’ traps can be used as if they are yours, and you can either shrink or enlarge enemies’ sizes. Some of the skills of the other classes get influenced by the sizes of the enemies so if you use this skill cleverly, then you will change the outcome of the battles. You can also enlarge specific parts of your character’s body. For example, if you enlarge the hand which is equipped with a weapon, then attack stats will increase. If you enlarge the hand which is equipped with a shield, then defense stats will increase. ▲“Archer” is a basic class in archer-type classes. Arrow’s attack power will vary depending on the character’s distance from the enemies. If you change the stance of your character, then you won’t be able to move, but then the effective attack range will increase. If the monsters get attacked by a strong arrow attack, sometimes they will be hooked together and as a result you can attack these monsters easily as if you are handing just one monster. Archer can move while it is attacking the monsters so it is useful when you are in battle with boss monsters or the monsters that are big. ▲ "Pyromancer" is a class which uses fire magic. Fire attacks inflict continuous damages on monsters so it is useful to use this class when you are facing multiple enemies. “Fire Wall”, which you can place it on the ground, can be used using directional keys when you draw a wall on the ground while casting this skill. “Fireball” can be moved around by attacking it directly from short ranges so it will be useful in many ways when you are in party. ▲ "Centurion” class can order commands to other characters. If players participate “Formation”, then the characters’ control will be controlled by Centurion until they go out of Formation. Formation can be changed into various types depending on various situations and each type of formation has its own unique characteristic. For example, “Winged Formation” which surrounds the enemies and concentrate on firing on those enemies, is effective when you are facing with a huge boss, and “Phalanx” which temporarily gathers all Blocking stats to the players in the first row is effective when you are facing with multiple enemies at once. ▲This week’s bonus : Klaipeda soldier NPC design (by AD Maggi) Next week, I will answer the questions that are coming to us repeatedly related to the items in the game in details. If you have further questions or suggestions, please forward them to TOS Facebook or Developers’ blog. Thanks.
Tree of Savior is now Greenlit on Steam
Hello. We are TOS Service Team. Many people are asking us who submitted Tree of Savior into Steam Greenlight so we want to clarify here that we, imcGAMES made the submission. We want to apologize to our fans that we weren’t able to post the announcement about it before the submission. (Please understand that it was our first time submitting our game into Steam Greenlight. :) ) Tree of Savior is now Greenlit within less than 10 hours after we made the submission. We want to thank you for your love and support for Tree of Savior. For the information to be updated from now, we will officially announce it on our dev blog and Facebook so stay tuned for more detailed information in the future. Thanks.