Dev Interview: Klaipeda’s New Face

Greetings, Saviors!

Now that Klaipeda has become the starting city for all characters and home of the popular Mercenary Post, many have come to settle in the new bustling hub.

Klaipeda’s evolution is far from over, however. The devs are planning a large-scale renovation of the city that promises to turn the old town into a wider, more welcoming home for all adventurers.

We sat down with Tree of Savior’s head of development (HOD), who’s in charge of planning the renovation, and our art director Maggi, responsible for designing the city's revamped façade, to find out more about Klaipeda’s new face.
 

Staff: It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I’m sure our players are looking forward to hearing from you, too.

HOD: The pleasure is all ours.

Staff: So, let’s talk about Klaipeda (the in-game city). With more people coming into the city, it is starting to look a lot more crowded than before. In some channels you almost feel like you’re going to bump into someone when you’re walking around! How did you decide to expand and renovate Klaipeda?

HOD: As most players will know, the previous main city was Fedimian, which is up north in the level 100 region. We are very fond of Fedimian and its cozy, rustic feel, but considering that a large part of all characters are high level, the fact that Fedimian is located out of the reach of lower-level characters meant that it was often difficult for new players to feel like they’re in a populated MMORPG. If someone comes into TOS for the first time and their starting city has only a few active characters, they’re going to think, “Should I be playing this game?”

To address that issue, along with the recently-updated combat system and the new/returning player events bringing in more start-level characters, we thought it was time to expand Klaipeda and turn it into a more active and friendly central city.

Staff: That sounds like a great welcome for new players, and I’m sure a lot of existing players will appreciate it, too. But I can imagine everyone’s already wondering what the new Klaipeda will look like, so I hope Maggi can let us in on that. But first, would you sign my TOS goddess poster? I’m a huge fan :’)

Maggi: (signing the poster) Hahah, of course.

Staff: Alright, onto the actual question, which is: what is your vision for the new face of Klaipeda?

Maggi: Klaipeda is a city that’s very dear to me. Tree of Savior was the first time I got to work on background art; before that, I had only designed characters. And it all started with Klaipeda. We planned alternative names for the city and I submitted a series of different concepts for how it was to look like before we decided on the final image. Klaipeda was the first city players got to see in Tree of Savior, so it needed to convey our game’s characteristic cute but classic style as accurately as possible. To this day, I still think Klaipeda is the city that best manages to do that out of all the others.

Staff: For this project, you’re in charge of directing the aesthetic and practical design of the new “constructions” in Klaipeda. When you heard that the city was being expanded, what was the first thing that came to mind?

Maggi: The first thing that was mentioned in the initial meeting was that players needed a wide area, like a big plaza, where they could meet and hang out in the city. I started thinking about how I could make that happen, and I figured I could expand Klaipeda’s “third floor” area, which is mostly empty, relocate some NPCs and create a nice, spacious area there.

And since we’re going to change the structure of the city, I thought it would be fun to go all out and add a water course to the upper section and a water wheel to give it a livelier feel.

Staff: Is there any part of the renovations that you absolutely insisted on keeping?

Maggi: I wanted to make sure that we could integrate little elements that would naturally draw players to the plaza. I thought that simply having a wide space available in the city wouldn’t make it much of a proper hangout place, so I designed it in a way that, with the Mercenary Post NPCs relocated, we can also use the space to add things like hair salons in the surrounding buildings or fishing spots in the water courses. The main purpose is to turn Klaipeda into a living, breathing city.

Staff: Speaking of a living, breathing city, Mr. Head of Development, do you remember this lady?


< Inesa Hamondale, Lord of Orsha >

HOD: …

Staff: She would very much like to know why Orsha is no longer a starting city for newly-created characters.

HOD: It’s true; this is a point in our development history that is most unfortunate. We felt that, from the perspective of a new player coming into TOS and creating their character, starting in Orsha was unnecessarily confusing, as it made it difficult for the player to know what scenarios to expect and how to carry on playing the game. Klaipeda and Orsha aren’t in different realms, nor do their contents oppose in any way, so we concluded that it didn’t make much sense to have both options available.

In terms of actual gameplay, technically you could start on one route and move back and forth between both quest paths, but what we found was that this commonly confused players instead of increasing the sense of freedom of exploration. Also, this division only happened in the lower Rank areas until level 100, which in terms of development resource allocation and scenario satisfaction wasn’t always the most effective setup.

These reasons, along with our plans for Klaipeda’s renovations, are what led us to ultimately remove Orsha from the starting city options.

Staff: So… what’s going to happen to Orsha now?

HOD: For now we’re going to leave Orsha as it is, but in the future we want to make use of the city to provide players with more meaningful and interesting contents.

Staff: I see. I think we, as inhabitants of the Kingdom, can understand that. Now, Maggi, I had a look at the new concept images for Klaipeda, and in one of them you have this beautiful drawing across the pavement. It’s a very fresh and unique touch to an RPG. Would you care to talk about that?


< Concept image of Klaipeda seen from above >

Maggi: The idea actually came from our concept designer. In quarter-view games, the floor is very important, and this time we wanted to add something to celebrate Goddess Jurate, so we thought of a drawing spread across the pavement. Our designer immediately pulled together a quick sketch and – what do you know – it looked amazing. I have a feeling this won’t be the last pavement drawing we’ll be seeing from her, so keep an eye out for more.

Staff: People often associate the visual world of Tree of Savior with your own creations, but it’s nice to see how much of it comes from the joint efforts of your team. Now I must ask; what main changes can we expect to see in Klaipeda?

HOD: The Mercenary Post is going to a wider area at the top of the map, with a path leading up to it. In this area we’ll also be adding a few contents in the buildings and structures of the city that players can interact with. All in all, we expect Klaipeda to become Tree of Savior’s main destination for city contents that all kinds of players can enjoy.

Staff: I’m seriously considering moving to Klaipeda after hearing that. Just out of curiosity, could you share a bit of the process of the city’s reconstruction?

Maggi: I can show you a rough sketch I did with the help of the background modeling team of how we first envisioned the new structure of the city.



I then consulted with background designers to draw out a few sample buildings and facilities.


< Sample images for Klaipeda’s expansion project >

We also created a few props for a Jurate Festival to celebrate Klaipeda’s renewal.


< Banners for the Jurate Festival celebrating Klaipeda’s renewal >

Once that was done, the background modeling team took over to create the new structures and put everything into place. We worked very hard to portray the right feel in the city, especially with the opening festival, so we hope that comes across to the players.

Staff: May the goddesses bless the renewed city of Klaipeda, and thank you very much for the interview.

HOD/Maggi: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you all for your support.