Allods Online

By Jesse Scoble

Dragon Fable is a single-player, browser-based role-playing game developed by Artix Entertainment, that was released in 2006. The game is designed in Adobe Flash and lets players create an adventurer in the land of "Lore." They can battle monsters, find treasure, level up – the usual staples of the fantasy RPG market. Dragon Fable is written with tongue-firmly-in-cheek, such as the Knights of the Pactagonal Table – and the game shows a good sense of humor. Additionally, the manga-style graphics are pretty and fun, although the game's animations are very simple.

MPOGD: Cysero, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for MPOGD:.com. Can you give us a quick description of Dragon Fable? What were some of the key inspirations, and what sets it apart from other fantasy games?

Cysero: DragonFable is a single player Web based RPG, that anyone can play for free in virtually any web browser. There is no downloadable content so if you want to play at school, or work or the library or a friend's house... go right ahead. Your characters and items will still be there. You can fight princesses, rescue dragons, cast swords and swing spells. As for the key inspirations, and what set it apart... pretty much the same answer. The humor. Like all Artix Entertainment we spice up the monster slaying action with terrible, TERRIBLE puns that make people want to hurt us, but they're too busy laughing. Another thing that sets DragonFable apart from other online games are the weekly updates that everyone can look forward to nearly every Friday, and the amazing online community that support all of our games. We listen to the players and try to include more and more of what they like to see every week.

MPOGD: What features in Dragon Fable do you think make the game appealing to both hardcore and casual players?

Cysero: Casual players will like how light the game takes itself. It is easily a game that you could play on your lunch-break. But we also have a lot of rewards for the obsessive players who are the backbone of our community. There are a lot of weapons, armors, pets and special rare items that take a lot of work to get, and the hardcore players race to see who can get them first. The plots are easy to follow but still addictive, entertaining and full of engaging characters.

MPOGD: How much have you added to Dragon Fable since its release?

Cysero: a LOT. Since its release, we have probably increased the content found within the game maybe... 600%. Having a release every Friday will do that to a game. The players always want something new to do and we always want to give it to them. MPOGD: How do you get a pet dragon? Cysero: Getting your own dragon is actually a key element to the game. There is a really fun quest chain that starts in the very first zone of the game and pulls you through several levels. Every player can train their baby dragon by feeding it and adding one to five points to one of the dragon skill pools per day. But players who pay for the game by purchasing a Dragon Amulet can customize their adult dragon's color, name, wing type, head type, and tail type. Getting your dragon is basically the main plot of the game until you get it, but players who choose not to bother will still enjoy themselves a lot in the other quests and areas.

MPOGD: The regular wars seem like a great way to shake things up and advance the storyline. Can you explain how the war events work?

Cysero: Sure. A war is a limited-time quest/storyline with scalable content for every player of every level. There are different waves of enemies that a player has to defeat, and every waves defeated adds itself to the total. There is a meter to let you know how many waves have been defeated total (not just by you, but by all the players collectively) and that percent the war is at. When enough waves have been defeated by all the players and the meter reaches 100%, then everyone can fight the Boss. There is usually a cutscene or two explaining why the war is taking place, which usually gives you hints about the main storyline, or the war might be an entire story unto itself. There are special rewards that anyone can get for participating in the war, but once the war is gone those rewards become unobtainable. Some players play just to collect the war rares.

MPOGD: What additions have been the biggest successes with the community?

Cysero: Without question, getting your own dragon has been the best single addition to the game. I mean, who doesn't want their own dragon? Our forums exploded on the weekend that we released the dragon and we kept a constant stream of updates flowing for the dragon release for about three weeks after that. It went over huge and it was really exciting for us to see people enjoying themselves so much.

MPOGD: What's on your wish list of new features that you feel players would really like to see added to Dragon Fable? What features do you want to see on the wish list?

Cysero: That's a tough one, because all the players want something. Some of the things that we will be adding to the game are armors (each armor is like it's own level-able class) that any player can get. We want to add upgradeable housing to the game as soon as we can. We also want to add more dragon functionality, and more uses for the dragon. We want to add guilds, and guild wars between guilds where members of the guild can take part in the action or just donate gold and resources to the cause. That will add a lot more player interactivity, which is always fun. Imagine riding your own dragon into battle against an enemy guild's fortress!

MPOGD: I've read that some players feel there is an excessive amount of "grinding" at lower levels. Is this intentional, or are there plans in the works to address the concern?

Cysero: there is a lot of grinding in all of the quests, but frankly there is a lot on any RPG where you can level. In that respect, it's very intentional. We just need to get better and making it FEEL less like grinding. We need to add more content for all level ranges so at least if you get bored of grinding for one level or one item you can go somewhere else and grind for something else. It's only a matter of time for the amazing DF Development team.

MPOGD: What's the relationship between Dragon Fable and Adventure Quest?

Cysero: DragonFable and AdventureQuest take place on the same world of Lore, but DF takes place 3-7 years before AQ. They share a lot of the same Main Characters and NPC's. It's kind of neat to see the NPCs who are already super-powerful in AQ as young adventurers in DF. You can even ask them to join you party and go adventuring with them.

MPOGD: The regularly updated Design Notes section is a great feature. How hard is it to maintain, and to give out enough info without spoiling too much?

Cysero: We're pretty good about keeping surprises to ourselves, but we do like to hype up the players. We show them a lot of process work, early sketches, talk about ideas, and give them feedback for their ideas from the forums, sometimes we tell stories to deepen the plot, or just tell them stories about real stuff that happens to us during game development. It's not easy when we have a really good plot twist in mind, to keep it to ourselves but we do alright.

Thanks very much for your time, Cysero. We at MPOGD really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. I quite enjoyed my experience with Dragon Fable, I only wish I had had the chance to participate in a war, or get to see a titan dragon. The mix of casual and humor works well, and it's clear that a great deal of content has been added since the game's release, keeping it fresh. Although the quests seem a bit familiar, they are still quite fun, and some of the monsters you've created are very cool. In closing, good luck with Dragon Fable, and if you get a chance to drop off some titan dragons at the office, we wouldn't complain! You can find more information about DragonFable at http://www.dragonfable.com.