Barunson Interactive spent 7 years developing Dragonica which follows its predecessor's storyline of but overturns its connotation, bringing cartoon side-scrolling action online games to a new peak. Its totally 3D rendering design, fresh cartoon characters and scenery modeling, creat a new visual perception of side-scrolling games. Recently IAHGames has announced that in order to assure game quality, the Alpha II of Dragonica -- Magmus Rising, was postponed to 24th July through 28th July, 2008. A larger-scale CBT will be scheduled for a later date, but no concrete date has been fixed for the CBT.The players who have obtained a closed beta key will still be guaranteed access for the rescheduled one.
MMOsite: I'm glad that we have this opportunity to do an interview with you. To start, can you basically introduce yourself as well as your company IAHGames?
IAHGames: Many thanks for the interview. I am the Regional Marketing Manager, part of the Regional Marketing Team that manages all marketing planning/activities of IAHGames' products.
Based in Singapore, Infocomm Asia Holdings Pte Ltd (IAHGames) is a leading publisher, operator and distributor of online games in Southeast Asia. IAHGames currently hosts award-winning titles such as Dragonica, EA SPORTS™ FIFA Online 2, Granado Espada, Top Speed, and the entire product line from global publisher Take 2 Interactive, which includes hits such as Grand Theft Auto IV and the Midnight Club series. Leveraging on Singapore's strategic geographical location and advanced IT infrastructure, IAHGames continues to strengthen its position to consolidate the world's fastest growing online games market while helping publishers and developers bring the world's best games to Southeast Asia.
MMOsite: Did you achieve the goal you had set for the 1st CBT? Are there any challenges or bottlenecks you have encountered? How did you resolve them? And what is some of the feedback you've received from the testers?
IAHGames: Our CBT, unfortunately will be delayed till further notice due to massive architectural differences in the OBT client. Hence rendering the current build to be inept for a technical assessment of OBT stability, but rest assured that there will be much more content when the day comes. In addition, we are inviting 2000 gamers for an Alpha II test and challenge the big boss Magmus. We had a Alpha I test last month and the gamers enjoyed themselves partying up, leveling and collecting comical items like sushi hats and poo poo wand and most importantly the finale PvP party we had right before Alpha I ends. One of the biggest challenges that we've faced is to make sure that the server did not crash. We even had to stand guard over a character as it kept making the server crash. Some of the feedback we received are the extensive mission maps, the great appeal of the graphics and the combo system.
MMOsite: How would you describe the game's art style and its overall look? And what types of gamers are you targeting?
IAHGames: We initially expected a large pool of casual gamers (newcomers to MMORPGs, anime-lovers and those in lower age-brackets) to be attracted to Dragonica because of its art-style, and while this turned out to be accurate, we also found it's impossible to restrict the audience to the casual groups because of the speedy and combo-heavy game-pace, which really makes it fun and challenging even for seasoned gamers who grew up on arcade-machines, old-school consoles, as well as serious MMOs like WoW. Dragonica has turned out to be surprisingly charming even for those who may not be attracted to the cute anime style.
