Eternal Lands is a FREE MMORPG currently under development. The game is now in Beta stage, but that does not mean it is incomplete. There are 9 skills, total character development freedom, many quests, religion, a lot of NPCs, animals and monsters.Now,Radu Privantu come to talk about the game.
Simon:Many players have voiced their views on Eternal Lands and given a lot of suggestions. How do you decide to accept or reject them?

Radu Privantu:Usually we use the following factors to determine if a suggestion makes it in the game.
a. Can it be implemented with a resonable amount of work?
b. Would it require changes to our engine?
c. How many people would enjoy it? Would it make some people unhappy? Would ut impact he economy of the game in a negative way?
d. Are there other things with a hihger priority on our "to do" list? And, ultimately, do we like the suggestion? Do we think it would be good for the game?

Simon:What is the happiest and saddest thing during your development of Eternal Lands?

Radu Privantu:I do not think in terms of happy or sad, but mostly content or dissapointed.Each time we break another one hundread players online barrier (100, 200, and so on) it is a moment when we are content with our work, and proud of it. The last barrier was 600 players, and we estimate the 700 players barrier will be reached in a few months.As for the dissapointing moments, they were many.Finding a serious bug, discovering players macroing on a large scale, developers leaving the team, not being able to find as many programmers as we would like..

Simon:What plans do you have for community development and support? Have you ever considered opening pet system in EL to increase the fun of the game? Are there any new events on your schedule?

Radu Privantu:We did CONSIDER having a pet system, but we decided against it, because of technical reasons. For example,the pets would cause lag, especially if everyone has a pet and their pets walk with them all over. Some areas in the game, such as storage places, are crowded as they are, and having pets there would make the game unplayabe for many people, and placing an addiitonal bandwidth burden on the server.As for new events, sure, we always add new content to the game. For example, one feature that is implemented and in testing now is the guild merchant NPC, which can be hired by guilds to sell their items.Other features include new resources to be gathered,new armors and weapons, the possibility to become invisible (just for 20 seconds or so), different visibility at night time and during storms, player owned houses, and so on.Of course, right nwo there are only two server programmers, including me, so we can only do so much.But those features will be implemented this year,hopefully.

Simon:When will magic weapons become manufactureable?

Radu Privantu:We do not know yet. We have to see how the new non magical weapons and armors will impact the game, and then we will decide if the magic weapons will be manufacturable by the players or not.Part of our finances rely on selling magic weapons, so that is another factor.

Simon:Will the duel feature be implemented to the game any time soon?

Radu Privantu:There are no plans for the time being to implement it,but that does not mean we will not implement it in the future.

Simon:You are continuously adding new things into the game, what can players expect in the near future?

Radu Privantu:As I said before, there will be some new resources (new metals, flowers, and stones). However, the manufacturing process for the newer items will be more complicated, and so will be the harvesting of the new metals. We have learned from our past mistakes, and we will make it so that, while those materials will be available in infinite quantities, the end product will be pretty rare and expensive.Right now you can make over 100 armors in one day, but with the new system you will be able to make maybe one/day. Again, this applies only for the new items,the old items will remain unchaged.

Simon:What does the future hold for EL?

Radu Privantu:There will be no significant changes in the future,besides for the things I have already mentioned.However, IF we can find a skilled OpenGL programmer.that is willing to help us, then what we plan is to have some magic effects in the game, and possibly various other visual improvements, such as specular and bump mapping, Fresnel reflections, 3d terrain,etc.

Simon:Anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Radu Privantu:Well, if you have not already tried Eternal Lands, you might wish to try it. It is free afterall, the download is only 25 MB, and a lot of people enjoy it.If you are already a player, we hope you like the game.and support us in any way you can.