Phoenix Dynasty Online is an MMORPG set in the world of the Warring States period of Ancient China. Today we have an opportunity to sit down with Engputer Young, Vice President of Ingle Games Ltd. He give us more information about the game.

MMOsite.com: What kind of online world is Phoenix Dynasty Online?

Engputer: PDO is a beautiful massively multiplayer online role playing game, which set in an ancient Chinese world, dating from year 475 B.C to 221 B.C., an important part of Chinese ancient history called the Warring States Period, In this game you will experience the immensely beautiful scenery from ancient China, fight with enemies and monsters from the oldest Chinese myth, create the ultimate equipment, battle in the guild war, and team up with your friends to explore  many dangerous areas.

MMOsite.com: With a number of martial arts-themed MMORPGs either already on the market or in the late stages of development, what, in your opinion, is the appeal of Phoenix Dynasty Online?

Engputer: The "five elements" system is one of the unique features of the PDO; which gives a new degree of freedom and adds many elements of surprise to the game play. Players must use the most suitable skills to combat against enemies with different five-element attributes, and equipment with different five-element attributes also can exert different effects when facing different enemies.

Another unique feature of the game is the mount system. Players can ride various mounts such as horse, tiger, kylin and at the most advanced stage, a phoenix, which is a beautiful bird in mythical oriental culture symbolizing power and heroic acts.

MMOsite.com: Why did you pick this game? As we know, we have so many games of same type to choose, what elements or aspects of this game attracted you most?

Engputer: The "five elements" system is a really unique system which I have never seen in other games.
In traditional Chinese philosophy, natural phenomena can be classified into the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth. These elements were used to describe interactions and relationships between phenomena. The doctrine of five phases describes two Cycles of Balance, a generating cycle and a restraining or destructive cycle of interactions between the phases. The generating cycle is: Wood feeds Fire; Fire creates Earth (ash); Earth bears Metal; Metal collects Water and Water nourishes Wood. The restraining cycle is: Wood parts earth; Earth absorbs water; Water quenches fire; Fire melts metal and Metal chops wood.

The five-element system infiltrates into almost all aspects of the game and brings fresh components of gameplay and great enjoyments to players. As an experienced MMO player myself, I find the five-element system intriguing and useful. In order to forge superior equipment I have to think carefully about how to array materials with different five-element attributes. For example, to make a superior armor, if I use 5 pieces of skins which restrain one another, the armor I made will not be good; however, if the skins used to forge the armor generate one another, the armor would be much more powerful.

MMOsite.com: Is the English version Phoenix Dynasty Online different from the Chinese version? Or in other words, have you made any big changes to cater to the western market?

Engputer: The English version of PDO is an optimized version from the Chinese one. We fixed some bugs in the Chinese version. Besides the optimization of game, we also made some changes to adapt to our international players. For example, we've simplified the new player's quests and leveling, which make it easier for our international players to understand the background and features of our game.

MMOsite.com: The open beta started at the Oct 9th, 2007; when will you plan to launch it commercially?

Engputer: Once the open beta is successful, and we fix any possible issues that may come out of open beta, we will launch the game commercially. We estimate that the official launch time will be near the end of this year. Please note that this is a "free to play" game meaning that even after the commercial launch, we will not be charging our players based on play time. Instead we will be selling certain value-added items to players. The buying of ingame items to play PDO is entirely optional to our players. Also, once we start the Open Beta, there will not be any more server data wipe, that is, all player data from Open Beta will be kept for commercial launch.