For those who missed the information, Netmarble not too long ago introduced an official launch date for the upcoming free-to-play monster taming sport MONGIL: Star Dive. Previous to that announcement, we have been provided the chance to speak with Netmarble Monster founder and CEO, Ken Kim, concerning the sport. He and his workforce kindly answered a few of my sillier questions concerning the sport. A veteran sport developer, Kim has been working within the sport trade for over twenty years, having based each Netmarble Monster (initially Seed9 Leisure) in 2000.
In that point, Kim has overseen titles like T.O.M.A.Ok., Save the Earth Once more, and Marvel Future Battle, in addition to MONGIL: Star Dive’s predecessor, Monster Taming. At present, he and the Netmarble workforce are making ready for the launch of MONGIL: Star Dive and EVILBANE.
Throughout our name, which included different members of the workforce, we mentioned MONGIL: Star Dive and its manufacturing. Kim famous that the motion RPG sport has been in improvement for over 5 years with a workforce of over 125 folks. It’s a sequel to a cellular sport, merely titled Monster Taming. Lots of you should have some familiarity with MONGIL: Star Dive, even when it’s simply via the trailers and different information we put up right here on MMOBomb.
Nyanners and Monsterlings
And which means you’re in all probability acquainted with the sport’s mascot, a fairly spherical black cat named Nyanners. Nyanners, like the opposite creatures you’ll run into on this sport, is technically a monster. That stated, Nyanners is constructed in a different way. Somewhat than being a creature it’s important to battle and seize, Nyanners is a vital a part of the creature assortment course of. We’re speaking a few cat that swallows the soul of a defeated creature complete and finally “poops” it out as a “monsterling” that gamers can assign to characters.
The monsterlings are worn as equipment like keychains and provide the characters with buffs. As Kim defined to me, monsterlings may also be summoned by activating the hyperlink chain. At launch, there will likely be about 165 monsterlings accessible within the sport, with most creatures discovered within the wild being tameable. Nonetheless, not all the creatures gamers will likely be utilizing are obtained by being tamed.
Some can solely be obtained by combining two tamed monsters. That’s one thing gamers will need to do for 2 causes. First, mixed monsters have bonus options and stats. Second, it’s the one solution to fully fill out the monsterling chain. Every character’s monsterling chain has three slots. Two of these are crammed by tamed monsterlings, however the third needs to be a mixed monsterling.
After all, speaking about Nyanners made me surprise one essential factor. How did they provide you with a cat that swallows monsters Kirby-style and converts them into monsterlings? The brief reply is that the studio has quite a lot of cat house owners.
The longer reply is that in the course of the creation course of, management was discussing tips on how to make the little man memorable. One evening, they’d a gathering over drinks, and one of many cat house owners urged having Nyanners eat a monster soul and poop out “one thing shiny”. As a cat proprietor, I can relate. We’d all love our felines to contribute a bit extra. However we’ll simply must be proud of them trying cute and being mushy until we’re speaking about Nyanners. That kitty has a job to do.
The World of MONGIL: Star Dive
As for the sport’s universe, gamers will begin their journey within the European-inspired metropolis of Hananis. That is the place the principle duo, Cloud and Verna, will meet their preliminary adventuring companions. Kim defined that the sport will transfer into an space impressed by medieval Korea within the sport’s subsequent chapter, so gamers can anticipate some selection pretty quickly.
Understanding that the subsequent zone is impressed by Korea, I inquired as to whether or not they can be utilizing this to showcase parts of Korean tradition that Western gamers will not be acquainted with. I used to be informed that, as Netmarble is “actually good at localization” and the corporate doesn’t need to pressure gamers to do issues like “examine unfamiliar names”, they’re making every part straightforward to know. Gamers can anticipate it to be “unique however actually enticing”.
Playtime and Content material Cadence
I inquired as to what number of hours of playtime gamers can anticipate from the MSQ at launch and was informed about 20 hours. Kim went on to notice that for these seeking to do every part, it’s going to take so much longer. Gamers can even anticipate an replace cadence of round six weeks. That stated, Kim added that content material updates will happen about each six weeks, whereas gamers can anticipate updates each three weeks for different issues.
This cadence is predicated on market analysis as to what works finest for informal gamers (and received’t kill the dev workforce). Nonetheless, they’ll keep watch over issues to verify it’s what works finest for his or her gamers. That stated, most video games of this kind do have a tendency to stay to a six-week cadence, or in some circumstances, break up content material updates so that you just successfully get half the replace on the third week and the opposite half on the sixth. So it’s a considerably confirmed technique at this level.
Playable Characters
As this can be a gacha sport, I did ask about playable characters. At present, there are eighteen characters within the construct. Some are from the beginning area, whereas others will seem within the subsequent. For these questioning about male characters, and sure, there will likely be husbands accessible. Kim identified that there are a number of “enticing” males for gamers to gather. Granted, I used to be principally proven the lads with extra muscular tissues, so I’m undecided what your twink-to-buff man ratio will likely be.
Enhancements Since Testing
Lastly, because the sport has been via a couple of checks at this level, if there have been any important modifications, they’d like gamers who participated in them to learn about. Kim’s response was that because the sport is obtainable on “many platforms,” there’s “no magic button to fulfill everybody” in relation to fight and the like.
That stated, the workforce “put quite a lot of effort and time into balancing the issue stage to search out the perfect spot to fulfill everybody from completely different ranges”. He goes on to say that they “already know what they’d was robust” and that the target is for the sport to be extra informal, “to strategy a bigger viewers” whereas providing the “finest fight expertise for everybody, together with cellular gamers who’re already at a drawback”. Beta gamers ought to have the ability to discover a distinction within the sport’s look as properly, since they’ve performed fairly a bit of labor on the shader program.
