Genuine ancient Chinese martial arts feel
TLBB is widely known for its authenticity to the book (Tian Long Ba Bu). What key ideas and features did you take from the book in order to create what we see today?It’s important to bear in mind that the game has a genuine ancient Chinese martial arts feel to it and so highlighted areas such as the 9 nine different classes, the cities, the skills etc. are very influential. We’ve tried to maintain a genuine feel to the book also, hence why the NPC’s are named after characters in the original work of Louis Cha.
For more about the classes, please visit http://tlbb.eu.changyou.com/gameguide/Classes.shtml
What do you enjoy most about your work as an MMO designer and what are the most challenging things about it?
I love design work generally. As a creative person, part of what I feel is a responsibility to discover new areas of design work and produce innovative characters, settings, pets and more. Not only is it something that satisfies me personally, but every design work becomes a treasure for ChangYou and the project – in this case TLBB.
What are the common misconceptions that MMO game designers might have?
For creative people, or for me at least, the most fun part of it is the actual ‘designing’ itself. I have ideas all the time and so coming up with a list of these isn’t too difficult for me. I try not to think too much about something because then it becomes a chore. Instead, I focus on the brief and simply go with the flow of what I believe fits that category best. The engine resources are sometimes limited and so wanting the character to do certain things or have certain attributes can be tough, so instead we push it to its absolute limits to get the best out of the game.
Bosses and villains are both loved and hated in films and games. Do you enjoy drawing the villains and do you see this as a fun part of being a designer?
It’s a challenge to design any part of a game, especially an MMO that has so many different features to consider. I love designing them regardless of whether or not they are an enemy and so the notion of a boss, although very cool, is the same for me as it would be for a hero (for example). It’s important for me as a designer to leave an everlasting memory for any aspect of the game, if I achieve this, then I achieve a goal for both myself and the game.
What current project are you working on and will it involve designing bosses again? If so, can you give us a sneak preview of it?
At this moment I’m working on the TLBB project management team as well as some design work alongside that. With the company expanding its catalogue and creating future additions to MMOs, the work that our design teams are putting in has been immense. I’ve seen some of the designs myself and they look really cool but it’s hard for us to give anything away as they are not yet finalised and details of future releases are still in the planning stages. In the meantime, players can enjoy TLBB and look out on the www.ChangYou.com/en website for more news of upcoming projects.
