Interview: Angels Online

For those of you who don’t know what Angels Online is, it happens to be an IGG MMORPG that allows players to participate in quests, adventures and player-versus-player battles in a large game world.

Recently we had an interview with the Angels Online Product Assistant, Joyce Zhou. Our questions about the game’s features, the MMO market and plans for the online RPG were answered, and you can check them out below.

Blend Games: Where did the premise for Angels Online come from?

Joyce Zhou: Before Angels Online was developed, we collected many players’ ideas and viewpoints from the forum. We found that most of players had become sick of the monotonous background stories in games. They were looking forwards to something new and attractive. We also prepared several plans. However, we were not satisfied until we found the present one in game now.

Blend Games: Well, there are obvious Biblical/Mythological themes present in the game, but was there anything in particular that sparked the creation of this game?

Joyce: Speaking of Biblical themes, as you know, The Bible is the most read book in the world and almost everyone knows the Biblical legends well. With the Biblical background stories, Angels Online was easily accepted by players. What’s more, the game graphics are cute and romantic. The exceedingly sentimental love stories from the Biblical legends are harmonious with the topic of Angels Online.

Blend Games: Mounts play a pretty big role in the game for transportation. In the past, transportation was usually a difficult thing to implement into MMOs and was rarely seen. And even though transportation has pretty much become a standard, was it difficult adding usable mounts for Angels Online?

Joyce: Well, in Angels Online, a variety of cute mounts is one of the most important features of this game. Apart from their lovely image, mounts also possess outstanding abilities.

Players can buy many kinds of mounts from the four main cities. What’s more, they can obtain better and cooler ones by defeating the powerful BOSSes or opening a Lucky Bag.

At the very beginning, each pet is an egg. Players can obtain different pets by different ways of fostering. That means that each pet in Angels Online is distinct. Pets can help their masters deposit considerable exp when fighting with monsters via the exp diamond system. For example, in Eden, possessing several senior pets has become a dream of many players. Here I have good news for you, that is, We’re planning to release more mounts in the future expansions which will come out soon.

Blend Games: Following up on the last question, what kind of new mounts will be added in the game?

Joyce: Angels Online has been successfully published for more than a year now and it has been updated to the latest version called “the Lost Atlantis”. Like I have mentioned above, a new expansion “the Green Forest” is on the process of development. We have planned to add abundant new elements into the game, including many lovely mounts such as Monkeys and Milk Cows which are a brand-new breakthrough. We are confident that we can give all players something to look forwards to.

Blend Games: A lot of MMOs cater toward a specific niche of gamers: World of Warcraft caters toward gamers who enjoy leveling through continuous questing. EVE Online is all about giving gamers a lot of galactic diplomacy and strategic war tactics to engage in. What group of gamers does Angels Online hope to maintain?

Joyce: Yeah, you’re right. Each game seems to maintain its own players with different age groups and tastes. When it comes to Angels Online, it is an IGG published game that prides itself on its cute characters, rich storylines and tons of fancy items.

As a cute MMORPG, it has been popular with many teenager player because it offers players various professions and skills. Meanwhile, all of the lovely pets and rides in game are very attractive to watch. Besides, the complete quest system, the funny Totem Battle and Holy Battlefield offer players a shortcut to obtain abundant reputation and exp.

In a word, Angels Online brings players a fantastic game world with its magical cartoon style. No matter whether players like to level up fast by finishing quests or by casually enjoying the game via the PVP system, their dreams can come true in Angels Online .

Blend Games: The territory Totem battles are a unique way to keep leagues engaged with constant battle for control of certain territories. How did the idea come about to have leagues battle for territories using Totems?

Joyce: Do you know that Angels Online possesses 4 available factions? If the players were able to randomly PK on any map, then we couldn’t protect our newbie players. So we designed a totem for each faction and then all the guilds can begin the PVP battle for control of certain territories.

A totem is the symbol of each faction. Each guild can battle to take and retake territories, but only if their totem has not been destroyed. After the guild has taken over another totem, all of its guild members can monopolize the endless resources there.

Blend Games: Many MMO games have direct or indirect rivals: Cross-Fire and Parabellum; New Horizon and Voyage Century; Maple Story and Gaia Online. Does Angels Online have a rival MMO, and if so has the development team adopted anything from the competitors to help improve on the gameplay quality or variety within Angels Online?

Joyce: It’s true that Angels Online has a lot of direct or indirect rivals. Let me give you an easy example, there is also another cute MMORPG called Wonderland Online, also published by IGG. Wonderland Online is a turn-based game in which players can build their houses while Angels Online is a game in which players can enjoy the lovely pets and mounts and the advanced PVP system. They are two very distinct games although they share the same cute style.

It is not so bad if we have many rivals. We can adopt the advantages but discard the disadvantages from the competitors and try to offer players a better service so that we can become even more popular in the future.

Blend Games: Angels Online has been on the receiving end of success as a free-to-play MMO. What plans are set in place to ensure that the game’s community continues to expand and grow?

Joyce: Angels Online has been successfully published since its closed test in December, 2007. After more than one year’s efforts, we have attracted many loyal players and offer them supportive community services such as the forum and blogs; in which players can make friends or have their say.

We will also continue to develop and perfect our service in the future. For example, we will release a new PVP system and many brand-new pets and mounts for players in the next expansion “the Green Forest”.

Blend Games: Is there anything else you would like the community to know about regarding Angels Online that we may have missed?

Joyce: Thank you for your great questions. I’d like to say more about the interesting PVP in Angels Online.

In the new expansion "the Lost Atlantis", a new PVP system called Holy Battlefield was added into the game, during which players will be randomly divided into two armies and PK with each other. For more information please visit http://ao.igg.com/act/glory

Our thanks to Joyce Zhou for answering the questions. You can check out some exclusive new screenshots below and be sure to stay tuned in with Blend Games for more news and information regarding all things gaming.