WonderKing Developer Blog

WonderKing is a new 2D, side-scrolling MMORPG from developer Ryu & Soft and Ndoors Interactive, creators of Luminary: Rise of the GoonZu and Atlantica Online. Check in here every two weeks for a new entry straight from the game's developers.

Author: WonderKing

We’re planning for more character enhancements and fashion items so you can show off to your friends how stylish you’ve become! Always check back for future updates and announcements!

Greetings everyone!

We’ve had several jubilant days of celebration since the launch of WonderKing and we’re excited to see everyone enjoying the game. With commercial release finally here, we decided to host some fun events for everyone to enjoy! We’ve given away 4 different mounts for players, as well as adding the Cloak of Renown and the Antenna Hairband among items that enemies can drop!

As of this moment, preparations are under way for Valentine’s Day. We’re planning numerous events and contests for you to participate in, and our Item Mall is continuing to feature many new and exciting items to enjoy in-game.

Now, all our beautiful female players can flash their pretty eyes, brush their flowing hair, wear stylish dresses and get their very own Candy Basket Ring!

For all the guys out there, you can look sharp and fashionable as well. Get yourself a nice new deft haircut, a fine teddy bear coat and a teddy bear ring! Who knows? Right around the corner, there may be someone that you can impress!

In addition, we currently have an ongoing milestone event called “Share the Wonder”. Share the beautiful world of Windus by bringing in a friend online to inch closer and closer to prizes for everybody in the server! The event features exclusive prizes such as in-game cash items, Game Cards, WonderKing Mouse pads, even iPod Touch’s and an Alienware M17x laptop! Not only that, all users will win an in-game cash item upon every milestone we reach! We have incredible participation in the milestone event and it invigorates us to check back every time to see how many more users are joining us in WonderKing.

So tell your friends to join you in your journey in WonderKing!
 

As we draw closer to Christmas and the New Year, we look back on the months past and are very grateful to our users for testing our Closed Beta phases diligently, in order to make WonderKing better. We are very happy that our GMs were able to interact with the players frequently and provide fun, unique experiences during our Closed Beta phases. We feel very connected with our users and consider ourselves part of the WonderKing community.

Our users make the game better in so many ways: From simple participation in events, to reporting the various bugs throughout Closed Beta, our players have made our holiday season bright. They are a very passionate group of people, but they remain respectful to one another and committed to making the game environment better. In our latest addition to the forums, the Monthly Mentor, we’ve noticed you helping other users, both new and old, and we appreciate it. The community continues to thrive as we look toward the future of WonderKing!

So here’s to you, our players. Thank you for a Wonderful year, and we hope you have a Happy WonderKing Holiday. We look forward seeing you all again in 2010 with the upcoming Open Beta and Launch!

For more information, please visit our website at playwonderking.com/wk.
 

The WonderKing team’s GMs juggle a multitude of tasks. Among their daily duties, the GMs are in charge of managing the game, interacting with the users, moderating forums, and serving as a communication channel between the developers and players. But who are they? What are they like outside the office? We want to take this opportunity to bring a few of our GMs out from behind the computer screen to say hello.

[GM]AK
[GM]AK is a great guy with a very good work ethic. In the office, his main duty is to communicate with the developers and attend meetings with them. He is a reliable channel for other GMs to get their information from and give information to – he makes sure it gets to the right people.

Outside of the office, he’s a jolly guy with a penchant for partying: He lives as hard as he works. As the oldest and most experienced of the WonderKing team, he offers advice to the other members and serves as a mentor. On a more personal note, he is getting married in January to a beautiful girl, and is vibrant as ever as the big day approaches.

[GM]Zabu
Zabu is the head GM of the WonderKing team. His main focus is promoting WonderKing throughout social networks and holding in-game/forum events. He distributes the workload that the WonderKing team receives on an hourly basis and is the most organized member.

Zabu’s favorite past time is reading manga and managing stocks. He has a very formal, businesslike personality at work, but around the WonderKing team and outside the office he is a lighthearted individual. One thing about Zabu – he doesn’t “get” jokes very well… at least not JustWondering’s.

[GM]JustWondering
JustWondering is in charge of balance activities and QA of the game. As the balance project is a big one, he is assisted by the other GMs. His duties include the composition of the balance report from testing, bug report compilations, and assisting Luna in PR articles. JustWondering is known to get lost in what he is working on. Sometimes, if approached or called by name, he won’t hear you because he’s so consumed with what he’s doing. With a mere tap on his shoulder, he will jump out of his seat in surprise. Zabu once sat next to him for ten minutes and JustWondering never even knew he was there.

JustWondering’s main interest is sports. In his time off, he likes to play basketball and is a dedicated fan of the NBA and the NFL. He is also a writer currently working on a story in his free time. JustWondering’s personality is very similar in and out of the office. He is very cheerful, outgoing, and humorous.

[GM]Luna
Luna is the primary PR representative of the WonderKing team. She is well informed in the mechanics of the gaming industry and edits all documents related to WonderKing. She is also an artistically talented individual , which comes in handy when she develops various assets and marketing materials for WonderKing, including the various class videos featured on Youtube.

Luna’s favorite past time is watching anime and shopping on Ebay. She is a very shy person but once you get to know her, she is quite the quirky individual. She is cordial with the other people in the office, and is easily the most amiable person on the WonderKing team.

It was great meeting you! …now we have to get back to work :)
 

During every cool down period, there is always a great deal of work to accomplish and a different set of challenges that the WonderKing team has to face. This is a Behind the Scenes look at the cool down periods of WonderKing.

Closed Beta I – The Weeks Before Launch
Prior to our first Closed Beta, the WonderKing team had many big tasks, but one of which required a great deal of work: Game Text.
We wanted to make sure our text was understandable to all ages. So we worked hard to review the text to make sure everything was written perfectly.
“Even after it was deemed ready to be inserted into the game, I remember so many people working after hours just to make sure that the version of the text we have is perfected upon the launch of our first Closed Beta. We made the effort to color up the text so that they’re not only understandable by players of all ages, but they sound great to readers that enjoy the storytelling element of a RPG,” said [GM]JustWondering.
The WonderKing team finished all the text reviews and they were inserted into the game. Closed Beta launched successfully on June 16, 2009.

Closed Beta I Cool Down Period
During Closed Beta I, the WonderKing team exclusively tested out the second advancement classes. It was the most anticipated feature that we were introducing to the game, so it was tested extensively.
In addition to the second advancement, the WonderKing team focused on the new maps we were introducing. Further text QA, as well as game QA was necessary for this phase. The WonderKing team finished in time for the next phase to launch successfully with these tasks fully accomplished.

Closed Beta II Cool Down Period
When Closed Beta II ended on August 27th, it began the longest cool down period between WonderKing closed betas. This cool down period consisted of game QA activities after new patches were implemented of our newest feature, the Guild War. Upon trials and errors within every patch, it was very important to getting Guild Wars just the way we wanted it.
[GM]JustWondering and [GM]Luna also continued working on articles to further promote WonderKing through various social network channels including Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, etc. This was one of the busiest times for the WonderKing team.
To entertain our fans during this cool down period, the WonderKing team created various events. [GM]Zabu came up with the idea to give our users a great challenge of mounting up fans to achieve certain milestones in Facebook, to give the entire player base to earn a Shabel mount in the next patch. It was a great success and our fans managed to reach the milestone with a week to spare.

Closed Beta III Cool Down Period
This is the cool down period the WonderKing team is currently working on. The team completed its first full 1st advancement balance report.
“I felt that we could improve on the first balance report that we gave out. So what I did was to start on another one as soon as possible,” said [GM]JustWondering, “We’ve taken the initiative to complete this as soon as Closed Beta III started and I am very optimistic this will improve balance in the game”
The most memorable experience during the closed betas is the steady increase of the number of fans on social network sites. The WonderKing social network has been growing steadily ever since they first came to be. Currently, WonderKing Facebook boasts 12,033 fans, MySpace has 1,414 friends, and the forum has 9,910 players communicating frequently with each other, anticipating what the next phase would bring. Even now, the number of fans for WonderKing continues to grow.
We’ve accomplished many things so far so that I’m very proud of our team,” said [GM]Zabu, “However, we aren’t satisfied with just this. We will never stop striving for perfection in WonderKing.”
“I really think that the sky is the limit for WonderKing,” [GM]JustWondering states, “Every cool down period had its own set of challenges, and we conquered them all. I have no reason to believe that we will ever fail. Every set of new challenges brings a test to us, and we are fully equipped to meet that challenge. I can safely say that we are getting closer to the launch of WonderKing with every passing day.”
 

WonderKing events promote every aspect of the game. From In-game events, to social network participation, winning WonderKing events is a joy and the prizes given out distinguish your character from others in the game.
The Signature Event

Before Closed Beta I launched, WonderKing held its events strictly on the forums. We held an event where users were able to customize their signature using WonderKing images. We were blown away by the amazing submissions. The shading and coloring of the signatures were exquisite and extremely detailed. Just from our first event, we understood that the WonderKing player base would be filled with very passionate people who would participate enthusiastically in our events.
The Master of Control Event

During Closed Beta II, we held an event in a WonderKing map filled with traps and obstacles that would put a player’s character control skills to the test. The first person to reach the goal at the very top of the map would garner an exclusive event cape that wasn’t available anywhere else in the game. As you can see, our user turn-out for this event was incredible. We emceed our first in-game event and had our forum moderators participate as well.
Cool down: Facebook Milestone Event

After Closed Beta II, we had a cool down period that lasted over a month. During this time, we worked on improving various aspects of the game, as well as introducing new features. However, due to the length of the cool down period, we felt that we owed it to our fan base to do our best in entertaining them over this long period of time. We held various events, such as a forum submission of comics related to WonderKing, inviting friends to receive exclusive mounts, and completing a maze puzzle that was made for our players. However, none of the WonderKing events to this day compare to the magnitude our Facebook Milestone Event.

The Facebook Milestone was an event that had a major impact on every player in WonderKing, both new and old. There were multiple milestones and we chose 100 winners per milestone to receive an exclusive cosmetic in-game prize, but if our fan base were to reach 10,000 fans before the start of Closed Beta III, every single player in WonderKing would receive a Shabel Mount that a character can ride to drastically improve movement speed. Over the cool down period, some players were skeptical while many remained optimistic. Users reactivated their Facebook accounts just to contribute in the push for 10,000 fans. Our fan base reached 10,000 with a week to spare.

“They know we can't reach 10,000 fans and that's why they set such an unbelievable prize. If only I can see the shock on their faces if we managed to reach 10,000 fans.”
- Kill3rThird, forum user.

To this day, we are very proud (and a little shocked!) to have reached this goal.

Closed Beta III Events and more to come
During Closed Beta III, we’ve held numerous events. There have been a variety of challenges: survive one minute against the Game Masters in a PvP duel, a hide and seek event called “Seek Your GM,” and many Halloween events that rewarded players with tons of great prizes.

Closed Beta III wrapped up today, November 12th, 2009. We are already in the planning stages for even better events during future phases. We are thrilled to hold events and are delighted to see that our users love to take part in them so much. WonderKing events will continue to be exciting occasions for old and new players alike.
 

WonderKing’s social networks serve as a direct channel where our users can find information about ongoing events as well as up-to-date WonderKing news. We use these channels to communicate with our users in an informal tone, so that we can have a more personal relationship with our fans. Currently, we use Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace as our primary social sites that coordinate information to promote WonderKing.

We have our largest following on Facebook. We held an event during the cooldown period between Closed Beta II and III that encouraged users to bring in their friends to form a fan base in Facebook that is ten thousand strong. Even after said event, our fan base continues to grow. As of right now, there are 11,749 fans. You can also find cool photos of our WonderKing team’s trip to Austin GDC 2009 and screenshots of the first in-game event we held, “The Master of Control Event.” (http://www.facebook.com/WonderKing)

Twitter is quickly becoming the next social phenomenon, and WonderKing is not missing out. We decided to do something unique with Twitter – have our GameMasters (GMs) socialize with the users. We want our users to feel that our GMs are available, even for a short conversation. Currently, [GM]Zabu (http://twitter.com/GM_Zabu) has 662 followers, [GM]Luna (http://twitter.com/GM_Luna) has 394 followers, and [GM]JustWondering (http://twitter.com/GM_JustWonder) has 454 followers. Feel free to drop by for news about WonderKing, or just to have a casual chat with a GM!

Myspace is the newest addition to the various WonderKing social networks. The WonderKing page was formed late September (http://www.myspace.com/playwonderking). In less than a month, our network of WonderKing friends quickly grew to 1309. We anticipate even a larger increase in the number of friends over the next month.

Additionally, we currently have a YouTube channel that we use to display the action in WonderKing. We have ten videos consisting of each class’s moves, a PvP video between two of our GMs, and a riveting compilation video of various WonderKing skills. Be sure to check them out at http://www.youtube.com/user/GMLunaWKO.

WonderKing social networks have been a huge success. The social sites emit a vibrant, friendly environment that welcomes all ages to enjoy themselves and lounge around. Be sure to stop by and say “hello!”