Most of the PoxNora community agrees the Broodcall campaign is the best one to date. To what would you attribute this, and do these new changes reflect the types of campaigns we’ll see in the future?

Broodcall was successful, I think, because of the randomization and the fact it is fairly open ended despite being story driven. The previous campaign ended up being less popular because it was heavily story driven but relied on the player’s tactics with starting units more than deck building. It’s likely in the future that campaigns will build off the Broodcall model, and randomization is something we will definitely do more of.

Do you have a team of people working on campaigns or are you the solo master?

I’ve been the sole campaign guy for the past 3 campaigns. We do have other people who can do them, but usually creating a single campaign is a one person job. Expansion 12’s campaign is going to be done by one of the other designers, as I’m currently working on other things. I do make it a priority to keep up with the single player community, but all our designers are familiar with all aspects of the game.

Have there ever been abilities or features you’ve wanted to implement into a campaign, but didn’t have the resources to program? If so then what has SOE brought to the table to help accomplish these dream features and abilities?

Our campaigns are made with use of an in-house coding language designed specifically to handle the bots . As such, whenever we need new features they can usually be added. Being under SOE has helped grow our staff and give more time for things such as campaign features.

Was single player always a plan for PoxNora, or was it discovered along the way?

Single player was always an intention, though it wasn’t introduced immediately. Multiplayer is not for everyone, as the number of campaign players testifies.

Do you feel that single player has opened up the scene for new rune flavors and combinations? Also, are runes now being designed with single player interests at heart, or are runes designed without affiliations?

Single player opens up a lot of creativity among players because it can be played in totally different ways from multiplayer. Generally, we design runes for multiplayer – well made multiplayer runes can easily be used in single player (often in more unique ways) regardless of power, while a single player rune that caused problems in multiplayer would have to be changed. That’s just the nature of multiplayer vs. single player. We do try to make changes to multiplayer or single player problems have as little impact on the other variety of play as possible, though that’s not always doable.

There are a lot of aspects of the rune manager and UI that don’t quite seem to fit campaign play. Are there any current or future plans to improve the UI and site managers for campaign play? and Are there any current or future plans to change the rewards system for single player? With the recent change to DoW rewards it leaves us hoping.

I’m lumping these together because the answer is effectively the same. The change has been discussed at length. It’s really not a question of if, but when. I can’t get any more specific than that, but we are definitely aware that the current system has flaws.

Do you feel the single player aspect of the game is well rounded enough to support a stand alone game? If so would there be more storyline and eventful combat, if not then what would you change to make it stand alone?

It could definitely, if it was used for that purpose. If I were making a stand alone, single player focused game it would likely have a longer, more involved campaign. It would be like Warcraft 3 or other RTS games, and a more persistent army than the standard battlegroups used in pox – runes unlocked during missions and characters you can upgrade over the course of the story. This is purely hypothetical though, we have no plans for such an offshoot at this time.

The single player content has been a powerful element of driving the storyline. With Broodcall’s campaign, Wrath of the Exile, it showed us an amazing new level of detail in storytelling.

I’m personally a big fan of story driven campaigns. My goal has always been to tie campaigns into the larger story and create NPCs the player can recognize as characters. As we move forward storytelling could be the norm for campaigns, but we’re always looking at Design from every perspective possible.

How does difficulty level play into what fragments you get?

Playing on higher difficulties gives you better chances to get rarer components, essentially. Playing on legendary always offers the highest available rarities and the best chance to get them.

What is the purpose of the Fragment Harbinger?

Originally the Harbinger was something of an inside joke in an older, internal only campaign. When the Angel’s campaign was done, parts of that old campaign were used, and she made it in there. It gives something of a surprise factor to the campaign and a little side quest aspect so we left it in. Killing her will give you a chance for an extra drop from that level.

Who is responsible for giving Serkan those crazy stats on legendary mode of the Angel’s Descend Campaign?

Hah, that would be me. Angels is the first campaign I did. Since Serkan hadn’t been released yet, I really wanted to give him an epic feel, and it can be pretty hard to make an end boss that’s relevant for campaigns considering that the player usually has a whole army set up by that time. I think he contributes to making that encounter cool – that map is my personal favorite.

Are there any plans to improve the AI?

This is something Gedden, our programming lead, and I have discussed quite a bit. Currently the AI is fairly smart in targeting, but has little to no self preservation instinct. That’s an area we hope to improve on. Beyond that, more intelligent use of abilities is a goal, but an unlikely one – as complicated as PoxNora is it will be very tough to get the AI to use more than a fraction of abilities competently.

Is there going to be more taunts or LE craftables ?

Yes, though the LE craftables will likely evolve into something slightly different.

How long does it usually take to make a campaign from start to finish?

This depends on the campaign to an extent – both on the number of missions and number of mechanics in place. However, for most it usually takes a week to two weeks to create a campaign and play test it.

It was just a few short weeks ago the Broodlord took on challengers and showed the true power of the Broodcall dragons. What was the experience like and how did he provide such a formidable challenge? Today’s The Green Room will tell you more!

“When we began planning the Broodlord event, I knew it would be challenging playing veterans who knew PoxNora inside and out. The question was, how do you provide an adequate and fair game to people of any rank? It wasn’t easy a lot of time was put into creating a battlegroup that could face anything thrown against it. What did I end up with? Here is the secret behind the Broodlord battlegroup.”

Champions:

The Eight Broodcall Dragons - These were auto-includes fitting the theme but considering this was before our buffs to many of them, they could be vulnerable by themselves. I ended up growing pretty attached to Thirion as he was my only magic damage champ and Firemaw just because I like when he explodes.

Cave Dragon - I was asked a lot about this one. Why a Cave Dragon? It’s really pretty simple honestly. The Exile has Volatile, and the Cave Dragon is technically a dragon so it fit.

Spells:

Avalanche X2: With chasms on the map, and its ability to hit multiple targets I couldn’t avoid utilizing this regularly. I only managed to cliff dive one champion but it was worth it.

Backfire X1: This wasn’t used a lot but a few of you put together hefty spell spam Battlegroups and it threw people off their game.

Banish X2: I tried to only use this in emergencies when a hero was tearing up one of my dragons. It threw a major monkey wrench in some strategies and made the difference between a tough game and a sound beating of Broodlord.

Desperate Heal X1: This one was another auto-include which allowed a quick heal at a relatively low cost.

Essence Drain X1: Essence Drain is another easy spell to take the wind out of an extremely powerful creature. I didn’t use it every time but enough that I’m glad it was there.

Fireblast X2: Another great utility area of effect spell which helped finish off more champions than I can count.

Firestorm X1: This is another great area of effect spell which I found particularly effective against Moga swarm.

Hammer Strike X2: Hammer Strike was really fun to use against people who used it on me. I could see this as aggrivating though so I tried to only use when I had to.

Mobilization X2: It would have been easy to use Mobilization with Flying in order to quickly advance and crush a shrine. The goal of this event however was to make it fun so I only used against extremely fast units.

Monsoon X2: Monsoon served me in two ways, first to drown so many heroes. Euan, Talgar, Grimlic and many more sank to the murky depths. In a pinch it also could slow down a War Enchanted Groble too.

Retribution X2: The benefits of Retribution probably don’t need explanation, but in my case remember these dragons were all in the 100 nora range. This made the damage output catastrophic when utilized correctly.

With a hefty nora bank, you can see I had plenty of tools at my disposal. I was surprised however a number of times by many players ingenuity and I think most of you had quite a bit of fun trying to beat me. To those who succeeded, we’ll have a rematch one day. Until we meet again mighty champions, I leave you with one important thought. I will totally Banish your Euan.

Most people consider bugs a mild annoyance, whether it’s a trail of ants from your trashcan, or a scorpion living in the closet. In the life of PoxNora, bugs are an unintended mechanics arising from abilities, spells, maps, or anything else that takes place in the game. Today we are going to delve quickly into the development world of PoxNora and explain the process for bugs and how they are resolved. For all intents and purposes we’ll lovingly name our bug Gnark.

The first and most important process of bugs is identification and that is where you, the community comes in. Ideally we would catch every single possible bug during our testing phase. While most are, there are always a few slip through the cracks. Our first and most widely utilized bug catching tool is the PoxNora forums. Every work day I, or a member of our Quality Assurance team goes through the forums and enters each issue into our system. We also take bug reports from the support system found on the PoxNora.com website which gives players at least two ways to bring our attention to Gnark.

The bug’s life continues as it moves to our Quality Assurance team who spend a good portion of their time trying to break things. Sometimes they are a little too efficient at their job (asdf actually giggles), but it’s always good to know they are ready to get down to business. When a bug report is received they go in and try to recreate the situation to see exactly what happens.

Once a bug has been verified, it’s up to either our Programmers or Design team to decide how to fix it. If there is a question about if something is working as intended, someone braves a trip to see CorpsE or Kaervas in hopes of not being hit with a wooden sword. If it’s an ability that isn’t operating the way it’s described, a Programmer goes in and does their black magic to make that happen. Once the animals have been sacrificed and voodoo dolls are put away, it goes back to Quality Assurance for testing. In this instance, Gnark has been fixed and will be put back into the live game.

Once everything seems to be in working order, any necessary changes are put in the next patch. These are scheduled weekly to insure we provide an ample amount of downtime for you. If the change is a large one, we announce it in advance to see how the community feels. Otherwise, it’s slipped into patch notes and we move on to the next bug. At this point everyone is happy and there are balloons, elephants, and a great celebration. Gnark has been squashed.

How exactly do we decide which bugs are going to get fixed first? There are combinations of factors taken into consideration when prioritization changes. First of all, how much does bug impact gameplay? For instance, if Gnark is causing an even more annoyance than usual and teleporting across the map, he’ll be fixed pretty quickly. Next, how much goes into correcting this bug? Fixing a typo in a spell description can be done much quicker than correcting a complex ability on a champion. At that point, a list is made determining what can be done immediately, and what might be a little later.

We hope this gives you a rough idea about how bugs are caught and exterminated. While it’s not a step by step, this is an overview of exactly what happens every day in the SOE Studio. For now, keep submitting those bugs, because we want to keep fixing them.