Interview With Jang Wook Lee Of Hanmaru Soft, Developers Of Trinium Wars

I recently had the chance to ask Jang Wook Lee of Hanmaru Soft about the company's upcoming MMORPG Trinium Wars. We discussed whether or not Trinium Wars was a continuation of Living After War, what happened, the game's PvP modes, and more.

Is Trinium Wars a continuation of development on your previous project, Living After War?

Yes, it’s somewhat a continuation. L.A.W. was last developed in 2013 when we had the first CBT in which we learned a lot. But from that year on we have been going in a new direction which is now Trinium Wars. We took the experience from L.A.W. and player feedback to create a worthy successor.

​What happened to L.A.W. that lead to its closure and subsequent redevelopment? How did you end up working with HanmaruSoft?

While developing L.A.W. in 2013, mobile games were growing fast and at the same time MMORPG games declined. Publishers started to turn away, which also shows that developing a MMORPG is always a big risk. More money was needed and not many companies survived. Our old company stopped for a moment as well. But we believed players still want PC Client MMORPGs and so we were looking for a way to bring our game to market. We collected all the money we had, including our families', opened a new company called HanmaruSoft, hired back the core team and continued developing L.A.W under the name Trinium Wars. We took the CBT feedback from L.A.W. and added new ideas, features and tweaks. It was a tough time but now I think of it as an opportunity to start anew to get a fresh look at our game and improve its mechanics once more. This is something I learned during my time at Blizzard: always re­examine what you have made and take the time necessary to change things for the better!

How much do Trinium Wars and L.A.W. have in common?

While both games share the same foundation Trinium Wars is a completely overhauled version of L.A.W with new remodeled characters, advanced gameplay systems and also more or improved quests. Most of the technical issues are fixed and we added a new system called Battle Field, where you can compete with members of your faction against players of the other faction. The matches can be up to 5 vs. 5 in MOBA style fights which represents a great alternative to our more involving Ressource War.

​How will Resource Wars work? Will players be required to split the resource rewards on a faction level or will some of the rewards be split on a guild level?

These are the main features of the Resource war system:

1. Open 24/7 for players over level 30.

2. While fighting with the opponent you can corner them and steal their territory and resources.

3. By getting Battle Points you can ride tanks, helicopters, robots etc.

4. Not only do players of both factions compete in the Resource War, there are NPCs for each faction which will help in the big battle, and will also take over resource mines. The amount of NPCs will depend on the overall balance. The team with fewer players will get more support troops. The third threat in Resource War are the monsters crawling around all of Inuz. So there is enough to do even when not enough players are online.

5. When mining and moving the Trinium via trucks to your own base, enemies can hide on the transportation road and steal your resources by destroying your trucks.

6. Players can choose how to split the resources they gather. But because this is a high level feature and needs enough high level players, we will open the resource war approximately one month after launch.

How will skill production via bases work? Will these skills be level-locked?

The Mechanic skill, which can be crafted in the base, is a special skill set which is not learned like normal skills via trainers. For Warriors and Esper there are two skills in store, for Ghost four and there is also a rare chance for mechanic skills to drop by killing monsters. Of course players have to decide which way they develop their character.

Will limitations on bases be in place to make sure that not every player can craft everything with a single base setup?

Every player can create its own base. The base mode is locked to a 2D map to give the best possible overview. The map showcases your crafting stations and free building spots and is reachable via the options or the hotkey T. In your base you are able to create special crafting stations for potions, weapons, armor, or the special mechanic skill. Items are not locked to your class. So you can also build weaponry for Esper as a Warrior. Crafted items can be sold in the auction house to fuel the player driven economy system. Stations have different levels. The higher the level, the more items you can craft, also for higher levels. Because players do not share their base, everyone can build up their bases at their own pace and to their own needs.

Are there plans to eventually allow players to control vehicles outside of the special instanced missions?

Right now vehicles such as tanks, helicopters, and robots are usable in special missions, but they are not always instanced. As soon as we can implement the Resource War to the game, players will be able to buy tanks, helicopters, or robots for Battle Points and transform into them. As of now, no concrete plans are made to bring the vehicles to the normal gameplay outside the special missions. To get from point A to point B fast we included Jet packs, which are basically Trinium Wars’ form of fast travel.

​How will the game’s MOBA­-style PvP be set up?

What’s interesting about battlefields matches is that everything becomes equal with other players except the skill system. Although players will need to be at least level 10 to join the Battlefield, inside the Battlefield mode no difference is made between level 10 or level 25 characters. Everyone gets the same equipment, but everyone has their personal skills. In other games, players are only set to equal conditions during 1 vs 1 PvP. But in our game we can have a 5 vs 5 match with equal conditions with the same item, equipment, and level. It’s all about the player’s skill. Whoever wins or loses everyone can get something as a reward to help develop their characters.

​I read in a FAQ that Trinium Wars is built around a cash shop and will likely have a cash shop at launch, regardless of the business model. Will the cash shop be enabled during Early Access? Will the cash shop be part of the game’s development that can be influenced by community feedback?

Yes, the cash shop will be enabled during Early Access. We hope to get a lot of feedback from the community and work together with them to create new items for the cash shop and keep the game fair and balanced. This way we can ensure, that we offer items the community really wishes for and wants to buy and use in game.

Are progress wipes planned for the Early Access phase?

Because of the state of development we will most likely not need to do any wipes. Therefore all Early Access progress should be secured for the commercial launch.

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Trinium Wars is set to launch on Steam Early Access on March 2nd.