Wizard 101 Interview with Senior Producer

Here at http://the-best-free-games we just had the great opportunity to talk with James Nance Senior Producer at Kingisle Entertainment about their first upcoming MMORPG Video Game called Wizard 101

Wizard 101 is a Fantasy themed MMORPG game which is family oriented, turn based, and incredibly fun. See below for some of the questions we had about Wizard 101 also read our First Impressions of Wizard 101 for more information.

Intreview with James Nance
Position: Senior Producer and Lead Designer Kingisle Entertainment
Other titles he's worked on: Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Quake

The-Best-Free-Games.com - In 2-3 sentences what is the Mission or Goal of Wizard 101?
James Nance - Wizard101 is a multiplayer, online adventure game, designed to be safe and enjoyable for families and players of all ages, but primarily aimed at kids. Players take on the role of Wizards at a magic school, learning spells and collecting cards that allow them to summon creatures in magical duels. You can fully customize your characters outfit, decorate your house, collect pets, battle other players in PvP combat or enjoy a storyline that spans six worlds and hundreds of hours of play.

The-Best-Free-Games.com - Your biggest competitor seems to me would be Free Realms by Sony, what are some things you think your game would have to compete with Free Realms? Or what are the biggest Selling points vs. Free Realms?
James Nance - Good question... Free Realms is certainly aimed at the same market we are, but we're a very different game. Let me see if I can spell out some differences...
Free Realms is a little more casual than we are, but Wizard101 has a very strong storyline. We have a directed experience built around a really fun collectible card game - Free Realms has a lot of different activities, but they are NOT strongly tied together.

The-Best-Free-Games.com - Yeah I agree, that's one thing I didn't like about Free Realms.
James Nance - We offer some more flexibility in terms of payment options. We offer micropayments, subscriptions and Family Plans. Additionaly, our micropayments are not a requirement to access all game content.

The-Best-Free-Games.com - When I started playing I had a ton of cards which I had no idea what to do with, and it kind of confused me how I already had so many cards and strategies to play with them. What are ways that you plan on mitigating that learning curve particuarly to younger players?
James Nance - That's tricky - in order to get the fun of a collectible card game, you need cards! We couldn't start the player with a single option in combat; that would be quickly boring and not feel much like a card game.
However, we recognize that we cater to players of different skill and experience levels...
So, at the beginning there are really no BAD choices you can make with card selection.
The variety provides different cool cinematics, but all the cards work to defeat the monsters.

The-Best-Free-Games.com - This isn't a question just some feedback, I was thinking it might be better to start players with fewer more manageable amount of cards (even as low as 3) so they can see different strategies at a basic level, and then grow from their to more amounts of cards. IMO the high amount of cards can be daunting, even if you always win you still don't know why you won or why you lost.
James Nance - Yep, I can see that. Good feedback.

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