Grand Fantasia Interview: Evolutions and Revolutions in a Fantasy World

Grand Fantasia Interview: Evolutions and Revolutions in a Fantasy World
Questions by: Mohammed Afzal (MageMoa), OnRPG Journalist
Answered by Fenryr, Product Manager for Grand Fantasia

They always say that a publisher cannot control the success of a game. Aeria is an exception. The company is known for the quick updates and its fantastic events. Grand Fantasia, one of their most successful titles, is a wonderful example. New features are being released very often and amazing events are not uncommon. Moreover, the release of a Portugese version of Grand Fantasia on August 11 will become a new milestone for the game. The constant updates made us wondering if anything big was going to be released soon. Aeria revealed some interesting facts and information about some new features. Find out more by reading our interview with Fenryr, the Product Manager of Grand Fantasia.

OnRPG: Hello! My name is Mohammed Afzal and I am an OnRPG journalist. Could you introduce yourself, please?
Everyone in the Aeria community knows me as Fenryr.  I am the Product Manager for the North American version of Grand Fantasia.

OnRPG: It has come to our attention that the level cap in Grand Fantasia will be raised again soon. Will it be raised to 80, 90 or 100? Is there anything else that you could tell us regarding the new level cap and the Localizations which have been added lately?
Since the launch of Grand Fantasia, the game's level cap has increased every few months.  This is done to keep the game fresh and allow players to continue progressing through the game.  We currently have plans through Level 80 but it would come as no surprise if the developers continued increasing the level cap with new content updates.

Most recently our level cap has been increased to Level 75.  This update opened two new zones for our players and unlocked a new Sprite Evolution.

OnRPG: The patch which took place on July 12 finally enabled new sprite evolutions. Could you inform our readers a bit more about these new sprites and could you send us some pictures of the new evolutions?
Sprite Evolution is similar to increasing the level cap for the Sprites.  Each evolution increases the cap for Skills and determines which items the Sprite can craft.  With this most recent evolution, the Sprites are able to craft the armor and weapons that correspond to the level cap increase.  This evolution is the smallest physical change.  After the evolution, the Sprites will emit a magical aura.

OnRPG: The two new areas, Winterflake Forest and Forgotten Frontier, seem to be quite impressive. What new, challenging opponents can players find in these areas and are there any other surprises?
Winterflake Forest and Forgotten Frontier expand the northern area of Saphael known as Elsaland.  Similar to the previous update (which introduced Knight's Valley and Eternal Mountains) these two new zones allow players to trek through the snowy lands of Elsaland as they fight stronger versions of familiar enemies like Yetis, Werewolves and Dragons.

Continuing the trend seen in Knight's Valley and Eternal Mountains, the two new zones are quite large.  Progressing through the higher levels is a slower process than through lower levels, so these larger zones provide players with enough variety to keep the content from getting stale as the player gets to Level 75.

OnRPG: The Sprite Alchemy system seems to be the newest trend in Grand Fantasia. Could you explain the system to our readers, please?
The Sprite Alchemy system is a gambling system in Grand Fantasia.  Using Alchemy Clay, a player's Sprite can transform that clay into one of eight items listed in a reward table.  At that point the player has the choice to keep the item, or destroy it for a chance to progress to the next round.  There are a total of five rounds and it is more difficult to succeed as you progress from round to round. This system allows players the chance to acquire some of the most popular items in the game which includes various costumes and mounts.

Alchemy Rewards

OnRPG: Grand Fantasia players have been waiting for configurable hotkeys, is there any plan to introduce these?
Configurable hotkeys was an important feature we wanted to add to Grand Fantasia.  Although it has taken a while to implement, it is currently planned to be released in the August content patch.

OnRPG: There have been quite some exciting patches lately. What kind of updates can Grand Fantasia players expect in the near future? Could you reveal some of these fascinating updates?
Grand Fantasia has a lot of exciting new features on the horizon including new dungeons, configurable hotkeys, additional Archive space, level cap increases, tougher World Bosses and additional upgrade systems.  The developers have done a great job ensuring that our community has new content to look forward to every month and this won't be changing anytime soon.

OnRPG: Can they expect new PvP features, such as castle sieges, to expand the PVP experience, in the future?
One PvP feature that has not been released yet is an open PvP Channel.  This Channel would allow players to kill each other and gain reputation for a specific Player Killer faction.  The developers are currently modifying this feature and once testing is complete we should expect to see it in the US version.

OnRPG: It seems as if the item mall is getting cheaper by every patch. Is there a certain reason for this?
While it's not quite as often as every patch, Grand Fantasia's Item Mall has been re-priced a few times.  We do this to make sure that items are always appealing to our community.  If we find that an item is not selling (or is no longer selling) we look into reasons why and sometimes a price reduction is in order.

 
Elf on mount

OnRPG: Aeriagames is known for its wonderful events to keep players occupied. Could you mention some of your latest and upcoming Grand Fantasia events?
Recently we've started running our daily events more often throughout the day so that more players can participate.  This can be anything from Trivia to a Monster Spawn Event.

On top of those daily events we've started running week long events such as our Xmas in July event that ran the last week of July.  This event allowed players to acquire holiday items (which are usually only available in December) but also gave the daily events a common theme.  Players have responded very well to these week long events so we are looking to create more of them in the future.

OnRPG: Another thing which has surprised me is the fact that your account has to be 72 hours old in order to buy AP. What were your reasons for this?
The 72 hour rule was something that was Aeria-wide, not specific to Grand Fantasia.  The good news is that rule has recently been modified so that an account only needs to be 24 hours old before it can purchase AP.

OnRPG: The patch that was released on July 6 has given the GMs of Grand Fantasia the ability to remove gold from the players if necessary. Does this have anything to do with the huge inflation?
The GMs of Grand Fantasia were given the ability to remove gold from players as a correction tool.  Buying Gold (or anything else) from a third party website is against the game's Terms of Service.  We use the gold removal ability to remove Gold from players that have been caught purchasing Gold.  Previously we had to resort to other ways of disciplining players who had purchased Gold from these websites.

OnRPG: Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
I think that pretty much covers everything.  Thanks!

OnRPG: Thank you for your time!