Aeria Games publishes so many games it could be a full time job just covering their titles.  Up next is Eden Eternal: a very exciting offering from the publishing giant that has caught my attention.  It seems on an entirely different level than many of their other games.  I had the chance to chat with Andy and Stephanie from Aeria Games recently and started our discussion with that very thought.

This isn't standard fare for Aeria is it?

Andy: The game is actually from a developer we've worked with on the past, called X-Legend, they developed Grand Fantasia which is one of our biggest games and we've already published it in several languages.  This is their newest game which has a lot more cool features in my opinion.

Class switching obviously is a neat addition.  I had a question about the technicalities of switching classes. Does the level of the class you play effect the level of classes you switch to?  If you are a high level Thief and you switch to a Bard that is lower level, are you weaker when fighting mobs that are the same level as the Thief’s level?

Stephanie: You start out with two classes, Warrior and Magician.  As you progress through the game, you'll unlock additional classes.  Once unlocked, you can freely switch between any classes but you will have to level up each class separately.  Players have a character level and a separate class level for each class.  When you level up your character, you'll also level up your current class.  So, to answer your question, if you switch to a class that you haven't used very much, then it will definitely affect your fighting.

So definitely there is some forsight that has to go into what class you switch to and when; you cant just switch to a low level class in an area you were fighting mobs that were the relative level of a higher level class.

Andy: We've been told by the developer players from other versions typically focus on just a couple of classes rather than trying to level up all of them at once.  Then they can switch to another class depending on what they need ahead of time.  Normally if they're going to do a dungeon raid, the would setup a party of players with a mix of classes, so the system is nice because players will have a little more flexibility in that regard.

Certainly you hope for some hardcore players that will try.  I think of Final Fantasy XI where it is almost a labour of love to work on all your class levels.  Some people have been working on their classes for years and are no where close to finishing levelling them all.  Eden Eternal could have that type of element.

Andy: One thing we like about it is that instead of having to level up separate characters once you reach a level cap you can continue to play the same character, but focus on another class, so we think this will give players a lot more to do in the game vs other MMORPG's out there.

I totally agree.  The idea of your character being an investment and continuing to build on that investment instead of being forced to play a whole new character to experience a different class.

Player controlled housing and economies is a subject near and dear to my heart.  I think there is a TON of room in the MMO landscape for a game to really focus on developing a dense and immersive experience so I get really excited reading about Guild Towns.

Stephanie: The Guild Towns in Eden Eternal will definitely be immersive.  They offer the opportunity to create a thriving commerce center for players and are staffed by merchant NPC's.  Guilds will receive taxes when visitors come to their town.

The Guild Town really seems like a feature that could be built around in the future – and that the features at launch would only be the start of a great system to add to.  Are we going to see more features in the towns post-launch?

Stephanie: The Guild Towns are one of the biggest features of the game, definitely.  The developers have put a lot of time and effort into creating an immersive town experience.  We do have several content updates planned post-launch, but not necessarily for the guild towns.  The early updates will focus on additional races and classes, and from there more updates will be planned.

We would like to thank Andy and Stephanie for their time this week.  For more information on Eden Eternal, visit http://edeneternal.aeriagames.com/