Mabinogi is a free-to-play MMORPG set in an fantasy world where people can experience all facets of fantasy life from fighting to farming. Following its successful debut in North America, European players can now look forward to experiencing a brand new fantasy life for themselves. Recently it entered the open beta phase, so it’s a perfect time to learn more about it.

FreeMMOGamer: Can you introduce yourself and your role on Mabinogi?

Hello, my name is Minsun Song and I head the overseas service of Mabinogi’s development team. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to greet our Mabinogi fans in writing and I’m very excited that Mabinogi has finally arrived to Europe, the home of Celtic culture which has inspired the development of Mabinogi’s world.

FreeMMOGamer: What is Mabinogi, and what makes it so popular among the free to play crowd?

Mabinogi is a Welsh word meaning songs which have been inherited from the bards in ancient Northern Europe. But I suppose you weren’t wondering about the meaning of Mabinogi, were you? J We designed Mabinogi with the objective to reproduce the ‘Fantasy Life’ elements that everyone has dreamt of in a virtual online world. Unlike the usual repetitive combat, character level advancement, dungeon raids and item collection found in many conventional MMORPGs, in Mabinogi we created a joyful but yet serious fantasy world where you can do whatever you imagine. Furthermore, in spite of such settings, Mabinogi’s world embraces a great deal of freedom which makes the game so special.

In short, Mabinogi has a virtual world that is bigger than your imagination and I will be very happy if the European gamers can plunge into the game and experience the joy of Mabinogi.

FreeMMOGamer: Do you think the artistic style is one of its major features?

Of course, one of the best features of Mabinogi is the game graphic that displays smooth movement in the screen resembling that from an animation film and we employed cartoon rendering to create the cel-shading graphics. Before the movies started to filming objects in 3D, the public awareness to such 3D technology was very minimal and we felt that visual elements from many fantasy-themed movies were inappropriate to use for conveying the life-type fantasies in Mabinogi and to make the game more immersive. That was why we designed the game in 3D with cartoonish motions and graphics to make the gamers feel more comfortable with the visual and we believe it was one of the key factors behind Mabinogi’s success.

FreeMMOGamer: In Mabinogi, there’s an internal clock. What does this mean to the player character?

The internal clock is one of the elements that make players engrossed in the world of Mabinogi. It would be less engaging if you have to follow the real world clock when you were looking for an escape to a fantasy life from the real world.

Every activity in Mabinogi, from working part-time, Moon Gate appearance to recharging mana, all happens based on the clock of Erinn, which applies to each and every character. Let me introduce one episode from the clock system development. In the initial development stage, we tried to bring the ancient sundial to the game so that the gamers can measure the time by themselves using the edge of a shadow, but the idea was soon terminated because the general feedback was that it may cause too much inconvenience when implemented in the game play.

In line with the clock system, I personally recommend spending one full “Mabinogi-day” which is 36 minutes in the real world, just staying in a nice location watching the sunset and stars emerging because the scenery changes are quite vivid and beautiful. It will be more charming if you are together with your lover.

FreeMMOGamer: There is also a dynamic weather system in place. How does it influence the game world?

When it rains in the game, players are able to collect or gather their necessities such as herbs from plants, wool from sheep shearing and many more for a longer period of time, which in turn increases the success rate of such collecting action. The increase in success rate also applies to obtaining goods from fishing or monster hunting when it’s raining. The idea was inspired from the real world, where rain is a blessing gift to all living creatures in the ecosystem. It’s also intriguing that raining also affects dungeon settings as special dungeons that are in the outdoors receive such “blessing” effects because it does rain whereas in general dungeons these effects don’t apply.

FreeMMOGamer: Will the European release include content featured in the previous versions (USA...)?

In terms of game play, the feature that stands out most is the Mainstream Scenario, a vast storyline that continues through Generations. In the European version G1 was released during the closed beta, G2 in the open beta and G3 will be released upon the official launch. We planned to unleash each Generation corresponding to each launch phase in order to let the gamers fully enjoy the abundant content in each Generation while we approach to the official launch stage. All the players should look out as contents from the US will be introduced to the lands of Mabinogi and much more!

FreeMMOGamer: Did the players pointed out many issues in the Closed Beta or was the game already very stable and polished?

I can’t say that the closed beta was perfect. There were a few bugs here and there found in the game however the game was very stable in terms of connectivity during the closed beta stage. As a matter of fact we were more than happy to find the players diligently finding bugs for us to improve the game when the launch finally comes. Other than that, we optimized the game client for European users by lowering the difficulty level for G1 and the players were pleased to experience such adjustment. After making the players happy with the optimization and making the game stable by employing most of North America’s already verified client settings, we are satisfied with the service from the closed beta running towards the open beta so far.

FreeMMOGamer: How is the response to the Open Beta going?

We are surprised to find that the gamers are very loyal to the game. This is mainly because the game was out in the US for a while without granting the access to the European players. The players already knew the game from the US version and they were really eager to play. These players are giving us valuable feedback to make the game even better and we believe these players will form the core of our European community and hopefully make the game more engaging when new gamers arrive to Mabinogi.

FreeMMOGamer: When do you expect the final European version to be released?

The official launch date is yet to be determined but we are trying to avoid creating a huge gap in between the open beta and the official version so it will come to Europe real soon.

FreeMMOGamer: Thank you for your time!