League of Maidens Exclusive Interview: Challenges, Risks, and Multiplayer

After several years of development, all the hard work is finally coming to fruition and League of Maidens is about to enter open alpha in February 2021. A labor of love by a small indie team, this action RPG places you in control of beautiful maidens with super powers, but with a distinguished mature tone to make it stand out from the crowd. We spoke with Patrick, founder of studio Maiden Gaming, about the challenges in bringing this game to life, and how the League of Maidens community helped shape the project. Read our League of Maidens exclusive interview to learn everything about this hit in the making.

FreeMMOStation: Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Patrick: Hello! My name is Patrick and I am a dev and owner at Maiden Gaming. 🙂

FMMO: Can you tell us a little about MaidenGaming and the team members’ background in game development?

Patrick: Sure! There are three developers on the project each with their own development backgrounds and strengths. I work a lot on anything customer facing like the client, marketing, working with artists and pretty much everything associated with the customer facing portion of the project like social media presence, etc.

FMMO: Why did you choose to develop an adult-themed action RPG instead of a game for a broader audience, so to speak?

Patrick: We enjoyed the idea of providing a different product which will be evident to all that play. Our goal mostly centers around providing an experience that isn't limited with fun gameplay. We also quite enjoy female led experiences in games and it seemed like a great fit for our team.

FMMO: The League of Maidens character customization seems extremely elaborate. Personally, how do you compare it to the likes of other acclaimed systems such as Black Desert’s, for example? Do you feel like it goes where others didn’t, and I’m not only talking about the naughty bits?

Patrick: We try our best not to compare as it doesn't accomplish much. What I can say is that we've worked extremely hard to provide our users with the freedom they need to create the character of their dreams. With our project updates and improvements being public it has given those interested in providing suggestions and feedback an open forum to help educate us on what works and what doesn't. Also, what's missing and what can use improvement. I can say that our system is a collaboration of our hard work and our commitment to listen to our community and their suggestions which has helped to make it a much more competent system in terms of reaching a great end result for the user. As long as we work as hard as we can to give our community the freedom they are looking for we'll be happy with the system no matter how it ranks in the market place.

FMMO: Did you have much trouble spreading the word about the game, considering its adult nature?

Patrick: We've been actually quite pleased with the response and the ability to spread the word about the game. We've also been very thankful for the community members that have helped tremendously to bring awareness to our project. Without a doubt there have been challenges but we've gone through this process with the expectation that there would be. In the end we are humbled by the amazing efforts of our community members and the wonderful support and praise we've received from our current and future players.

FMMO: What was the biggest challenge that you faced during development?

Patrick: Our biggest challenge without question is the need to balance the necessary tasks needed to bring a game to market with such a small team. I praise any game studio no matter how good or bad a game is that are capable of creating a product and bring it to market. It is an unbelievably daunting task and we believe that any company or individual able to go through this process should be commended as it isn't an easy thing to do. The second most challenging thing is pointing out where mistakes have been made and learning and improving on them as developers and more so community builders.

FMMO: League of Maidens started out as a MOBA but the open alpha, however, will be single player only. Is this due to technical issues or other plans, and when do you predict for multiplayer to be in the game?

Patrick: We pivoted very early in the project away from MOBA as we didn't feel that a single game mode would be viable for a sustained period of time. A MOBA is fun but there have been much bigger companies with far more resources that have tried and failed at that endeavor. Ultimately we chose to focus less on MOBA to add features to the game that we felt would justify a better gameplaying experience.

Our stance on multiplayer is that we currently have quite a few multiplayer features in game but features that allow for multiplayer lobbies i.e. seeing other players in game and joining other players for questing and guilds etc… require a much higher monetary investment. Our plan is to enter open alpha as a single player game with multiplayer features and should the game garner enough support for us to increase our team size to take on more work and the revenue stream allow for us to afford and sustain the investment needed to add additional multiplayer features, we will do so. We've developed League of Maidens on a micro budget and want to ensure that the game will be around for players to enjoy. Doing so requires that we carefully look at whatever model works best with the revenue that it generates.

FMMO: Being a new indie studio, do you feel like you have the server infrastructure more than ready for the alpha release, or do you fear that – in a good sense – everything is going to break down due to an overwhelming number of players trying the game?

Patrick: We're doing our best working with our partners to ensure that we are doing everything possible to increase the chances of a smooth launch but in the end (again) larger companies have tried and have failed at this endeavor. Our mindset is to do the best possible job that we can and work with the best possible partners that we can, and should any issues arise that we have not anticipated, to be ready to address those issues as quickly as possible.

FMMO: How long do you expect League of Maidens to be in alpha?

Patrick: It is hard to say. It depends mostly on the response that we get on February 25th and whether or not we move at the same pace as we are today, or if we are able to bring on more members to our team to increase the pace of our development.

FMMO: Anything else you would like to say to our readers?

Patrick: Only that we sincerely thank the FreeMMOStation community for their support and the time the website has given us to discuss our game. We are beyond thankful for the exposure and we are sincerely thankful for the opportunity and we hope that everyone has an amazing holiday! 🙂

FMMO: Thank you for your time, and good luck for the League of Maidens alpha release.

Patrick: No, thank YOU! 🙂

We want to thank Maiden Gaming and Patrick in particular for granting us this League of Maidens exclusive interview. You can wishlist the game on Steam right now, and the open alpha release date is scheduled for February 25, 2021.