New info from KurtzPel pops up, PvP action is the focus

The reveal of KOG Games' new online game brought joy to many players who are hoping to see more PC games in a world dominated by mobile titles. As the successor to Grand Chase and Elsword Online, KurtzPel has quite some expectations resting on its shoulders.

After the first gameplay videos, a few interviews appeared on South Korean media and revealed a bit about the making of KurtzPel and the developers' plans. There are a few interesting facts, including the use of Unreal Engine 4, PvP as the focus of the game (although PvE is planned), and the internal concerns about making another PC game. You know, because copycat auto-play mobile games are the big deal nowadays. Anyway, read on (thanks MMOCulture):

1. The game director of KurtzPel has been in KOG since 2008, and was also the director of Elsword.

2. As many other companies have already shifted to mobile games, there was concern inside and outside of KOG about the decision to make another PC game. But the team decided to go ahead with the project since their core experiences are in the PC platform and the game should inherit the “KOG action” genes.

3. Unreal Engine 4 was chosen as the game engine as it will be able to cross over to other platform and not stuck to just PC. Gamepad control is a key game design factor as well.

4. KOG placed huge focus on developing the action combat system, such as which part of the target did a weapon strike, the timing and intensity of each strike, and created a whole list of situations which might occur. KOG will work hard to refine the action combat mechanics, and the director deeply believes action games should be judged on the importance of rapid situation judgment, proper reaction, and proficiency.

5. The team thought that systems which will affect the overall action experience, including elements of Pay to Win and Time to Win, should be avoided. Character levels are removed, as well as item strengthening features. There will be a low dependence on stats in the game.

6. 2 of the core game feature are called “Karma” and “Karma Fragments”. We are not really able to understand the whole concept in Korean, but “Karma” and “Karma Fragments” can be attached to weapons, determines skills, and affects relationships with NPCs as well. Unique costumes can also be obtained from NPCs through “Karma”.

7. KOG pursued cell animation for KurtzPel as it is the most appropriate animation style to showcase the kind of expressions the team was pursuing.

8. The team admitted that while Unreal Engine 4 is great, it is not optimized for the visual arts that KurtzPel requires. Hence, lots of research and trial and error was done while developing the game.

9. The core content of KurtzPel is action and PVP. The team does not want to delay the launch schedule of KurtzPel unless it is to refine the action combat and PVP system. It hopes to have KurtzPel playable in 2018 in one form or another (meaning either Alpha, Closed Beta, or Open Beta).

10. There is still PVE content as well, and players can enjoy various missions with different stories that are scattered across the game world. Players can listen to stories related to various NPCs, and learn more about the world view through events with NPCs. The team does not want PVE to be linear like hero narratives in movies or comics.

11. Players can obtain quests from “Chase”, apparently the organization everyone belongs to. The difficulty of quests given out are according to each player’s “Chase” ranking.

12. New story scenarios will be added post-launch involving the main NPCs. Certain quests might be removed or changed due to new stories.