An interview with Alexander Chulkov, designer behind the Russian award-winning action-RPG, Dawn of Magic

Koch Media: Tell me about the main characters and their different attributes.

Chulkov Alexander: A player can choose between four characters. All spells, items and skills that exist in the game are equally available for any of them. However, each character has a different potential for development. The Awkward Scholar. He spends most of his time reading books and practicing magic exercises. As a result his life value is quite low but his intellect is superb. The higher are his skills level and intellect, the faster his maximum chi value and its regeneration speed grow. But, on the other hand his hit value and their regeneration speed grow considerably slower. The load the Awkward Scholar can carry is normally lower compared to what is acceptable for other heroes. The Baker's Wife is notable for solid health and that’s why her initial life value is the highest. As her skills level and life value grow her health and regeneration values increase faster. However, her life before the Academy did not favor brain work too much. Accordingly, her chi regeneration and maximum value leave much to be desired. The Fat Friar is the strongest and the most endurant of all available characters. His initial strength is the highest. Noone can rival the Friar in load-carrying. As the Friar’s strength value is upgraded his maximum load will start to grow a lot faster compared to other characters. Sadly, the Friar is not disposed to think much about secular things and relies rather on time-proven battle staff than on spells. His intellect, maximum chi value and chi regeneration speed are as low as in the case of the Baker’s Wife. The Weird Gypsy spent most of her life in wandering. And life demanded her to learn and master a bit of everything. She is not always better than rest but her knowledge of things is at least no worse than in case of most people. Her parameters are averaged. The Weird Gypsy is a little more talented in magic than the Baker’s Wife or the Fat Friar but inferior to the Awkward Scholar in that skill. She will normally resist more damage than the Scholar but the Baker’s Wife will leave her far behind regarding the number of hits. And while you can choose any way of development for your protagonist some would be more preferable for certain characters.

Koch Media: At some points of the game players face „hot-spots“, which have different effects on them. Tell me about the different effects and maybe when do they occur. Are they determined or have players direct influence on their appearance?

Chulkov Alexander: Changes in appearance of a character may happen along with the progress of a certain spell. Mastering each spell may either contribute to the image of your hero or neutralize changes caused by development of other magic. Thus, a player can directly influence his hero’s appearance. On the other hand, in most cases the appearance of your hero can give a basic idea of your best developed types of magic.

Koch Media: What would you say are the main differences between DoM and Diablo 2?

Chulkov Alexander: Despite the fact that many called and keep calling DoM ‘the killer of Diablo’ these are two very different games. The first and the most evident difference is that DoM is a game about wizardry. And while our characters are different, all of them are still mages. The entire gameplay is inseparably associated with magic. And even if you have decided to make your hero a heavily armored warrior striking enemies with a huge two-handed axe you will still have to constantly use spells, master and invent ways of how to use them best. Besides, our game is a lot more focused on the plot, ancillary buildings and the world around the hero. Take a look at Avon and you will find that a DoM town is not just a couple of houses and a handful of characters. A town is a great deal of streets and houses, shops and office buildings… A town is a host of people dealing with their own day-to-day needs and often concerned with problems of much higher importance than those of another Magic Academy graduate, what in fact the hero is. DoM is not Diablo 2. It never used or intended to be anything similar.

Koch Media: Tell me about the combat-system. What’s your best idea behind it?

Chulkov Alexander: The main feature in DoM is combining spells. Our system of magic offers such a wide range of possibilities that it is impossible to describe or figure out all possible options for using spells. The very fact that we ourselves discovered some of the most powerful combinations by the time when the game had already been released is a good indication. Apart from magic we can take pride in morphings (changing appearance as a result of studying certain spells in depth). Morphing as a technology is no news to game industry. However, in DoM it is, firstly, as diverse and flexible as magic itself and, secondly, each change in appearance contributes to positive or more rarely to negative features of a character. Such features may seriously influence a hero’s capabilities. We should also mention that the game allows you to create your own artifacts, which quite often serve in a dispute as the decisive argument and determine who will leave the battle field wrapped up in glory and who will creep away to hide into a hole to lick fresh wounds.

Koch Media: There are three different alignments for the main characters: Good, Evil and Neutral. What does „Neutral“ exactly mean concerning the gameplay/quests?

Chulkov Alexander: While an evil character tries to help Modo in making his plans come into reality because of his selfish ends and a good character is focused on ridding the world from evil wherever possible, a neutral hero is indifferent to ideology. That does not mean he lacks morality like an evil character or is fanatical as a good one. To achieve his goals a neutral character may cooperate with either of the opposing parties but he normally prefers to avoid getting involved and tries to find his own way. Many characters with a zealous mindset will refuse to communicate with a human that does not fully share their views and others will on the contrary try to get those in doubt involved on their side. Playing for the neutral alignment means balancing on the edge between the Good and the Evil in search of ways to achieve your goal.

Koch Media: What is your favorite part of the game?

Chulkov Alexander: As for me, I enjoy most of all experiments with different spell combinations. Although I have spent quite a lot of time working on DoM I am still interested in creating a character which could become a worthy network fighter without being a remake of something that existed before. It is only in the network mode where a player can fully reveal his mastery and check the power of his magic in a fight against a peer.

Koch Media: If you had three words to describe this game, what would they be?

Chulkov Alexander: Primus inter pares (First among equals).

Koch Media: How can the player re-skill? (Why is it not possible to (pay for a) to reset skill points / spell points)?

Chulkov Alexander: Due to character development features existing in DoM a player even at medium levels can dramatically change priorities of magic being mastered with as little negative effects for his hero as possible. And what is more at top and medium levels artifacts that may be found during the game but are more often created by the player begin to play a very important role. Normally, by spending certain resources and some time you can make very big changes to a character’s build if you use only enchanted items. On top of all, it is quite logical that to create an almost new character with new capabilities a player needs to spend some efforts. This feature is especially relevant in network game where at a certain stage money is less important. At the same time developing a new hero does not take too much time. Anyway, a player willing to respond quickly to progress of enemy tactics will surely create a new hero to gain new victories in reward.