Dragonshard Interview
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Q: You mentioned the underground there - we've heard DragonShard will feature two distinct play styles from above and below ground - can you tell us more on that?
A: We really tried to make the upper [above ground] experience and the lower experience, very different things. For example if you go into the dungeon areas, there's a lot of treasure, which is one of your primary resources, there's a lot of gold but there's also big powerful, unique singular monsters. There's big Umber Hulks, big Dragons, Medusas, Naga, huge Gelatinous Cubes, Beholders, I mean everything is big, but in small numbers.
Downstairs we're going to have small adventuring parties, but upstairs, it's a lot more about large numbers. There are three classes of units on the surface. Champions are the ones which the story is built around, super-powerful entities which behead people and have the ability to do cool, powerful effects.
Right below them are Captains; Captains are, for lack of a better way of saying it, are the units you use to build with. They have a cool character, a cool personality, they're the rolled-up characters who can be levelled, they can go up in levels and when they do, they don't go up as individuals but as an entire class.
So if you up the Barbarian class to the second level, any Barbarians you generate also receive that second level. As they go up in levels they get powers and abilities and one of those abilities is a leadership score. What that leadership score allows is the ability to command the third class, which we call Soldiers or Grunts. They're kind of lesser warriors, men recruited from the peasantry. So for example a Dwarf Barbarian will be in command of some Dwarf fighters. A Wizard will be in command of some Apprentice Wizards.
