Q: What was the smartest thing you did to speed development of your title, and the dumbest thing you (collectively!) did which hindered development?

The best thing we have done, in my mind, is the map editor. It has helped us to standardize map creation and add all the features (landscape, combat features, path finding, collision detection…) using a very quick and simple interface. It allows 2D artists to spend more time on the graphical aspects of the game rather than on technical ones.

In contrary, the dumbest thing was that we did not forecast such success. Indeed, at the beginning we did not have any advanced customer support tool and felt quickly overwhelmed. The worst was the size of the world: it has become crowded rapidly and we have had to create a lot of new maps, quests, features, etc. to face the “gamers' invasion” of the Amakna's territories.