General issues

  Heroes

  Spell book. Spells and creatures

  Gameplay

  Multiplayer

  Technical issues

General issues

Heroes

B: Will there be new heroes? New monsters?

O: Yes, of course. Apart from 15 "colourless" monsters (outerplanars) there will also be heroes of each race who fell under colourlessness' control. Heroes of the first part of the game will get themselves new riding monsters. Also, in later campaigns the player will have an opportunity to play for Diamanda - heroine who can easily use spells of various races.

Spell book. Spells and creatures

B: Will the player's spell book size change?

O: Yes, now the player's spell book can hold 16 cards versus 15 in the first game.

B: Is there a chance that the player will be able to change spells in the spell book for those held in reserve at any time during the game?

O: Yes. Apart from the spell book of 16 spells to be used in battle, each hero will be able to carry additional spells in his "rucksack" - we call them "reserve spells". Any spell in the spell book can be swapped for any other spell the hero owns at any time except in battle. Spells bought in shops can be added to the spell book immediately.

B: Will there be multi-coloured spell books in the game?

O: Yes. In one of the five campaigns the hero will have an opportunity to use a multi-coloured spell book. We do not plan to have multi-coloured spell books for multiplayer duels at this stage - except possibly for a special mode. However, heroes of all races will be able to use colourless spells.

B: What's a "colourless" spell?

O: Colourless spells are a new kind of spells, which can be used by heroes of all races. New "colourless" creatures, outerplanars, have a special ability - instead of going to graveyard after being mortally wounded they go to Outerplane. While in that state, they cannot be affected by any magic or attacked by enemy creatures. Outerplanars can be brought back by paying a certain number of ether or life points.

Gameplay

B: Are you planning to introduce new race(s) to the game?

O: Yes and no. No, since heroes of all races, not just colourless heroes and outerplanars will be able to use new colourless spells and creatures. Yes, because the number of these spells is sufficient to make a lot of new spell books.

B: Will colourlessness be displayed on the strategic map? What dangers colourlessness has to heroes?

O: Yes it will be. There will be practically no colours on the territory taken by colourlessness, except grey. With time colourlessness will spread over the strategic map. For example, heroes will be losing experience; to restore it they'll have to reach certain buildings on the map.

B: Will castles and global spells like "Ether Protector" or "Ether Fort" still be present in the game?

O: No, we decided to completely abandon global spells concept in favour of greatly increasing the role-playing and adventure components. Now the game is not built around defending your castle and trying to destroy enemy castles. Instead of global spells we now have various structures on the map, which can change battle conditions for heroes within certain radius when activated. For example, some creatures' parameters can be seriously improved.

B: Will the player find new objects on the strategic map? If so, what will they be?

O: Yes, of course - we changed functions of some of the original buildings and added many new ones. For example, there's now a jetty where you can buy a ship and send your hero to a sea journey. Also there are teleports, tunnels, geysers, magic mirrors… We could go on for a long time, since the full list is quite substantial.

B: Will the rune system for spells work differently?

O: Yes. It will be much easier to handle runes in Etherlords II. Now there's no need to buy runes at all - they'll be replenished automatically after each combat. So there're no rune shops on the strategic map either. Number of runes for each spell in the spell book is now determined by "Rune Storage" ability of your hero. However, you'll still have to buy spells paying with resources in shops.

B: Which new resources will be introduced in the game?

O: There will be no new resources. We decided to cut down the number of resources a bit, according to many players' wishes. So currently there are just three kinds of resources in the game: precious stones, mandrake roots and frozen flame. The first two kinds are used for buying simpler spells, the last one - for acquiring most powerful spells.

Multiplayer

B: Will there be a hot seat mode on the adventure map?

O: No. We do not plan to develop any multiplayer mode on the adventure map. Etherlords 2 multiplayer will be based on players fighting duels. And we devoted a significant amount of time developing this in great detail.

B: There's a rumour there will be a rating server and new duel modes. Is it true?

O: Yes, there will be an Etherlords 2 rating server. Also, in addition to regular duel mode there will be new ones: "Draft" (for 4 or 8 players) and "Sealed" (for two players). These modes will also support mini-tournaments. Currently we are considering whether to calculate general player's rating for all modes or introduce several rating systems. In the second case there will be individual rating sections for each kind of tournaments, i.e. playing Drafts, the player will increase only his Draft rating, while playing with a previously constructed deck they'll increase the rating reflecting the player's results in this particular kind of duel.

Technical issues

B: What are the game's system requirements?

O: Minimum system requirements necessary to run the game without problems are as follows: Pentium II 600 MHz, 128 MB RAM, AGP 3D accelerator 16 MB video RAM. Recommended configuration: Pentium III 1.0 GHz, 256 MB RAM, AGP 3D accelerator 32 MB video RAM.