GAMES had the pleasure to interview the team behind CardMon Heroes, a new card game-based MMORPG developed by T3 Entertainment.

1. So it’s been recently announced that Open Beta has started for CardMonHero." How has T3 Entertainment prepared for the launch?" Any big updates between CBT and OBT?

During the time between CBT and OBT we addressed a lot of minor issues with the game, from localization and language errors to minor bug fixes. We’ve also continued to balance the game and make sure everything is optimized. There have been a lot of changes between CBT and OBT and we encourage players to come in and see for themselves!

2. What exactly is CardMonHero? What types of gameplay features does the game offer to players?

CardMon hero is a breath of fresh air in the MMORPG category. It brings together one of the simplest forms of gaming, cards, and takes it to another level by adding a persistent 3D world and an entire backbone of an MMO around it. What’s more impressive about it is that anyone from kids to adults can play. The interface is meant to be accessible for anyone and interactive enough to keep everyone entertained.

For the gameplay and features, CardMon Hero is a card based game where almost everything you do comes from a card. The skills and most player consumable items are cards. A distinct feature that we have are what we call Card Monsters or Mercenaries that players can employ or summon to assist him/her in combat or quests.

We also have what we call Board Battles. These board battles are like instance dungeons where players need to complete a specific goal which is either annihilate all the enemies or just kill the boss. Aside from the various Board Battles, we have mini events which is like a Board Battle but in a way different because these Mini Events are a competition for players who will join. These Mini Events are opened at a specific time.

3. Is there any specific features that characters have like any high power armor or weaponry?

There are special sets (composed of certain armor sets and unique weapons) that players can purchase with medals (ordinary medals and advanced medals) from medal collectors. These medals can be acquired by joining Mini Events like Snowfight, Cow Mode, 8vs8 Annihilation or 4vs4 Survival.

4. How does CardMonHero compare to other MMO games? It looks like there has been a lot of buzz going around with the launch of OBT.

CardMon Hero is a one of a kind MMORPG. CardMon Hero has built a name for itself outside the US under the name “Camon Hero” but is finally being introduced to the North American audience. It has been compared many times to games such as Pokemon, Yugi-oh and Wizard 101 because of the card feature. Other than that, CardMon Hero manages to distinguish itself from these games because not only does it have the cards and the summoning aspect but because it is an MMO with a deeper story. It is one of the only MMOs that has no grinding, no gender lock and has amazing anime style graphics. The spec requirements are low so the game can be played on almost any computer. CardMon Hero gives players a choice, to be their own mercenary and crafter. Players get to choose their own deck, own monsters and craft it in any way they want.

5. What can players expect from OBT as the days go by?

Players can expect more special events and superb customer service. "We are planning to add a variety of mercenaries and character costumes. We are also working on updating the unreleased special annihilation battle mode (where you repel 5 random bosses at once), and team battle PvP mode for 50, 60, 70 levels.

6. There are a lot of card-collecting games in real-life such as Pokemon, Magic, and Yu-Gi-Oh." Seeing a card game transition into an MMO must be a very exciting experience for the team." How did such a transition turn into a reality?

We were inspired by Pokemon for elements of monster capture, and Magic the gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh for card summoning. We conceived Cardmon Hero's initial concept from our team's previous RTS game's special mode since the nature of MMO doesn't allow for turn-based strategy. We crafted a real-time mercenary card summoning system after having numerous meetings to set the game concepts such as ‘throwing cards on the ground using a skill will summon a mercenary pet on that spot'. The most difficult part of the whole transition was to figure out interactions between a hero and mercenaries, and as a fruit of many hours of contemplation, we were able to design heroes assisting mercenaries like ‘Ping'. CardMon’s large-scale single player combat sets it apart from other MMORPGs, and we are planning to continuously add more mercenary cards with various features and concepts.

7. Is there anything else you would like to say to your players who have played or are still wanting to play the game?

Now is the time to sign up and check out the game for yourself! Collect all you want and tame your monsters to fight for you. We look forward to welcoming your readers into the game and hope they enjoy it!

Big thanks to T3 Entertainment for taking the time to do the interview." You can find more information on how to play CardMon Hero on their official website." Post any comments you have on our forums.