PlanetWide’s Chip Bumgardner discusses Risk Your Life: Path to Emperor
By Michael Lafferty

“We will be hosting MANY events in the game”

The world is at war, with two sides squaring off to battle ferociously – warrior against warrior, clan against clan. The world is part and parcel of the RYL: Path to Emperor experience.

Select your archetype, hone your skills, and engage in PvP to your heart’s content. There are safe zones, but even there you can be challenged.  

RYL is the acronym for Risk Your Life, and that is what is at stake in this head-on battlefest. Certainly there are mobs to kill and level up, with points won per level allocated to attributes, and it is the attribute levels that enable a player to purchase improved skills.  

Graphically the world is well rendered, with shadows and lighting textures and solid special effects. RYL is currently in beta, but that is rapidly coming to a close, and too soon the title will launch. With the launch not far off, Chip Bumgardner, of Planetwide Games, still found time to talk with GameZone about the title. 

Question: The game is still in beta, at least until Mid-March. Is the form that is currently present the game that will be released or will there be changes (and if so what) that will occur prior to launch?  

Chip: We have put a lot of time into bug fixing as you can imagine. We thought we were going to be ready for launch on March 1, but we decided to hold going live until we fixed a few bugs that were hindering gameplay. As of one hour ago (late Thursday afternoon), we were finally able to fix our biggest issue ...  The dreaded AOE exploit bug (I won't go into what this is, if you are playing the game, you should be smiling right now).   

Q: The game is, initially, rather easy to level and yet there seems to be a lot of instances of upper level players challenging lower level avatars to duels. Of course the disparity in weapons and hit points make is a futile endeavor for the lower players, but what advantage do you this the dueling system in peaceful realms like the God's Field areas having? Will the playing field for this type of combat be leveling in any way?  

Chip: The Experience and Drops are set WAYYYY too high right now. When we go live we'll be scaling those back a bit to be more in line with the way they were intended. The dueling system will be undergoing an overhaul in the coming months so that is functions the way it should in the updated engine. I can't really say more than that.

Q: Are you, or will you be taking steps to alleviate players griefing other players, either through verbal harassment or kill stealing?  

Chip: We go above and beyond to take care of these types of issues. Currently it is pretty easy for somebody to KS (kill-steal) a player. This system will be changing at a later date so that this won't be possible anymore. 

Q: What prompted the creation of RYL: Path to Emperor and what will players actually be able to attain within the parameters of the game?  

Chip: RYL: Path of the Emperor is just that... A path to become Emperor. ANY player has a chance to become the Emperor. Any guild that performs certain actions can become the top guild that rules the land. And I do mean, rules the land. 

That guild can tax other guilds as well as other various deeds.

Q: You have taken a different approach to some of the professions, tying skills to spells and to levels of attributes, which means that players may go a long time between qualifying for next tier skills. What was the reasoning behind this?  

Chip: All of your spells are called Skills in RYL. Each skill has six different stages before it becomes the next level. There are six levels total for EACH skill (36 upgrades per skill).  Each stage looks a little different and functions a little different than the stage below. It's really something to see when a Human Sorcerer drops Apocalypse (a swirling tornado of fire) on your head. :) 

Q: Does RYL have crafting in it, and how hard is it for players to craft items?  

Chip: If you mean can you bake pies or make clothes, no. What we do have is a robust weapon / armor fusing and upgrade system. These are actually two different abilities. Let me try to explain...

Fusing - Take two weapons of the same type and give them to the blacksmith. He then creates a new weapon out of the two that fuses the best stats of each into the new one.  

Upgrading - While fighting NPCs, sometimes you will get any of a few types of metal as a drop. These metals can be used to upgrade weapons / armor at the blacksmith. You can upgrade an item up to 10 times (which is VERY expensive). Each upgrade level gives a different boost to whatever you are upgrading. For example, I want to upgrade a sword... At level 1 I get an additional 3 to base attack. At level 2 it adds 25 HP, at level 3 I get 50 MP, etc. ... At levels 6 and above a slot gets added to the item that you can use to further upgrade the item. Each slot can be filled with gems that you get as drops. Each gem has a different effect depending on which slot it is in. This system alone means there are LIMITLESS possibilities with your gear.

Q: Tell us a little about the guild combat in the game, and the towers and structures guilds can put up? Are all guild 'settlements' destructible? What is gained in this aspect of the game? Does the PvP primarily center on the two races or is it an open PvP world?  

Chip: Guild combat is where the real fun starts. At level 30 you can create / join a guild. There are multiple types of guilds that I won't go into right now. As a guild, you can create Forts, Siege Weapons, Walls, Defenses, even up to creating a Dragon (which is not in the game yet). There is a set time each day that guilds can build / destroy. It's fun watching a bunch of guilds battle it out. 

Q: What graphics engine does this game use? How long has this game been in development? Will the game feature live world events?  

Chip: The game functions on it's own engine. It's been in development for over five years. We will be hosting MANY events in the game. We're even working on a contest the likes of which NO game has ever done.  

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