For those of you who always want to know more, let us present a short interview with the main brain behind Emporea, its former long-time producer, main game designer and the first programmer, Dexter.

What was the original idea when you started working on Emporea? What was the main concept?

To make a mix of Travian and Heroes of Might and Magic.

That's it?

Yes, that's it :) I wanted to create a multiplayer real-time strategy war game combined with the epic worlds and heroes and races, Heroes-like. So, yes, that is pretty much it.

What was the thing you wanted to do differently, then? Was there anything which was meant to stand out and be cultivated?

I guess it would be artifacts. It is probably the only aspect which kept evolving in the same direction throughout entire Emporea history and through all the versions it ever had. We started a bit hard-core, as with everything else in the game. You had only 5 artifact slots on a hero, out of which only three could have been active simultaneously. Also, when someone attacked you, he could have stolen them from you. We disabled the stealing option and designed many more artifacts for the server, introduced the inventory for your hero to store the extras, kept expanding their possible amount in that storage and we went on with expanding the functions artifacts had, their attributes, and eventually introduced forging. We played with it for quite some time.

After 5 years of living Emporea, you have moved on to work on a new project. What are you looking forward to?

To seeing it. There is a very long period in which you just think and talk about it, then re-think it and keep discussing it and, suddenly, it is there. I am looking forward this moment when it gains a form.

Is it different now, with the new project than it was with Emporea?

I do not know, I don't think I am able to compare the experience now and then. With Emporea I had this naive idea “I know what I am about to do, how to do it, how it will look”. Now I know I know nothing, I admit I have no idea how this project turns out. But I am not worried about it, not at all, but it is what makes it different. I plan to concentrate on the 5% I am sure about at this moment, and the rest will be figured out on the way.

Make sure to check out Dexter's new project Galactic Junk League ;)