Devblog: Ereboria: The Cursed Island 2022-12-09 16:00
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Ereboria Harbor (hub)
This kicks off your main quest, which will take you all over the island in search of untold riches. Before diving headlong into the adventure, we encourage you to take a moment to take in the delights of Ereboria Harbor. You will find allusions to memories of a not-so-distant past there. Black Ink, from the WAKFU animated series, is also there to give you Hunter quests, which will help and guide you around the island through various challenges.
Pirate Beach
Pirate Beach is to the west of the island. This area is for level 36-50 adventurers. Strewn with debris and Foggernaut junk, the pirates have taken over the coast and have also managed to get their hands on some military technology based on Stasis. Maybe Nao, a Clan Member of the area, can tell you more about what the old sea wolves are planning… Of course, he first needs to be persuaded to share the information he has!
Pirate Beach has a dungeon, and at the end of it, you will meet the eight-limbed being who will have been sticking his tentacle in throughout your fights: Pohl the Octopus.
Cursed Beach
The Cursed Beach is one of the destinations for the Lance-Dur group in the animated series of the same name. To reach it, you need to follow a hidden passage with a bluish glow to the north-east of the harbor. The fights against the monsters that roam there, the Deathburns, are for level 36-50 adventurers. You can learn more about their grim story in the area quest given by Gumi, the Clan Member, and by watching the animated series Lance-Dur.
Bitter-Hammer Cavern
During your main quest to find mysterious treasure, you will meet a clan concealed in a cavern at the northern end of Deathburn Beach: the Bitter-Hammer clan! Led by the area's Clan Member, Berylbell Copperbeard, this expedition is new in name only. In fact, adventurers from the first DOFUS era would agree that these beings of small stature bear a striking resemblance to Stubbyobs… Delve into their story, which tells of an age-old struggle with historic stakes!
The requirement for Bitter-Hammer Cavern this time is level 51-65. You can also try your hand at scrapping scrap metal by facing the Golem, the boss of their dungeon!
Ocean Prison
The Ocean Prison is one of two areas recommended for level 216-230 Twelvians. Located several kameters under the sea, you won't need gills to explore it because the almighty ocean has opened up, as if by magic, to create ramparts all around the area, which allows terrifying aquatic monsters to roam around: the Abyssal Creepers. Also featuring in the Lance-Dur animated series, the Ocean Prison is run by Spriggiss, a slippery guy, who can give you crucial information to help you complete your main quest. You'll also notice that the area's boss wields a familiar weapon in its fin…
New Sufokian Mine
Some say that deafening noises come from the island's underground mines. Others claim that a strong smell of Stasis overwhelms them when they get near it. And the bravest who have ventured there will bring back terrifying news of mechanical monsters as big as nine Iops! For level 216-230 adventurers, the New Sufokian Mine is run by Frida Mofette under the orders of Prince Adal, but their motives for being there are still a mystery. The Foggernauts have built a huge mining complex there, but you will only learn why the two protagonists of the WAKFU animated series are there by completing the area's quest.
Cire Momore
Think twice before diving into one of the island's five areas. You will probably hear noises that follow you around like a menacing shadow. Cire Momore itself will try to catch you by intervening in combat if you summon it from the intervention steles. The big bad from the Lance-Dur animated series will adjust to the level of your dungeon and try to seize you. If you manage to evade it and win your fights, you could have a chance to loot some pieces of its equipment!
And besides, isn't its treasure that which you seek?
The Team Answers Questions
Ereboria Island is an expansion that needed a full year of development. For this article we took the opportunity to ask some members of the team about their work, stories, thoughts, and more. The answers below are from sound designer Jimanak, level designer BenK, and 2D artist Bertrand.
Can you please quickly introduce yourself for those in the community who don't already know who you are?
Jim: Hi! I'm a sound designer on WAKFU and other projects at Ankama. I work on all the sounds in the game (surprise surprise!), the farts, belches, environmental sounds, spells, etc. I joined Ankama and this great adventure a year and a half ago, and I'm very happy to be working on fantastic projects like WAKFU!
BenK: Hello community! I'm BenK, the one responsible for environments in WAKFU MMO. The level design, level building and environment graphics are all in my area. I'm a veteran… I've been at Ankama for 15 years already.
Bertrand: Hello, I've been a 2D graphic artist on WAKFU for several years. Before that, I worked on animation layouts for the WAKFU and Kerubim animated series and the DOFUS movie. I used to be a freelance designer and illustrator, and I created the three-part comic "Pandala" and illustrated the DOFUS season 2 and 3 artbooks.
Why did you choose Ereboria rather than one of the other islands in the Albuera Archipelago?
Jim: I didn't specifically choose it; this latest update is very much a transmedia project. Our underlying guideline is to stick to the world of the Lance-Dur animated series.
BenK: Even before embarking on this transmedia project, we had intended to revamp Calamar Island and we also had some ideas for the Foggernaut world. So, it was a natural step to focus on the island of Ereboria because it allowed us to combine these different environments and even create new ones! So, bye-bye Calamar Island! We've seen enough of you. Time to move on to something fresher and more immersive! Lance-Dur takes place in different locations, and Ereboria is one of them. Developing all these areas in WAKFU, in the space of a year, would have been very ambitious and would have led to a shallower experience. We wanted something with more depth.
Bertrand: I've got nothing more to add!
What were your inspirations for this expansion?
Jim: Almost everything! The level design is crazy in this update (like the others). BenK is a talented guy! This really helped me when I needed to imagine the sounds of the world in which these visual environments would be brought to life. I had really varied environments to work with, like the sunny "paradise" beaches, the interiors of caves like Bitter-Hammer Cavern, and the Ocean Prison of the fish people.
BenK: Mainly the chance to create an expansion with very different areas visually, where players can have a very different experience from one environment to the next… I wanted to make them eager to explore, to strengthen the feeling of going on an adventure, and for that to work, we needed immersion and consistency.
Bertrand: The starting point was connected to the planning work done for the Lance-Dur animated series. We had to stay true to the graphic research, and it's always great to recreate a world that has already been artistically expressed. Then BenK did all the hard work by creating the whole visual world through his amazing maps. So, my inspiration was influenced both by what we knew about the animated series and the game's new environments. It was then my job to add in all the reference material I found during my research.
What aspect would you like to draw attention to for players exploring the island?
Jim: First of all, turn the sound back on! That would make me (very) happy. Then, just wander about, listen to the environments, the little shell noises when you walk over them, and the bone bridge that makes "music" when you run over it… I especially recommend the Cursed Beach and the Ocean Prison with its rising waterfalls.
BenK: To be honest, I'm still so involved with it that I couldn't take a step back and recommend one specific place. But I'll say the hub (Ereboria Harbor) with its little pirate village: It has a very unique atmosphere and you can access all the other areas from there.
Bertrand: That's a tricky one. All the new areas are beautiful and interesting to explore. And you get a new experience each time because of the diversity. I might have a special fondness for the Ocean Prison. I always find underwater areas interesting, and this one is surrounded by walls of water.
What did you enjoy most when creating Ereboria? What were your biggest challenges?
Jim: Every aspect of it, from start to finish. Starting with the environments, then the monster families, while considering the story of each monster family to create and craft sounds that are perfectly in keeping with the environments and level design. It's my job to make you feel the story through the sound. I think we'll continue to work on this with BenK for the next few updates. I especially loved working on Cire Momore. He's pretty scary!
BenK: As is often the case, the bit that gives me the most satisfaction is when I add the lighting design to the maps: That's when the environments come to life! It's even more satisfying after multiple weeks of laying out a particular area. But depicting the Creeper area wasn't as easy to implement as it might seem. I'm still not completely satisfied with the walls of water, but we have to move on, and the reaction from my colleagues has reassured me. Putting together a transmedia project around an animated series and making that happen in one year is not easy. Information comes in bit by bit, and many times we wondered whether we would be consistent enough with the other content. And as I'm involved at the start of the development cycle, I face this challenge even more. I need to deliver the environments quickly so my teammates can start their work. Obviously, I had to make some amendments here and there, but we didn't do too badly!
Bertrand: The challenges were mainly in creating monster families that were in keeping with the Lance-Dur series and the themes we decided to explore around this island. I enjoyed everything I worked on! Certain monster designs stand out for me, and I really loved creating the aquatic Creeper family, especially the boss. There was a bit of back and forth with the AD (Artistic Director) and the rest of the team to settle on the final design, but it fits in well with the rest of the family. I also like the huge boss of the Deathburn family! But I think what I enjoyed the most was illustrating the combination of all the different maps to create the overall depiction of the island. It was really cool to create the design by putting the various maps together, and this overview adds another dimension to BenK's work. I also like knowing that this aerial view helps players visualize the areas where their characters will live and grow.
Do you have any interesting or funny stories to share?
Jim: We recorded the voices of lots of Ankama employees last June, including Inooni (who you already know) and Lolzewolf, our lead animator and FX. I used these voices for certain monsters from the Deathburn family. I love casting spells on them in the game and hearing them repeatedly scream… It's how I get my revenge on them! For the Deathburn family, I was looking for a very specific sound for the voice design of the boss, and I remembered that a colleague here at Ankama had very impressive (and loud) burping skills! So, I recorded him. You can hear the beautiful sound every time the boss attacks :)
BenK: I don't really have a funny story to share. For this expansion, we worked with Jim to try and strengthen the link between the sound design and the environments. Some of you have probably noticed (turn on the sound, guys! At least once, please. If you don't, Jim will have a heart attack, and because we rarely see him, he'll really start to stink…). Jokes aside, we tried to develop and increase the immersive qualities, for both the visual elements and the sound. Anyway, that's what I hope to continue in the future with WAKFU, and I plan to improve it even more… Oh, yes, I do have a little interesting fact for you! Ereboria wasn't the original name of this expansion, at least, not its working title. Sadly, as Siu is far too sensible or at least not as big of a fan of the lowbrow humor that certain colleagues are, including myself, he decided to replace it with the current name. Well, I suppose you need to have the same name as the one used in the other projects. Transmedia and all that… Have fun!
Bertrand: Well, my little tidbit is that we worked in parallel with development on the animated series. This meant we had the research to work with but not the final product. That sometimes created surprises, like when the design of the underwater creatures, which looked similar to sirens, suddenly and completely changed. This explains why you won't see the newer design in the game but the siren is part of the Creeper family.