W: How was Legends of Arkain started ? What were your motivations ?
S: To answer this question, I would like to quote the answer I gave to this in the Arkain Question Time (AQT) from the 2nd of Septemer:
Well, the motivation was pretty simple. I had already created around 80 campaigns for WarCraft 3 in my younger years. Most of these were parts of a series, I think it was about...I cannot remember how many, maybe ten series?
Anyway, none of them were released, the maps never had a quality that would make them worth releasing - today, all of them are lost anyway. I didn't intend to release any of them either since they were made for me and some friends to play, not to be published. One day, however, I wanted to create a campaign series that I would upload, a campaign series with quality high enough to be approved in the Map Section. That was in 2012. Sadly, my computer got broken and I considered the files lost. I didn't want to start from anew, lost motivation and focused on other things instead. In 2014, I recovered the files and started the Arkain thread.
W: What do you plan to achieve with this project ?
S: Here I would like to quote the AQT again:
My goal is to create a campaign series with a great storyline and gameplay and enjoy doing it as long as it lasts. I also hope that people keep enjoying it.
Apart form that, I have no goals, expectations or hopes for achievements. I have no illusions about this being a step to creating my own game out of it or anything – I don't even want that, this is a hobby, it shall stay a hobby.
W: What elements make it an interesting project to you ?
S: Arkain was always supposed to be different from any other project I had been working on, with its own universe and storylione. Some races like the Humans or the Orcs are like you would expect them to be from other fantasy universes, even though there are differences of course.
The Undead on the other hand are extremely different from, say, the WarCraft universe. They have only one leader, yes, but he has no interest in power or conquering, instead he is an ancient being who wants to keep the balance of the world of Arkain, seeing every/most races as part of the balance that must be kept at all cost.
I just find it interesting to create this universe, create the races and their different subfactions, have the ability to shape my the characters and how the events affect them or what secrets they keep or what unexpected turns the story itself can take.
And then there is the gameplay where I can come up with new ways to make maps challenging and decide what to do to give the player the tools to master the challenge, like making the player feel satisfied for having been able to breach into that heavily-fortified fortress.