The world of online role-playing games seems to keep getting bigger and bigger--it can sometimes seem as though new online games are appearing on the scene all the time to challenge the current heavyweight champions, EverQuest and Ultima Online. One of these up-and-coming games is Shining Lore Online, a new fantasy role-playing game from developer Phantagram. Unlike a lot of other high-fantasy role-playing games, Shining Lore seems considerably more lighthearted and colorful--the game isn't simply about hacking your way through hordes of orcs and dragons to gain experience levels and the most powerful weapons and armor for your characters.

Shining Lore Online will be colorful, even lighthearted.

In fact, the game will have a comprehensive set of trade skills that will let you develop your characters and actually gain experience levels from practicing your cooking and armor-crafting skills, rather than always being forced to go out and pummel monsters. And like any good online role-playing game, Shining Lore will also have a developed social system that will let you easily chat with other players and form player guilds with your friends. Finally, Shining Lore will even have a number of different minigames that will let you take a break from fighting, crafting, and chatting.

For more information on this unusual online role-playing game, we sat down with Phantagram producer Jay Kim.

GameSpot: Thanks for taking the time for this interview, Jay. Can you discuss your role in developing Shining Lore Online?

Jay Kim: I'm a producer at Phantagram Interactive, currently in charge of managing the entire production of Shining Lore and directly involved with the concept building process as well.

GS: Shining Lore Online definitely looks like an unusual online role-playing game--very different from most PC online RPGs. How much inspiration did the designers take from console RPGs?

Shining Lore Online will draw inspiration from console-style RPGs.

JK: Shining Lore is indeed a console-like online RPG for the PC. It strongly emphasizes cute game characters, a user-friendly interface, and a learn-as-you-go type of gameplay that used to be a style only possible with consoles. If you take the most popular RPGs in history on both consoles and the PC, such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy for the consoles and Baldur's Gate and the Wizardry series for PC (the list goes on and on), while they still fall in the same genre of role-playing games, each platform has produced totally different games. Shining Lore has been specifically designed from the outset to narrow down this gap between PC and console as much as possible by utilizing the most advantageous features of both platforms, bringing the systematic structure of PC RPGs and the strong storyline typical of console RPGs.

GS: However, Shining Lore will be a PC game, and many PC role-playing game fans have different tastes and different expectations. Can you discuss what steps you'll be taking to make sure that the game will appeal to fans of PC role-playing games? How will Shining Lore compare with EverQuest or Dark Age of Camelot, for instance?

JK: Unlike some other massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) set in a fantasy world, which are sometimes too flat or too predictable, Shining Lore is in a distinctive category with unique gameplay, items, environments, and characters. Yes, our hearts raced [in other games] when a giant ogre attempted to slice us to pieces, and, yes, we were fascinated when mysterious sorcerers struck down enemies with their mighty magic spells. But in Shining Lore, you will be able to meet ordinary people such as a chef, an engineer, or a designer (these are the actual careers from Shining Lore that you may choose to be). Each character will be furnished with extraordinary abilities in a world that would have normally only existed in our imagination. This is why we dared to say, "Say good-bye to tedious, meaningless, hack-and-slash MMOs." You can level up and gain experience from playing every game element available in Shining Lore, from the minigames to party-based [adventuring]. Simply put, you'll enjoy living in this virtual world as well as dealing with monsters. We don't want players running around a field with no primary goal to achieve.