We recently had the opportunity to sit down and have an interview with Mad Otter Games about the upcoming expansion and recent data breach (and associated downtime) for Villagers & Heroes, the cross platform MMORPG available on PC, iOS, and Android devices.

MMOCourt: If you could please introduce yourself, your title, and a bit about what you do at Mad Otter Games.

Damon: I’m Damon Slye. My job is to make sure that Mad Otter Games is working for the people that make Mad Otter Games work. I mean, keeping the team happy. We started Mad Otter in 2007, and set out to build an online fantasy role-playing game that was different than the others. It was inspired by the early Steve Jackson Meta-Games, “Melee”, and “Wizard” from 1980 (see this clip! – by the way, when that clip ends, I was telling the story that the creator of Magic The Gathering and I went to the same Junior High, Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an alternative school where every class was an elective. I think the school fostered creativity, as well as by a game called “Kingdom of Drakkar”, that we played at Dynamix in 1993. The concept for Villagers & Heroes evolved to put an equal emphasis on crafting and on combat. It is a design flaw in other MMOs to include crafting, but then make it a second-class feature – ie, that crafted gear is not all that great compared to raid gear. A player who chooses to focus on crafting, for example, should not feel like a second class citizen in comparison to the mighty warrior that slays dragons.

MMOCourt: February was a difficult month for Villagers & Heroes. On February 14th your data center was attacked by a hacker, and the game was offline for a few weeks. Can you tell us a bit about what happened?

Damon: A group of hackers attacked the data center, and our game was collateral damage in this widespread attack. At first we thought we would be down for maybe an hour, and that after finding out more about the breadth of the devastation, we realized that we would be down for at least several days, and perhaps for even several weeks.

In the early morning hours the day after the hack, as I lay in bed, half asleep and half awake, a feeling of deep dread came over me. The game world was dead, perhaps not forever, but at least at this moment. Then a voice in my mind said, “If you don’t start live streaming every day, the game is dead forever.” I think it is neat how sometimes the unconscious mind knows more than the conscious mind. We started live streaming every day, and promised the players that we would live stream every day until the game was live again.

The live streams were great. They were great for the players because they let them know that we were still here and the world was not going to die. They were great for us because they let us know that the community was still there and they weren’t going to leave. During this downtime, we had the largest audiences we had ever seen on a livestream. We connected with the community.



We posted our “Get Live Action Plan” to the players on the forums, and every day we did a Livestream to let them know where we were in that process so that they could see the progress we were making. We shared this plan with our players every day so they could see the progress as it was happening.

We also kept them updated with the compensation plan to make up for all the downtime.

In addition to keep players up to date with our progress on getting live, and revealing some features in the upcoming expansion, we did some videos showing our development progress. One that was popular, was Ivar creating an outfit from scratch, and letting the community make choices on the outfit – style, type, color, etc:

They got to see not only the creative decisions involved, but also the tools he uses and how he uses them.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the data breach, our town was hit by a snow storm that took out power to half the city, and made the roads un-navigable unless you had 4-wheel drive with chains. Sarah and I lost power at our house for 5 days so we had to stay at my mom’s. We had to trek to our house every day to feed our cats, Enzo and Samson. The other otters were not able to drive to work, so some walked to work, 3 miles, in the snow; or got a ride from me (I had a 4-wheel drive with chains).

MMOCourt: I noticed that the Villagers & Heroes community was extremely supportive of the Mad Otter Games during the ordeal. You even had a beautiful fruit basket with balloons delivered to you and your team during one of the “what’s the current status” live streams. What makes the Villagers & Heroes community unique like this compared to other MMOs?

Damon: We are lucky to have such a great community supporting the game, and supporting us, the developers. It was a dark time being offline. Even though we, the developers, aren’t in the game 24-7, just knowing it’s up and people are in the world, playing, talking, and interacting, is why we do this. When it’s down, it feels like a virtual armageddon.

During the downtime—during the dark time–we kept thinking, a day in the future, we would again be live, and the sun would shine again. This kept us all inspired. This day finally came. And, that day was actually sunny, both emotionally and literally. We had a dance party on all the game servers with the players!



MMOCourt: When can players look forward to more details about the features of the expansion?

Damon: We are rolling out information about the new expansion every week. When we went offline, we decided to reveal more about the expansion sooner than we would have. We decided it was more important to remain engaged with the community, and not just talk about the ongoing repairs to the game, which can be boring and a bit dismal, but rather let them know we are still moving forward, and “Villagers and Heroes” will not be another depressing tragedy of an MMO suddenly collapsing and leading to the virtual demise of all of our player’s characters. We wanted them to see a glimpse into the game’s future- and that it had a future that was sunny and bright.

We are now back to our normal promotion schedule, in which we will reveal a little about the expansion every week through the forums, social media, and livestreams. The main channel for this is the story being revealed, chapter by chapter, one chapter per week. We are laying the groundwork with lore and backstory behind this expansion first. Later, we will have a website online that will reveal the features and content every week. And, we will also do livestreams weekly.

During the downtime, we revealed some things about the expansion, such as new Talents becoming available and new face options.

MMOCourt: With the upcoming expansion, you and your team are releasing a story in six parts, and Chapter III just released. What do you want your players to catch out of this story?

Damon: We want to lay the foundation for the expansion so that it’s coherent with the theme and history of the world of Ardent. We are fortunate to have a professional writer on our team. She has won many awards for her screenplays, but has turned her talents to writing the story, quests, and lore for Villagers & Heroes. She was never a fan of the fantasy genre until I made a deal with her that if she would read Tolkien, I would read Jane Austen. She loved his writing. Since then, she also has enjoyed Game of Thrones, and the clincher for her was when she decided to play Villagers & Heroes back in 2013, and fell in love with the game. So she decided to come on board and help us. I was amazed that she was able to instantly write high quality fantasy prose since her background was real world, modern drama with an emphasis on dialog and character. I believe she could have a career as a fantasy writer if she wanted to. She also happens to be married to me.

MMOCourt: The last expansion was Wrath of the Black Thrush, what were some of your (and your players) favorite things about it?

Damon: My favorite addition was the Dungeon Runs. These add a competitive element to the game. There’s a timer on these, which adds excitement and adrenaline. They are repeatable, and vary based on size of the party. We’re going to greatly expand these in the future, adding dozens more, instancing them, and providing dynamic variation based on level of size of party.

MMOCourt: Is there anything you would want to say to those who have never played Villagers & Heroes before?

Damon: Come join Villagers & Heroes. This is a world where everyone is welcome, and you will be respected for who you are. The game doesn’t force you into a specific role or mold. We have the best community of players ever. We believe that the world belongs to the players and not to us. We don’t want to be “evil gods” dictating our rules upon the world. We strive to be good hosts. In turn the players, support us at the 58:00 minute mark. It’s the players that bring the world to life. Without them, we would be performing to an empty room.

MMOCourt: Thank you for joining us, Damon! We appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions. For any of our readers out there who want to try Villagers & Heroes, you can download the game on all platforms here.