Perfect World recently announced that its humorous Kung Foo! MMO will soon be relaunched as Legend of Martial Arts. We sat down with Director of Marketing Jon Belliss to discuss the revamped game.

ZAM: The Reavers race sounds quite interesting. Could you tell us more about them? Will there be other new races added?

Belliss: Yes, as previously mentioned, the Reavers are the new race being introduced with Legend of Martial Arts. To give you a bit of background on the Reavers race, they are demonic and are the first non-human race to the world. As for adding new races in the future, that’s something that we’re always looking at as a possibility and as a way to move the game story further.

ZAM: Kung Foo! boasted several different types of classes. Are these still present in LOMA? Are you planning on adding more?

Belliss: All classes in Kung Foo! will be present in Legend of Martial Arts, so if you liked your character in closed beta, you can definitely recreate them again. In addition, there are two more classes with the Reavers race, the Berserker class, as mentioned before, and the Oracle class.

The Berserker class specializes in transformation skills with the ability to change into a cat or wolf for greatly enhanced physical abilities.

The Oracle class is more a buff/debuff class with the ability to summon gods from the underworld to activate special abilities and cast powerful magic spells.

ZAM: Legend of Martial Arts is based on a Chinese TV drama. How much of the show influences the game? Will Western players be confused if they aren't familiar with the show?

Belliss: Given that most users outside of China will not get most of the inside jokes related to the TV show, we’ve decided to re-localize most of that content into lore and humor that is more "western friendly."

ZAM: What type of gamers do you think will be attracted to Legend of Martial Arts? Is there a spot for the casual player who logs in a few times a week as well as a hardcore PvPer who enjoys mowing down crowds?

Belliss: Legend of Martial Arts is definitely one of the more light-hearted MMORPGs in Perfect World Entertainment’s game portfolio, so casual players will be able to get as much out of the game as hardcore players who want to focus on end game content.

ZAM: The closed beta kicks off on Nov. 24. Can you give us some more details on the beta timeline? Also, how can players participate?

Belliss: As you stated, closed beta for Legend of Martial Arts will kick off later this month on November 24 and since we were able to make a lot of the changes as a result from feedback from the closed beta of Kung Foo!, we look forward to launching the game later in the year. Players who are interested in participating in the closed beta of Legend of Martial Arts can get closed beta keys from LOMA.PerfectWorld.com.