Saturday, April 30, 2016

Interview: Author of the End Online series

D. Wolfin (the End Online series) is a young author with an ambition for fantasy and the new litRPG. He has always been an avid reader of the genres, and finally decided to start writing works of his very own. Wolfin was born and still lives in Australia. He has many dreams of travelling the world, pen and paper in hand with the wind at his back, but such dreams are currently being used for creating his stories.

MDB: Why gaming? What prompted you to dream up a virtual world?


D. Wolfin: Gaming has always been a passion of mine, especially those of the role-playing genre. I expanded from actually playing those games to reading when I discovered online series, translations mostly, based on virtual role playing worlds and others with systems similar to the games I so much love. I became engrossed in these stories and quickly read through a large number of them. It got to the point where I had read everything on my immediate reading list, and couldn't find anything else out there that was to my taste. It was at that point, during late 2014, that I thought "what story could be more to my tastes than my own?" and began the series we now know as End Online. I already had the virtual world in my mind, as it was an imaginary game that I wanted to play the most, all I had to do was create the characters a write out their journey as the story.

MDB: If you could transport yourself to the world you created, would you do that? And if you could, which of the game characters would you like to play?

D. Wolfin: To be completely honest, I don't think I would. I love the idea, and I would love to play the game, but past literature has dictated that transporting into another world tends to be a one way trip. I'm someone who likes to dream up a visage of a grand adventure and play it in my mind like a movie, so I'll leave the muscle work for someone else. If I was forced into the world I created however, I would choose to be Sir Laurence. A little attitude adjustment and he would never have a problem getting a girlfriend again.

MDB: In your opinion, is playing MMORPG games just mindless entertainment and a waste of time? Or does it help one grow and develop one's particular skills and character traits? If so, which ones?

D. Wolfin: I don't believe MMORPG games, or simple RPG games, are mindless entertainment in the least. It is a genre very similar to books in my opinion, and I often even see them as simply interactive books. I find MMORPG games and books are glimpses of fictional worlds created by others and shared with us. They allow us to become immersed in them and experience a life we would never get the chance to otherwise.

MDB: What do you find more exciting: to play a game or to write about it?

D. Wolfin: It would definitely have to be writing about one. Writing about a game can be daunting at first when looking at how much is ahead of you, unlike a new game which can be incredibly exciting at first. But once you get started with writing and get beyond a certain point, it is incredibly exciting. The greatest feeling that truly puts writing above playing however, is once it is done. Every time I finish writing a chapter, or especially a book, give me the greatest satisfaction I have ever felt.

MDB: Can we expect your new books to expand into other genres? What genres would they be? D. Wolfin: I have given it a lot of thought in the past, and even come up with a strange book idea that is pure fantasy, so I expect so. However, I do not expect this to come out within the next year at least. Perhaps in another two years when I have finished with one of my current projects. I am currently working on a second series in conjunction with End Online, except it is the same genre as the previous with a steampunk twist, a unique idea I haven't seen anyone else use with the genre yet.

MDB: Can we expect new End Online books or do you have other plans?

D. Wolfin: There will definitely be more End Online books. I have planned for about twelve books in the series before it is finished. Volume 1 of my second series, Chronicle of the Eternal, will also be reaching Amazon VERY soon, most likely within the next two weeks. Our next End Online book is expected to be done by the end of May/first half of June.

MDB: Which other LitRPG authors would you personally recommend to your friends and readers?

D. Wolfin: I can't give a proper recommendation for other LitRPG authors at the moment. There were already a few when I first started, but a large number of new authors have appeared throughout the last year since the genre had a spike in popularity, and I have simply been too busy writing to properly read their books. This includes the great names like Vasily Mahanenko and D. Rus, to the growing names like Aleron Kong, Charles Dean and Andrei Livadny. This is just a very few, there are so many authors appearing that I go cross-eyed. My current to read list is so large that it may collapse like a house of cards on top of me.

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