Ask Massively: All deckbuilders, all the time edition
Lately I've basically been unable to get enough of board games. I am sadly at the point that all I need to get excited about a game is the promise of cards and possibly some sort of combat. I'm going to blame Matt Daniel for introducing me to Thunderstone Advance because that introduced me to deckbuilders as a whole, and now I'm sitting here seriously considering buying a Japanese card game about assembling a maid harem. This is not a position I needed to be in.
And now for something completely different: this week's Ask Massively. This time around, we're tackling the curious issue of Phantasy Star Online 2's slow process of translation, one that could be described as "glacial." If you've got a question you'd like to see answered in a future installment of the column, leave it in the comments below or mail it to ask@massively.com. Questions may be edited slightly for brevity and/or clarity.
Narze asked: What would make Phantasy Star Online 2 take at least six months to get ported over to America?
The fact that Sega wants to wait. And that's actually not a bad idea because a lot happens in the first six months of an MMO's lifespan. New content gets put out, usually the dungeon or zone that the team had almost finished on launch day but wasn't quite ready to publish. At least one major issue that the developers hadn't picked up on before will have been corrected. There will most likely be another set of balance changes once the game is into the hands of the players. And so forth.
Plus, the rest of this year is probably not a time when Sega wants to be returning to the MMO market on these shores. The remainder of the year already has one major title due out and several big announcements still expected, so there's no chance to capture the potential audience over here. Better to start up some aggressive advertising as the holiday season approaches and get everyone excited about the game that's just around the corner.
And... well, localization is a slow and painful process, one that Sega might very well not have started early. Up until very recently, it wasn't certain the game would see a release over here. So that's probably got something to do with it.
Looking for some advice on which class is best for soloing in Aion? Not sure who this Raph Koster fellow is? Curious about the release date of NCsoft's newest MMO? You've come to the right place! No one knows MMOs like we do. If there's anything you'd like to know about the MMO genre or the site itself, Ask Massively is here to help every Thursday afternoon. Just ask!
