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Western MMO fan plays Eastern MMO, gets disoriented
There's an article over at The Escapist that tells the story of a hardcore Western-style MMO player who tries out an Eastern-style MMO and experiences a bit of culture shock. The article is written by WarCry Senior Editor John Funk.The game he tries to play is Mabinogi (of which we've published our own first impressions), and he dedicates himself to playing it for one week. During that week, he plays it for a total of 30 hours. That means he played the same game four and a half hours a day for seven days straight. We're not sure there are many games Western, Eastern, or otherwise that can stand up in that kind of intensity but he weathers through it! Comedy occurs as he struggles to understand random owl visits and perplexing user-interface functionality.At first it seems like the article is asking if the game mechanics of an Eastern MMO are destined to be completely lost in translation for Western players, but in the end Funk cops out into another direction. Still, it's humorous and occasionally almost insightful, so check it out if the topic interests you.
Live Gamer will attempt making RMT legit and official
Raph Koster has posted about Live Gamer, a new service we posted about yesterday (heavily funded by venture capitalists) that is attempting to bring the real money trading market (where you pay real money for ingame items) over to the official, developer-approved side of things. Gamasutra has a Q&A as well, and there's a lot to chew on as regards to what Live Gamer seems to be attempting to do.Raph's idea seems to be that RMT is simply another ancillary service that can spring up and provide revenue around the MMO market (of which this very site you're reading is one). But there is a serious difference between RMT, and services like the one this site provides (in the form of MMO news and guides). RMT is still, among most players, considered cheating. As most people trying to make money off of RMT have pointed out, it's a cultural thing, much more ingrained among Westerners than anywhere else. But it's still a perception that exists-- it's OK to look at a strategy guide to become a better player, but it's not OK to pay real money for better gear.Which makes Raph's last two sentences that much more disturbing. He says gamers won't like this (and they already do not). But he says that the same people who publicly decry RMT will be spending money on it in private. As much as players argue against RMT on message boards and in blog comments, there's no denying that these venture capitalists are convinced there is a huge market there.
RF Online on going free-to-play, localization differences
Warcry has posted a nice interview with Chris Dye and Kyle Rowley, Community Officer and Manager for RF Online, an MMO that sits in an interesting place-- it originally started out as a hardcore Korean MMO, and has now warped here in North America into a Westernized, free-to-play offshoot of the original. It's an interesting strategy, and only one that MMOs can pull off-- if your players don't like the game you release, just update it into a completely different one.One very interesting change they made was to up loot drops-- apparently Western players felt they weren't getting rewarded the way they want to, so Codemasters (who publishes the game here) doubled the drop rates, not once but twice. On the other side of this, they've gone RMT to make the game free to play-- players can play real cash for ingame money used to buy ingame items. For some reason, that's flown in the Eastern MMO market, but not here so far-- it'll be interesting to see how RF Online players get into it (or don't).Unfortunately, none of the interview actually focuses on whether RFO is any more fun to play. Then again, it is free now-- you could do worse than to go grab the download and check it out for yourself.
CG cutscenes and gaming culture
In an interview with Lost Planet Community's Brian Dunn, Cutscene Director Yoshiyuki Tonoe and Director Kenji Oguro discussed the differences between how cutscenes are used in Western and Eastern gaming worlds. Their decision to use real-time cutscenes in Lost Planet stems from their research into how Western developers tended to tell the story within the game engine, whereas Japanese developers typically rely on CG graphics for the cinematic storytelling.Tonoe dates the Eastern obsession with CG cutscenes to the original Biohazard (released March 1996), though arguably Square Enix had already begun to look into CG before the horror title's release with Final Fantasy VII, whose long development process began in 1995. "The latest CG movies found in games are stunning and really help sell the game," said Tonoe, "but when I think about how they are used to tie the story to the gameplay, I wonder if they are effective at making the games any better."Pictured are some of the games used as reference material during Lost Planet's development. Tonoe cites The Lord of the Rings games, whose cutscenes were amalgamations of movie footage and in-game footage, as "above what Japanese developers were doing at the time."Specific to their game, Tonoe remarks that there are 33 cutscenes in Lost Planet, totaling 73 minutes, averaging just under three minutes with the longest cutscene at around six minutes in length. What's your preference -- explosive CG eye candy or more immersive real-time storytelling?[Via 1UP]
New Gun Showdown trailer
I calls 'em like I sees 'em, and I gotta say, graphically, Gun Showdown, looks less than impressive. Definitely looks more on the PS1 side of things. I'm not trying to be a skepticologist or anything, but while the video shows flashes of decent graphics, there are lots of muddy, low-res textures and blocky characters splattered throughout. Fortunately, good graphics don't make a game, and the gameplay in Showdown looks pretty interesting. And I guess there's always time for Activision to tighten up the graphics just a bit. But if the game ends up boring you, you can always play the included Texas Hold 'Em (a popular card game for you city folk) mini-game!
Joystiq interviews Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Q Entertainment
In our final interview from the Develop Conference, Jen and I had a quick chat with Tetsuya Mizuguchi from Q Entertainment (and Rez fame) about the problems western developers face in trying to tackle the Japanese market, Rez 2 (he regrets never making it) and the issue of games that are critically successful, but don't sell so well (Rez again).Earlier on in your career you worked on titles like Sega Rally, Channel 5 and Rez. These are all very different genres and styles of game. What's inspired you to create such varied styles in your games?I don't care about the genre. Somebody once told me that I'm "hopping genres", but I've never really cared about genres. I always think about the human being, the wants that I think people have. Their basic instinct. So my games speak a universal language, so everybody can feel what is fun.
Acclaim's MMO strategy examined
Next Generation brings us the lowdown from Howard Marks -- CEO of the newly-reopened Acclaim -- on Acclaim's MMO strategy. His plan is to bring Eastern games to the West with no subscriber fee, but instead to make money via in-game ads and micropayments.Next Gen's feature asks if this will work in a market with no real precedent. By dropping the phrase "free game" and instead focusing on games as a service, Marks intends it to. However, his strategy doesn't come across with a lot of confidence in this article. It'll be interesting to see if Acclaim manage to set a good precedent for an East-to-West business model, and more importantly whether others follow suit.
