GC (Games Convention), which is one of the three major world game exhibitions, will be held from 21st to 24th in
Korean online games came into the spotlight during this international game exhibition, GC.
European round of GNGWC, 2008, will be held during the GC. GNGWC is a prominent online game in
GNGWC, 2008 will happen in GC exhibition hall on 21st. There will be four online games including Silk Road Online during the regional match.
Players for this match have been selected through online preliminary round. The winner in the regional matches will be invited to take part in the final match that will take place in
During the Shot Online’s European round that happened from Aug 1st to 8th, 12 players were selected out of 3,800 players after fierce competition.
An English player who survived the semifinals last year has been selected among the 12 players. Many are interested in whether he would reach the finals this time. German players were outstanding this year during the preliminary compared to last year. They will certainly make history this year during the finals.
Atlantica has been adopted as an official game for GNGWC, 2008. It is their first time this year. Atlantica has started its 2nd CBT session on August 7 that overlapped with GNGWC’s European preliminary round. However approximately thousand players have participated and 16 players were selected on August 14.
Silk Road Online selected 16 players during European round that took place from August 5 to 6. There are two European players among the 16 players who reached the finals last year. And they are making the attempt to participate in the finals this year as well.
Navy Field’s European preliminary round happened for 25 days. Four clans reached the final round of the regional league. 8 clans with 200 players from many different countries took part in the online preliminary. Two teams from
However GNGWC’s position as a global game competition has been successful as it was held for the third year this year. GNGWC differentiates itself from other game competition because it has prominent Korean online games only. There will be various events and performances for gamers and participants. It will be an exciting and interesting time for participants.
Flying shoot-out ‘Aeronauts’, playing in the air makes all the difference.
JCE Entertainment made a large-scale update on ‘Aeronauts(http://aeronauts.gamengame.com)’ last month which is currently providing worldwide service. JCE Entertainment is planning to provide an official service of ‘Aeronauts’ starting this September.
‘Aeronauts’ is using international servers to give service to users in 200 different countries. Recently users in Germany, France and Brazil are increasingly accessing. These countries are the rising countries in game market. The large-scale update was meant to accommodate new users in these markets.
Why do people crave ‘Aeronauts’ that is designed to have a single player? It is because ‘Aeronauts’ gives more control power to a player and it has an interesting scenario.
‘Aeronauts’ happens in the sky. Players has to control an aircraft and shoot down the enemies. Background of the game is important because it determines the mobility which again determines the characteristic of ‘Aeronauts.’
Let’s imagine that you just slammed the brake and made a u-turn to shoot down an adversary that has been following you. More complicated key-control is required compared to games that hunt a monster by simply clicking a back button. You could never imagine how excited you would be when you have succeeded doing it. This is the excitement that ‘Aeronauts’ brings.
Fruit of perseverance is known to be sweet. There is a gateway to fully enjoy ‘Aeronauts.’ Tutorial mode helps users understand ‘Aeronauts.’ Users who have not studied it, usually give up playing because they found it too complicated.
Users can learn how to use the keys and experience various game modes such as snatching flags or collecting balloons.
If you are good enough to control the aircraft, you could participate in a group match. Group matches can be played by maximum three players on each side. As level gets higher, more sophisticated techniques and weapons are being played. Such matches would make players more excited and you would not be able to imagine it unless you actually play the game.
So far ‘Aeronauts’ has been available abroad. Most feedbacks are complimenting ‘Aeronauts’ in general. Some players complained that there are only a small number of aircrafts and story developments are too slow. However, most players praised dynamic actions of the game. JCE Entertainment promised that they would be attentive to users and will provide best services because providing game services and making users interested in ‘Aeronauts’ are the most important goals.
Meantime, ‘Aeronauts’ have developed 30% of its global service contents through the recent update. Its contents are applied to have LEVEL 30. Different items, skills and weapons are about to be updated in the near future.
The best strategic RPG ever! The Atlantica is capturing the world!
Taegon Kim who developed 'Gersang' and 'GoonZu', has recently produced 'Atlantica' which is attracting world wide gamers.
EnDoors (CEO, www.endoors.co.kr), developed and services Atlantica, introduced this MMORPG in Korea at the beginning of this year. The Atlantica has been chosen as an official game of the GNGWC 2008 which will be hosted by KIPA and sponsored by KT Corporation. Gamers from around the world will compete to become the winner of the Atlantica at GNGWC 2008.
In Atlantica, you will see present and past cultures of the world, including Egyptian and Mesopotamian, and you will be able to explore the Greek myths or the ruins of another ancient civilization. Unlike other MMORPGs, Atlantica applies battle systems and hired troops systems using a turn battle method.
The turn battle method allows gamers to play a battle between enemies and users including up to 8 hired troops in a 9 vs. 9 environment. It also has the option to make parties among 3 gamers so as to play a larger battle with a maximum of 27 vs. 27. There are a total of 18 troops currently available to choose from including troops with swords, spears, big cannons, or witches, and this feature will continue to be updated with other types of troops being added. Gamers can enjoy various strategic battles by combining these troops or by raising them.
Furthermore, a gamer can operate a city through guild activities and even make sub countries within their city. When becoming a lord, a gamer can obtain unique troops or items which are different from what other users have to choose from or can hire the people to empower his authority within the game.
The commercialized service of Atlantica commenced in January starting in Korea. Expansion is planned for services within Japan, China, the U.S. and Taiwan.
We visited EnDoors and talked to Taegon Kim, a program developer, about Atlantica which has received great attention from world wide gamers with its unique world aspects and systems.
¡ã First of all, what is 'Atlantica'?
As you may guess from the name of the game, it is composed of adventures to find the lost city/land of Atlantis. The background consists of the real world, i.e. Eurasia and etc. For example, you can see the real landmark such as Angkor Wat and play in the background of these and dungeons found within the game. The most exciting part of Atlantica is a 'battle' which applies a turn method. In the turn method, you can control 9 members and make 27 vs. 27 large battles by making parties with other users.
¡ã It is said that the background of the game is from all around the world and is dedicated to a global service. Can you explain it more?
The main character does not know that he is a descendant of Atlantis. But when facing various mysterious things and solving problems, he begins to acknowledge his connection with Atlantis and will set off to try to find Atlantica by solving puzzling clues from all around the world. So far, the background has been completed to include Eurasia, China, India, Europe Mediterranean, and Northern Europe, and will be extended to North America (Atlantica version 2.0). The final land of Atlantica will be introduced later on.
¡ã Turn method is said to be a unique battle method. Can you explain it more?
I believe that the most important component of the game is the repeating battles or a strategic battle. Nowadays, most MMORPG consist of speedy actions. But we decided to make a difference for Atlantica and applied a strategic RPG. Thus, who can make an accurate plan or use an effective strategy is a key factor in Atlantica. The speed and the control of the game are important and that's why the turn method was applied to Atlantica, because I didn't think that a 1 on 1 would be enough of a strategic battle. There are various characters in the other popular strategic RPGs. Gamers can use those various characters to make various combinations and/or techniques. One character is not enough for these options. We took into consideration the combination of more characters or battle arrays, and after all internal tests, 9 was believed to be the most suitable number for these combination battles. That's why we made a turn method for the battles in Atlantica.
¡ã Do you think that the update of contents are very important?
We know that it is very hard to bring users over from the existing MMORPGs, as it is not easy to keep up with the accumulated contents or invests for those games. That is so true. So we extended the number of developers to more than double, from 50 to 110. What we earned from the game is being invested for further development of the contents so that users can get more interesting and exciting facts out of the game.
¡ã Atlantica was chosen as an official game of GNGWC. What is the contest process?
We have already developed a military match system in the game. With this system, gamers will participate in online preliminary contests from each country. The top gamers of each preliminary contest will join the local preliminary contest, and then the winners from the local contests will compete within the final match, which will be held in Korea. We thought about the GNGWC contest from the start of developing Atlantica. Eventually, it depends on how well we will be able to utilize the existing systems.
¡ã How will it go in the final match?
The final match will be offline. The winners from each country will establish their equipment in the server and match for the game. The gamer winning 2 out of 3 games will be the final winner. We took fairness into consideration as well. Now we're discussing whether we will use the existing global server or get a new server for this match.
¡ã Do you have any comments for gamers who are preparing for the match?
It's been more than 6 months since Atlantica was served. We appreciate many Korean users who love Atlantica. We are planning a large update in the beginning of next month. Also, we plan to expand into the overseas market and we believe that the GNGWC will be the perfect opportunity for us to show Atlantica to world wide gamers. We believe that Atlantica will be talked about in the world game market through this GNGWC match.
Atlantica will be updated to the 'Atlantica version 2.0' on 10th of July. The new land, North America will be introduced in Atlantica 2.0 and the main adventure scenario will also be added to Atlantis. In addition, the center of a field in the Northeast Asia will also be introduced. Other updates will include the dungeon, Tower of Babel, an Emperor's tomb for each country/guild, Caribbean phantom ships, new hired Spartan troops, the ability to exchange local products between villages, and increasing the top level to 120 and the equipment level to 120 level, etc.
Why don’t we raise a ‘Crew’ together?
120 different kinds of ‘Crews’ are looking for ‘Crewers’ to raise them!
Dazoin (President Chae Myung pil, www.dazoin.com) announced that they are planning to provide their ‘Tcrew’ online game service to global users starting from this year end.
Dazoin expressed their interests in game industry. A person from Dazoin said, “In Asia these days, there are even gamers who are trying to learn Korean language in order to get more information about online games.” What these gamers are trying to probe is mostly about ‘Crew’. Let’s now then learn more about what ‘Crew’ is all about.
‘Tcrew’ is an adventure game that is full of action and transformation. As we could second guess from its name ‘Tcrew’, ‘Crew’ would be the most important factor of this game. ‘Crew’ is a ghost and there are 120 different kind of it. It is a friend who matures and grows with the character. Level of a crew gets higher as it gets more intimate with the character by collecting items and using fighting skills together. ‘Legendary crew’ and ‘Rare crew’ appear from time to time at ‘Boss card’ that guides the player to a dungeon where the Boss lives. Therefore if you want an extraordinary crew you should also endeavor to hunt the Boss.
(Picture description: Above is ‘Fire crab’ that uses a fire, below is ‘Rudy’ that uses water to fight)
Game modes/stages can be divided into adventure, boss and a fight according to different purposes. If you want to raise a crew, you could start playing ‘adventure’ where you could collect various jewels and items. If you get a boss card during the adventure, you can go onto a boss stage. You could acquire all kinds of advanced cards at this stage. These cards represent an interface environment and game system which show information about item collection of a Tcrew.
The ones who control crews are called ‘Crewers’. At a ‘fight’ stage, crewers can match against each other. It is important to understand their own traits and set a good team strategy to win a match.
Currently there is an official website about this game. Only 26 kinds of crew are opened to the public on OBT contents version that is 1.1 version. 1.6 version have been developed and there will be more contents opened to the public in the near future.
With regard to downloading Tcrew Global and other related information can be found at the official website (http://tcrew.gamengame.com.) Client download is also possible at ‘Gamengame’ (www.gamengame.com) that provides a worldwide service by the Korea Software Promotion Agency.
Open services for Steampunk MMORPG ‘Neo-Steam Global (www.neosteam.com)’ of HanbitSoft (CEO Young-Man Kim) have become available for the game players of the world since the 26th of last month.
This will, in addition to
Jun-Ho Park, the leader of Neo-Steam’s Online Operations Division 2 kick-starting the global services, conveyed his intentions for global services through GSP by stating that the players can expect “an unprecedented level of game service operation”.
First, please briefly explain what kind of a game Neo-Steam is.
Neo-Steam Online is a Steampunk MMORPG which is the first of its kind. Based on the world of Steampunk seen in the animations such as Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Future Boy Conan, Neo-Steam is a refreshingly different game which creates and develops cities, equipment and rides using not electricity but steam for energy.
The game presents 4 races and 2 nations. Because the 2 nations are in opposition, character battles and large-scale siege warfare take place. The visuals of the large-scale siege warfare will let the players feel the great magnitude of the battles.
We hear that Neo-Steam is being called the ‘Little WoW’ in
Neo-Steam was released 8 months after the release of WoW (World of Warcraft). I think the comparison is made based on the progression of the game through a series of quests and diverse playing methods. I think the operational know-how gained by
How are Neo-Steam’s global service strategies utilizing the GSP (Global Service Platform) being formed?
If you surf overseas game sites on the net, you will come across some PC online games you haven’t heard of and some of these games are being advertised rigorously. Most of these games are free with a partial-payment policy in place. Since the profit model of PC online games has stabilized, the competition in PC online game development has really picked up. Now, game services that are regionally restricted no longer have any meaning.
That’s why we saw the need for distinctive promotional strategies and participated in the GSP. The GSP can be a great marketing/promotional tool for a small/medium sized company like us. Having a great game but being unable to share it with the gamers of the world is meaningless, and the GSP has allowed us to service players in approximately 200 countries through servers in main server points in cities such as
The gamers that have been playing through the GSP service is worried that their GSP settings might be reset if local services are commenced in their countries in the future.
I think that’s because some gamers have lost their trust in Gamengame.com which is a website with a collection of games currently receiving the GSP services. It had been in operation for quite a while and then sold the copyrights to a local publisher. But Neo-Steam will not desert its users in such a way.
We believe that the core of our global service strategies lies in an unprecedented level of operation services. As such, we promise to act as a guide to the gamers and provide optimum services.
Can you give us an example of a positive and negative opinion amongst the reaction from overseas players?
The most common complaint from Neo-Steam players is about the inconvenient keyboard operation in character control. They are requesting the ‘W’, ‘A’ and ‘S’ keys to be used which I think is a result of the players having been substantially influenced by WoW.
This issue cannot be easily solved as it doesn’t just require additional key-control functions but an overall modification of the game system which controls character movements. We can’t completely solve the issue that the players are facing from the OBT, but we are planning to apply a system which will move the character forward if the auto-move key is pressed.
For positive feedback, we have been complimented on Neo-Steam’s unique game concept based on the Steampunk animation genre as well as the rich contents and outstanding graphics.
Lastly, tell us about Neo-Steam’s service schedule.
We have WYD operational know-how in
In terms of the contents, we are planning to add the Factory Dungeon and high-level fields, which are undisclosed settings, and consolidate the RvR system to provide the players with a wider variety of contents. And since the game contents in
Log on to Neo-Steam Global’s official homepage (www.neosteam.com) for Neo-Steam Global Client Download and further details. Client download is also available on Game & Game, the global service platform site of Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (www.gamengame.com); Mmosite, a foreign site on games; Gamershell; Atomicgamer and Cgenetwork.
