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Ask Massively: This hat has ruined everything edition

Eliot Lefebvre — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion, Massively Meta, Humor, Ask Massively, Miscellaneous

I was having trouble coming up with a topic for this week's header, so I tried writing down a bunch of different topics on pieces of paper and sticking them in a hat. Then I put the hat on. Now I still don't know what to write for this week's header, and I have an ugly hat on my head. Plus, little bits of paper are jammed against my head, and it's itchy. I knew this would be a problem starting with the bowler hat.

This week's Ask Massively will go on despite my itchy scalp and ugly hat. And in this edition, I'm talking about potential Eastern games for a player looking for new games and beta invitations. If you'd like to have a question answered in a future installment of the column, send it to ask@massively.com or leave it in the comments. Questions may be edited slightly for clarity and/or brevity.

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Ask Massively: This hat has ruined everything edition originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First Impressions: Forsaken World

Beau Hindman — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Screenshots, Opinion, Free-to-play, Hands-on, First Impressions

Perfect World Entertainment's latest title, Forsaken World, is made to sound like the polar opposite of Perfect World, the older flagship title that serves as Forsaken World's foundation. When I first heard about this newer project, I was enthused. After all, I wasn't really fond of Perfect World. I thought it was too stale and linear. Still, I have admired Perfect World Entertainment for a long time, mainly because the company knows its audience and does really good work. Its games are flexible when it comes to system requirements, and its titles fit all sorts of different players and age ranges.

Also, the developers claimed that Forsaken World would be a game made for a "Western audience." Of course this means absolutely nothing to me, being that there are easily millions and millions of players for decidedly "Eastern" games like Nexon titles or other large publishers, so I figured that PWE meant to say that it was a game made for those snootier Western players who consider free-to-play games to be nothing but point-and-click junk. Strangely enough, PWE got the WASD movement wrong in Forsaken World. I have no idea how or why this was missed, but the "Western" audience will notice, I promise.

Click past the cut and let's talk about everything I loved about the game -- and a few things I did not.

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First Impressions: Forsaken World originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Free for All: The difference between East and West

Beau Hindman — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Culture, Economy, Opinion, Free-to-play, Humor, Free for All, Miscellaneous

Like many gamers, I find myself going through stages of obsession. Once in a while, I'll get on a PvP kick, followed by having a thing for immersion, then I'll be consumed by running dungeons or grinding. Lately I have been investigating older Western MMOs, games like Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, and EverQuest. While I have already played all of these titles at one time or another, they can become different games between visits.

This recent kick of mine started me thinking about the first free-to-play MMOs I enjoyed, as well. The first one was either Flyff or Rose Online, around six or so years ago. I've chatted with a developer who used to work on Flyff, and she claimed that those were some of the very first free-to-plays to see success in North America.

What are the differences between the two, Western and Eastern? Is there a difference? If there were, are there still differences between Eastern free-to-play games and Western games? Click past the cut and we'll take a look.

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Free for All: The difference between East and West originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why do publishers import so many older MMOs?

Shawn Schuster — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, MMO industry, New titles

Richard Aihoshi posed this question over at MMORPG.com in his most-recent article entitled "Richard Aihoshi's Free Zone: Why Publishers Import Older MMOs". The curiosity stems from the fact that we're beginning to see many more MMOs that are simply imported and localized for a western audience, rather than publishers taking that risk to create an entirely new IP. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part, we can't help but wonder if it is in fact easier, and if easier is better.

In Richard's article, he interviews Gamepot's Thomas Lee about their recent launch of the western version of The Legend of Mir 2. Thomas has some interesting insight into the typical business model of these imports that caught our attention, "I don't think people will play something just because it's free. It has to be fun; otherwise it's eventually going to fall on its face." Thomas goes on to discuss that common point that clearly defines the MMO mania happening with eastern MMOs and how they're perceived in the western world, "Sure, four million registered players would be nice. However, I'll take a few hundred thousand loyal, happy players any day."

Check out the complete article for more from Thomas Lee and Richard Aihoshi on the wave of older eastern imports to hit western shores.

Why do publishers import so many older MMOs? originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Western MMO fan plays Eastern MMO, gets disoriented

Samuel Axon — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, Humor, Mabinogi

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.

Western MMO fan plays Eastern MMO, gets disoriented originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RF Online on going free-to-play, localization differences

Mike Schramm — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:01:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Expansions, Interviews, PvP, Making money, RF Online, Free-to-play

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.

RF Online on going free-to-play, localization differences originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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