TenTonHammer.com - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Questions by Cody "Micajah" Bye, Managing Editor
Answers by Jeffrey Steefel (Executive Producer) and Adam Mersky (Public Relations)

Taking a trip abroad is often an interesting experience. Even in the Western countries, the different cultures can be completely different from each other and it can be shocking for some individuals. Now imagine trying to adjust an entire game to the sentiments of a particular culture. That's what the developers at Turbine are trying to achieve with their upcoming release of Lord of the Rings Online in Korea. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye had a chance to chat with LOTRO's Jeffrey Steefel and Adam Mersky to find out what kind of work the team had done to adjust for the Korean consumers and what the Korean public has been interested in with Lord of the Rings Online. Enjoy!

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Lord of the Rings Online is going to be released in Korea in the very near future.

Ten Ton Hammer: The Lord of the Rings Online team recently went over to Korea to do a big press push on the upcoming release of LOTRO in that country. What was it like? Who did you talk with?

Jeffrey Steefel: We met with a couple dozen press outlets in the space of two days. It was really interesting in a number of ways. I was fascinated by the number of people that were connected to the IP. We knew that it was a bit more connected in Korea than in China and some other places, and we knew that the movies had done well, but it was still amazing. I had a reporter come up to me with a ripped up hardcover version of an atlas we use here. It's the Atlas of Middle Earth and is basically one of the best resources we have for Tolkien's work. He kept asking us whether we had implemented this area or that area, and the book he had was dog eared and tattered.

Then there were people that were fans of the movies, and our poor translator had the hardest time translating things like Minas Tirith into Korean because the fans kept asking specific questions. That was very cool and very encouraging. There's an incredible depth of effort going on over there with NHN, our partner. They're putting in a huge amount of effort trying to make LOTRO a success in Korea.

The other interesting element was that we kept having to field questions about how we're translating the books into a video game. An MMO is so much bigger than a set of books could be, so there's a perception that this was a real undertaking. They're really much more involved with the content than I expected them to be.

Of course, there were questions that I expected, like what's going on with PvP on top of the fact that Korean players are fanatical about consuming content. If Korean players had there way, you'd log in and there'd be an NPC right in front of you telling you where to go and exactly how to advance your characters. They just want to get through as fast they possibly can.

Ten Ton Hammer: Is it just a big race to them?

Jeffrey: It depends, but it's certainly a race for the core players. In fact, we got into some interesting conversations with the Korean press where they asked us if we just wanted our players to slow down. And we're kind of like..."Actually, yeah. It's about the journey and not about who gets to the end first." It's a beautiful place that we created, and we'd like the players to stop an smell the flowers every once in awhile.

That was certainly an interesting conversation, especially in terms of cultural differences, but it was clearly evident that they're excited about our game. They love the world, the richness of the world, and I think there's a resonance in that world that isn't necessarily evident in every form of Western IP. None of us are Tolkien or have 47 years of our life to devote to creating a world.

The Korean reporters were very interested in the process of turning a book into an MMOG.

Ten Ton Hammer: Are you doing anything specifically for the Korean audience?

Jeffrey: What I often found myself saying was that we're not really looking at the game that way. It's a global product. There are certainly changes that are influenced by the audience in Korea, but everything that we do - for the most part - is intended for the whole audience. When we go to a new part of the world and there are certain things that they want to have in the game, whether it's improvement in PvMP or the scope of advancement for Monster Play, or the way item advancement works. It's something that we know everyone is going to love and is important to the game in general, but I think that we were probably influenced by the fact that we were going into Asia were that sort of thing is very important.

Basically, each new region where we hope to introduce the game gives us a new opportunity to expand the functionality and depth of the game for everybody. It was really interesting to have that conversation with the Korean reporters, because I think that they really get it. They could tell that all we really wanted was to understand what the Korean players really wanted. In some cases, where there's discrepancy in what the players want - like enjoying the content versus racing through it - that's really where education really comes in. A couple of the Korean journalists did comment that they enjoyed the fact that you could do so many things in Lord of the Rings Online and it wasn't simply about leveling.

I think that by trying to satisfy the Korean audience, we're going to be improving for Western audiences as well.

Ten Ton Hammer: Are you looking to include some other elements into LOTRO for the Korean audience? Perhaps the development of a pet system?

Item advancement will be a big part of LOTRO.

Jeffrey: While we don't have a pet system at the level of complexity that I think you're talking about, we do have the item advancement system which is essentially a pet system as strange as that sounds. It gets its own advancement path, its own XP, and really gets a lot of benefits from being along for the ride with you. It satisfies some of that desire for a pet system.

However, a lot of the changes we're looking at is finding ways for the gamers to feel special. While you do see some of that in the Western audiences, it's very prevalent in the Korean audiences. They want ways to help them feel special. Many of them live in a city of 20 million people, and it's hard to feel special and important. They play in PC bongs and PC cafes because they don't have a lot of space where they live and experiencing that fantastic realm feeling while coupling that with a feeling of achievement really appeals to them.

There's also some elements of Monster Play that we're integrating into the game a lot sooner than I think we expected too. We're not a PvP game, but I think they're pushing us to accelerate some of the work we're doing with PvMP and other expansions of that content that we wouldn't have done this early. We would have done many of these things anyway, but I think serving an audience that is so focused on that that it pushes us to work on it even harder.

On top of that, there payment model is much different and they're incredibly focused on customer service. We were really taken by surprise at how important customer service is to their consumers. In our industry, we think we're focused on customer service, but they're driven by the fact that their fanbase has incredibly high expectations of them.

For example, our partners have a walk-up window at their CS facility. If a player has  a complaint, they can walk on down, show up at the window, and yell at someone.