Questions
by Cody "Micajah" Bye, Managing Editor
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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
style="font-style: italic;">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
style="font-style: italic;">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
style="font-style: italic;"> 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.
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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?
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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.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Lord of the Rings Online Game Page.
