style="font-weight: bold;">HY: Sure,
Cody.  To start off, Combat
Arms is a fast-paced multiplayer first-person shooter, and
like all Nexon games, it’s free to play.  If you’re familiar
with FPS games, you’ll be able to dive right in, but we’re also adding
more depth and customization than existing similar products, as well as
streamlining some features to make the game experience more friendly
for all users.  With Combat Arms, you’ll be able to hop
online, create a persistent mercenary character, pick your weapons and
gear, customize your weapons with modifcations, and jump quickly into a
variety of 16-player battles.  As you play, you’ll be able to
rank up your character to get access to new weapons and gear, and earn
GP (Gear Points) from playing matches to buy that gear.


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href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/27076"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 149px;" alt=""
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An AK-47 would have
been reeeal handy against this giant spider from Nexon's style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi.

In terms of why online gamers should pay attention, we’ve got something
for both veteran FPS players and for players new to this
genre.  The immediate and most obvious plus players will see
is accessibility of cost since it’s a fully-featured game that’s free.
On the technical specification side, it’s a small download and only
requires a low-end system to play.  So for any gamer who’s
ever thought “Well, FPS games look fun but I don’t want to invest in a
high end computer or have to buy a game up front just so I can get try
it and probably get my butt kicked before I get good.” Well, we’ve got
the game for you!  It’ll cost you nothing to try out style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms, and
work on your FPS skills without paying anything upfront.  And
beyond that, you can continue playing for free without ever buying
anything.



But that’s really just the surface.  For veterans of the
genre, Combat Arms
offers a high degree of customization, across the board – you can
customize your character, your weapons, and your gameplay. 
You can equip your soldier with multiple weapons – from an arsenal of
over 30 modern military arms, from assault rifles, to sniper rifles, to
mines and rockets – in addition to different gear such as helmets,
armor vests, camouflage uniforms, and gas masks.  You’re not
limited by any sort of class preconception, only by the gear slots you
have, which can be increased by wearing backpacks.  Any
“class” you want to fulfill is dictated by the weapons and gear you
choose to equip, and as we add more functional gear items into the
game, you’ll start to see players choosing to fulfill specific roles.



Once you’ve got all that set up, you can jump into a variety of game
modes.  We’ve launched with 4 well-known game modes –
Elimination, One Man Army, Search & Destroy, and classic
Capture the Flag – that can be played on 6 different maps.  In
addition, you can modify the match parameters to create games where no
explosive weapons are allowed, or games using pistols only, or games
that disallow backpacks so that players can only carry one primary
weapon.  Plus, because we are a live, online game, we will
constantly be adding new weapons, new weapon mods, new equipment, new
game modes, and new maps – so the game will be evolving over time.



Over all that, we’re streamlining and adding a lot of community
features to make Combat
Arms more friendly to play.  We have an in-game
Messenger system that allows you to track friends, invite them to your
game, or go to where they’re playing.  When you create a
character, you’ll also automatically create a player profile on our
website, where you can track your performance against that of your
friends, and check your rankings to see how you stack up against the
rest of the Combat Arms community.  And finally, we have an
in-game Clan system where you can recruit and manage members, and find
other clans to play official matches.

style="font-weight: bold;">HY:  style="font-style: italic;">For localization,
we’re doing a lot of work beyond just language translation. In fact,
we’ve probably made changes to or added 30-40% more content than what’s
in the Korean version.  For style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms, the
primary part of localization has been evaluating the tastes and
expectation of the US FPS audience, which is substantially different
than the Korean audience, and tailoring the game for the North American
market. 



As for some examples, weapon balance has been substantially tweaked,
and we’ve introduced the concept of ranking up to unlock
gear.  New characters and gear items are being made to
specifically appeal to our audience here.  American players
expect a certain feature set in an FPS, so adjustments have been made
for that.  The expectations of the US FPS player – the primary
being that game play in an FPS must absolutely remain fair and
skill-based – is also a major consideration in molding our approach to
creating the business model for this game.



In terms of transitioning to the US, the biggest obstacle we’re trying
to overcome is actually the impression that free-to-play means low
quality and/or being able to pay for game-breaking advantages, which
unfortunately, is a view that’s pretty ingrained with the American game
audience.



It’s pretty telling that when most people have checked out and written
about our game, and see, for example, that the AK-47 costs 800 GP, they
immediately jump to the conclusion that they have to pay real money to
buy weapons.  To clarify, GP, or Gear Points, is our in-game
currency, and is completely separate from Nexon Cash, which is real
money.  In reality, we haven’t opened the game’s cash shop, so
there’s no way for you to spend money in our game yet, even if you
wanted to! 



To be very clear, we won’t be selling any weapons for cash. 
It’s extremely important to us and our development team that the
integrity of the skill-based FPS is kept intact, so – all weapons will
be obtainable by all players… even if you never buy anything from
us.  You will be able to pay for cosmetic, convenience, and
community based items – so if you want an AK-47 with a different
camouflage or skin (but the same stats and function) or a cool set of
shades to set your merc apart from others, you’ll eventually be able to
spend real money for these types of things.

 

Hopefully, we’ll be able to change some of these preconceptions about
free-to-play games with Combat
Arms.

style="font-weight: bold;">HY: If you
look at Nexon’s games internationally, and the stable of games we have
in Korea, Combat Arms
isn’t that big a step away because we cover such a wide variety of game
genres.  That being said, it’s an important step in the North
American market, where we found a big blank spot in the availability of
a high-quality, free-to-play FPS.  Given how large the FPS
market is in the US, it was natural for us to introduce a game like style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms.



Our business model especially lends itself to this genre because
typically, FPS games are intimidating to those who haven’t already
played a lot of them.  Because these games are twitch-based,
and require specific skills which take time to develop, unless you’re
already good at an FPS, you’re less likely to spend the $50-$60 up
front for something you’re probably going to be terrible at – at least
for a little while.  Plus, many new FPSs have extremely high
system requirements, which require you to spend more money on a
high-end gaming rig.  With our game and business model, new
players can try the game, practice their FPS skills, see if they like
it, and then go from there.

style="font-weight: bold;">HY:  style="font-style: italic;">That depends on
your definition of MMO, which seems to be quickly becoming
broader.  Combat
Arms doesn’t have a graphical “hub” so it’s not an MMOFPS
in the traditional sense of an MMO.  But it has a lot of
persistence and community features which are consistent with an
MMOG.  Our players have a persistent character, with a
persistent profile where you can track your performance.  They
can form clans (guilds) online, and manage members.



But in answer to your second question, I think it comes down to whether
you like action-oriented games or not.   All players
who like fast-paced, twitch-based action, as well as those who
traditionally have enjoyed online FPSs but have wanted more persistence
and customization features, and perhaps a deeper game-based
relationship with other players, akin to being in a sports league –
these players will be very happy to play style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms.

style="font-weight: bold;">HY: Our users are
consistently surprised at how low the system specs are for how good the
game looks… and we’re very happy with their reaction.  On the
minimum end, we ask for a Pentium 3 – 1 Ghz with 256Mbs of memory
running at least Windows 2000, and our client size is about 440Mbs… so
the game is very accessible.  And even on a low-end rig, the
game runs very smoothly.