Questions
by Cody "Micajah" Bye
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">
Answers
by Herb Yang, Producer
Nexon has enjoyed great success with their games.
href="http://tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/293">
style="font-style: italic;">MapleStory
and
style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi
are wildly popular, but Nexon doesn't want to limit itself to
fantasy-themed games in North America and has started exploring other
play styles. In Combat
Arms, Nexon
presents a first person shooter (FPS) whose graphics and game play look
nothing at all like the teen-friendly titles that brought the publisher
success. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye wanted to find out more,
so he got with Producer Herb Yang for a Q & A session.
Ten Ton Hammer: In one of
the guides on the Combat
Arms website, it discusses customizable characters and
weapons. How in-depth is this process? Can gamers choose different
skins / hair color / weapon color / etc?
down to skin and hair color yet in the current version, but hey you
never know. But the character customization is definitely
much deeper than that available in any other such online multiplayer
FPS to date.
To give you a brief run-through of the customization options, when you
start the game, you can choose 1 of 4 base character models.
(Well be adding many more character models as the months roll
on.) From there, you can customize gear for your body, which
includes head equipment such as helmets and bandannas, face gear such
sunglasses and gas masks, overall uniforms such as different
camouflages as well as armor vests and rigs.
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style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms will be
a far cry from MapleStory
(pictured above) in both content and game play.
And thats just for your body. Each character has four
default slots for different weapons: primary weapons such as assault
rifles, SMGs, machine guns, and sniper rifles; a secondary slot for
pistols and shotguns, a melee weapon slot, and a support item slot for
grenades and miscellaneous items. If you have a backpack,
which gives you additional weapon slots, you can take even more weapon
or equipment items into battle. To make things fair, larger
backpacks give players who use them a movement penalty, and games can
also be created where they are disallowed.
Finally, once youve determined your weapons loadout, you can enter the
Mod Shop and begin attaching weapon mods to your guns. You
can attach suppressors, scopes, extended magazines, and such.
And with each month, well be constantly adding new weapons, equipment,
and gear items. So even after just a few months down the
line, this game will look a lot different than it does now after our
recent official launch.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-weight: bold;">How do you make money with
style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms? What
sort of options are available for purchase? Do you have some examples?
officially announced when were beginning commercialization
or how were doing it but I can give you some of the guidelines well
be taking.
As I mentioned previously, weapons are the core of
any FPS so we will not be selling weapons all of them will be
obtainable in game by everyone. We will probably eventually
sell
weapons that are skinned differently but there will be no functional
difference between those weapons and the base weapons that any player
can acquire. Well also be selling other cosmetic items such
as
different character models, character customization options, and
different clothing items. Being a mercenary means being able
to show
your individual style, so we intend to accommodate our players in this
fashion.
Aside from cosmetic features, well be selling items
geared toward player convenience or enhancing community
features. As
soon as our Black Market (Combat
Arms Cash Shop) opens, well reveal more about what these
are.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-weight: bold;">
style="font-weight: bold;">What kind of guild / group system
do you have in Combat
Arms? Is it easy to find your friends? What kind of social
options are there?
Messenger makes it easy for you to create a friends list
from people youve played with, and then down the line, invite them to
a game room youre in or join them where theyre playing. Our
Clan
system allows you to create your own clan in-game, without having to
resort to managing an external website or other mechanism to coordinate
members and find like-minded Clans to battle against. We are focused
on adding features to make it easy to find people to play with in
public game rooms, especially the right people, but we have private
rooms as well if you just want to play with your friends.
Right now,
players have a web profile theyll be able to build up based upon their
in-game performance in order to distinguish themselves and well be
constantly adding more ways for them to do this.
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Replace the musical
instrument in this image from Nexon's
style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi with an
assault rifle complete with bayonet. Now you've got our attention!
Ten Ton Hammer: Are
there ranking boards that list the best overall gamers in
style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms? How
many degrees of filtration are there (rank in team, rank in deathmatch,
etc.)?
official website, and we will be adding a lot more rankings, believe me
[laughs]. I think our web development team hates me for this,
actually. But this goes back to the previous question, and is
one of the ways where players can create a reputation for themselves.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-style: italic;">In your opinion,
what separates Combat
Arms from its competition? Will gamers really be
interested in another online FPS?
the customization and community features, most certainly.
Plus the core gameplay is different, giving it a different, much faster
feel than most other FPSs, which is something that veteran FPS players
can very easily distinguish.
Ten Ton Hammer: Is
there anything else youd like to tell the Ten Ton Hammer readers and
style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms fans?
the many of you already playing it, this is just the
beginning. Were excited to see how our player base will
react to the content well be adding in the coming months.
And as for the rest of your readers, they should come check us out,
especially if theyve never tried an FPS, or maybe had a bad previous
experience with another FPS, or maybe are just simply looking for
another FPS with deeper features. After all, style="font-style: italic;">Combat Arms is free
to play, so hey, youve got nothing to lose [smiles].
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Combat Arms Game Page.
