Questions
by Cody "Micajah" Bye, Managing Editor

style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">


Answers
by Ray Cheon, Product Manager and Senior Associate for Game Planning
and Design for Nexon




When MapleStory was released on November 28, 2006, many North American
industry journalists and critics wrote the game off saying that it was
too childish and the graphics were sub-par. However, the game now
sports millions of users and generates a massive amount of revenue for
its development company, Nexon. Now Nexon has released their latest
offering, Mabinogi,
which is another venture into a world where anything is possible even
if it means a simpler style of graphics. Even with a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31450">review already
published about the game, Ten Ton Hammer’s Cody
“Micajah” Bye sat down with Ray Cheon, Product
Manager and Senior Associate for Game Planning and Design for Nexon, to
get a few intimate details about the future of the game!



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The graphics style in
Mabinogi
is unique and works well with the free to play business model.

Ten Ton Hammer: Why did
you decide to import Mabinogi
into North America? Why choose an older game rather than one that may
have better graphics / game play features?



style="font-weight: bold;">Ray Cheon: style="font-style: italic;">Although Mabinogi
has been released in other countries for a few years, it is extremely
competitive in features and graphics when compared to the current
offerings in the market. In fact, Mabinogi is very modern in its own
way. It's updated at least once every month and based on old Celtic
myth. Mabinogi is a very unique game. Unlike most MMORPGs out there,
Mabinogi has tons of things to do other than just grinding for
experience points. Mabinogi
is not just about leveling up and killing monsters. It's more about
getting into the storyline, experiencing a true fantasy life and
sharing it with other players in a relaxed yet exciting environment.



Regarding the graphics of Mabinogi,
we think the style is amazing.  Most people that see it are
very impressed at what we were able to achieve with the system
specs.  Often times, critics of free-to-play online games
judge games on graphics alone.  Something that they don't
realize is that the business model directs us to create games that the
majority of the installed PC base can access.  Games that push
the limits of today's graphic capabilities are great, but we are not in
the graphics business.  We are in the social experience
business and the high end graphics market is limited in the way of
delivering massive social experiences.



One testament to Mabinogi's
rich features and graphics are our players.  There were many style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi fans in
the US who already experienced Mabinogi
through Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese versions. As soon as we
released news about Mabinogi's
launch in the US, we were flooded with forum threads and emails from style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi fans.



Ten Ton Hammer: In
general, Mabinogi
is one of the best examples of quality localization on the MMOG market
right now. How long was the localization process for style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi
? How did
you insure a high level of quality in your translations?


style="font-weight: bold;">Ray: It took us
about nine months to localize Mabinogi.
With our experience launching MapleStory
and Audition,
we made tremendous improvements in the quality of our localization
process.  Although we sometimes outsource a part of our
localization, we make sure that in-house specialists have a final scrub
of what goes out.  Further, we excel because our localization
specialists are not simply translators that speak English and Korean.
They are truly fluent in English and North American culture. 
Beyond that, we tried our best to keep the translation fluid and
accurate as possible by putting our best localization specialists on style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi. It
required time, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and constant supply of energy
drinks!


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Localization was a
huge factor for Mabinogi.

Ten Ton Hammer: In your
opinion, what's the best feature or game play mechanic in style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi
? Why?


style="font-weight: bold;">Ray: This is a tough
question because there's a lot I love about style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi but I
would have to point to its unique battle system. style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi requires
players and enemies to attack each other using a 'rock-paper-scissors'
attack pattern in real time. Smash attacks top defense while a regular
attack overcomes a smash attack – and of course, defense
blocks a regular attack. You have to carefully observe your enemy's
color & movement to strategically plan your next move.



We also have a great new feature coming out with our Animal Card
system. In other games, you spawn your pets and your pets help you
alongside your character. In Mabinogi,
you have option to spawn your animal as a pet or you can play as the
animal. Imagine yourself running around as a unicorn. It's pretty
awesome!



Ten Ton Hammer: Now that
the game has been officially released, what's next for the title? When
will players begin hearing about the first free update, and what will
that include?



style="font-weight: bold;">Ray: I can't reveal
too much information about our future updates but we are going to
release Generation 2 Season 1 (G2S1) of style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi in May. In
this update, we are going to release Generation 2 Mainstream Quests,
more maps, more dungeons, more items, more skills, and much more. Soon,
we'll have plenty of details about G2 update on our website at
http://mabinogi.nexon.net.



Ten Ton Hammer: Have you
seen a large portion of your audience from style="font-style: italic;">MapleStory
make the
transition over to Mabinogi?
Or are most of the players in Mabinogi
new to Nexon games?


style="font-weight: bold;">Ray: style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi has
brought many new players to Nexon and we really haven't seen too many style="font-style: italic;">MapleStory players
move to Mabinogi. There were many fans in the US just waiting for us to
launch Mabinogi.
All of them signed up to play Mabinogi and their friends as well.


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The Nexon team has
very ambitious plans for the rest of 2008!

Ten Ton Hammer: What's
next for Nexon? The company seems to have a fairly solid track record
now established, will we be seeing any more titles in the near future?



style="font-weight: bold;">Ray: Nexon has very
ambitious plans for the rest of 2008 and the successful launch of style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi should
just be the start to an exciting year!



Ten Ton Hammer: Is there
anything else you'd like to tell Ten Ton Hammer and your style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi
fans?


style="font-weight: bold;">Ray: Thanks to Ten
Ton Hammer for the interview and thanks to all of the style="font-style: italic;">Mabinogi fans out
there for their support. We hope all of your readers get a chance to
experience the fantasy life!

To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Mabinogi Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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