Sooo, what's your name?

The guys over on the Warcry Network talked shop over coffee with Exteel Producer Jae Hwan Kim.

WarCry: For starters, what's your name and what's your role on Exteel?
My name is Jae Hwan Kim and I'm the US Producer for Exteel.

WarCry: Exteel has been live for nearly six months now. Are you happy with its success?
Yes, I don't have a lot of complaints about it. What really excites us is that it's been nearly six months and our player base keeps on growing. As a matter of fact, we just broke our own maximum concurrency record over the past weekend.

WarCry: How has the Western audience taken to micropayments? How much does the average user spend on Exteel in a month?
I dare say it's going very well. We haven't had any issues so far and we hope to keep things that way. Unfortunately we can't disclose the spending habits of our players.

WarCry: Which of the battle modes is the most popular? Do you plan on focusing more time on battle modes the players seem to enjoy, or working on the ones they don't like to make them more fun?
We recently added Capture the Flag mode and it's currently the most popular mode. Last Stand is also very popular since it's the only PvE mode in Exteel. You need team cooperation and strategy to achieve all of the objectives in Last Stand, and it's the only mode that qualifies a player to be considered for a weekly in-game credit bonus. We are currently working on new battle modes like Clan mode, which will be introduced to players before the end of July 2008.

WarCry: Have players who have spent less on the game remained viable in PvP?
We've spent a lot of time and effort on balancing out our weapons and Mechanaughts so that a player who makes purchases with their hard-earned in-game credits can be just as competitive as those who purchase items with NCcoin. Some credit-based weapons may be powerful in a couple of categories, while NCcoin weapons are can be stronger in others.

WarCry: Have you encountered many balance issues, given how many different combinations players can make?
We made some balancing changes in bringing Exteel to the western market. We're continuing to make some additional changes, based in part by feedback we've gotten from our great community, especially on our forums. We think we're almost there!

WarCry: Has a secondary market for NCcoin developed?
There's no way to trade items or even NCcoin, so we're not worried about a secondary market at all for Exteel.

WarCry: The game itself has a very Gundam, Eastern feel. Have you encountered resistance from a Western audience over its presentation?
I think the Western market is pretty familiar with anime and giant robots so this wasn't really an issue in bringing Exteel to North America.

To read the rest of the interview, please visit Warcry.