TEAM COMMENTS

2/4/08 - Yet another Q&A with Fracas

1. It’s been about two years since the last time we talked to you officially. What’s happened since then?

Wow! A lot of things has happened. Two years is a lot to summarize.

We’ve had some internal rearranging as we said goodbye to the Capt, Mistryl, and Arctic and said hello to Crickette, Hawksteel, and Fracas (yet again).

Episode 5: Temple of Shadows went live, as did some new updates exclusive to our US territory. We also had a flurry of events throughout the middle of 2007. Of course, we cannot forget last year’s meet and greet which was a lot of fun for all of us!

2. So now you’re working hard on Episode 6. What’s your current progress with it? How long do you think it’ll be before we see it, and what’s been so difficult about bringing it to the US?

Episode 6 is proving to be the most challenging Episode I’ve worked on so far. In addition to the standard blast of new content that comes with a new Episode, we’re also setting the stage for the ”Festival”  content (which comes after Episode 6). This Episode also requires the implementation of a new patcher and launcher, which is something we haven’t had to update for quite a while. All I can say about it is that its a somewhat slow and painful process but we are making progress. I have no ETA at this time.

3. What can the players expect from Episode 6?

New Elf Spells, new Knight Skills, the implementation of “doowall pink” (as I call it), and as said above a new patcher and launcher. More specific game content related information will be given out as we near Public Test.

4. You developed and ran several community events throughout the year, including one that never went live. Can you explain how you developed these and what happened with the Halloween event?

Designing an event consists mainly of combining “what have we done before that our players have liked?” with “what can we do that we’ve never done before?” There tends to be something familiar in every event, which is nice. For example, the “Secret Islands Event” was a standard boss spawn event but with the extra goal of making it AMAZING and a lot harder than earlier implementations.

For Halloween, I wanted to do something completely different. The combination of it being that ridiculous AND *cough* unstable *cough* made it un-shippable. We got a lot of good feedback about it though so perhaps we’ll try again someday.

5. How closely do you work with the Korean office regarding Lineage matters like events, new versions, episodic updates, localization, etc.?

We have a member of our team here who is in direct contact with the development team in Korea that, especially for this latest update, has been invaluable. The folks at NCK are great at answering our questions, fixing our large issues (bugs), and providing the materials used in creating their events. We share our event ideas back and forth, but often there is such a significant difference in our audiences that it does not exceed the “FYI” level.

6. So what kind of MMOGs and other games do you play these days?

I try to play a little of everything. Last year gave us Quake Wars and Team Fortress 2, both of which I dabbled in heavily. I am also really hooked on Exteel, which I’ve played quite a bit of, and of course I’ve been playing Lineage quite a bit.

I decided to take another survey of the other MMOs out there and that journey took me through quite a few, including Everquest 2, Eve Online, World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, and Lord of the Rings Online. I really enjoy seeing what other products are doing and getting a fresh perspective on our market. However, it is difficult sometimes to truly immerse yourself in an MMO if you have to devote a lot of time to it. I try to play them casually enough to learn things but not hardcore enough to end up hooked—which itself can be hard. Now that I’ve surveyed quite a few MMOs I can spend more time with Lineage and see how we can improve things even more.

7. In the long-term, what do you see down the road for Lineage in 2008?

We’re looking to implement new message boards, examining consolidating the servers a bit, and have another good season of events and custom content. I am also looking at the possibility of incorporating Game Guard in our territory to help crack down on security issues. I expect it to be very busy this year.