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8 posts found
Dana

MMORPG.COM Staff

Joined: 1/07/04
Posts: 2333

 
10/20/05 11:16:58 AM#1

The Executive Producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea is back with his fourth developer journal. In this log, he talks about his time in Asia and that market. Along with this article, we also have four exclusive screenshots of the Korean Turtle vessel.

I’m filing this dev log from Beijing, which is the fifth Asian country I’ve visited in three weeks. So far, I’ve hit Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Along the way, I’m doing 29 presentations of the game, which makes it a very busy two weeks! The purpose of my trip is to find domestic partners who will bring Pirates to their territory. Ever since the numbers in Asia started exploding, American companies have dreamed of moving into this space -- but other than World of Warcraft, few have done so successfully.

There are a couple of problems, but the biggest one is making the game right for the market. I don’t just mean localization here, I mean the feature and content changes that take a Western game and make it into one suitable for Asia. A common example of this is a simplified avatar face. Western games typically go down the Everquest 2 model, which tries to make the avatar faces as real as possible. Asian games tend to have simplified, stylistic faces for their avatars (such as those seen in World of Warcraft). But there are more issues than just the cosmetic. For example, smoking is very prevalent here and players like to be able to play MMPs one handed so they can smoke with the other. The list goes on and on. While some of these are easy tweaks, others can require deep architectural changes.

You can read the full journal here.

Desalus

Hard Core Member

Joined: 12/30/03
Posts: 832

10/20/05 3:08:59 PM#2

I don't even understand why they are trying to expand into the Asian market when they haven't even established themsevles in the North American and European markets. To me it seems like they are biting off more than they can chew, but I guess in the end it is up to them to make that decision.

---------------------------------------------
Killer 86%, Socializer 53%, Explorer 33%, Achiever 26%

foxpreacher

Novice Member

Joined: 7/04/04
Posts: 5

10/20/05 4:15:46 PM#3

okay, your journal is great but you've made a critical mistake.

I should point out that Taiwan is not a country , It is just one province of CHINA.

According to ruleset of UN, it is absolutely the fact, I think you must pay attention to it.

It is better that you revised your log.

Your work is greatly appreiciated.

Tanwai is the intergral part of CHINA

correct
definitely correct
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TO be a epic rogue

Iijs

Apprentice Member

Joined: 10/27/04
Posts: 458

10/20/05 11:15:30 PM#4


Originally posted by Desalus
I don't even understand why they are trying to expand into the Asian market when they haven't even established themsevles in the North American and European markets. To me it seems like they are biting off more than they can chew, but I guess in the end it is up to them to make that decision.

Their North American beta is imminent, leading to a projected "winter" release. Their Asian development is slated for 2006 -- ie. further down the road. The groundwork has to be laid now, just like WoW had a concrete deal made in China 6-12 months before its NA release.

The big news in this dev log is the Russian angle, which really shouldn't be a surprise considering their ties with Akella over the years, and hiring five mission designers. That's huge for Pirates of the Burning Sea -- their first missions at E3 2005 were only 'placeholders.'

They've come a long way in the past six months and have a long way to go before release. Beta should rock.

Rogier

Novice Member

Joined: 9/06/05
Posts: 23

Rogier Petiet aka MacLeod

10/21/05 2:37:04 AM#5

Why the Asian market? That is thinking ahead because there is where large numbers of players are.

But this Dev Log gives a bit more information as they are almost ready for the first betaplayers build. Now i wonder how the European market will be handled? I don't read any information about that...

Politics can do strange things: Taiwan is a Province of China but untill they both fix the end of civil war problems we can safetly say they are both different lands (It's a bit the same as the Netherlands and Belgium)

Nullapax

Novice Member

Joined: 10/01/05
Posts: 400

"What is freedom of speech ? Without the freedom to offend it ceases to exist."
Salman Rushdie

10/22/05 10:26:25 AM#6

Tanwai ?
Is that the correct/local spelling for Taiwan ?

Jorev

Novice Member

Joined: 11/15/04
Posts: 1516

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

10/22/05 3:30:06 PM#7

Originally posted by foxpreacher

okay, your journal is great but you've made a critical mistake.

I should point out that Taiwan is not a country , It is just one province of CHINA.

According to ruleset of UN, it is absolutely the fact, I think you must pay attention to it.

It is better that you revised your log.

Your work is greatly appreiciated.


Thanks for clarifying that up for us, but give it time, Taiwan has never wanted nor truly been a part of China realistically. It was of course where many democratic Chinese escaped to after the communists took over at the end of WW2 in order to form their own government which they have.

I would love to hear your justification for the chinese invasion of Tibet though. Is that a province also that they simply just reclaimed?


"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh

LrdHades

Advanced Member

Joined: 2/11/04
Posts: 147

10/24/05 3:39:18 PM#8


Originally posted by Jorev

Originally posted by foxpreacher
okay, your journal is great but you've made a critical mistake.
I should point out that Taiwan is not a country , It is just one province of CHINA.
According to ruleset of UN, it is absolutely the fact, I think you must pay attention to it.
It is better that you revised your log.
Your work is greatly appreiciated.


Thanks for clarifying that up for us, but give it time, Taiwan has never wanted nor truly been a part of China realistically. It was of course where many democratic Chinese escaped to after the communists took over at the end of WW2 in order to form their own government which they have.
I would love to hear your justification for the chinese invasion of Tibet though. Is that a province also that they simply just reclaimed?


I don't get why this company is trying to emphasize that its a PVP game when there is a 200+ reply post on their own website about what sort of ranking system is needed for PVP/Guild recognition, and the Devs won't touch it.

Right now this game appears to support instanced RvsR type combat, have some NPC/Faction recognition, gives some types of ammo unlimited supply, and in the big scheme of things there's no real reason to care if you win or lose a fight.

It shouldn't be too difficult to provide a guild based stat system (ala DAOC or other PVP games out there) if you are trying to recruit PVP guilds to your game. The PVP games that don't have ladders, rankings, etc end up losing those guilds because the debate over who's the top dog just boils into endless forum and screenshot finger pointing contests.

If you people won't support a ladder ranking system for your voluntary PVP because you're too scared of ticking off your PVE crowd, then you're no different than an MMO version of Sid Mier's Pirate game and you don't provide one of the fundamental things required to retain PVP guilds once they are tired of sinking "Captain Bob" for the 100th time.

I've been a supporter of this game and given it good word of mouth, but when you make death meaningless and give unlimited ammo then a PVP ranking system becomes critical for me to continue to give this game a thumbs up to other people in the community.