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While touring Korea, I had the unique opportunity to
visit the offices of GRAVITY - the creators/developers of the MMPORG,
"Ragnarok Online." A visit was arranged a day ahead of the time I actually
went, with Richard Yang (the Chief Marketing Officer/CMO), but I could not
make it due to some unexpected family business that occurred the next
morning. However, I rescheduled for the next day and arrived around 11a.m.
at their office at the Shingu Building, 6th floor. As I had little time
to develop specific questions, the interview was a bit unstructured and
information was compiled from several different conversations with Ji Won
Kim (Assistant Manager, Marketing Dept.) during the course of the visit.
Mr. Yang was out of the office due to some business meetings at another
company and had left her to greet me when I arrived. What follows is an
edited and compiled version of what information was passed to me during
my visit. . .
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Ji Won Kim, Gravity Marketing Department Assistant Manager
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The English Speaking Market
GRAVITY's perception of the American market (as they consider the largest English
speaking membership to be American) is that they wish to have Gravity offices in the
US as well as servers. They also plan to charge money in the future, but don't
currently see the English speaking market as being very lucrative at this time due
to the low amount of registered users on the English server. However they will
attend E-3 in May 2002 in order to gage interest and make a plan of action in
terms of advertising.
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The English Server Admins at the time of the
visit- they're a little camera shy. ^^
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It is their desire to advertise Ragnarok Online to the English speaking/American
market by placing advertisements in American game magazines along with attending
E-3. However, they need to increase the amount of servers for the English client
before they advertise in the US on a large scale. Unfortunately, they can't
increase the amount until they see more interest in the game from the English
speaking market. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about; I was told that
there were about 30-40,000 registered users on both the Japanese and Korean
servers, but only around 2,000 on the English server at the time of my visit
(early January 2002).
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Korean Server Administrators.
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When I asked Ji Won if GRAVITY was planning to publish in English speaking countries
consecutively with the Pacific Rim countries, she indicated that Taiwan, China,
Japan, and Hong Kong (Pacific Rim countries) want the game very much, so they
want to sub-contract the game out in each country to a local publisher. However
the plans they have for Europe and the US will both be handled in a different
manner from the Pacific Rim countries. They have decided to go through a publisher
at first and then eventually make a company branch office in the US. As mentioned
before, charging for the game is out of the question at this time - it's not ready
for commercial release yet. The CEO/developer (Kim Hakkyu) wants to make RO the
best game in the world. He wants to implement many different things in the game,
but the programmers are limited to what the game engine can handle. Ji Won indicated
that currently things are never good enough for him so it may be a while before
the game has a commercial release. However, since not a single US game publisher
has come forward with an offer, they are considering just taking the first offer
that they come across (I believe she was joking about this).
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3D Graphics Director: Hwang Byoung Chan.
3D background programmer.
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Game Mechanics
In the manhwa (Korean comic book) version of Ragnarok, the main characters
are extremely powerful and wield equally powerful and unique weapons. These
characters from the comic book will appear in the game as NPCs, but GRAVITY
is not sure how they will be controlled. They were thinking of having company
employees control the NPC's but they would prefer an AI to handle their
activities. She wasn't sure about the unique character weapons, but they
plan to mix in a few technological items in the game like guns and airships.
However, they will not likely portray violence graphically (blood and gore)
in order to maintain a game environment suitable for all ages.
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Map Programmers.
2D Director (Sprites): Kim Che Yong.
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Monitoring Game Conduct
GRAVITY is currently in the process of interviewing potential candidates to be
a game monitor/Administrator for the English servers. These Administrators will
handle all English client manner, registration, and complaint e-mails along with
monitoring the activities of players on the English servers. In order to keep a
close eye in the community, GRAVITY plans to equip them with special characters
that cannot gain levels but can interact with player characters and perform
administrative functions directly online.
At the time of my visit, the "manner@gravity.co.kr" address is monitored solely
by Ji Won, as she and Richard are the only staff members that can comprehend
English on an advanced level - and Richard is constantly busy with his duties
as CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of Gravity Corp. At the time of this writing
they were receiving up to 500 messages per day about registration and manner problems.
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2D Sprite Artists at work.
Server Programmer at work.
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Reportable offenses include: Stealing (experience or dropped items), cheating
(using game trainers and/or hacking the game), making "trains" of monsters to
kill people, and swindling money from other players. Although GRAVITY made a
thief job class, they intended it to be used to steal only from monsters - stealing
from other players is simply not allowed. For punishment of general manner issues,
GRAVITY currently blocks IDs for 1 week up to a month. Ji Won indicated that If
someone who has a suspended account wants to play, they can make a new account
and start from scratch (at least during the beta test). However, GRAVITY is
thinking about making a "jail" instead where players with suspended accounts
can at least maintain communications in the community - friends can visit them
in jail and they can interact with other inmates.
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Another Server Programmer at work.
Concept building model for presentations.
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Impersonating a Gravity staff member is considered a serious offense -
if they find someone doing this, they will delete his or her account. In
addition to this, if they ever find a Gravity staff member abusing their
position they will take appropriate action as well. The "god" characters
that will be used solely by the administrators will be only for administrative
use - they won't be able to give artificial experience or give special
items, nor will they be able to kill monsters or gain levels. Even the
company President has to work for everything his character has in the
game (not that he hasn't begged the programmers for something now and
then). Ji Won plans to keep on working as the English server administrator
until possibly the end of February. When they eventually hire a native
English speaker as an Administrator, they will take over her duties
answering the e-mails for English server issues (manner, registration,
etc.). [ed. A dedicated English Server Administrator was hired in
February 2002 named Christy Kay. However she is not a Native English speaker...]
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Gravity CEO/President Kim Hakkyu.
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Departure
Eventually I had to leave as it was getting late, so with my hands full of
Ragnarok Online promotional material, I took a few parting photos and hopped
in a cab back to the hotel so I could pack for the flight home to Chicago in
the morning. In all, I was satisfied with my visit, although I wish I had
had more time to ask some more pertinent questions. Nevertheless, I am sure
to try and make another visit sometime in the near future. . .
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These gigantic custom made stuffed porings grace
the foyer of the GRAVITY offices. I wouldn't mind having one myself, but
I don't think I would have been able to fit it into an overhead bin on the plane. ^^;
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