Slashdot Mirror

Thanks to The Korea Herald for its article regarding the battle for the massive Chinese online gaming market. Apparently, "Korean companies controlled more than 70 percent of the Chinese online game market last year in terms of revenue", but: "Last July, China's Ministry of Culture imposed a new regulation on 'Internet culture supervision,' which forces online games and all other programs transacted via the Internet to be reported to the ministry for content supervision." Due to this move, "foreign Internet content providers... [are] required to earn an ICP (Internet content provider) license... NCsoft has not received its license for 'Lineage II' as of yet." In conclusion, it's actually suggested that "worst-case scenario would be a quota on the import of foreign games, according to some analysts."

Thanks to InsertCredit for pointing to a 4Gamer.net story including pictures of Coca-Cola cans featuring characters from PC MMORPG Lineage II. The promotion, due to start in South Korea next week, shows how relatively mainstream Lineage 2 and its prequel have become in that country, with a previous story noting "in [Lineage 2's] first five days in release, publisher NCsoft has tallied more than 130,000 paid users." The original Lineage's success in Asia, with "more than three million subscribers and more than three hundred thousand concurrent users", has enabled the company to expand into the U.S., where they are funding Richard Garriott's mysterious new MMO Tabula Rasa (of which there's previously unseen concept art available), as well as the superhero MMO title City Of Heroes and non-subscription MMO Guild Wars. The official Lineage II FAQ notes that "development on a North American version of the game is nearing beta testing stage", and the Unreal-engine title is likely to launch some time early in 2004.

Thanks to GameSpy for their section featuring extracts and articles centered around the previously Slashdot-mentioned new book, Dungeons And Dreamers, which discusses "the rise of computer game culture" through figures such as Ultima creator Richard Garriott. The feature includes a three part extract from the book, dealing with "the trials and tribulations Richard Garriott and his team at Origin underwent in order to bring Ultima Online to the masses." There's also an interview with the book's authors, as well as a chat with Garriott himself, in which he trails his new NCSoft-backed massively multiplayer title, Tabula Rasa, which he says "combines MMP with story-based scripted adventures for parties of players."

Thanks to GamePro for their article discussing why MMORPGs charge a monthly subscription fee, discussing the "extra developer attention and player community" a monthly payment allegedly brings. It quotes a Blizzard spokesman as saying "running a massively multiplayer game like Blizzard's upcoming World of WarCraft costs about three times as much as running an online server like Battle.net, because MMO games require constant maintenance, 24/7 customer support, and an ongoing dedicated development team", and NCSoft's Robert Garriott, brother of Richard, says: "Think of it as running a small city. Many of these games have hundreds of thousands of 'citizens.' NCsoft operates the 'government' that builds new roads, puts criminals in jail, and digs new caverns for citizens to explore and enjoy. All of that costs real money."

Thanks to RPGVault for their article discussing the problems of repetitive gameplay in MMORPGs. The article defines the issue as "...the so-called "levelling treadmill" that involves repetitive play, often combat against NPCs that present little real challenge, in order to advance [the player's] characters" Representatives from NCSoft, Microsoft, and Auran offer their opinions, which range from "...levelling in and of itself is not evil" to "...levelling has to become dull or the level-up reward would lack value."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the GameSpot story interviewing Lineage II's lead designer, Raoul Kim. This Unreal-engine PC MMORPG from Korean publisher NCSoft is the sequel to the world's best-selling massively multiplayer game, and the discussion centers on subject such as engine choice ("We looked primarily at three engines to use for Lineage II: the Unreal engine, the Quake engine, and the Lithtech engine.. the Unreal engine was the most attractive to us because of its powerful editing features and its outdoor-rendering ability") and continuing the signature large-scale battles of Lineage into the sequel ("..one of the main features of Lineage II is siege warfare.. it is now possible to attack the enemy during a siege by using a flying unit such as a dragon.")

Thanks to IGN RPGVault for a new interview with the ArenaNet team, developers of Guild Wars. These ex-Blizzard developers, whose company was recently acquired by Korean RPG behemoth NCSoft, talk in-depth about Guild Wars, which they call "..a competitive online role-playing game, which we believe to be a new genre." According to the article, "..gameplay options will include cooperative group combat, single-player adventures and large-scale guild battles.. [with] persistent characters but a non-persistent game world", and there will be no monthly subscription fee for this intriguing PC title, which is due out later in 2004.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a RPGDot interview with Richard Garriott on his forthcoming MMO title Tabula Rasa. You may know Garriott from his creation of the Ultima series, but he's now hooked up with Korean MMO behemoth NCSoft, and the interview discusses how Tabula Rasa may differ from expectations: "Tabula Rasa is not a 'virtual world' like Ultima Online or Everquest. TR is a compact social hub of activity but game play focuses on instantiated adventures for a party of players. In those instances, scripted quests a la solo-player Ultimas will be the norm."