Party Combos?

[Mark]

And I want four-dollar footlongs.

[Auxiliary]

Originally Posted by Ayase

Hmm... Watch and learn more, young padawan. Everything is not "up to the developers in Korea", you see - it also comes down to what the playerbase asks for and if there are other mechanics that require precedence in the development.

As LD pointed out, a system that fully allows inter-character skills is not yet implemented. Keep in mind though that conditional inter-character skills are still possible to perform, although I know that's not what you're asking for here. Conditional indicates that if you initiate a particular condition on a monster or enemy player, one of your buddies could react to that condition (stasis? knockback?) and continue in an appropriate manner.

Usually I wouldn't bandwagon on a community manager because I know how tied you are, and how much harder your job is than most would assume.

But, on this point, you are coming across as incredibly patronising.

As a player of L2 since the First Phase Closed Beta to the present day, it makes me throw up in my mouth a little to see this **** repeated again by an employee in relation to Aion.

Aion is a franchise, just because the NA/EU version has the NC name attached to it doesn't mean you have any greater pull than any of the random Chinese MMO operators NC sell their licenses to.

Aion is developed in Korea, NA/EU has no development staff whatsoever, when an update (or Chronicle/Expansion) is released over here, all that happens is that a build that has gone from Korea to China then translated there to come over here and it's tacked on by applying it to the server clients.

What that essentially means is that there is VERY little freedom to change anything over here, quit fooling yourself and us, the only things the NA/EU Aion teams have power over are things like exp/drop tables, and considering NCwest can't even manage to change the clocks in L2 for daylight saving my faith in them ever exercising these rights is long gone.

The only way we will ever get a say in feature implementation is if we pull off literally millions of users over here, L2 is the perfect example, we're a spec on NC Korea's map, they don't give a crap what we think because there's 8 million players over there and they will be the ones made happy.

I understand your position is difficult, but ****, at least be honest, all this fluff nonsense I keep seeing you posting about how you have an "open dialogue with Korea" really drives me up the wall.

Any hope of westernisation went out the door when the simultaneous worldwide release quietly disappeared, we'll always be 6+ months behind. WoW's success in the Asian markets has shown that the things they are claiming are western (combat for example) are just a proven mechanic that Asians will happily adopt, it's **** all to do with our market or our version of the game.

Nobody should be under the illusion Aion is anything but a higher budget version of the hundreds of F2P Korean games that filter over here each year. We're lesser sons of greater sires, and we'll take what we're given or cancel our subscriptions.

[Illuminaughty]

dont let this die. I want an answer

[Zedek]

Since Ayase is not going to answer you i will do that for him.

No.

[Ayase]

Originally Posted by Auxiliary

Usually I wouldn't bandwagon on a community manager because I know how tied you are, and how much harder your job is than most would assume.

But, on this point, you are coming across as incredibly patronising.

As a player of L2 since the First Phase Closed Beta to the present day, it makes me throw up in my mouth a little to see this **** repeated again by an employee in relation to Aion.

Aion is a franchise, just because the NA/EU version has the NC name attached to it doesn't mean you have any greater pull than any of the random Chinese MMO operators NC sell their licenses to.

Aion is developed in Korea, NA/EU has no development staff whatsoever, when an update (or Chronicle/Expansion) is released over here, all that happens is that a build that has gone from Korea to China then translated there to come over here and it's tacked on by applying it to the server clients.

What that essentially means is that there is VERY little freedom to change anything over here, quit fooling yourself and us, the only things the NA/EU Aion teams have power over are things like exp/drop tables, and considering NCwest can't even manage to change the clocks in L2 for daylight saving my faith in them ever exercising these rights is long gone.

The only way we will ever get a say in feature implementation is if we pull off literally millions of users over here, L2 is the perfect example, we're a spec on NC Korea's map, they don't give a crap what we think because there's 8 million players over there and they will be the ones made happy.

I understand your position is difficult, but ****, at least be honest, all this fluff nonsense I keep seeing you posting about how you have an "open dialogue with Korea" really drives me up the wall.

Any hope of westernisation went out the door when the simultaneous worldwide release quietly disappeared, we'll always be 6+ months behind. WoW's success in the Asian markets has shown that the things they are claiming are western (combat for example) are just a proven mechanic that Asians will happily adopt, it's **** all to do with our market or our version of the game.

Nobody should be under the illusion Aion is anything but a higher budget version of the hundreds of F2P Korean games that filter over here each year. We're lesser sons of greater sires, and we'll take what we're given or cancel our subscriptions.

Heya Aux. In what way do you think I come across as patronising? If you are referring to my padawan-reply to Endrance, I would like to think that our 'exchange' of paragraphs was friendly and casual enough as to not give that impression from either side. I do appologize however if it came across differently.

I cannot "prove" the validity of the procedures we have set up to solicit your feedback before launch anymore than Nikola Tesla could prove that his tesla coil was working before he actually managed to drag the people into his laboratory and show it. I have said it before, and I will say it again -- I can only convey our intentions, leaving the decision whether to trust it or not up to the observer. In this case you. I'm assuming you have bad experiences from previous games, and that's a shame, but there is very little we can do to change that. We can only look ahead and make sure to make the best of the future and the best of Aion. I can only let you know what our intentions are.

1) We will be listening to feedback.
2) We are working with the aim of synching our version with the Korean version as closely as possible (localization will always be one of the bad boys here). To quote what one of our producers said recently that sums it up quite nicely:

Originally Posted by Brian Knox

Knox: Our goal has always been to be as globally-synced as possible. Aion is in the process of being localized into English, French, and German. This means millions of words are localized, which of course will take some extra time, but our goal is still a 2009 launch. As for beta testing, the market is changing and betas aren?t what they used to be. For better or worse, players judge your game based on your beta. We want to make sure that even during our internal beta testing that players are amazed by the level of polish in Aion. This high standard of quality is something we feel is very important and we intend on proving to the world when we launch our Exclusive Preview events in 2009 as a way of showcasing Aion as well as soliciting feedback.

[Danayo]

Originally Posted by "Brian Knox

Originally Posted by Brian Knox
Knox: Our goal has always been to be as globally-synced as possible. Aion is in the process of being localized into English, French, and German. This means millions of words are localized, which of course will take some extra time, but our goal is still a 2009 launch. As for beta testing, the market is changing and betas aren?t what they used to be. For better or worse, players judge your game based on your beta. We want to make sure that even during our internal beta testing that players are amazed by the level of polish in Aion. This high standard of quality is something we feel is very important and we intend on proving to the world when we launch our Exclusive Preview events in 2009 as a way of showcasing Aion as well as soliciting feedback.

And that's probably one of the cases why it's taking so long. Why for god sake French and German? Let everyone just learn to talk and write English and you'll have a greater communication with people who's native language isn't English (They will learn, just like I did with many other Dutchies for example). This is something I knew that was coming and I'm sorry, but I dislike the fact there are even French and German versions coming.

[Cleaf]

Originally Posted by Danayo

And that's probably one of the cases why it's taking so long. Why for god sake French and German? Let everyone just learn to talk and write English and you'll have a greater communication with people who's native language isn't English (They will learn, just like I did with many other Dutchies for example). This is something I knew that was coming and I'm sorry, but I dislike the fact there are even French and German versions coming.

It's because they want to reach more markets than just English speaking people. Of course, there are a lot of people in Quebec, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg etc. who do speak English but most people feel easier handeling their own language. That's natural.
And I think, NCsoft NA/EU doesn't want to reach the "hardcore" guys only.

[Danayo]

Originally Posted by Cleaf

It's because they want to reach more markets than just English speaking people. Of course, there are a lot of people in Quebec, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg etc. who do speak English but most people feel easier handeling their own language. That's natural.
And I think, NCsoft NA/EU doesn't want to reach the "hardcore" guys only.

Right, and how do they know how many people will play Aion in those regions? When I was young and I played little SNES games there were barely any games in my own language, so I was forced to learn English. You're from Germany and I understand your concern, that's probably why you're defending yourself against my opinion, that's cool. But why make 2 more languages if they don't even know if people in those regions will actually play Aion, not even to start about - Will they even play the French/German language version? From my point of view, make an English version first, then see how many French/German/other people play Aion, simple.

[Cleaf]

Originally Posted by Danayo

Right, and how do they know how many people will play Aion in those regions? When I was young and I played little SNES games there were barely any games in my own language, so I was forced to learn English. You're from Germany and I understand your concern, that's probably why you're defending yourself against my opinion, that's cool. But why make 2 more languages if they don't even know if people in those regions will actually play Aion, not even to start about - Will they even play the French/German language version? From my point of view, make an English version first, then see how many French/German/other people play Aion, simple.

I don't have to defend myself. If there's just an English version it would be fine with me. The reason why I answered to your post was that I'm hoping for a great community and for people to attract to AION even though they don't want to play something in English.
Why do they just translate in French and German, beside English? Germany is the biggest economic country in EU. They do play a lot games and have the money to spend on it. As well, the German market is used to translated games. If AION is just released in English a lot of "normal" players don't want to try it.
I can't speak for the French market but I'm pretty sure NCsoft has its reasons for choosing those two languages.

[Danayo]

The economy of Germany? I'm sorry, what does that have to do with people playing games? I guess you mean there are a lot of German gamers? It almost feels like racism, my opinion is and will always be the same, English version only/first, the rest can follow after a graph will show how many French/German/other people will be/are playing Aion.

[Endrance]

A well established and somewhat intelligent company always does their research before they plan something. If a company says that it's reasonable to release multi-language support, then they most likely have some rational reasons to do so - they have to, or they'd be knowingly wasting their money. And that's the only thing you can be sure about medium-big companies in this world wouldn't do.

And I mean, even as an amateur in market economy you can already see the trend in pretty much any offline game and most big MMORPGs supporting multi-language versions. If NCSoft does ever want to equal them or even replace them with Aion, then they simply have to support multi-language.

[Cleaf]

Originally Posted by Danayo

The economy of Germany? I'm sorry, what does that have to do with people playing games? I guess you mean there are a lot of German gamers? It almost feels like racism, my opinion is and will always be the same, English version only/first, the rest can follow after a graph will show how many French/German/other people will be/are playing Aion.

Why is that racism to say that people in a strong economy are more likely to buy games? It's fact that Germany has the strongest economy in the EU and surely has a big number of people playing games. For a company its first goal is to reach as many costumers as possible to gain good profit. It's more rational than racist!
I wouldn't translate a game I developed into a language (Polish for example, I don't have anything against Poland, it's just an example) which country has a weak economy. It's just not lucrative if there is not so many players to reach.

[Danayo]

When I go to Germany or France for a little vacation, there's barely anyone who speaks some basic English, nor understands it.

If you release only an English version with a game like this, people will have to get it if they want to play. Just like I was forced to play my SNES games in English while the other languages were Spanish, French, German and Italian. I speak German fluently, just like English while I live in Holland. Some of us even speak fluent French, Greek and Latin. English is 'the world language', I find it a good way of communicating in just one language, and while playing it our vocabulary only gets better, for French, Germans and others, too. Maybe I'm searching way too far but well, just another opinion.

[Neon]

I do partly agree with aux - the vast majority of well designed games are totally ruined by devs ignoring their fans. Aion was never even going to be anything like a "global game" because it is still using the extremely outdated system of seperated servers. If I can't freely play with anyone from anywhere how is it global.

The real problem is that no- it has not been westernized one bit. As a western fan I feel entirely ignored by ncsoft. Aion has been released in Korea for just under a month yet we don't even have up to date game info on our website. Ayase it doesn't matter how much you listen to us and pass messages on - for as long as the dev team in Korea prioritises us behind everywhere else I cannot ever imagine aion being the hit it could be. It will just be another waste of time game governed by devs with god complexes.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Auxiliary]

Originally Posted by Ayase

Heya Aux. In what way do you think I come across as patronising? If you are referring to my padawan-reply to Endrance, I would like to think that our 'exchange' of paragraphs was friendly and casual enough as to not give that impression from either side. I do appologize however if it came across differently.

I cannot "prove" the validity of the procedures we have set up to solicit your feedback before launch anymore than Nikola Tesla could prove that his tesla coil was working before he actually managed to drag the people into his laboratory and show it. I have said it before, and I will say it again -- I can only convey our intentions, leaving the decision whether to trust it or not up to the observer. In this case you. I'm assuming you have bad experiences from previous games, and that's a shame, but there is very little we can do to change that. We can only look ahead and make sure to make the best of the future and the best of Aion. I can only let you know what our intentions are.

1) We will be listening to feedback.
2) We are working with the aim of synching our version with the Korean version as closely as possible (localization will always be one of the bad boys here). To quote what one of our producers said recently that sums it up quite nicely:

Patronising in the sense that unless there's been a massive shakeup in your company procedure that you're simply spurting untruths upon is.

How many members of staff at NC EU speak Korean? If any, how many of them actually speak to the Korean Aion dev team? Because last time I checked, only NC US had both the ability and capability to do so.

As a community manager, transparency is your best friend, you can get away with not saying anything on subjects like botting because that's a valid concern (knowledge of methods enabling workarounds), but I can't help but take away disingenuine thoughts from what you post about synchronicity in terms of versions. Look at Paul Barnett for an example of someone who pushes the limits of how tied he is on what he says, yet still manages to always add something meaningful that we can take from whatever he says. No offense to you, maybe NC are way more strict on what you can say than someone like EAMythic, but I'd like some reality rather than "wait until it's released" written in 99 different ways.

Am I right in thinking that the bulk of the translation is still done in China? Then the QA team over here handle the fixing of broken English? The L2 team always talked about getting synchronised with Korean releases but if anything we got further and further behind as time went on, not closer.

I hate being cynical, because I truly want Aion to succeed, but I had such high hopes with the simultaneous release, I know times aren't as prosperous as they have been for NC but I'm pretty sure had they really wanted to make the effort to make Aion a worldwide sensation; that they could've put the bucks in for ongoing translation during development.

Aion's success or failure hinges on marketing, I really hope you've got the investment dollars behind you to get this into people's hearts and minds, or we're looking at another bot infested no-one cares anymore 100k steady subscription for the next 5 years tapering into a horrible embarressing death for a great game.