NCsoft EU Podcast: Games Convention Special #1

[Mark]

From NCsoft EU's official podcast:

And now for something a little different! Coming to you from the show floor of day one at the Games Convention in Leipzig, join the NCsoft Europe Community team as they answer questions from the crowd. All questions and answers are repeated in German and English.

More...

[Raven.]

Hey Mark,

If there is anyone there you can speak to about the quality of the North American version of the Aion website I strongly suggest you do. It lacks sooo much info and the layout and design of the site looks like a student did it and no professional.

...or if any community manager from NCSoft sees this post...please do the same. I know Mark kicks *** and all but there is no way his site should be more informative and interesting than the companies own NA version let alone any international version.

[dalin]

*listening now*

with regards to the NA site, its very similar to the EU site... looks fine to me, and im sure the content side will be fleshed out considerable once the game gets closer to launching...

[Raven.]

Originally Posted by dalin

*listening now*

with regards to the NA site, its very similar to the EU site... looks fine to me, and im sure the content side will be fleshed out considerable once the game gets closer to launching...

It should be fleshed out now because it shows very little interest on the side of NA just like the Lineage 2 site that is constantly outdated and utterly useless. If you dont' want to get crushed by Warhammer, Wrath of the Lich King and a number of other titles that people have at least heard of here then polish isn't just the game it's also the whole marketing and PR campaigns which I'm still unimpressed with from this publisher so far.

[Mr Mage]

Just finished listening to the pod cast now some good questions asked and answered.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Raven.

Hey Mark,

If there is anyone there you can speak to about the quality of the North American version of the Aion website I strongly suggest you do. It lacks sooo much info and the layout and design of the site looks like a student did it and no professional.

In a few ways I disagree. In a few others I agree. You win some, you lose some.

...or if any community manager from NCSoft sees this post...please do the same. I know Mark kicks *** and all but there is no way his site should be more informative and interesting than the companies own NA version let alone any international version.

Whoa there, you're wrong. AionSource.com should be better than the official sites. Who needs those when fansites are just as good, eh? Of course, I'm a fansite admin. I tend to say these things.

[dalin]

Originally Posted by Mark

Whoa there, you're wrong. AionSource.com should be better than the official sites. Who needs those when fansites are just as good, eh? Of course, I'm a fansite admin. I tend to say these things.

biased, but not entirely wrong... fansites tend to have extremely devoted people who spend ample time collecting information, etc. stands to reason that a fansite can have a "better site"...

on an unrelated note... get that cam of yours in there, and tape some of those people playing the game... just announce "im taping this for a fansite... if you would like me to stop, just say so!"

hopefully you wont create too many angry Germans...

[Mark]

Originally Posted by dalin

biased, but not entirely wrong... fansites tend to have extremely devoted people who spend ample time collecting information, etc. stands to reason that a fansite can have a "better site"...

on an unrelated note... get that cam of yours in there, and tape some of those people playing the game... just announce "im taping this for a fansite... if you would like me to stop, just say so!"

hopefully you wont create too many angry Germans...

Already done, just gotta encode it and upload it.

[dalin]

Originally Posted by Mark

Already done, just gotta encode it and upload it.

and thats why we love you mark...

[Hellriser]

I made a transcript of the podcast.. I just wrote in what it was in English. I though it would be a little easier for people who don't really understand the spoken English so well.. they can always drop in Google translator too.. Enjoy



Welcome to the NC Soft international Podcast ... the English speaking people in the audience I'm going to introduce my guys here willing to answer all your questions. Steven ?Rockjaw? Reed, Sebastian Ayase ?Streiferd?, Aion community coordinator ?Abba Tier? Tabula Rasa community coordinator and Martin Kershtein Guild Wars community coordinator. So as you can see we are all working in community, or we are still, or we used to work in community and you can ask all the questions you can have, we'll try to answer them as good as possible, we've got 2 people in the crowd, go to them or raise your hand and they come to you and then they going to, you know, you got the opportunity to ask a question. So there's ?Yourne? and there's Steven.
OK, go ahead, come on, someone's got a question, pretty sure!

Speaking in German....

OK I can't translate into English it's not really a part... even Steven understood that I think.

OK the question was:

Question: Will there be any expansions for GW 1 or we are just concentrating on GW 2?
So Martin, what's the answer?

Answer: The team is working with full dedication on getting GW 2 ready but there is a team in place which looks after GW 1, still creating new events, we will have like a GW complete collection, which is a new hero, so there are people still working on GW 1.

German....

OK, so let's start with Steven because he was the first here from us, working for NC Soft.

Question:
Steven, how did you become head of community, community manager and how did you come to NC Soft and what was all this about and what were the first steps when you were there?

Answer: Well I guess, I used to work for Playstation, just before I came to NC Soft, and I was a big fan of CoH, it was my first proper MMO that I played and I was a huge fan of it so I just basically applied to the company when it was just forming and said that I very much wanted to run their websites and they said: would you like to do the community team as well and I said OK, that's
a bit of a bigger job but I'll do that. So I did that! When I started there was.. well it was just me and then we quickly recruited the CoH team and the GW team and loads of other people and ended up going to 12 people I think when I was in there and then I actually stepped out that role but yeah, that's how I started, i was basically a lover of CoH and wanted to work with the company that made it.

Question: Sebastian, how did you become community coordinator for Aion and what were your first steps at NC Soft?

Answer: I think that I come from a background that's really close, I think I come from a background that's quite common in this trade 'cuse I was just a regular member of the Aion community before I start to work for NC Soft and I really liked the game, I still do of course so I started a fan site and I tried to make it grow as much as I possibly could and in due time it did grow and I got contacted with NC Soft and eventually they started to look for a community coordinator for Aion so of course I applied 'cuse well, it's the game I love and the job I would probably love and so, as it turns out I got the job and here I am and I still am and I'm going to be for some time

Question: OK Tier, how did you end up in community?

Answer: So, I used to play CoH and I love the game so much that I just hand my CV to NC soft and then I got my interview after sending my CV, a month later I got hired as a GM in the customer service team and so I could see all you guys in the community team, well you seem to be getting on really good with your jobs and well it seemed to be a really exciting job and the more I got to know you guys were doing the more I got excited about it so I decided to apply when the Tabula Rasa position became available and so I got it and here I am.

German ask question

OK, there's a question, maybe Steven can answer, I'm not sure.. in Germany there's like a kind of boom of universities or like educational opportunities to become a game artist and other stuff and so..

Question: How experience is like with these people and to they have any chances to get into the games industry?

Answer: I get this question quite a lot, actually, and I always answer the same way: the No. 1 thing to understand is that the games industry is a very very very hard business to get into because everybody wants to be in it, you know.. And unfortunately there's no easy way to get in, the only way you get in is by hard work.
So what I say to people about courses is: they're good if you want to spend some time in a school or university setting hopefully getting taught well and then mingling with people who also want to make games, but they're not the only way to get in and for example if you just want to make games the easiest way to get practice and get good at that is to make games. So go make mods, make flash games, make board games, make card games, figure out how to make games, and do that, and you need to do it from when you're 10 years old and do it for 10 years and then you maybe good after that time, but don't expect to go to university, go to your classes and then come out the other side being a brilliant, being a well write or being ... inspector. It won't just happen. You have to pretty much dedicate your entire life to getting good at.
And the last ting I'd say is that this man, and this man, and this person and even him are all examples of people who absolutely loved their games and they did stuff above and beyond just applying for the job: he ran a fan site, he ran a fan site, he didn't ran a fan site (laughs) but they dedicated their lives to their games and that's why they got hired so just saying that you like games isn't enough, you have to show that you do.

Question: Now that we are working on these games and developing games all the time, do we actually still enjoy playing all these games?

Answer: Yes. (All answer Yes)
I just wish I had more time to actually play, that's the one thing actually working on a game takes away the time you can spend playing the game but every time I have time to play I play with all the passion and all the dedication I had before.

Someone else answers: Of course this doesn't apply to all games; I guess we were just lucky to have the good ones we still enjoy, that's the key part.
SE answers: And the bonus is that we got to know the cool stuff before anybody else
On the other hand, we see all the unfinished stuff before basically so...


Question: In the evening after work when you are playing the games do you still feel like working on the game when you're in the game do you use book report when you see a bug for example or are you actually just being a player?

Answer: Well yeah when you see bugs or similar problems then you report them, you're probably more aware of that than the average player but generally speaking is still fun.

ICQ crap...
GW crap....
Internet crap about GW...

(YAY Aion question, lol)

Question: Are you making enough money with all the other games so you can afford to wait with Aion so that we can publish in a really good state and not rush it to the release?

Answer: Obviously I don't work with the business but I’m pretty sure that, I am certain that we are prepared to do what it takes to bring Aion to the market as a finished product as opposed to releasing it with too many bugs and unfinished areas, so I'm very confident that we have the background to support this. That's all I can say.

[Taiyz]

Originally Posted by Raven.

Hey Mark,

If there is anyone there you can speak to about the quality of the North American version of the Aion website I strongly suggest you do. It lacks sooo much info and the layout and design of the site looks like a student did it and no professional.

...or if any community manager from NCSoft sees this post...please do the same. I know Mark kicks *** and all but there is no way his site should be more informative and interesting than the companies own NA version let alone any international version.

Honestly I'm tempted to just try and get a setup where I can play on the European servers and follow their releases, if only because I'm consistently blown away by the dedication and talent of the guys over at NCSoft Europe. Out of respect/admiration, I suppose. =P

[Kerensky]

"Steven ?Rockjaw? Reed, Sebastian Ayase ?Streiferd?, Aion community coordinator ?Abba Tier? Tabula Rasa community coordinator and Martin Kershtein Guild Wars community coordinator."

Just to correct you with the names: Stephen Reid, Sebastian Streiffert, Avatea, Martin Kerstein, Jörg

[Deniz]

Mark are you going to show us those signed bags ?

[Mark]

Only one signed bag, and yes I'll show it eventually.

[Rizzo]

Nothing against the germans but when i listened to the podcast it shoulded like english played backwards. .em sevol ti dna noiA evol i