No PAX East, tive a oportunidade de conhecer e entrevistar Jaehee Kim, produtor executivo da Black Desert Online. Esta foi uma das entrevistas mais agradáveis que já fiz. Quero dar um grande obrigado à equipe de Pearl Abyss por esta oportunidade, e espero que todos gostem de lê -la tanto quanto eu conduzi!
Antony, game: Olá! Este é Anthony Lowry, e estou aqui com o produtor executivo de deserto negro on-line, Jaehee Kim. Como você está hoje?
_Jaehee Kim, Pearl Abyss: O tempo é realmente perfeito. É a minha primeira vez visitando Boston e eu estou amando agora. É a minha primeira vez em PAX East também, mas experimentei a cultura americana, especialmente nesta cultura convencional, e é bastante refrescante.
_A: Este é o meu primeiro pax também, e tem sido muito divertido, e eu tenho que conhecer todos os tipos de pessoas incríveis, incluindo vocês! _
_Jaehee: Vindo aqui conhecemos não apenas nossos jogadores do deserto negro, mas também tantos tipos diferentes de jogadores durante a convenção, para que eu pudesse sentir a dedicação e o amor que eles têm em relação ao jogo.
_A: Então, quero pular para a montanha da eterna atualização de inverno. Temos uma nova região e uma nova classe, Drakania. Quando você está lançando uma nova aula e, pelo menos da minha perspectiva, projetando -a em torno de uma região, você ficou feliz com o resultado da aula do ponto de vista do design? _
J: Com a montanha da eterna atualização do inverno, tentamos melhorar nossa parte de contar histórias do nosso jogo, especialmente através das cenas. Adicionamos um novo sistema que mostra histórias de cenas um pouco melhores do que fizemos anteriormente, o que eu senti que era um pouco sem brilho de nossa parte, em termos de tradição e narrativa, e para esta montanha de atualização eterna no inverno, isso foi Nossa primeira vez implementando esse novo sistema; portanto, embora houvesse pequenos problemas menores, definitivamente sentimos que havia um potencial em nosso futuro como este ou em termos de contar histórias, usando este sistema e a ferramenta que criamos.
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_A: Eu quero falar um pouco mais sobre Drakania, a aula. Quando você está desenvolvendo um novo personagem, quando a decisão é tomada para tema o personagem com o conteúdo que você está lançando? (Por exemplo: hashashin sendo muito deserto temático) _
_J: Então, na verdade, o conceito de Drakania veio antes da montanha do inverno eterno. Para explicar um pouco mais, acho que isso vai voltar antes quando Drighan foi libertado. Então, muita lista, muito envolvia a história, mas havia dois tipos diferentes de dragões no Lore do Drighan. E daquela tradição, fomos capazes de desenvolver personagens como Guardian, também Drakania, que são os herdeiros daqueles dragões que aparecem na tradição. Então a montanha do inverno eterno também estava conectada ao Lore. Portanto, não pensamos necessariamente que Drakania foi desenvolvida para a montanha do inverno eterno, mas a história está ligada.
_A: Você já teve um similar de interconexão de temas como este no passado? _
_J: Anteriormente, acho que em termos de contar histórias e loritamentos, estava mais envolvido em torno do mundo geral do deserto negro. Nunca foi sobre focar em classes de personagens únicas. Drakania estava um pouco mais focada na narrativa, e acho que no futuro, enquanto apresentamos a narrativa, cenários como Drakania podem aumentar. Já temos algum tipo de conexão entre as classes e personagens, como Musa e Maehwa, Striker e Mystic, e Ranger e Cavaleiro das Trevas, e Ninja e Kunoichi, todos têm suas próprias pequenas histórias por aí, entrelaçadas juntas.
_A: Então, juntamente com essas grandes atualizações, também houve mudanças tão recentemente quanto na semana passada para facilitar a compreensão da mecânica mais complicada ou complicada, especialmente para jogadores mais novos. O único exemplo que eu lembro de ver era o pó espiritual antigo. A descrição foi facilitada para que os jogadores possam entender como convertê-los em pedras dos Cafras. Há mais pontos de tensão que você sente pode ser mais difícil para os novos jogadores entenderem? _
_J: Então, não é como se tivéssemos um tempo para pensar sobre esses tipos de melhorias que poderiam ser feitas. Nós constantemente pensamos sobre isso todos os dias, todos os meses, todos os anos. Sempre que fazemos qualquer tipo de conteúdo, pensamos em como poderíamos beneficiar os jogadores. Por exemplo, mudamos ou renovamos todo o sistema de aprimoramento, para facilitar os novos jogadores.
Continuing on, it’s not just the enhancement system, we also change a lot of our UIs to make it more intuitive. As you mentioned, some of the changes in item descriptions recently. The revamped storyline was also designed in a way so that it will be easier for new players to follow up all throughout the questline and easily get up to Black Desert gameplay. The game has been a service for quite a while now. There’s obviously players who have been playing our game for a long time, as well as newer players. Our objective is to have these new players stay and enjoy our game for as long as possible. That’s why we implemented content like seasons and season exclusive equipment. I think it’s within our innate passive future to always consider what’s the best experience we can provide for players. I also wanted to emphasize that the Mountain of Eternal Winter update can be enjoyed from level 1. Right from the start. Most online games, whenever new regions are released, are mostly end content. We wanted to break the barrier here and just make it available so our players can enjoy our new region content.
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A: Talking about seasons, I know from personal experience, I returned to the game when seasons were introduced, and it helped so much in not only getting reacquainted with the game, but just being able to enjoy things at a comfortable level and pace. As you said, seasons provide a great experience for new players, and incentives are good for veteran players. How has your design philosophy changed with seasons now being a core part of the game?
J: When we first designed the season server, we had a lot of debates internally, and a lot of thought process behind it. Usually in other games, when you think about seasons, you start from zero. It’s starting all over without anything. We wanted to design it in a way so that the users’ progression has been kept and that their playing experience up to this point has not been wasted. At the same time, we wanted new players to be able to enjoy the game together with the existing players in harmony. Every season, we try to make it more intuitive, and will make improvements season after season. Implementing the season has indeed changed the way we design and plan new content. We saw that a lot of players are able to progress their gear and the speed at which they obtain gear has been increased dramatically compared to before. So we have to think in parallel to the speed that users are obtaining gear. We are definitely busy, more busy compared to before. We want to keep being able to provide good experiences to users where they can keep up with the best pace the game plays. I don’t think we are in a stale situation as a company, and we are adapting to the best pace of the overall gameplay environment as well.
A: One of those adaptations has been the introduction of Elvia (Hadum). It was great for me personally because I can just grind without leaving Heidel! The challenging thing about these new areas were the introduction of mechanics during the grind. What all goes into the design of different mechanics in different areas, making them into something interesting and fun?
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J: You’ve spent a lot of time on our game actually!
A: Yeah! I got up to Orc Camp. Was a little too hard for me, so I had to go back down to Nagas! But yes, I’ve played a lot!
J: So it’s not like one person thinks about all of these mechanics that goes into grind spots. We collect feedback from all different teams, not just from the program team or the design team, but maybe even the art team. ‘Maybe this spot is a little stale, I think we could add something special effects or gimmicks into it.’ Our purpose as a company, this kind of working environment is very natural work, which we take a collective feedback from all different teams and different areas within the company. So eventually we collect all these ideas and whoever's working on this but take all these collective feedbacks or ideas and if we put that up, the output is what you see in Elvia region right now.
I think ever since we designed the Attraxion dungeon, we started actively utilizing mechanics on grind spots. The program team and our team all did a really good job designing them. We’ve also been compiling our knowledge and our know-hows towards more mechanics and it’s been improving. Eventually, when we release the Calpheon Elvia region in the future. I think you’ll be able to experience improvements even more in terms of mechanics.
A: Lastly, you’ve been publishing the game in the NA/EU region for a little over a year now, and from a personal player experience, the transition was pretty smooth. It’s as if nothing happened, which is great! Are there any challenges you face now from that transition a year ago that are either new or still persisting?
J: We’ve had a lot of experiences in terms of transferring services, starting from Russia, Japan, Korean, and now, NA/EU. Whenever we do these takeovers to make service transfers, it’s difficult. É um monte de trabalho. But I feel like we have a lot of know-hows at this point, from all the experiences we’ve had before. I’m not sure, but I personally think that maybe Pearl Abyss might have the most experience in the world in terms of transferring services. So our objective, when we’re transferring services, is so that players wouldn’t feel discrepancy or disruption in their gameplay from the previous service to the new service. We also feel like in the past year, since we took over publishing. We’ve gained experience as a new service team. I think now is the time where we can try different, new stuff that we weren’t able to do before. Such as the Voice of Adventures, the offline event that we had [yesterday]. We want to be able to meet our players online, and do more person to person interactions with users. We want to try different, new things we haven’t tried before. If there's a [customer service] ticket, or someone has questions about the game, instead of just sending a reply through online or mail, we can visit them in the actual game, talk with them, and try to resolve their problems. So like I said, I feel like last year was a time where we tried to stabilize our service, but now is the time to upgrade our service.
A: I appreciate all of your time! For those that are reading this later on, do you have any words for the players?
J: I feel like this is always one of the most difficult questions during the interview!
Up until this point, we’ve one a lot of events, such as the Heidel Ball or the Calpheon Ball, and now the Voice of Adventure, which we plan to hold more in the future. I just want to keep listening to your voices!. Eu quero ouvir o que você tem a dizer. There’s big difference between knowing what adventurers are saying about the development of our game, and not understanding, not hearing them. It was a really good experience meeting all the users on VOA yesterday, an with this great experience, I hope to make a better game!
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