Interview can also be found on our news section and I'll be writing up general reactions and all that jazz, which you'll be able to find on this page (http://lineage2.stratics.com/content/interviews/2006e3/) in a few days.
At E3, I had chance to sit down with members of the Lineage II team (even though Lineage II was not being shown at E3) and ask a few questions. Here were the members of the team:
Adam Davidson aka Rust (Producer)
Tim Tahn aka Ornery (Associate Producer)
Charlie Porter aka spam (Customer Service Team Lead)
Kelly Bickford aka Mistryl (Community Coordinator)
SweetChoch: With the recently wrapped up Lineage II Battle Tournament, was that an event that you guys had fun putting on and will you make this a repeatable event?
Rust: It was a very exciting experience for us, but Tim is the event team lead so I'll let him talk about it.
Ornery: We definitely plan on running this type of event again. Whether or not it will be a periodic event is still up in the air because we run the events on the weekend because that's the best time for the players, but we can't exactly eat up every single weekend for the event team.
Rust: In scheduling these events, we want do service to the event without running them dry.
SweetChoch: Are there any changes you'd make to the event or lessons learned from this past incarnation of the battle tournament?
Rust: Well there's always so many little things that you only get ironed out when you actually run the events.
Ornery:This past ruleset was designed so the competitors would be the "best" and highest level players on each server. In the future, we'd like to include some of the lower level players so the event would be open to more people. The amount of time that we had available for this event ruled out the possibility of internal server competition to determine who competes inter-server because we don't have the manpower.
SweetChoch: Since the NA players always feel like our voices don't get heard in the changes that get made Chronicle to Chronicle, can you name one thing that is coming in C5 that came directly from the NA market because NA players asked for it and not Koreans?
Rust: I can't talk about C5.
SweetChoch: OK, one thing in C4?
Rust: The pets that support soloing in C4 are something that came from NA player suggestions and concerns. These types of pets are not a typical Korean concept. The increase in the ability to solo is something that stemmed from the NA audience because in Korea, they are much more group oriented in terms of playstyle.
SweetChoch: OK so if this process of feedback occurs even when Chronicles are in testing, why is it that we basically get the build of a Chronicle that passes muster on the Korean test server, why isn't there simultaneous testing if we truly are supposed to have a say in some of the gameplay and game systems aspects?
Mistryl: We actually do send the ranting and comments that NA players make about the unofficial translations of Korean patch notes and what direction they think the game is going in and whether or not they think that's a good or bad direction.
SweetChoch: What's one change that you would make to Lineage II if you were a developer?
Rust: I would make no changes! (Interviewer's note: This response was followed by an enormous amount of tap dancing and hula hooping on the part of Adam until I tackled him to the ground and got him to finally say: improved ability to solo).
Ornery:Well I can't really talk about a change I'd make to the game but one thing that I did want to see improved that was recently addressed was the newbie experience. The improvements we've made to the game for new players finally addresses what I always thought we were lacking in the past. In fact, with some of the new changes and new player events/rewards, I actually had fun going back and replaying 1-20.
spam:: That is a loaded question. I plead the 5th. (Interviewer's note: spam is bigger than Rust so I didn't feel like tackling him).
Mistryl: I'd like to see more features built into the in-game replay system.
SweetChoch: It seems to me that many Lineage II players run multiple accounts. Have you looked into tracking those metrics at all and is that something you'll ever be able to share with the NA community like Korea shared the racial makeups across the servers, etc?
spam:: We could look at multiple account holding players but we don't. Lineage II players in general are ultra dedicated to the game. It replaces other hobbies. I think that trend is due to the hardcore nature of our players.
Rust: We actually have an amazingly high retention rate, I think in part because of the dedication of our players.
SweetChoch: You don't think it could be intertwined with the fact that people run multiple accounts because they have friends who played support classes who quit and gave them or sold them their accounts, so now that one person is running multiple accounts and it makes you look like you have a high retention rate?
Rust: Well sure, that sort of thing does factor into retention rate, but we're still doing very well even without that segment.
SweetChoch: Why aren't you showing Lineage II at E3? Is it internal company politics or did you feel it wasn't worth it to show Lineage II at E3 this year?
Rust: It was a company decision due to the amount of real estate on the show floor. As you can see by how many Lineage II team members are here, we do have a lot of enthusiasm and support for Lineage II.
Mistryl: We actually do have Lineage II trailers showing on a screen on the show floor at least. (Interviewer's note: They also did put up the C4 trailer on the big screen on the stage a few times.)
SweetChoch: What are your future plans for marketing Lineage II, especially since so many people have complained about retailers not carrying Lineage II?
Rust: We do plan on continuing our retail and online download programs and we're always looking at new ways to get Lineage II into our customers' hands. We don't have anything finalized for Chronicle 5 yet, but we are aiming at targetting certain demographics. (At this point I brought up some targetted marketing in movie theaters like Square Enix did with FF before certain movies that their target audience would probably go watch and he looked at me like I had 5 heads and said we entertain all ideas!).
SweetChoch: Are there any plans to open either a relaxed server or another european server?
Rust: That's something we're constantly evaluating, but we can't really discuss it. We have several options that we're presently evaluating, but we do try to implement solutions based on trends in our userbase, taking into account all of the business side that goes into opening a new server.
SweetChoch: Well with the trend you mentioned a few months ago with the huge influx of european players, wouldn't it make sense to open up a new European server?
Rust: I can't really go into it, and its our corporate policy not to discuss specific numbers.
SweetChoch: What's the highest level character any of you have on Lineage II?
Entire Lineage II Team In Unison: I don't talk about my character, its personal.
SweetChoch: There's been some recent backlash over Hero chat and people getting banned for saying things in Hero chat that they've been saying all long, can you comment on that?
spam:: When someone becomes a hero, they earn the privilege to speak globally to the entire game world. When you violate a rule in local, party, clan, or alliance chat, the chances of you getting reported for it is not very high because you're talking to your friends. But when you are talking to the ENTIRE GAME WORLD, the likelihood of someone reporting you for it is very very high. Sometimes our GMs will even be extra nice and break from policy when they haven't necessarily broken a rule and they've gotten reported for it and the GMs give the player a warning saying 'I know you're going down this road and I just want to warn you about this' which is NOT part of our policy to give warnings like that.
Of course, usually when that happens, it just degenerates even faster because the player's immediate reaction is 'You can't tell me what to do, watch this!' at which point, they do something that is really against the rules and we have to take action.
You don't get carte blanche to do whatever you want just because you're a Hero, and we've tried to be lenient with giving multiple 72 bans even for repeats of the same offenses by the same players.
Rust: I think part of it is that, like any new system, the players are testing the waters with the Hero chat.
spam:: Definitely. Also, the Heroes don't see it, but they get reported all the time for things that aren't violations. For example, sometimes they get reported for spam:ming hero chat with WTB or WTS. That's perfectly fine and we allow that. If you want to be the merchant hero, by all means, you can do that and we have no problem with it, but some players report the heroes for things like that, the Heroes just don't generally find out about it because they aren't breaking any rules.
SweetChoch: Farmers and Botters. Come on. Its still horrible, what gives?
Rust: We actually have a dedicated team whose sole job is to combat farmers and botters. We can't really go into any more detail than that because if we did, even with something like the size of the team, it would give those people an idea about what we are doing about them and how to combat the strides we've been taking. We have banned over 30,000 accounts.
spam:: In case you haven't noticed, I don't really post about that on the forums anymore because I found myself saying the same generic thing over and over again because we really can't talk about what we've been doing because that just gives the botters more tools to counteract what we've been doing about them.
SweetChoch: With the development of Aion, are there any plans of reworking the existing tools and procedures being applied to Aion's development to apply that backwards into Lineage II's development to speed up the process of localization for Lineage II?
Rust: (scratches head) I don't really know.
SweetChoch: With Eve-Online implementing integrated voicechat right into the game client, are there any plans on implementing that kind of system into Lineage II because I know on the NA servers, almost everyone uses some kind of voice communication and that would definitely be something that NA community would be interested in.
Rust: We consider all options. But it would have to be something viable for all of the territories, including Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China.
SweetChoch: So what does a producer actually do, especially for a game being developed in Korea?
Rust: I am THE DECIDER! You can think of me as the project or team lead, responsible for coordinating all of our different departments and also liasoning back to Korea.
SweetChoch: So what does Tim do besides crap in your office?
Ornery:I'm the 2nd in command who holds everything down
while Adam is off in Korea or otherwise occupied and I basically make Adam look good. I'm also the Event Team Lead.
And then something not from this interview, but from the speed dating event I attended at NCSoft's Hotel:
SweetChoch: Why don't you do something like the /level in DAoC for people who hit the level cap?
Rust: I'm unfamiliar with that system.
SweetChoch: Well my vision of it for Lineage II is if you've already done the class change quests on one character (or completed the third transfer quests or something like that), you can start a second character and be able to buy the class change quest items from an NPC that way you don't HAVE to redo those the level 20, 35, 37, and 39 class change quests AGAIN and AGAIN if you've already done them on other characters?
Rust: That is amazing idea! I will take it to Korea when I go there next month.
SweetChoch: I have been talking about that for TWO FREAKING YEARS! I want a screenshot of you taking that to Korea as proof its actually being talked about finally.
Rust: (laughing) Yeah well I'm still pretty new at running this ship so try not to blame me for something from two years ago. As for the screenshot, I'll see what I can do.
I'd like to thank the Lineage II team for taking some time out of their busy E3 schedule of hyping Aion all over the place (Xaen and Kyleran were also in attendance) to talk to me about Lineage II, Rust and Tisirin for being such wonderful dates and Mistryl for again being Mistryl and taking such good care of me and just being amazingly helpful and getting me to talk to all the people I wanted to talk to and finally posing for a photo!
Last updated: May 14, 2006
Thats really odd, I am in Europe and I have no problems at all with stratics (I have have multiple pages open at all times).
I am truly not sure why your pages aren't loading.
Go to you Internet Options, privacy, click "Sites", then type in "www.stratics.com" and click on allow, then type in "lineage2.stratics.com" and click allow.
And if that doesn't work, then try restoring your browser security to default.
Do you have some sort of blocker or otherwise installed? and what kind of browser are you using?
Tried on all PC's in my home with uh IE6/IE7FF1.5/NS7 and I don't use any blockers [oh noes dont hax me!] :)
Its prolly more because stratics is usually atrociously slow for europeans. Notice how Oxin in this thread is from my country as well, heh.
Did it happen on all the pages including the forum page? The forums are on a separate server so even when people have problems with the main pages, the forums should work....
And that was putup after taking the redeye back to Boston! At least this time I remembered to bring my jacket because the trip back is always amazing and cold in comparison so I didn't get soaked in the rain this morning.
But yeah....if NCSoft really decides to boycott E3 and they setup an alternative convention on the East Coast....wait a minute, I think they may be onto something here!
But yeah....if NCSoft really decides to boycott E3 and they setup an alternative convention on the East Coast....wait a minute, I think they may be onto something here!
Rust: We actually have a dedicated team whose sole job is to combat farmers and botters. We can't really go into any more detail than that because if we did, even with something like the size of the team, it would give those people an idea about what we are doing about them and how to combat the strides we've been taking. We have banned over 30,000 accounts.
That team of people should be fired and never allowed to work at another game company again. NC, do you pay this team? If so, you're getting ripped off.
Its actually something that Bush said...Daily Show just made fun of it.
That was a good interview, but i´m missing one very important detail.. the pictures!! i want pictures of them!!
I only took a picture of Mistryl. One thing I did find kind of funny, you could tell who all the higher ups at NCSoft were because they didn't have NCSoft shirts on (Rust and Tisirin didn't). Maybe next time I'll ask for a group photo of the entire L2 team, but that would've kind of completely shut down the NCSoft booth supporting Aion :)
And yes, pictures are coming, but I took the redeeye back last night/this morning and still have more stuff to write up (the picture will be going in the editorial i'm going to write) and I have other things to write up for other NCSoft games, the speed dating, LoTRO, and all that other stuff. Which by the way, if you wanted to see what I wrote about the other NCSoft games so far (Aion, Dungeon Runners) you can see the articles at http://www.stratics.com/content/portals/e3/index.php. (http://www.stratics.com/content/portals/e3/index.php) I had some fun talking to Sarge again since I screwed up some names in my initial write up of Dungeon Runners but she was all over that like me on the Lineage II team and got me to correct it already :)
Rust: We actually have a dedicated team whose sole job is to combat farmers and botters. We can't really go into any more detail than that because if we did, even with something like the size of the team, it would give those people an idea about what we are doing about them and how to combat the strides we've been taking. We have banned over 30,000 accounts.
That team of people should be fired and never allowed to work at another game company again. NC, do you pay this team? If so, you're getting ripped off.
Agree. 30k account by $40 per account is $1.2m, or $600k per year. Unless it is one-person 'team', NCsoft spends more on it than gets in return.
I wanted to say thank you again to Choch and Stratics for taking the time to talk to us at E3! I also had the chance to meet L2Girl at E3, which was a lot of fun, and other Lineage II players also stopped by the booth. And then there was the swarm of Lineage II players at the Meet and Greet... :) All around it was a great time!
I am anxiously waiting to see what picture of me is posted...
I wanted to say thank you again to Choch and Stratics for taking the time to talk to us at E3! I also had the chance to meet L2Girl at E3, which was a lot of fun, and other Lineage II players also stopped by the booth. And then there was the swarm of Lineage II players at the Meet and Greet... :) All around it was a great time!
I am anxiously waiting to see what picture of me is posted...
Hey!!!
I was so geeky, but thanks for putting up with me, hon! Poor Rust! Was he blushing? And Tisirin was a doll, too! What a great team!
*waves at Rust* Howdy sweetie pie! *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*
*waves at Tisirin*
*waves at the other L2 posse members I can't remember handles for!!!*
Hmm...was that Sarge at the Dungeon Runners booth?? I didn't think to ask, but there was a very patient, attractive, and funny woman who helped me get started, then put up with me when I came back the following day to play some more! :) ****, if that was Sarge and I didn't get my picture with her!!!!! :mad:
So, it's okay to post the pictures I took, Mistryl? You looked GORGEOUS, girlie girl! I really think NCsoft had the best booth "babes" -- all attractive, all hard-working, and all extremely awesome at promoting the company and their games.
Aion, btw, is aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesome. Oh my freakin god. :D
Tabula Rasa = holy smokin BBQ! Marry me, Richard, kkthxbye!!!
Sarge didn't attend E3 or the OC Meet and Greet this year, or I would have gladly introduced you!
I don't mind if you post the pictures you took at the show. :)
Well, please let the lovely lady from the DR booth know her hard work was noticed. Really nice gal.
Alrighty, when I get home, I'll unpack my gear and get my pix up. There weren't many...hmm...I need permission from Rust as well (he was in the shot with us!) :)
Don't know if she or Choch mentioned it, but L2Girl is one of our 2 newest awesome additions to the stratics staff. (well, technically just one, since the other one lacks approval yet).
Hmmm, I am on a totally different connection at another location (and I lost remote access to my main machines), and for some reason the stratics main sites aren't displaying either like posters describe above. The forums however are displaying nicely.
Don't know if she or Choch mentioned it, but L2Girl is one of our 2 newest awesome additions to the stratics staff. (well, technically just one, since the other one lacks approval yet).
I'm having some serious issues connecting as well and I never have before. Is there too much load on the servers at the moment?
Its not the server load or anything like that as far as I know. Last night it was only main pages/portals that weren't working for most people but the individual static pages (such as the interview and editorial) were working fine, which is one reason why I put those pages up like that instead of simply as "news" articles. Its a network wide problem, not just on l2's site and we're looking into it....The forums work just fine still, and the interview is at least on the forum...but I didn't put the editorial on there....if the demand is high enough I may reformat it and try to squeeze it in...