Silkroad Online Interview
October 19, 2007
- Although its name is somewhat inaccurate in that it had multiple
branches and included both land and sea travel, the famed Silk Road
trade route stretched thousands of miles between China and Byzantium.
As well, it carried various commodities. Along with the prized cloth,
jade, lacquer, ceramics, furs et al moved westward, while gems,
precious metals, glass and more went east. According to historians, the
height of its importance more or less coincided with the first century
of the Tang Dynasty, which dated from 618 to 906 AD. After that, a
period of instability led to its decline. Drawn by the riches passing
in both directions, bandits had always been a problem. With the Tang
armies forced to guard its cities and fight its rivals, the caravans
had to protect themselves, which became increasingly costly as the
robbers grew stronger.
Silkroad Online
takes place in a romanticized version of that period. An intriguing
massively multiplayer game combining elements of history and culture
with legends of the time, it offers players three roles and the ability
to switch among them. Merchants buy goods in one place and transport
them elsewhere to sell at a profit. Thieves prefer to take from the
rich and give to... well, usually themselves. Hunters are soldiers of
fortune who can be hired to thwart them, but obviously come at a cost.
We had been aware of the title, which entered commercial service in
Korea in 2005, since it was in beta. When we found out developer and
publisher Joymax had opened an American office, the time seemed right
for an interview with its General Manager, June Son, plus colleagues
Shan Howerton, Brian Gin and Jaeho Ghim.
Includes eight exclusive screenshots
Jonric: To start with a basic introduction, what's Silkroad Online's
underlying premise, and how does it drive the overall gameplay? Why has
it been successful, and who makes up the core target market?
June Son: Silkroad Online is set in ancient China and Eastern
Europe, revolving around the famed Silk Road trade route. Valuable silk
and other goods are carried by brave merchants through all kinds of
danger, and therein lies the crux of the gameplay. Players are able to
take on any role within the conflict, be it carrying the goods or
stealing them - and, unlike other MMOs, players can actually switch
between these roles at will.
Silkroad Online is a huge world
connecting multiple races, playing fields, cities and territories into
one. The game is one enormous streaming plain for players to explore,
uninterrupted, to their hearts' content.
The tried and tested MMO gameplay, combined with the huge amount of
freedom in character progression and high-end game roles, makes
Silkroad Online a big hit with its core audience of 16 to 30 years old.
Jonric: What other titles has Joymax developed? When did work begin
on this project, when did it launch, and how successful has it become?
June Son: Silkroad Online was developed in-house by Joymax in
Seoul, South Korea. Our company created several titles before that,
including ATROX, Tangu & Ulashong, Yorang, Little Fox, Age of
Wanderer, Final Odyssesy, JJibu, and Star Puzzle.
Silkroad Online started development in 2002 and went gold in South
Korea in 2005. The game has quickly grown around the world, starting
there and expanding to Japan, China, Taiwan and Vietnam. The
international version, which is now in over 200 countries worldwide,
reaches players all over in multiple languages. The game's success can
be observed in its frequently full servers, which are occupied on a
daily basis by 150,000 players.
Jonric: What considerations lead you to believe the game will appeal to players in the North American market?
June Son: Console games are very popular in the North
American market, and Silkroad Online is being adjusted to emulate that
fast-paced style. More content continues to be added so that players
may continue to be active and engaged in the game. Most importantly,
unlike many others, it's free to play, offering hours upon hours of fun
at an unmatchable value.
Jonric: How would you summarize the overall setting you've created
as well as its fit with the historical context? What's the gameworld
like? Is any of it instanced?
June Son: From the moment you start playing, you begin on one
of the starting trade routes, leading you to a world full of monsters,
thieves and legends. The history behind the Silk Road creates the
overall mythos of the game, but the quests and characters lead players
into the rich fantasy and stories that revolve around this period in
history.
Silkroad Online is a huge world connecting multiple races, playing
fields, cities and territories into one. The game is one enormous
streaming plain for players to explore, uninterrupted, to their hearts'
content. Only places such as dungeons will be instanced, allowing
players to delve further into a realm of new dangers and rewards.
Jonric: What are the main choices players make when they create their characters? What aspects can be customized?
Shan Howerton: When new users first create characters in
Silkroad Online, they have several options to establish the exact type
and the story each one wants to unfold. Currently, there are two
starting races, European and Chinese. With the latter, you have the
choice between several male and female avatars, each based on folklore,
with their own individual backgrounds for players to explore. The
former have a class-based system, allowing you to choose among warrior,
rogue, wizard, warlock, bard, and cleric (melee, caster, and buffer
types).
You can change your height and build, and decide which weapon and clothing to start with.
Jonric: How do skills fit into
the advancement system? Can a character theoretically master them all?
Are players able to reverse their choices?
Shan Howerton: With each race, you choose your own skills in
order to make your own unique build. The Europeans' class system allows
users to combine up to two trees as they see fit. Chinese characters
have all trees available to them with no fixed class, so that players
may make their own builds for a variety of powerful designs.
As you progress through the game,
you'll get a deeper sense of the story, as well as choose what path you
wish to take. Quests can be stacked and completed in parties There
is a set limit on the amount of skills you can max out, which balances
the more powerful abilities. You can easily remove any skills by doing
a re-allocation quest at level 20, or by visiting the Item Mall (our
real money micro-payment vendor) to pay for special potions.
Jonric: Since combat is obviously an important element, what are the key features and elements? How does PvP function?
Brian Gin: It's a big aspect of an MMORPG, and our game
offers a variety of methods for heavy and light combat. Users can join
guilds and have large-scale guild vs. guild battles, and fight together
in order to level up and get stronger.
Some players will want to engage in PvP to show off their skills, and
they can do so through our in-game system known as "cape wars". Basic
ones sold in every town allow a single user to fight other players
wearing them at will, with no penalty for defeat.
Jonric: Regarding the game's range of AI-controlled enemies, do they act intelligently enough to present a challenge?
Shan Howerton: During trade runs, hunters and traders will be
attacked by NPC thieves whose intensity and ferocity increases
proportionally to the value of the goods the players carry. Player
bandits also face their own risks, since NPC hunters will chase them
down as they try to run away with stolen goods. The NPC AI will always
give you an appropriate challenge for the risks you take, to keep you
training hard and improving your skills.
Jonric: How do items function in Silkroad Online, especially weapons
and armor? Is there a large selection players can acquire? Can
equipment be upgraded?
Shan Howerton: In the beginning of the game, you can choose
the armor and weapon for your character. All gear is separated by
degrees, from first to eighth. Each contains a style for the set plus a
range of required levels. There will be a variety of quests given out
to advance your character. Users can always buy level-appropriate gear
from town for something basic, or from other players in the stall
network for more advanced weapons and armor.
With our Alchemy system, players can utilize monster drops and the
stall network to upgrade their gear, using elixirs for leveling and
attribute stones to change and add stats. Doing so can increase
durability and attack power, or raise health and strength bonuses for
the player. For example, the seals of Star, Moon and Sun are the rarest
equipment that a monster can drop, giving your gear up to +5. Seals go
in order of power from Star to Moon to Sun, with each one giving a
unique glow to the weapons and shields.
Jonric: How would you describe the magic system? Would it be correct to assume there are actually two, one for each race?
Brian Gin: Our magic system is indeed unique for each race.
Chinese characters can create hybrid builds to combine skills from both
the physical and magical trees to cast both defensive and offensive
spells. European characters use a class-based system with one track,
limiting them to two skill trees as they level up. This gives players
the chance to use up to two different classes to their advantage to
form a unique build. For example, clerics can heal, buff and resurrect
players. Warlocks use dark magic to cast curses, drain HP to use as
their own, and summon dark magic. Wizards are "glass cannons" that can
cast an array of spells, but have limited defense.
Jonric: What type of death penalties do the players suffer, and is there anything different if you're killed in PvP?
Brian Gin: When players die in Silkroad Online, they lose a
small percentage of experience points and might drop an item in their
inventory. There are support skills or scrolls from the item mall that
players can use to resurrect others and return some of the experience
lost.
When a player kills another player, he gains "murder status," which
inflicts a broad variety of in-game penalties and restrictions. Players
with murder status will have a red name and can be killed without
penalty until they remove the status condition through death or
grinding.
Jonric: Is questing a significant gameplay element? And in a somewhat related vein, do you hold any events?
Brian Gin: There are quests in the beginning that include the
tutorial, teach basic aspects of gameplay, and introduce the player to
the storyline. As you progress through the game, you'll get a deeper
sense of the story, as well as choose what path you wish to take.
Quests can be stacked and completed in parties, allowing players to get
a better understanding of the world and to level with their friends.
Events are held seasonally on all servers, and give players a chance to win special equipments or additional experience.
Jonric: How does temporary grouping function? Are there ways to find parties easily, and to split up the loot?
Jaeho Ghim: Players are encouraged to party during their
journey in Silkroad Online. We offer an auto-match feature for players
to create and find groups, which can be up to eight members. Parties
have the option to share dropped items in order or based on dealing out
to the most damage. We have creatures and enemies appropriate for large
parties, offering more experience and loot for groups.
Jonric: What is available to
players in the way of longer-term organizations like guilds, and what
kinds of benefits do they offer?
Jaeho Ghim: Players can join guilds, participate in various
activities, and then form alliances called Unions. Guilds have a
five-stage system. In level one, any user can create a guild for half a
million gold, and invite up to nine other players. Guilds progress as
more users grind and donate some of their skill points and gold.
Features like emblems, nicknames and mercenaries are needed for job
wars and other guild activities.
Our main focus is organizing unique
game events to keep Silkroad Online fresh and entertaining. We include
seasonal item events where players get special drops from monsters that
can be turned into rare items Jonric:
What kinds of activities can players engage in when they're not
fighting? Does Silkroad Online have any form of crafting?
Shan Howerton: When not in combat, players can spend a large
amount of their time in town. All trades start in town where they suit
up and go to the appropriate job guild to team up with other gamers and
acquire needed items. Any piece of equipment, like weapons, armor and
jewels, can be upgraded using Alchemy, the crafting system given to
every player from the very start of the game. Through it, players can
adjust the stats of their gear, to upgrade them to a higher level.
Upgrades will give weapons and shields a more intense glow as their
levels increase.
Of course, the higher you go, the more risks are involved, but in
Alchemy, you never know what will happen. Upgrading plays an important
role in boosting the player economy through the stall network, which is
the trading system that allows players to see all the items sold in
every town at the press of a button. Players can browse page by page to
check for the best gear and needed pieces for their sets with ease.
Jonric: Are there many non-adversarial NPCs in Silkroad Online? What kinds of roles and functions do they fulfill?
Brian Gin: There are various NPCs throughout the game to
guide players as they travel through the different towns and embark on
quests from the Chinese to the European areas. These characters'
stories will revolve around the folklore from the world you inhabit,
and the dangers and adventure therein.
Jonric: What considerations have gone into the technology used on
the client side? Are you using any third-party applications? What are
the system requirements like? And what's notable about your servers?
Brian Gin: Since Silkroad Online was developed in-house, we
wanted direct control over the features of the game, and didn't license
any third-party technology. Players have a full 360-degree camera view
with extended zoom to see far away or close up in detail. There are two
other options - quarter view, which always stays level, and
third-person, which follows the player from behind.
The most notable visual feature of Silkroad Online may be bloom
lighting when it looks like your character is glowing. Even though the
game is fairly graphics-intensive, it will work well with modest
computers. It is optimal to have at least a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 512 MB
RAM, GeForce FX 5600 or ATI 9500, DirectX9.0c, and four GB of hard
drive space. The game will run on Windows 98 all the way to Vista.
June Son: Our server technology is optimized and secured for
handling players from all over the world. Currently, our maximum is
3,000 concurrent users for each cluster to keep reliability and
stability high; although our actual capacity is much greater than this,
we went for quality over quantity for our players' benefit.
Jonric: Since we're very mindful of how important a game's user community can be, how are you supporting yours?
Jaeho Ghim: We've just spruced up our website with new
features to spotlight the player community. Outside of an incredibly
active forum, we are regularly highlighting user-submitted content like
screenshots, fan art and tips. User rankings for all jobs are shown on
the main page, displaying the top stats for traders, hunters and
thieves.
We recently launched SUM (Silkroad User Magazine), detailing the Europe
expansion. The player community in the game is heavily based on guild
and union combat, as well as large trade jobs that require a number of
hunters and merchants protecting their goods from thieves.
Jonric: Looking forward to how Silkroad Online is set to evolve, what types of things can we anticipate over time?
Jaeho Ghim: Our main focus is organizing unique game events
to keep Silkroad Online fresh and entertaining. We include seasonal
item events where players get special drops from monsters that can be
turned into rare items when given to holiday NPCs. For example, players
can get a Gold Dragon Flag, used to boost power, by killing monsters,
picking up the jewel boxes that they may drop, then giving the box in
question to an NPC called "So Ok".
Fairly recently, we just completed a summer event that gave the players
extra experience and skill. We have recently started a screenshot
contest offering them the chance to win rare gear for submitting in
amazing images from the game.
Jonric: What kind of user is your game most likely to attract, and
how viable is it for those who only want to play occasionally?
June Son: Our core target audience is experienced MMO gamers
looking for a title with a unique historical backdrop and triangular
conflict. Since Silkroad Online started out with the choice to level up
on your own or play with people, it's perfectly suited for gamers who
want to dabble in the game for few hours a week.
Jonric: Is there anything else that you'd like to tell our readers
(e.g. have any important features or elements not been addressed?),
something you'd like to ask them, or any other closing thoughts?
June Son: We are always doing our best to improve the game in
order to satisfy all our users, and we wish to see more satisfied
customers in the future as we add more exciting content.
We also hope all our current and new players participate in the active
and growing community as their thoughts and opinions are important to
the future success of Silkroad Online.
One thing that appears to have contributed to Silkroad Online's
current success is its inclusion in the Game & Game World
Championship both this year and last. The competition, which will wind
up in the early part of December, has doubled in size to a total of six
titles. Our thanks go out to the Joymax quartet of June Son, Shan
Howerton, Brian Gin and Jaeho Ghim for forming a small but effective
and informative party to tell us about one of them.
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