Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Westernizing Asian MMO's

I was reading about yet another new free to play Asian MMO. I've gotten into the habit of not bothering to take a look since I know how it will turn out. But the screenshots in this one seemed sort of pretty along with some cool mounts so I thought maybe...just maybe. But no, yet another open PvP MMO.

So I couldn't help but think "about darn time" as I read an interview with former Blizzard guy Patrick Wyatt, who is now one of the head honchos at En Masse Entertainment. While I realized En Masse would be the Western publisher of TERA, I hadn't realized the company was formed for the purpose of adapting games to make them more suited to the Western audience.

According to the interview, they will be enhancing aspects that Western players like, while de-emphasizing anything that doesn't work well here. They will be rewriting stories as necessary that might not otherwise translate well. And in the case of TERA, there will be PvE servers.

TERA is their first project. There are currently six races and eight classes planned. It will be releasing in Korea this summer, while the Western version is scheduled for some time in early 2011. Definitely one I'll be watching. And hopefully there will be other female armor options to cover up a little more *cough cough*.


4 comments:

Yeebo said...

The problem I have with a lot of MMOs that get ported in from other markets is that Asians (and perhaps Russians) seem to dig FFA/ non-level-gated factional PvP one heck of a lot more than I do. It will be interesting to see how well they manage to pull off adding PvE servers.

I wouldn't hold your breath about non-tramp armor though :-/

Jergis said...

-I kinda like the sleeves on the blue outfit.

However, i look absolutely dreadful in a g-string. Maybe as part of the Westernization of the games they'll include clothing options from my part of the country.

You know, coveralls, cut-offs and baseball caps with witty entries printed on them such as "I'm not as think as you drunk i am"...

Jergis

Aspendawn said...

lol *wonders what part of the country Jergis is in*

Yeah I know armor isn't likely to change, but geesh there's barely any at all.

Thallian said...

thanks for the info Aspen. And no, I don't think they will change their pervy ways just to cease alienating females from cultures that respect women.