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Rising Star
Codemasters' VP David Solari raises the bar with RF Online
LQGaming Services:: Is the game operating in North America only right now?
David Solari: No, it's currently in Korea, Japan and the Philippines as well. That's a wide range of countries.
LQGaming Services:: What have been some of the challenges you've encountered with an MMO that has been released in different cultures?
David Solari: Obviously, working with the developer [Korean based CCR Incorporated] we have a Korean translator on staff to help the work get done. To be honest, it's a unique game and the graphical style kinda sold itself. We knew it would appeal to some people but not everyone, but for the most part [people across the globe] have responded quite well.
We marketed RFOnline as you would with any MMO title. We did do a couple of specialized things, for instance, we went to a couple of Manga shows where they did a lot of Manga stuff.
LQGaming Services:: In your own words, what sets RFOnline a part from other games in the MMORPG market?
David Solari: Well there's very little out there, [especially] anything with a sci-fi futuristic universe. Obviously there's Anarchy Online, which is a good game, but that's been out for a number of years. RF comes in bringing new.
The unique things that each faction has - the summons the Cora have, the selection of weapons the Accretia have make the factions very original and fresh.
LQGaming Services:: Obviously not everything in the original game design plan makes it into the final cut. Was there any feature of RFOnline that stands out in your mind that had to be pulled?
David Solari: There were a few features we're still fishing for, that we're looking at for a future date. There was a text wrapping issue and things like that. They're not enormous [issues], the game is still playable without those but there are a few things we're going to add for increased depth.
LQGaming Services:: Do you have any plans to port any of your games to consoles such as Xbox360 or Playstation 3?
David Solari: Codemasters Online Gaming is evolving with a variety of MMO projects. Consoles are one area we're looking at quite closely - but we have nothing to announce at this time.
--Chris Wyatt
Check out our earlier GDC discussion
with David Solari about Codemasters'
anticipated MMO Archlord.
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