November 21, 2013 at 14:56Mail.Ru Games changed ArcheAge model at the request of players
I think, many on Habré remember this post devoted to the economic model of ArcheAge in Russia. In short: the model with arches (game currency), announced for Russia, to put it mildly, caused a lot of controversy. A petition was drawn up by the Russian community with a request to use a different monetization model in the Russian version.
Today, I finally can talk about how it was and about the current state of the project.
The model was developed by XLGAMES specifically for foreign markets. Russia was to become the first country in which it will be tested.
In June, we received a description of the model with arches, which was supposed to be ready by the fall of this year. Significant changes were made to it during the development process, and a more or less final concept was ready in early September. At this point, we talked about the launched model in order to collect feedback from clans who played on Korean servers.
The model caused a lot of controversy. The players pointed to those things that were of concern to us. The reaction of the community was much sharper than we expected. Here, the effect of a large number of people enrolled in the CBT (at that time about 300,000 people) worked. Not a single new project in the Russian market has yet gathered such an audience before launch.
We faced the following choice:
The third option dropped quickly enough, as it required the support of two versions on both sides, especially the efforts of our partners.
The first option was understandable, but we did not like it. He was not well received by the community, and he remained very risky. The option required numerous iterations and long-term testing on our and Korean side.
The second option was less risky, but in October 2013 our brunches diverged greatly. It was impossible to take Russian localization and quickly transfer it to the Korean model, since the main developer resources required for this were busy working on updating the Korean version.
Nevertheless, we were inclined to the second option. According to initial estimates, such a transition should have taken about 6 months.
We began to deal with server configurations and discovered an undocumented setting that allowed us to switch the model to Korean (with the exception of part of the interfaces). As it turned out, all this time, a Korean programmer unknown to us maintained the compatibility of the Korean model and the arch system in the brunch for our territory. The prudence of this unnamed hero (we still think how to adequately thank him) saved a lot of time.
When we told our partners about this, they were surprised, and after checking, the estimate of the timing of the transition to the Korean model was significantly adjusted downward.
Total
ArcheAge in Russia will be launched with an economic model that is used on Korean servers. Now our partners are working on a version for our territory. The main task is to remove the “tails” from the arches in the interfaces and make sure that everything works.
Localization of the client for the closed beta test is already ready, and we hope that even taking into account the preparation of a large-scale update for Korean servers, we will be able to get the version for the CBT before the end of the year.
The start of the CBT is scheduled for late December.
PS: What should a Korean programmer get for an unplanned “switch” between versions? We accept offers!
Today, I finally can talk about how it was and about the current state of the project.
The model was developed by XLGAMES specifically for foreign markets. Russia was to become the first country in which it will be tested.
In June, we received a description of the model with arches, which was supposed to be ready by the fall of this year. Significant changes were made to it during the development process, and a more or less final concept was ready in early September. At this point, we talked about the launched model in order to collect feedback from clans who played on Korean servers.
The model caused a lot of controversy. The players pointed to those things that were of concern to us. The reaction of the community was much sharper than we expected. Here, the effect of a large number of people enrolled in the CBT (at that time about 300,000 people) worked. Not a single new project in the Russian market has yet gathered such an audience before launch.
We faced the following choice:
- modify the model with arches
- run korean model
- run both models (arches and korean)
The third option dropped quickly enough, as it required the support of two versions on both sides, especially the efforts of our partners.
The first option was understandable, but we did not like it. He was not well received by the community, and he remained very risky. The option required numerous iterations and long-term testing on our and Korean side.
The second option was less risky, but in October 2013 our brunches diverged greatly. It was impossible to take Russian localization and quickly transfer it to the Korean model, since the main developer resources required for this were busy working on updating the Korean version.
Nevertheless, we were inclined to the second option. According to initial estimates, such a transition should have taken about 6 months.
We began to deal with server configurations and discovered an undocumented setting that allowed us to switch the model to Korean (with the exception of part of the interfaces). As it turned out, all this time, a Korean programmer unknown to us maintained the compatibility of the Korean model and the arch system in the brunch for our territory. The prudence of this unnamed hero (we still think how to adequately thank him) saved a lot of time.
When we told our partners about this, they were surprised, and after checking, the estimate of the timing of the transition to the Korean model was significantly adjusted downward.
Total
ArcheAge in Russia will be launched with an economic model that is used on Korean servers. Now our partners are working on a version for our territory. The main task is to remove the “tails” from the arches in the interfaces and make sure that everything works.
Localization of the client for the closed beta test is already ready, and we hope that even taking into account the preparation of a large-scale update for Korean servers, we will be able to get the version for the CBT before the end of the year.
The start of the CBT is scheduled for late December.
PS: What should a Korean programmer get for an unplanned “switch” between versions? We accept offers!
