japan posts

The somewhat European inspired fantasy MMO The Chronicles of Spellborn is shutting down its Japanese service, causing a stir of worry and discussion about the title's future in other territories within the community at large. To make matters worse, the one person who could've cleared up any confusion, TheHistorian, is no longer with publisher Acclaim as community manager for the game. Given that he was the sole link between the community and developers, it's no wonder people are feeling a bit unsettled by the whole affair.

While the closure of The Chronicles of Spellborn Japan isn't a good thing, it doesn't necessarily spell out a dark future for the title. A business deal could've gone sour, or perhaps the audience in Japan just wasn't strong enough to maintain the title. Just in cast something does happen, however, we'll be keeping an eye out for any further development.

With Final Fantasy XI entering its eighth year of operation and Final Fantasy XIV just around the corner, fans of Square-Enix have plenty to be excited about. But there's even more good news -- the company has just announced VanaFest 2010, the official fan gathering for the game, on February 28th in Tokyo.

The official announcement, mirrored on Pet Food Alpha, makes a strong point that there will be a great deal of information about upcoming job changes and game updates coming for Final Fantasy XI. It seems that even with its big brother on the horizon, Square is still committed to its older game, a welcome sight for many fans. There's also an undisclosed "special announcement" rumored to be coming at the convention.

Pet Food Alpha also has a few additional pieces of information. The tickets for the event will be free of charge, but will only be available to players with an active Japanese POL ID since December 2008. Attendees will be lucky enough to receive the pictured chocobo cap, while those unable to attend will have to be content with the new information coming out of the convention. With any luck, a similar event will be held for American and European players, but even just knowing that new facts are incoming for the game should be enough to get fans worked up.

Let's just get this out of the way right off the bat -- there is no word on a Hellgate game release for, or return to, any of the Western markets. Still, some of us quite enjoyed playing Hellgate: London or saw the potential in it, and would like to see this happen. Back when Hellgate: London was new and held some promise as a good mix of horror and sci-fi, a few of the writers here envisioned how the game might expand if it were successful. Monikers like Hellgate: Hong Kong, Hellgate: New York, and such were mentioned. As was Hellgate: Tokyo, only it seems this one is actually going to happen... for Asia.

Our Korean is rusty non-existent but the (very brief) Hellgate: Tokyo teaser indicates a 2010 release. Fans of Hellgate: London -- we know there must be a few of you out there somewhere -- can find the video over at GameTrailers.

The sci-fi massively multiplayer online title EVE Online is very much a game of galactic conquest. In that spirit of world domination, CCP Games has been working on establishing the title's presence in both Russia and Japan. EVE developer CCP Caedmon is part of the company's localization team, and has written a dev blog titled "Machine Translation's Bad, M'kay?", dealing with CCP's efforts to reach out to Russian and Japanese gamers.

Both Japanese and Russian localizations of the EVE client are now up on the Singularity test server. By all indications, the Russian client's localization is further along, as CCP Games opened up the client for public testing in 2008. However, they're interested in pushing ahead with Japanese localization as well. CCP Caedmon writes, "We know there is a highly dedicated community of Japanese players out there who have been with EVE since the early days and we are excited to hear your feedback."

For more on the status of EVE Online as it applies to other markets, see CCP Caedmon's "Machine Translation's Bad, M'kay?".

The potential for having a hacked game account clearly goes hand in hand with online games, regardless of which country you're in. Japan is taking aim at this particular issue through a rather significant partnership with Visa International, reports Nicholas Aaron Khoo for CNET Asia.

The Japan Online Game Association (JOGA) has pushed for the industry-wide adoption of Verified by Visa by year's end. Verified by Visa uses SSL encryption as part of its Three-Domain (3-D) Secure platform, and it's hoped that establishing this industry standard will reduce the frequency of stolen accounts. Khoo writes, "According to JOGA, Verified by Visa has already been implemented by over 60 percent of online gaming companies in Japan -- the highest among any online retail and service provider industry categories." You can check out the full story in Khoo's "Peace of mind for Japanese gamers?" as part of his Geekonomics column at CNET Asia.

[Via PlayNoEvil]

What's it like being stuck in the Japanese equivalence of a Korean cybercafe? Apparently, it's like hell, or at least it was for one gamer who wrote an article on Eurogamer discussing his several-hours within just such a place. We began reading the article with a twinge of inner pain as the place is described in such a way that would make anyone feel claustrophobic. Not very far into it though, you'll learn about some of the oddities of Japanese MMO players and their tendancy to be really, well, obsessive compulsive.

We're not gonna lie, the typical Japanese MMO game and player scares the living daylights out of us -- mostly because they seem like machines. And we all know what happens when machines start posing as humans, right? The entire world is either bombed, or the human race is enslaved and sent back into time repeatedly until a paradox destorys time itself. Bad stuff.

The AP reports that a Japanese woman who had an online-only marriage with a Japanese man has been arrested for taking unlawful action against his avatar. We were talking about this sort of thing only this-morning, actually. You might want to refer back to that.

When her online hubbie broke off the relationship, she retaliated by using her ex's password to get into his Maplestory account and deleted his avatar/character there. AP doesn't say what the charges are likely to be, but we can take a good guess. It passes the dishonesty and deprivation tests (Dishonest appropriation of property with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it), so that's criminal theft right there. Likely "destruction of property" will also be added as a rider. At the very least, we imagine that unlawful accessing of a computer and illegal data manipulation will wind up on the list.

The 43 year-old woman has been remanded into custody in Sappporo, the jurisdiction where the 33 year-old man lives. AP says that she may face a prison term of up to five years, or a fine of up to US$5,000, though without any formal charges being laid, that seems a touch premature. Though the AP also bandies about the terms 'divorce' and 'murder', both of which are clearly inapplicable to the current case.

There's a thread over at NeoGaf reporting that Japanese game publisher Koei, which is famous for its Dynasty Warriors beat-em-up/battlefield-strategy hybrid games, might be developing an MMO. The company's Tokyo Game Show page was briefly updated with an entry for an MMO title for both PC and PS3. When the mistake was caught the entry was immediately taken down. Fans of Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are very excited. Everyone else can probably move on, because Koei has done pretty little that wasn't at least mostly the same concept as one of those.

Also, our friends at PS3 Fanboy have celebrated the launch of the free-to-play Asian PS3 MMO Angel Love Online (a veritable cute fest, that one) by writing up a guide to getting the game running for non-Japanese users. Angel Love is currently available only through the Japanese PlayStation Network store, but that sort of thing has never stopped anyone smart and resourceful, has it? If you succeed, you'll get to play it entirely in Japanese! Oh, yay! It looks very Secret of Mana-esque.

Due to the language barrier, most Western PS3 owners will probably want to wait for The Agency, Free Realms, and DC Universe Online, but if you can't wait, here you go. And remember, if seeing Japanese culture Lost in Translation is what you want, there's always TV. In Japan. Read on below the cut for a look at Angel Love Online.

No, not actually for the prevention of virtual disasters. The Daily Yomiuri tells us that the Japanese government is planning a virtual museum in Second Life focusing on disaster prevention in order to promote awareness of disaster management and techniques and technologies to mitigate the impact of a wide range of disasters.

Initial exhibits will demonstrate how non-earthquake hardened buildings respond to seismic events, and the impact of tornados on urban settings. Unfortunately, we think that it's unlikely to include such disasters as Godzilla, Orga, Mothra or Rodan.

Nonetheless, the potential educational benefits of such an installation are hard to deny -- the impact and effects of natural disasters can be almost inconceivable to those who have not directly experienced such events or their aftereffects themselves.

Gamasutra is featuring an insightful piece on the challenges and pitfalls of Western game developers looking to move their games to the extremely productive Eastern gaming markets. China, Japan, and especially Korea are world-renowned for their appreciation of videogames, and recent years have seen a number of Eastern games make the move to Europe and the US with varying degrees of success. According to article author Tim Allison, a key to addressing new marketplaces is to not only localize content and design but business models as well.

Allison runs through a number of points in this space, covering issues like console success in the region, the almost mandatory nature of online distribution, and the always-thorny issue of monetization. Possibly most interesting is the author's statement that the Korean marketplace "made" the MMO genre. "The South Korean government, both through its late 1990s subsidies for game development and rollout of the broadband network, became the key driver of this segment. Even in 2008 where overall the Korean MMOG content is not up to its usual high standard the Korean companies are still setting the industry terms."

It's always a thrill when one of your favorite game-developers announces that they're working on an MMO or virtual world or when a developer takes on one of your favorite properties. Developer Headlock is well along on one such virtual world now.

Japanese developers are working on a number of virtual worlds (which we hope to get more of a handle on over time). This one, ai-sp@ce, is set in Akihabara and will also feature characters from Visual Novels Clannad (????), Shuffle!, and Da Capo 2 (D.C.II). Yes, it's the world of Japanese Visual Novels come-to-life in a 3D virtual world!

Author Michael Crichton's entire body of work can be summed up in the phrase 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should'. Similarly, it might be possible to create an MMO that will operate on cellphones and be an interesting enough game to justify the cost of producing it, but why bother? Sure, Japan is famous for their cellphone usage, which includes all manner of non-call related diversions, but can you imagine trying to grind levels between home and work?

Actually, depending on the length and duration of your commute, you might find that prospect intriguing. But if the scenario of having your call suddenly drop after wandering outside of the range of a tower, just as you're trying to take down a boss as part of a 10-player raid doesn't frighten you -- then you must work for John Carmack. Cellphone MMOs: need it, or pass it by?

As a part of a sweet nod to Valentine's tradition (or perhaps more technically to ????? - giri-choko), the Japanese Pocky people, Ezaki Glico Company, are holding a festival on their new Pocky island in Second Life. The Pocky festival runs all the way until White Day (??????, March 14).

Popular Japanese ska girl group, Ore Ska Band (???????) will be playing on the island 29th of Februrary and 1st of March at 7PM and 10PM - though we're not sure which side of the dateline or which timezone that's in exactly. We'd figure Japan Standard Time so you'd be looking at the day before, japanophiles. That's the safe way to play it. If it turns out to be in SLT (US Pacific) you've at least not missed it.

Earlier today we discussed interviews held by Mr. Chris Chung, the new president of NCsoft, with 1up and Game Informer. Massively also had the pleasure of talking to Mr. Chung about NCsoft as a company, and we came away with a few interesting tidbits about the future of the world's most diverse MMO publisher.

In our discussion with Mr. Chung, we primarily focused on the future of the MMO business. We talked about where the future products like Exsteel and Aion fit into the company's stable of games, and examined a bit why NCsoft has been historically so open to alternative business models. Mr. Chung also hints at future plans for the company aimed at younger players.

I particularly found his discussion of possible future ideas for their well-known superhero title City of Heroes intriguing:

Massively: You said that you don't forsee bringing newer business models to subscription games; there's no interest in applying that to a game like City of Heroes?

Mr. Chung: In terms of games like that, the issue is finding out what the players actually want. We need to make sure the players have ways to access the game the way they want. Instead of saying "here's a half-finished product and you're going to pay for the other half" ... if we do offer microtransaction items for City of Heroes we need to ask the fanbase directly what they want that isn't already in the game. We need to figure out what they want, what they'll pay for, before we offer it to them. As we explore this we need to carefully tread this water.

Read on for more of our conversation with NCsoft's new president.

Always on the lookout for new opportunities, criminal elements have been interested in MMO players for some time now. A great 'in' to credit card records and personal information, player accounts are also ripe with virtual goods that can be easily liquidated into in-game currency and then resold for real funds. A warning last year about hackers interested in World of Warcraft accounts has been mirrored in recent weeks by researchers cautioning players of Korean and Japanese titles.

Security software groups Ahnlab and Symantec have both seen increased reports of criminal hackers working to gain access to eastern MMOs in recent months.

For more on this subject, the site SecurityFocus has up a recent interview with the writers of the book Exploiting Online Games, discussing the reality of security research as it pertains to Massive titles. The authors indicate that MMO development houses are still a ways off from fully appreciating the dangers of lax security measures managing these systems.