Atlantica Online: Localization and Balance Dev Journal

Stradden

The team at NDoors has sent along another of their bi-weekly developer journals. This time, Localization Coordinator Orion Al-Shamma-Jones discusses balance and how it is affected by localization from the Korean market to the North American.

The Viking stands, towering over his opponent. A mere Monk, he is less than half the Viking's size, but he stands his ground, resolutely holding the front line. With a feral yell, the Viking swings his massive axe down on the Monk's head. Again and again he strikes, the heft of his mighty blows apparent as he throws his entire body into the attack. He takes a step back, grin on his as he observes his handiwork.

And there the Monk stands, hardly a scratch on him. As his allies' spells slam into the Viking's surprised form, he smiles to himself. "I hope you pass away peacefully."

Read the Localization and Balance Dev Journal

ZippyChimp

 Tweaking numbers in a database shouldn't even remotely require input from the localization team.  At most it should take 1 person who knows both Korean and English to read a value in one database/changelog and edit the value in ours.

 

Even if the various character stats arn't saved in a database style structure, the numbers 0-9 have all be translated already and math is a language neutral langage.   It shouldn't be that hard to "Find/Replace 1000+X*.245Y with 840+X*.445Y" in a flat listing.

 

I've never really had a problem with the rarity of patches in AO so far, but this reasoning just makes me shake my head and wonder WTF the game code looks like.