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Silk Road Online: GNGWC: Interview with Jung-Hun Kwag
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
We speak to Jung-Hun Kwag of Joymax about the progress of the MMORPG they launched this year to a gloabl audience from the GNGWCs in Suwon, South Korea.
;) The game is free to play, but allows players to buy things like accelerated experience gain, pets, potions, scrolls, character customization and other non-essential parts of the game. Most of which, added Jung-Hun Kwag of Joymax, were available for free players to earn as well.
"It's a matter of convenience," explained Kwag. "Our system is about freedom of choice." They insist that it is possible to anything any other player does in the game without ever investing a cent, it will just take a little bit longer. For this reason, they believe their game is fairly advertised as free. |
Read more here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Silkroad is not a bad game but there is alot of room for improvement. As far as the updates, it seems like the English Only severs, which they call the global severs, get's almost none of the updates that the Korean servers get.
Here's hoping the next big update is just that, a big update, like Eruope or the job system upgrade.
Well I am excited they are going to improve things in a few months, I would imagine a new area of battle/new country, which is equally exciting. They have already goine to great lengths to fix the LD, disconnects and keep the server updated once a week. I started about 4 months ago and I am totally enjoying the game and challenges. I look forward to more changes and I am glad to hear this.
They also have added 3 new servers since I have been playing which is a good thing.
I like SR because you are self sufficient in soooo many ways that other games are not, You have access to multiple duties, choose your own skills, and invest your character skills each level, making it more interesting each level making you more powerful. Dont get me wrong but having been a serious gamer since I was a kid, a 7 year vet of EQ that I so loved once and I tried a few other games, this one holds my interest and shows more promise than all of them for now. You are so much more self sufficient and not dependent upon others to play the game for a couple of hours (if thats all you have) or all day or afternoon whatever floats your boat.. FREEDOM. Having the ability to get together with groups, guild or just log in for a few hours really suits me with my busy schedule. You can auto join parties as well, for extra experience, you can solo successfully, if you wish and just so many choices that other games do not have. You can also set your macros to heal you and mana potions as well so you dont have to deal with self healing, yoiu have the ability to rez as well.
I am all for this game and lots more improvements on the horizon makes me happy.
I play SRO and its pritty good i would prefer if it has more quest and PvP areas, it reminds me of guild wars for some reason. plus it would be awesome if you could make your face difrent . i guess ill have to see what the future brings.
all and all i thing Silk Road Online is a great game but i still think it could do with a couple upgrades and such
Swany666
Swany666 Is Ready To Pwn
But its not that common you challenge someone using this Scrolls as they cost RL monney and only work for 30 minutes so it have only a minor effect on game Expirience. So yes, you can Play Silkroad for Free and have fun doing so without fearing the paying Player will pwn you all time. Of course the Silk Items (Silk is the Game Currency you have to Purchase for USD) Give Advantages like a Pet Script that collect the Dropped Items from Enemys you killed and the Items of other Players too if they not pick it up fast enough or the Ability to switch the Gender of an Item you would like to use but can not as it have the wrong gender requirement. You can also double the ammount of recived Expirience and Skillpoints to level up twice as fast as a not paying User.
However this truely great Game have some flaws. You can argue its free to play so what can you demand ?
Well its not only the non paying Players that confront with this Problems.
1. It is hard to loggin at Peak Times. Its not uncommon you need up to 15 Minutes bevore you able to connect on Server. And even if you made it there is a good chance you get a disconnect right after the first few minutes.
One really annoying thing is when a loggin fail there is a high chance the whole Programm close and you have to restart it again. This can drain your Patience and relaxing a lot.
It would so easy to implement a waiting que where Players who want to join get in line and as soon a free Place apears the first in que will get it. But Joymax is not considering this and torture us with the flawed loggin procedure.
The other real flaw are Bots and Powerleveling.
Companys located in low cost Countrys employ Kids to perform 16 hours a day the same routines in Silkroad in order to Level up the Charackter from a rich Kid in Europe or USA for RL Monney. If someone really believe this Job is fun for the Kids or a cool way of life need a reality check. However just as someone became highlevel "over night" this dosnt kill Silkroad
Thats even more worse
Automated Routines can take controll over an ingame Charackter without a real person play it required anymore and this routines are never getting tired to do the most boring taskes killing Monsters and collect gold and Items.
This Items and in most cases Gold are being sold for RL monney on rich and desperade Kids in Europe or Usa.
Due this Flooding with Gold the Marked is inflating and all Items become more and more expensive, making it really hard for not Bot using or Gold buying Persons to aquire Top Level Items. This behaviour is devastating the the economy and devalue the game expirience from SRO
Due Rumours there are only 3 Game Masters for 12 Servers , every Server containing a few thousand Persons on Peak times. You will say again, hey its free so what you expect ? Again this affect also Player who pay regulary for Silkroad. Silkroad is being sponsored by Yahoo and the Income from Item mall.
The Europe Publising Partner Joymax does ignore the massive Bot Problem. Trough the leak of controll and punishments against bots Silkroad is one of the most bot friendly Games ever.
This Bots and AFK stalls that sell Player ITems while the user is sleeping or doing something else create the Problem of too full Servers and the hard Loggin. Again there is no improvment in sight.
A third and maybe one of the most important Things thats flawed is the Leak of Information and communication between Joymax and us. The communication is bad and whatever you say on the Forums it will sink down in the nirvana
Apart from this flaws that have a seriously negative impact but dont kill all the fun silkroad have a great potential and an addictive gameplay that bring out the collector and PvP tactican in you.
The Community is really international but sadly a not too small ammount of underaged kids play this game too and because they not know better yet they behave like an axe in wood flamming scamming begging and acting stupid in any way you can think about.
The Frequency of Updates , compared to localized Version of SRO for example in Korea, is kinda worse. The most Players looking forward for new Level grounds a revised job system and other improvments the localized versions allready have for months now.
Lets hope they dosnt let us wait too long