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'Project W': Kakao & BlueHole Working on New MMO - MMORPG.com News
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
'Project W': Kakao & BlueHole Working on New MMO - MMORPG.com News
Kakao Games has announced a new partnership agreement with Bluehole to invest in a forthcoming triple-A MMORPG. Kakao has obtained the North American and European publishing rights to "Project W", the MMO's code-name. Bluehole is known for TERA and development on the new IP is being spearheaded by Hyung-Jun Kim, former Chief Art Director for NCSoft.
Comments
I thought the TERA shop was totally fine, at least when I played. One of the most fair for f2p I've seen, in fact.
With Kakao running it, though, after seeing BDO's shop and shady tactics and LIES, I won't be playing this new game.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Current Race Renders for Project EXA:
Cant find anything bout Project W maybe the merge :P
What many gamers didn't realized at the time when these renders are released (May 2015) is that Project EXA has already just lost its Action and Animation Director who has been working on it since 2012, Kim Duckyoung.
Kim was previously the Action Director and Lead Animator for Vindictus but all of his projects from 2011 to 2015 has been prematurely canceled or never released.
He eventually went to Netease and is responsible for designing the 7th character class for Revelation Online. Presumbly any new classes of RO after the NA CBT (2017 and beyond) will be his design.
"A game is fun if it is learnable but not trivial" -- Togelius & Schmidhuber
@zaberfangx, Tera has gender locks because they had to rush the classes out to stay relevant. Tera came out with non gender locked classes in the begining. The reason they have hard time making non gender locked classes these days is because every race and gender has UNIQUE movement, coding all this when you are adding new class takes TOO LONG to stay competative in the scene when BDO, BnS and whatnot was coming out so they rushed new classes animated n coded for the most played races by their calculation which is no surprise to be female gender and elin or high elf race. Tera is by fact one of the top F2P MMORPGs on the market.
It'll have decent PvP if it takes aspects from AA and Aion no doubt, these two games are one of the best PvP experiences you can have.
The thing is that Tera is in the mix and at some point Tera was considered one of the best PvE providing games aswell with Shandra manaya hm being one of the hardest bosses debated with The Lich King in world of warcraft. Potential is off the roof.
For the cash shop arent we supposed to be blaming it on the Publisher, not Developer? GameForge for EU did pretty much fk up the game in EU altho it was still more playable than Aion where they totally went n@zi.
EnMasse for NA did fine job with Tera NA and for the longest part of the game it was considered the least P2W MMORPG.
I'm not very familiar with Kakao, i don't like BDO so i didn't play it much, but from what i understand what they did already exists in Tera, like i can trade gold to someone so he can buy me stuff from Cash shop in Tera. All i know is that atleast it's not GameForge again or some shiet like Trion or Nexon and such. Speaking about publishers these days i don't think i can name any liked publisher name lol, atleast not from the big ones.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow, they're going big. Although too bad that they're jumping to the "Triple-A MMORPG" bandwagon. That phrase is too old.
It will be the players like you and me who will decide if it is a "Triple-A MMORPG".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
"“Project W” is a “next-gen” title being developed by former members behind Aion, ArcheAge and other big titles."
http://mmoculture.com/2014/06/bluehole-studio-tera-developer-receives-multi-million-investment/
"It is a next-generation MMORPG that integrates both popular game features and new entertainment trends aiming to provide players with new game experience."
http://2p.com/7256686_1/TERAs-Developer-Bluehole-Studio-Working-on-Project-W-and-Project-EXA-by-Nichole.htm
So we'll see if they succeed with all these supposed "new ideas".
But I can't believe nobody is talking about the most shocking news of this whole thing - that En Masse Entertainment is NOT PUBLISHING IT. EME is a subsidiary of Bluehole Studios, founded for the sole purpose of publishing BHS's games. Why is it not publishing Project W and why did they not publish Devilian? It seems to me that BHS is done with EME and not trying to make that company successful. Once TERA dies out they'll be content to let EME die along with it. It's rather shocking, especially considering EME hasn't done anything wrong that I can tell with it's publishing of TERA - all the problems with the game have been on the development side (and that includes cash shop item creation and payment model issues - EME has little say in that). I honestly think this topic needs it's own article.
Maybe because EME tries to be a good, Western styled developer and isn't willing to go as far down the route Korean devs want them to (like Kakao Games Europe and Trion have with their Korean imports). Maybe the Korean devs are tired of pushback and want to do things their way - the way us Western gamers hate. If that's the case, then they're already doomed to failure. If anyone has any other plausible ideas to explain it, feel free to let me know.
In the West, Kakao-Daum has already got the track record of successfully publishing Black Desert - so if Project W does come to the West and Kakao wants to publish it, BHS must find a compelling reason not to allow it.
"A game is fun if it is learnable but not trivial" -- Togelius & Schmidhuber
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Also TERA has been making boatloads of money the past several years. They're always on the top 3 or 5 lists. And with that money, BHS started 3 new games, this being one of them. So I don't buy the idea that BHS couldn't afford it. They had some other reason for doing it because from what I can tell, they're swimming in dough. They also as pointed out in the articles I posted, got investments for two of their games (this one and Project EXA) from outside investors two years ago. Why is Kakao suddenly involved if they basically had everything they needed already?
And the only game among three being released so far is Devilian - which Bluehole actually got from Ginno Games when it acquired the later developer.
I doubt the USD 13million investment in 2014 is sufficient for continue development of two AAA games which remained unfinished in 2016 (Project EXA and Project W).
It is quite possible that Project W can still be successful with the new investment from Kakao.
As for Project EXA, I believe it has gone into hiatus since there have been no news on it after the departure of Kim Duckyoung whom Bluehole previously counted on to develop the game's key feature of 'innovative combat moves and strategies'."A game is fun if it is learnable but not trivial" -- Togelius & Schmidhuber
The Reaper class in Tera looked to be an interesting combat role. However, to play it you had to be one of those weird Elin things. Err no.
Edit - and apparently the West got the censored version.
If all future MMORPS's are going to be made in China/Korea, then my MMORPG days will be spent in ESO until it shuts down...