S.U.N Interview: Gameplay Preview (11/13/2009)

The team focuses on improving the local service for North America and U.K users while S.U.N is a solid game. They take serious with the players' questions, answering the problem about the experience point gaining balance between Quests and Monsters Killing. However, they hope players continue to be forthcoming about what they think would improve the game. "The ijji forums are good for this." they said.

Battle Zone is a great creation! It allows players to create battle zones to clear a mission or level up their characters.Can you tell us why you build a system like this to make a distinction to typical dungeon or instance? And do rewards from Battle Zones depend on the Difficulty Levels?

Cheap SUN Heims is available here on Emygold.com

Webzen: We wanted to give players a venue for utilizing their character builds and customization. The Mission mode in the Battle Zone is great for completing AC requirements, while the PvP and Hunting modes provides the competitive outlet that players need. And yes, the rewards vary with the difficulty.
It’s great in that it gives players options for gaining achievements or just finding a change of pace from normal gameplay.

AC (Area Conquest) System is another social system in SUN. Where are these areas? Are there any special requirements needed to enter these areas?

Webzen: The Area Conquest system is S.U.N’s achievement and reward system. The S.U.N story is comprised of multiple chapters, and in each chapter, players explore a new part of the continent. During their normal questing and exploration, there are various goals that can be reached, such as rare item gathering and rare monster hunting.
As players complete more and more of the conquest, they can earn rewards along the way, such as Heim (money), enchanting materials, and special gear.
While the AC system might contain a few tedious moments, one of the great things it does is that it tends to create more social interaction. The vast majority of players blaze through the quests and story to level up, largely ignoring the Area Conquest. When they hit a point where they’re out of quests until the next level, that’s the time they go back and do AC, and they end up joining parties with lower level players and helping them get through the boss encounters. It’s a great way to bring users of different levels together.

We provide cheap SUN Heims.

We found a fan's suggestion in SUN forum: "...That is why I think the quest exp should be more relative to the quest itself. I also believe monsters should give much more exp as they are nearly pointless to kill the way they are now. Most people just run through everything and just kill the 1 monster they need for the quest, ignoring the rest. Why kill a monster for 25 exp if u can kill 1 and then talk to an npc and get 15k+ exp and money? I just think the balance here is way off." Is it true? Do you have any plan to make a balance on this problem? Or any advice for fans like him?

Webzen: Yes, we’ve actually put a lot of consideration into this. S.U.N is not a grinding game like many MMORPGs. It was designed with the idea that players would progress through the story and experience the most epic parts of S.U.N. without having to grind. The player brings up a good point though – I’m sure it’s strange to walk to a new NPC and receive a lot of EXP, while running through mobs that usually don’t aggro.
As I mentioned before, the quest structure and AC system tend to synergize very well from a social perspective, so it’s hard to change this part of the game without first considering game balance.
Still, we’ll continue to think more about how we can make these monsters more relevant to the game and eliminate a lot of the rough spots. It’s great that we receive these observations, and I hope players continue to be forthcoming about what they think would improve the game. The ijji forums are good for this.

So far as we know, there are total five classes in the game. Why haven't we seen the Shadow in the game now? When will the Shadow be added?

Webzen: We’re certainly aware that people are interested in the Shadow class. There’s a general schedule of how content will be released, and it’s important that we focus on providing things as scheduled. In the meantime, we’ll have a huge update in December that will be sure to keep everyone happy and occupied.

The game has a complete guild system. Can you give us a suggestion on whether a player needs to be a guild member or not? And why?

Webzen: One of the main reasons to participate in any MMO is the ‘Massively Multiplayer’ aspect. A guild is one of the best ways to meet and make new friends and enjoy the game together. Both PvE and PvP are generally more safe and stress-free when you know what to expect from your comrades.
In the future, Webzen plans to add something along the lines of a castle siege or territory wars, aside from the basic guild rewards. So, guild participation will be crucial for these features.

Please introduce your party system and tell us the benefit of partying.

Webzen: Whether you want faster quest progress, or more experience, partying up is definitely the way to go. I think most experienced S.U.N players know how necessary it is to complete quests and dungeon runs in a party. For a new player, it’s really important when you have to do things like hunt down a Post Captain or another specific monster for a quest. Other people might be doing the same quest, or someone might be running through each camp for their Area Conquest. There’s no point in taking turns hunting mobs like that, so party up and share the credit!

The voice system will be added into SUN offers great convenience while fighting. It is a great idea. Can you talk about the system?

Webzen: A voice system hasn’t been added to S.U.N. yet, but Webzen is still weighing the benefits of adding such a system to this version of S.U.N.

Webzen is a famous online game developer in the world. Soul of the Ultimate Nation has been run successfully in more than 30 countries. But I think it is a rugged way from developing to landing in North America now. Can you talk about some impressive difficulties you encountered during development? And how did you get them through whatever?

Webzen:The main difficulty is usually localization, but we were able to avoid that problem this time, as text localization was finished a long time ago. I think now the challenge is getting the best out of each team member to improve the service. It’s also very clear to us that while S.U.N is a solid game, there are so many little things that if improved, could make S.U.N an even stronger game in the genre. I suppose that in this sense, we are still in the process of localization, because the idea of fixing every single flaw, no matter how small, is something both strongly demanded and greatly appreciated by the North American audience.

Game development is a special work filled with creations, gathering a group of creative people. And they may have a creative life too. Can you share some little funny daily life stories with us?

Webzen: We have two stories share with you.
1. For birthdays, it’s a tradition for a fellow team member to buy a birthday cake and gather everyone to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ near the end of the day. Each birthday celebration consists of the following activities:

Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ poorly ><

Birthday person shares a short speech

Someone commands the birthday person to DANCE!

There is no dance ><

Birthday person cuts the cake and serves it

Coworkers eat cake with plastic knives or chopsticks because we always run out of forks.

2. On the first Fourth of July during the company’s existence, some of the American employees decided to have a barbecue to celebrate the holiday and share it with the employees from Korea. We had an illegal barbecue on the top floor of our building and set the potted plants on fire on accident—but no one noticed the following day. The food was good though ^^

 

I have seen many game companies’ offices. They look comfortable and like art collections room. Overall, they are great! Do you have some photos of your work place to show us?

Webzen:Here are some pics of our publisher office.: