Civilization Online MMO for Asia announced

[The_J]

Take2 has announced today a Civilization Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game for the Asian market.
Apparently this game will be developed by Firaxis together with the South Korean studio XLGAMES, under the leadership of Jake Song, who was responsible for the MMORPG "Lineage".
The new game is aimed at the Asian market and designed to be "online only".
Sadly no more details are give in the initial announcement.

For the forum discussion please see here.
Thanks to CivCube for this hint .

[Callonia]

If its for asia only, why is it announced here?

[The_J]

Because this here isn't a 100% American site .
We have also members from China, Japan, Southern Korea, Vietnam and probably some other countries in Asia .

[ilidiankid]

Originally Posted by The_J

Because this here isn't a 100% American site .
We have also members from China, Japan, Southern Korea, Vietnam and probably some other countries in Asia .

Always good to see globally minded fellow Civfanatics

[chrissifniotis]

Originally Posted by ilidiankid

Always good to see globally minded fellow Civfanatics

Here here, but I'm a little confused and interested; why is this only playable for the Asian market? I get that they want to increase their footprint in the Asia market, but whatever the gain I don't see how restricting CivOnline to Asia is such a good idea, especially if the fanbase seems to be mostly in North America and Europe as well as Asia.

[The_J]

Nowhere said that it's "restricted", I guess you can rather read it as "targeted at".
Does this make sense? Don't know.
But you have to see that there are 1 billion people in China, and quite an amount in the surrounding countries, and that this game is probably meant to be aimed at the people there, and not at westerners. The western population already got the Civ series. Which is sure also available in Asia. But like many people often like to point out, the Civ series seems to be eurocentric, with many european civs, a european tech tree, and some things more (e.g. design of great people). Which is less likely to attact people which don't have that much in common with that culture area. So if you want to get all the customers from there, you have to create something, which is more to their taste.
If you say "that can't be a too big difference", then you have to see e.g. World Of Warcraft. You know, they had to change the Skeletons in that game for China, because they have another cultural perception of Skeletons, as part of their ancestor worship.
While it might seem ridiculous for you, it's a big deal there.
And there might be also such differences in the Civ series (not about Skeletons), which also need a change for Asia. Who knows? I don't. But I guess they made some market research to find that out.


That's the serious interpretation.
The less serious interpretation is that they'll give Bismarck manga eyes and spiky hair, and you'll only be able to negotiate with Catherine from a position from where you see her panties. And since everyone here would go "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO", they say it's meant for Asia .

Take whatever interpretation you like .

[Voyhkah]

I wish I was in Asia. Is it good enough to have spent the last two months learning Mandrin?

[The_J]

We don't know yet, the development has only been announced .

[Maniacal]

Oh man this is going to be bad, but will it be worse than the facebook "game"?

Originally Posted by chrissifniotis

Here here, but I'm a little confused and interested; why is this only playable for the Asian market? I get that they want to increase their footprint in the Asia market, but whatever the gain I don't see how restricting CivOnline to Asia is such a good idea, especially if the fanbase seems to be mostly in North America and Europe as well as Asia.

Dude, don't worry, you won't be missing out on anything. Every "Asian market" spin-off MMO/Online game is a disappointing bastardization of the IP and gameplay it is based on. Its similar to the Facebook versions of games although not quite as bad. Its all about making money rather than deseigning a good game.

[Callonia]

Well then I'd wait for the trailers to see if this is worth poking firaxis about or not. xD

[paraszgyerek]

I think that the MMO "capacity" is much more bigger there - and the management seems want something that continously bringing the money with forms of DLC, time-credit etc... they seems not like the "create one game, sell once and let it mod/play forever" style at all. Even if I'm in the second "group"... :-)

[wujinlong]

It's interesting. ( 這是有趣的 )

[ZenReputation]

wowwwwwwwwwwww what about India?