RF Online Wrap Report

The Accretian Empire is an autocratic regime where independent thinking is unknown. Its citizens are completely devoted to the welfare of the collective, a quality characterized by their willingness to lay down their lives in the service of expanding its borders. Not that they die easily; indeed, being a mechanized race and carrying immensely powerful weaponry, its soldiers are extremely formidable opponents, possibly the most fearsome within the known reaches of the galaxy. Made up of many jurisdictions, the Cora people's Holy Alliance has also known many wars, invariably fought in furtherance of the deeply held spiritual convictions that unite them. Their considerable strength in battle is drawn from their faith. They make use of potent magic derived from their devotion as well as a selection of traditional armaments made even more deadly by adding the blessings of their deity.

CCR's RF Online is a persistent state world offering a total of three playable factions. The last, but not the least, is the Bellato Union. Typically short of stature due to the gravitational forces on their home planet, its members are very capable both physically and intellectually. When facing the prospect of hostilities, they can deploy a variety of armored mechs. This is not an infrequent occurrence since the race is constantly searching for new resources it can exploit, by force if necessary, in pursuit of its ambitious primary goal, economic domination of the cosmos. Last year, Codemasters announced its intention to offer the title in the North American and European markets. Following up on its release in the first quarter of 2006, Associate Producer Michael Rowland and Community Liaison Officer Kyle "Laeth" Rowley share their thoughts on the project

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The Project

Michael Rowland: RF Online is a PvP-focused MMO with low-end PvE elements building up to an intense and exciting grouped PvP experience. It is a mix of sci-fi and fantasy, and incorporates two different genres of play style into one centrally focused game. Typical fantasy elements such as magic and summonable creatures are combined with futuristic weaponry and technology, and pitted against each other in a gameworld with a central goal... dominance. An ongoing war between three factions adds an extra twist to the war zone, allowing player politics to evolve and adding an extra element of player-controlled content.

With 24/7 support and a team spread out across multiple time zones, we ensure the game worlds are continually monitored, and that boards are closely watched.

RF Online, developed by a South Korean development team called CCR Inc., hit eastern shores over a year ago and is incredibly successful in Korea, Japan, China and the Philippines. With that in mind, we believed the feature set was far different to what is currently out in the current market, with beautiful graphics, a strong PvP focus and a three-way persistent war, the game had a lot of potential in the West.

The one thing that we found to be a concern was the language barrier, solvable with a translation team, but still slowing the process of communication down. We now have a resident Korean translation team helping us forward with future projects. The game itself held a lot of potential, and the additional content design for future updates was very positive. With many more MMO gamers now discovering these wonderful virtual worlds, RF Online hopes to play home to many of them who are looking for something different involving foxy elf chicks or big stomping mechs.

Launched in February, the game is now fully live with an ever-growing community. We are actively trolling through the boards, reading suggestions and gathering data on what the players are liking, and more importantly, hating. This feedback is investigated by the team, allowing us to mould the experience more to our community's and customers' needs, and away from the Eastern style of game requirements already present.

The Team

Michael Rowland: The development team behind RF Online is CCR Inc., an established Internet company in South Korea, and one that is very familiar with online gaming in the East. Codemasters Online Gaming acquired the license for the UK and US originally, and later for the rest of Europe, with rights to operate the service as well as distribute the game. Our involvement from the development side involved us localizing RF Online, and adapting the gameplay to a western market. We are still putting forth changes within the game to appeal more to the western gamer, things that we take for granted and that will aid usability. We have plans for the future to create content for the game that will again distinguish us from other versions of RF Online.

The initial Codemasters Online Gaming team was indeed small. On forming COG, we were but a handful of people, evaluating titles, planning the business strategy and presenting our ideas and suggestions to the rest of the company. A year on, we are now 10 times bigger, and still recruiting. It's been an amazing ride with some interesting stories along the way. There have been tears, sweat and laughter, but overall, it has been rewarding to see an MMO finally ship out and entertain thousands of players. But it doesn't end there; a live game is just the start of the hard work. The team is growing and working hard on bringing new content, events and players to RF Online with marketing support and ongoing advertising, in-game development and localization plus a whole host of activities targeted toward our established community.

Our customer support team is split between Codemasters' very own in-house team and Alchemic Dream, which manages the in-game customers and game support pages. AD is also very active in designing and implementing special player events, assisting players in distress, and keeping an ever-watchful eye on those naughty real money traders. With 24/7 support and a team spread out across multiple time zones, we ensure the game worlds are continually monitored, and that boards are closely watched.