RF Online Wrap Report

High-Level Goals

Michael Rowland: The game's initial design was aimed toward the male market in the Far East, and the traditional love for hi-tech boys toys and far eastern anime / mecha. With detailed character models and an interesting back-story of a three-way war for resources, these initial ideas bore fruit to the beginnings of RF Online. The RvRvR aspect of the game introduced an interesting mechanic to PvP combat, and in turn, to an in-game political system of truces and peace treaties.

Being so far from the East has its challenges from language to time zones, so we are in a constant battle to explain what we want and when we want it.

Michael Rowland: The technology used in creating RF Online was the child of CCR's own internal development studio, designed to work on past, current and future technology systems. With a huge population of gamers within Korea using Internet cafes, the need to cater for these lower end machines is essential in creating a massive population for your game. With that in the mind, the server technology itself is ever advancing, and we are ramping up the preparations for 64-bit support. The server is the latest tech equipment, and supported by a 24/7 team of engineers and techies. With homegrown technology within the RF Online, it adds more protection to the IP and allows for expansion in tools and software growth.

Development Timeline

Michael Rowland: The development of the westernized version, in essence, took just under a year before retail launch. Multiple territory SKUs did take their toll on resources, with continuing support to these territories whilst developing the English version of RFO. Not only was the focus on the game itself, but also on the tools to support the game, the implementation of the tools, software and utilities to the hardware, which also required sourcing. Codemasters Online Gaming was itself developing in size, with a massive staff intake for both RF Online and DDO. It's safe to say that it was a very hectic time for all of us.

With all that in mind, we did have everything set up near enough on time, give or take a few days. We wanted to release the beta to really test the system earlier, but we felt more fixes were necessary before unleashing it to the public. We still have the odd problem now, a few months down the line, but the game has certainly progressed extensively in its westernization. Continual feedback from the community is ensuring we keep the content growing, and the development of future content is ongoing. Our current test environment is filled with the new Giga Final Part 1 content, and we are looking at installing the new Giga Part 2 content a couple of weeks later for testing. We also have a lot more content in the pipeline currently in development and testing within Korea, so we're keeping close tabs on that.

Changes and Enhancements

Michael Rowland: We found that we needed to address issues we had found with our own account systems and the way they communicated with the game servers. We had to tweak the RFO launcher to be more efficient with our own tools, which was addressed with help from CCR and our own database guys. There was a point where it would take 15 minutes between signing up for a game account and actually being able to sign into the game; now it takes milliseconds. Issues like these to new customers can obviously be detrimental to how they view the game and the company running it. Over the course of the last few months, we have improved the back end systems to be more efficient in the way they run and how they impact on the game.

Major Challenges

Michael Rowland: RF Online was our first MMO title, so the world's eyes were upon us. A major challenge was in building the team up from scratch, from community and marketing to production and support. The last year has been extremely frantic, with us buying in a vast amount of new hardware plus adding the people to build and maintain them. We have grown from the initial four people who conceptualized COG to the 40-plus staff based at Codemasters HQ plus the customer support staff located throughout the world.

With another massive MMO title, DDO, launching a matter of days from RF Online, we found ourselves in a situation unknown in the MMO world. Two MMO launches in a week had seldom been done before, and hence this was an incredibly nervous time. Would the infrastructure hold up? Would we dilute the consumers with choice? Would the team still be conscious at the end of it all? All these questions were answered positively, and we launched pretty much without a hitch. A few quirks here and there were resolved, but in general, we were happy with the launch and the feedback.

With multiple versions of RF Online in different countries, we had a lot to live up to in the eyes of the community. Content is always a keen subject to debate and I'm happy to say that this is and has been addressed. We have a full plan of what we want and when, and are working to incorporate as much as we can to give the guys as much to do as possible. Our intention is to catch up with Korea in regard to their content, with time to localize between their launch and ours. It also gives the Korean team a chance to fix any issues before it hits the western market. Being so far from the East has its challenges from language to time zones, so we are in a constant battle to explain what we want and when we want it. It may be a slow process, but the team is very receptive to all input from its partners, and we are already seeing some of our ideas taking fruition.