Interview with Granado Espada CM Hrin Part2

Game! Magazine’s Arjay “The Doctor” Dela Cruz recently had the privilege to interview Hrin Danielle Kuek, Granado Espada’s Community Manager. If you have been following the game’s development, then you have surely have seen her updates and her replies to community emails via the Granado Espada Singapore Website.

[ images above from left: Hrin at work, Hrin with GE Product Manager Jonathon Sze. Images were submitted by Ms. Hrin. Copyright Anime Desho. ]

Click here for Part 1 of the Interview with GE Community Manager Hrin

GAME!: We know that the US version of Granado has been renamed to “Sword of the New World”, why not here as well? Is this the same localized english version that is being made available to South East Asia?
Hrin: Granado Espada is not the same as ‘Sword of the New World’. We localized our version using our own team. During the localization process of Korean text to English text, our team felt very strongly that we should remain as true as possible to Hakkyu Kim’s vision for Granado Espada. Countless days and nights of intense discussions, poring over Korean text translations and much history research was done to complement the backdrop of Granado Espada. After all, Granado Espada was built upon the real life history. It mirrors the true History of European conflicts during the Age of Exploration. In history, the balance of power shifted in Britain’s favor after a decisive naval battle. However in the GE story, the balance of power shifted in favor of the old world country of Vespanola, which mirrors Spain.

We felt that the beautiful name ‘Granado Espada’ brought out the true majesty and romance of the game. At the same time, we preferred to stay true to the essence of the background story. Ferruccio Espada discovered the new continent. The new continent was named Granado Espada in honor of him.

Game!: Granado Espada undeniably did cost quite a bit of money to develop, so the question now is how is the game going to make money. Will Granado Espada be Free to play with premium items for sale or go the Pay to Play route?
Hrin: This decision has not be made yet. We are still in careful deliberations on whether we want to go in the F2P or P2P direction.

Game!: Do you have estimated figures on how many players of Granado Espada there are in countries like Korea where GE has gone commercial?
Hrin: It has been widely reported that in Japan, 100,000 gamers signed up after seven hours of the game’s launch. We hope to elicit a similar response in the Southeast Asia region.

Game!: With the number and variety of MMOG’s out in the market today, what makes Granado Espada stand out in such as crowded field?
Hrin: In Granado Espada, you don’t just create characters – you create a family. Other than just the 5 basic classes of Wizard, Elementalist, Fighter, Musketeer and Scout that you can create initially, you can also Recruit the NPCs (RNPCs) in the game to join your family after you have successfully completed their quests. Once these RNPC join your family, they take on your family name. These RNPCs have their own special set of stances and weapons and the interesting thing is that some of these RNPCs have a really funky combination of the basic classes, like being able to learn melee stances AND be able to cast magic at the same time!

As you proceed in the game and recruit all these different RNPCs, you can expand your barracks (think of it as your house where all your family members live in) and house up to 36 characters! The exciting thing is that in future versions of Granado Espada, there are plans underway to allow players to trade characters amongst themselves. To top it all off, Granado Espada is set in such a romantic era! That of the Baroque world, and many such elements can be seen throughout the game, such as the building architectures, interiors, costumes and towns. The level of intricate graphical details… the breath-taking sceneries… Oh! And the soundtrack is just amazing! It contains music from various world renowned DJs and even contains an exclusive track by world’s No.1 DJ Tiesto! I don’t even know where to start, let alone end. You just have to see it for yourself and be blown away!

Gee… and all that I’ve mentioned is but the tip of the iceberg! There are tons more amazing stuff I would love to go on forever about but oh well… you did ask me for just the main highlights.

Join us tomorrow for part 3 and conclusion of our interview with GE Community Manager Hrin.