Sword of the New World: Granado Espada
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ESRB:
Alcohol Reference,Fantasy Violence,Suggestive Themes
Publisher: K2 Network Genre(s): MMORPG Home Page: http://www.swordofthenewworld.com
Background: Koreans and online gamingBefore we can get to the gritty details of Granado Espada, one has to understand some of the cultural background. Koreans (and Asians in general) have a large number of players that tend to play online games differently than the western gamers. They play exclusively in "PC Bangs" ("PC rooms" - Korean term for a cybercafe) either alone or with friends sitting next to each other. While western gamers look at their avatars as representations of themselves to be displayed to their friends in the game that they have often never met in real life, Asian gamers seem to place far less emphasis on the visual look of their characters - who cares what Sung's character looks like when he's sitting right here in the cybercafe. You could say that Korean MMOs do not value individuality. Asian players also seem to be obsessed with social hierarchies. Lineage series latched onto this mentality by being very guild-oriented game. Granado Espada actually seems to play for the same concept, except that instead of socializing and forming groups of human players, the game concentrates on gathering your own family of characters more or less alone. While there are endgame raids for larger groups of players and support for clans (Guilds), the multi character play and the concept of family seems to bow more towards playing alone. 
Grinding overly easy trash in a dungeon - very thrilling.
In any case, Granado Espada comes from a culture where "I have fourteen level 100 characters in my family" is apparently far cooler than "I have this and that epic loot from that dungeon" or "I've participated in killing that super-hard boss". Koreans also seem to prefer grinding for their rewards. It's common that you have to kill same things over and over to obtain X copies of a token item so you can then turn them in for a cool reward, or outright requiring a grind of a ridiculous number of easy monsters for a sub-1% chance of an item drop. Then there is the whole issue of virtual goods purchased with real money. I personally consider it to be cheating in almost all cases. You are gaining an advantage in a game, by using assets from outside the game that are not equal to all players (the unequal asset being your real bank balance). Western gamers have very strict concept of "fairness" that must be adhered to, and item sales go against this doctrine. The same concept of "fairness" also expands to other parts of competitive multiplayer gaming, and we get tons of silly yelling matches on how this and that character class or item is overpowered or underpowered, with players exhibiting strong emotional ties to their favorite class, item or ability. Asian gamers tend to be far more cutthroat in their drive to compete, by any means necessary - including buying virtual items and switching characters and equipment on a whim just so they can gain every bit of advantage over their peers. Many western players also feel that paying real money for virtual things is silly, as you get nothing tangible in return. Koreans apparently have a different view towards virtual items, and most MMOs over there seem to gain most of their revenue from selling bits and pixels to players. This odd difference in perspective also translates to distribution of games themselves - many western gamers seem to value physical game boxes and DVDs over digital distribution, and it's taken quite a while for Steam-style digital distribution systems to catch on. Virtual things for real moneySword of the New World: Granado Espada is no different from most of the current Korean MMOs. You can find a Cash Store enticing people to buy different kinds of consumable items to boost their characters using real money. The western edition of the game seems to have a more limited selection than the Asian counterpart, at least for the time being. Western Granado Espada also draws a strict line between what is buyable with real money, and what is available for ingame money or "Vis". Real money buys gold, which can be used only when buying from the special Cash Store merchant. Items purchasable in Cash Store are not tradable, and you can't use gold in any other way in the game. "Vis" on the other hand is tradable between players, and most of the ingame goods are priced in Vis, with Gold to Vis trading impossible and buying Vis with real money forbidden - not that it's stopping the usual real money farmers from offering illicit Vis.
The Cash Store doesn't really break the game, but it does mean that true powergaming in Granado Espada becomes far more expensive than 8.95$/month. You can play ignoring the whole Cash Store, but that will put you to a disadvantage when compared to those who use it. It's like offering performance-enhancing drugs at the courtside with the officials saying its fine to use some, degrading the fairness of the gameplay.
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