First up, some company backstory. Once upon a time, there was a South Korean company named Nexon. Nexon has always been an industry pioneer: from publishing one of the first graphic based MMOs, to blazing the trail of the free to play model, they earned every ounce of success they gained. Nexon even sports an MMO with over 50% female players – Audition, a dance-based game found .
The Nexon team members I met today were from the North American outpost of Nexon group: Nexon America. My guides through the world of Nexon – and Mabinogi – were John H. Chi, President and CEO of Nexon America; Hillary Lyons, Director of Public Relations; and Joselph Wregglesworth, Customer Relations Manager. Quick fact: over 2,000 people worldwide are employees of Nexon!
On to the game! During our meeting, I sat down with the Nexon team and took a look at Mabinogi. As Wregglesworth said, Mabinogi is a game “about the small stuff; From sheering sheep and milking cows to fighting off fearsome monsters with spell and sword, players can engage in practically any activity in the game -and have fun.
Wregglesworth described some of the mini-games, such as weaving cloth, fishing, drawing maps (for explorers), and more. When playing music, players can use scrolls to compose their own pieces or copy favorite tunes they’ve heard in other games or on the radio. We even took a look at the dyeing mini game, where, on a palette swirled with colors, you have to move 4 connected points to land on a color you like.
Along with mini games, skills determine much of your character’s abilities and successes. There are over 100 skills in the game, and there are no classes or class descriptions. You format your own character based around what you want to do; do you want to be a cow-milking, fireball throwing, chainmail wearing Magician? It's all yours. If you spent enough time you could, technically, max out every skill in the game.
Skills are trained up by using them – the more often you sheer a sheep or play a tune, the better you will do. These activities also affect your characters stats; so swinging a sword around will help raise your strength. Not only do you see these changes reflected in your statistics, but your character regularly grows fatter, slimmer, more muscular, or less muscular based on what you do. If you eat a lot of food and stand around, yours going to grow chunky. If you run around and chop wood all day, you’ll be thin with toned arms and legs.
As each real-life week passes, so does a year in Mabinogi. Characters start between ages 10 and 17 (the player decides), then grows older by one year every Saturday. This changes your stats, your learning curve, and your appearance – players grow taller as they grow older! Right now, the age-cap is 25. Once you reach 25 you slow down your ability learning – this can be mitigated by reincarnating” as a 10 to 17 year old. You can wipe your levels, or keep them hellp;i won't it be great to be a level 50 ten year old?
