I've just completed my first Red Warrior 5K run at the weekend in Pembrey Country Park. The organisation pre-event was great, so congratulations on that. The run itself was a lot harder than I expected for a novice runner and my time was shameful, but we did have a lot of fun and I would definitely do it again, with a lot more training beforehand!! I wanted to give some constructive criticism for future events though. The late start times were very frustrating and I'm not sure why this happened, there was no explanation? The main issue for me was that we were told there would be water stations around the course to rehydrate and this did not happen. This needs to be addressed for future runs, especially when runners are told not to carry their own. Runners (especially inexperienced ones like me) need to have access to water during the course. There were also very sketchy safety measures around some of the obstacles, in particular the net bridge in the middle of the woods, with one marshal by herself. There were no crash mats or any padding around the nets and I was very off-balance going over the top. I do wonder what the marshal would have done if I had fallen to the ground below? I appreciate they all had walky-talkies and there were medics around but that could have been really dangerous.
That's my moaning over with anyway and we DID have a lot of laughs and really enjoyed ourselves. Thank you for putting on a great event and please take this feedback as positive things to consider for next time....
“We are trying to bring more titles from NCSOFT, and one of the goals is also a diversified portfolio. And that’s the same with the headquarters because we’re so well known for the MMORPG genre, I think that was a little like a double-edged sword for us.” However, while diversifying the portfolio here is a good thing, it’s not going to stop NCSOFT and NC America from doubling down on what it does great: MMOs. As such, this year we’ll see the release of a remastered version of Blade and Soul NEO Classic Divine Gems. Launched in Korea a few months back, the remaster has seen quite a bit of adoption since its release, according to JJ, and part of announcing this release was to start to bring something to the West that they could do rather quickly.
Blade and Soul Neo was actually launched a couple of months ago in Korea first. And actually, the Blade and Soul Neo fans in Korea are loving it, and we also play Blade and Soul Neo here at NC America. We also love it. So we wanted to work as fast as we can to bring the title to our audience as well.
One of the challenges facing many Korean MMOs here in the West is the just sheer difference in consumer expectations when it comes to microtransactions and what those microtransactions can provide. We generally abhor anything here in the West that feels even borderline what is perceived to be pay-to-win, while there are some elements that are just normal and expected in Asian markets. Balancing the two has always been a tough assignment, though it should be noted that JJ has a history of helping a large company navigate such struggles.
Black Desert Online was accused heavily of being overly microtransaction-heavy and leaning almost headfirst into pay-to-win territory when it first launched in the West eight years ago. However, over those years, I noticed the pay-to-win elements here in the West were slowly reduced, with cheap BnS NEO Divine Gems those microtransactions often being cosmetic or simply convenience items. It’s hard to say it’s completely gone, and the amount of microtransactions available in Black Desert has certainly not gone down over the years. Still, one thing JJ’s team at Pearl Abyss America did, in my view, was help headquarters better understand what the audience here wanted out of its in-game store.