Huxley's closed beta test has officially come to an end, it was a great week of testing. I was lucky enough myself to be able to get access this wonderful beta test, and I must say Huxley is{mosimage} everything I imagined and more! Here is media released from other testers and Korean fansites, Enjoy!
View Huxley Screenshots
View Huxley Videos
Can you tell me some basic stuff, like the number of employees in each market for Webzen right now?
Sang Woon Yoon: I'm not exactly sure about subsidiaries, but in the whole world, we have 600. And then we have development studios in Shanghai, and Webzen America, Webzen Taiwan, and Webzen China. We also have small offices in some other places in East Asia. Right now, they're focusing on the East Asian area. They're pushing forward to the U.S.
How much development is in China?
SY: For the most part, it happens in Korea. We only have one project in China. That project is targeted to the Chinese market, mainly. For other projects, we have two western developers.
Right. Realtime Worlds and Red 5. How big is the development staff in Korea?
SY: In Korea, overall, about 300.
I'm just trying to figure out the scale of a lot of companies here. There seems to be a big variety, but a lot hover around 100. Why has there been such an interest from Webzen in consoles recently, like the 360? Well, it's not exactly recent, because Huxley was announced a long time ago. Things are going to start coming out in the next year for the consoles. What is the reason behind that?
SY: For the most part, I think our company's vision -- especially the CEO's vision -- is originally, he's an animator. We're looking to a lot of western games, actually. What he really cares about is graphic styles. So far, we have been working on online games for PC, but we still have a lot of interesting western style -- like console style -- in graphics. It's more polished. In addition to that, online games are quite risky. Console games are... the U.S. market is big, and generally sells a lot. We can calculate ROI easier than online games. Also the next-generation consoles like the 360 shows great graphics, and a lot of CPU power. So generally, it's all over the place. We have no choice but to go for those. Up until now, it's not really easy for us to get into the console market, as we are strongly based in MMO PC games. We're trying.
Yeah, I've been discussing with lots of people about how not many companies are able to create finished, boxed products in Korea yet. Did you have to get any additional outside help in terms of learning the project flow and how to create a project that's finished?
SY: So far, for those console technologies within the company, we don't have the original staff that was working on the console. So far, the strategy was for us to try hard to collect people from other companies. Actually, sometimes we try to hire whole development studios, but now we have a different strategy for things. Probably I think in the near future, we'll talk to outside companies to make things work. Until now, we were just trying to solve everything within the company.
But also bringing in some foreign developers, is what you're saying? Inside the teams?
SY: Of course, if there are no communication problems. We try hard. We have some foreign developers. They have some console experience. What they do here is they develop online games. We are targeting a game title for consoles pretty soon, right after we handle some PC first. Like Huxley. Always, PCs are first, and then we go for the consoles.
But you're trying to keep the porting to console in-house, but maybe in the future you're going to change that?
SY: We are looking at several solutions at this moment. There are other games than Huxley, like some casual games. We have some strong interest in Xbox Live also, for casual games. For the porting or the conversions, we'll look at some way to get some help from other companies.
What kind of stuff are you looking at in terms of Live Arcade? Do you have any projects we've announced yet, or anything coming soon?
SY: Not yet. We've been discussing within the company. So far, the only plan we had for Live was Huxley. We've crossed platform to the PC and 360.
So you're looking at the smaller, more casual game-type stuff? It seems like the downloadable Live Arcade space is pretty natural, coming from online space.
SY: Yeah. We're discussing within the company. There is a possibility.
I'm curious to know your thoughts about PlayStation 3 versus 360, considering the Sony brand has always been much stronger in Asia. Also Sony had an office here for several years, and the 360 only just launched here more recently. But you're focused on the 360. Is that western consideration, or... what is that?
SY: Not really. Honestly, I think the 360 is easier to develop for. The PS3 is a little bit harder. It's not easy to find people who have experience in previous... like PS2 or PS3. It's not easy for us to start to work on the process. Once we had a project for the PS3 called Endless Saga. We had trouble with it, and [it was cancelled].
It seems like right now, there aren't a lot of consoles out, so it's hard to justify the risk of extra development costs right now. Any interest in the handheld space yet? Like the DS and PSP?
SY: Not yet. We had a mobile game before, but it's not really...
I know Webzen is mostly focused on really large-scale games.
SY: Yeah, that's company style.
Yeah. Definitely seems like, as you say, the vision is for big blockbuster stuff. It makes sense. Speaking of which, how is the use of Unreal Engine 3 going?
SY: Unreal 3 for Huxley?
Yeah. Well, you're not on the Huxley project, but...
SY: Yeah, I'm not on it. I have some information. At the beginning, they had a really tough time to understand the engine itself. Also we were not just making an FPS game from Unreal 3. We were making an MMO/online game. As you know, the Unreal Engine is not for MMOG, right? At the beginning we had a tough time. Right now Huxley just had a [closed beta], and we're preparing for our second CBT at this moment. The understanding came a lot better than before. We get better.
SY: It's all in English! (laughs)
Is that a difficult factor?
SY: They try to understand English. It's probably way better than things that are in Korean. Most of our information comes from forums. However, a lot of people don't really speak Korean.
You're working on APB with Realtime Worlds, and Red 5 on stuff. How did Webzen get in contact with and start relationships with these western developers?
SY: Because these western developers, they used to work on console games... especially a person like David Jones, the head of Realtime Worlds. He has his own objective in online games. He was looking for a partnership. I think it's kind of natural for us to meet each other, because they were looking for some online publishers, and we were looking for some good western developers. It's natural.
Through the agency, they were looking for a publisher [for] Korea. Webzen was a possible candidate. [Korea doesn't] have a lot of huge publishers, and at the time, we were looking for some really good IP from the western market. We thought that rather than make the Korean game first and then try to get into the western market, we were thinking about having some really strong western-placed developers. We met a lot of companies, and Realtime seemed suitable for us.
That's pretty smart. Still a lot of companies now are trying to bring Korean MMOs into the U.S., and they're having varying degrees of success with that, because there's a new one launching every day pretty much. Is it still a 2008 target for APB?
SY: Yeah.
How is the development going on that so far?
SY: We're getting busy, in crunch mode.
It seems like a very ambitious project.
SY: Yeah, it's very big. We have a lot of big features, and some ambitious stuff.
They actually wrote a postmortem of their Crackdown game for us, and they were mentioning that now they're fully cranking on APB. It seems logistically very difficult to create an MMO in a sandbox-type environment, because in that type of game, everyone just likes to screw around and do dumb stuff and throw trash cans on top of buildings and stuff like that. If you've got thousands of people doing that, it seems like...
SY: Crazy! (laughs)
Thousands of people trying to break the game at the same time.
SY: Yeah, you're right. We're trying hard, as realistic as possible, but there's some technical limits for us that don't really let us do those things in an online game. But we're trying hard to make it as close as possible to a console game.
Are you having to do a lot of instancing and stuff? In terms of the servers that people are going to be on, since it's going to be very... I haven't seen it, but I imagine it's going to consume a lot of resources to have these people doing this stuff at the same time. How many people do you think you can have in the same world?
SY: Generally, you're right. I'm not sure, because it's kind of a sensitive issue. I think that Realtime will [take] care about releasing the information about the project. Maybe the exclusive stuff. You might have to wait a little bit more.
Might as well ask! With Red 5, how did that come about?
SY: Red 5 is in the preproduction. They're working on stories, and prototyping game design. So far, they've been good. At this moment, we only watch them. So far, there's no problem. They're very experienced.
Did they come to you, or did you go to them?
SY: They came to us.
Have you seen much of the Project Offset engine yet? The engine they're using?
SY: Yeah, I'm seeing those things, but only for the gameplay prototypes, so it's not showing the true power of the engine. Three years before, they had it at E3. After that, I don't know. The Offset Engine itself, I didn't see a lot of detail. I've only seen a little part.
I was just wondering if you've heard a general impression of the engine itself yet. I know they're the only people licensing it. I know part of it is the vision of the company, but Webzen has this kind of eye toward the western market, in a different way from a lot of Korean-based companies. Releasing console games, and releasing the big-budget, graphically impressive games. You do have your MMO space as well -- traditional Korean-style MMOs. What was the choice to diversify like that? So many others are trying to focus on making the big money in the microtransaction space and stuff like that. It's a similar question to before, but basically, why are you not going for the easy money as much on the Korean MMO side?
SY: Easy money, like the typical Korean title? Making money in that way?
Yeah. You know what I mean?
SY: Yeah. We did that in Korea and the Asian market, with traditional Korean MMO games. We did that.
It's just not as much of an intense focus on that.
SY: Basically, the other markets other than Asia -- the European market, and the U.S. market -- are not really mature for the micropayment stuff. They also have a lot more games when we go for the western market. The rivals are totally different. Over here, we are competition to similar Korean games. If we go over there, there are a lot stronger games, and popular western MMOGs, and western users are used to seeing those things, and used to paying money like that, with monthly subscriptions. Micropayments... there is a barrier. There is a risk. We're trying to bring those things into the U.S. market very carefully. We can't really push for the Korean way. In America, it just doesn't work.
And another thing that I was trying to get at was... do you think that the Korean market for these MMOs and microtransaction games, do you think that it can support as many people as are currently in the market? There are a lot of people trying to do similar types of games.
SY: Still, it works, I guess.
I don't mean from the Webzen side, because Webzen obviously has large products. But I mean, do you think it will be able to support as many companies that are still trying to do this?
SY: I should think so.
I've heard a lot of different opinions. Some people say that there's going to be a big crash soon, and a lot of people are going to fall out. Other people say that it could keep getting bigger.
SY: I think that the goodness of these micropayments is that pay is very flexible. Depending on the game size and the number of users, you can balance it easily, rather than with a monthly subscription. I think there's a chance for us to study more of this. However, we have thousands of games that are with micropayments. I think we still have chances to make all of them be profitable.
I wonder if there's going to be another model beyond microtransactions that will work even better. First, subscription was the only thing. Then microtransactions came along and changed everything. Do you think there's going to be another big shift in the future? Do you see anything like that on the horizon?
SY: Definitely.
Any prediction what it might be?
SY: A mixed, hybrid model's already there. I think from the marketing side, a model would be a mix between timed promotions and microtransactions at the same time. It's possible.
So maybe ad-supported and things like that?
SY: Yeah.
I'm wondering if there will be some more convergence-type stuff. We're already seeing things like games that are playable across Windows Live for the 360 and PC, and some companies are trying to do things where you can keep playing your MMO in certain ways on your cell phone. Do you think there's going to be more convergence in the future?
SY: Yeah. Convergence will tie everything together. It's all about flexibility, micropayments. So we have chances.
It also seems like the way people use money is changing. Here I've got my subway card. In Japan, with this, I can also buy stuff at a convenience store, or a vending machine. In America, Nexon has released their Nexon Cash. It seems like with all of these things that money is becoming really virtual. It's very strange.
SY: Every day, we're looking for those solutions in new ways for billing systems. Sometimes, we look at credit card companies and how they do bonus points and all those things. We're also looking for other possible methods. Building it up is probably the things we have to solve. We're looking for all of the possibilities.
It seems like game companies these days are having to become much more financially aware, like really thinking about and dealing with ways of using money. I feel like they're almost pushing virtual money forward much more than any other media. It's very interesting to me, to see that progress. Maybe some day I'll be buying my dinner with Webzen dollars! (laughs)
SY: (laughs) Or you get some item after you have some dinner!
It could be! I guess that's already happening. You can buy a Coke can and get some item in your game.
SY: Yeah, we do a lot of that.
It's very strange.
SY: But it works! (laughs)
It works! And it works for everybody. In the past, those kinds of tie-in promotions would be like you buying some cereal and it comes with a little toy inside that a kid plays with for like five seconds and throws away. But now, it's like you don't even have to have anything in the box. You just have a picture, and maybe you can scan it and it goes into your... it's the future.
SY: That's because we have too much confusion. More than 50 percent of users want to play the game for free. We do an open beta for several months, many, many months, until we realized that enough people willing to pay for the game. But we still needed to do the free game service. That's why we're looking for all sorts of things that generate profit to keep the test part going on, to make it finally commercialized.
In the U.S., Sony Online Entertainment made all of their games free, but they didn't have any microtransaction model, so it was just free. They weren't making any money. They were just losing money only. Everyone was kind of laughing at them, but if they could introduce some sort of model, maybe they could be profitable. It's very tough in the U.S.
SY: We're trying hard to bring those things into projects like APB. APB is going global, but we're not going to have different games. It's one game for a global market. That's why both companies are working together, bringing Webzen's know-how and experiences with the development team's. APB is really western originated, and we can make this work in the U.S. and Korea at the same time.
So you're going to try to have people from multiple regions playing together in one space?
SY: If you don't care about lag, then you can.
Are you going to have to deal with language stuff at all, or are you going to let people speak whatever language they want?
SY: That's probably... in a few more months.
Then we'll know the answer to that?
SY: Yeah.
I think that's interesting in some ways. It would be like California or something, with different districts where people speak certain languages and stuff like that, and you can go there.
SY: That's a good idea. I think Crackdown did a similar thing. In some areas of the city, they speak Spanish.
I think it's a good idea, because it's like a real virtual world that way. People do speak different languages in the world, you know? Like I came here, and I can't say anything to anybody, for instance! After APB and these kinds of things that we know about, what's next for Webzen? I don't necessarily mean specific titles, but just in terms of your thought about the future for Webzen.
SY: At this moment, we still have concept things to finish up. We do think about the future. Not much changed. We've got the online games, and also the console-styled thing. They're very strong IPs, and we go for those. Not much changed from three years ago. It's really the same.
Do you have any projection for how the console stuff will do in the west, versus your online efforts? Do you anticipate the console stuff will be bigger, or the online stuff will be bigger in the other markets?
SY: I don't really anticipate anything for that. We just follow...
Just waiting to see what happens?
SY: That's it.
One thing I've been wondering about is that still in the west, there's not a great perception of Korean companies yet. There's not a lot of trust in those companies, which I don't think is justified, but it's there. Right now, if Capcom releases a game, people are like, "Oh, Capcom made it, so I'm going to buy it." But that kind of thing doesn't really exist very much yet for Korean companies. Do you think that's going to change when you release stuff like APB and Huxley? Are people going to be like, "Oh, that's a Webzen game?"
SY: I think they will. There will be a positive impact on us. We're not just pushing our games into another market -- we're trying hard to adapt to your style, and combine those things into our styles and make something new. When this becomes successful, there will definitely be a positive effect.
Huxley is developed in Korea, right? But it's for the western market.
SY: Mm-hmm.
Kind of. It looks very much like a western style. I know you don't work on the project, but how was the thinking, in terms of, "Okay, we're going to make this kind of look and aesthetic, and we're going to make it appeal to the western market without actually being from the western market."
SY: I don't think we especially tried to make it feel like western games. The thing is... those styles are good. They both like it. Wherever you go, they like it. We just have a little bit different approach. Both approaches are good. Wherever they go, they like it. Stuff like Final Fantasy everybody likes. Games like World of Warcraft, even though it is a western game, over here it's huge. Both styles are good. All we do is we don't really try to make it look western. We catch a lot of good things, and they like that stuff. They find good stuff from western games or comic books or whatever, and then we add our good stuff into those games. That's the way we approach.
Even for APB, do you do usability and market testing in each region? Do you change based on that stuff for specific markets, or is it more like, "Okay, we need to make the whole game more accessible in this way."
SY: We try to adapt as much as possible to both markets. Realtime has a strong vision and understanding of the western market already, but a game like APB doesn't really exist in the Eastern market. We did some research, and collected some information, and tried to deliver this into a western-style game.
Is Webzen providing more support for the online systems and all the network stuff? I know they struggled with Crackdown, because they hadn't worked on that kind of stuff before. I think they had to get some help from Microsoft and stuff.
SY: Yeah, we do that.
It makes sense, because Korea's obviously incredibly strong in that kind of stuff.
SY: Realtime had some experience too, at this moment.
Yeah, now they do.
SY: Now they have some experienced staff.
I recently learned that one of the reasons that the creative network staff was so strong in Korea, was because the IT industry started booming around the same time that everything was coming up, and Internet was deregulated. It makes a lot of sense, but I didn't put two and two together to realize that's why it got so much bigger at the time. I think that's probably all I need to say, unless there's any other thing you want to say about Webzen right now.
SY: Webzen... 2008 will be a really important year, financially. We announced big projects at the beginning of 2005, including APB and Huxley, and they're all coming out in 2008. That will be a really good year, and an exciting year for us to watch over this and go to other divisions in the U.S. market and other countries and see what users' reactions and all those things.
People will finally take some vacations.
SY: I hope so! (laughs) The bad thing about online games is that there's no vacations. It just never ends.
PC Gamer Magazine has published a preview of Huxley in their latest magazine issue. Thanks to member Collarsup a member of Xen of Onslaught & Huxley Evolved; we have been able to acquire scans of this recent preview.{mosimage}
IGN.com gets a chance to interview Kevin Riepl about his composing for Huxley. This is a bit late, the article dating November 13th, 2007. Yet we still feel its intresting news, and better then nothing.{mosimage}
A new member of the Huxley Evolved community, h2oblue has been able to find two videos. They were originally published on the 19th, but there new to us. The videos, especially the second one timing at a amazing 27 minutes long!, are extremely informative. Check them out below!. {mosimage}
Huxley PVE Video #1 - Time : 5:04
Huxley PVE Video #2 - Time : 27.29
An all new Huxley "City" video, showing a ton of all new, ingame footage including, PVE gameplay, marketplace, transportation and more! This is by far one of the most informative Huxley videos in a very long time. Please note that the video is fairly lower resolution, but the quality of the video is still very good.{mosimage}
Download "Huxley City" video | Stream
Member CoyG of Huxley Evolved has sent us links to several new Korean videos for Huxley. You can view all of the videos below, please note that any talking in these videos will be Korean {mosimage}
Huxley Gameplay #1
Huxley Gameplay #2
Huxley Gameplay #3
Huxley Presentation (Korean) #4
This just shows that we are going to finally starting seeing a steady stream of information and media, although mostly Korean at the moment.
There is a ton of information over at the official Korean website. Including the winners for the prizes, announcement of beta news. There is also a new information page, which has a really good Huxley advertisement, which you can view below. Unfortunately, the page is hard to understand, it could have some good information in it.{mosimage}
View Beta & Prizes Announcement - View Prize Winners
View New Huxley Info Page Item#3 - (Translate Using AltaVista) 
Another new Huxley in the making video has been published over on the official Huxley website. We will be adding all of the artwork to our database later today. {mosimage}
View shows off the following :
-PVE & PVP Gameplay (Some repeats of a previous video)
-A selection of weapons and vehicles never before seen
-Our guess, the different locations they show could be a few of the battlegrounds.a
View Huxley Artwork
Video / Stream Video
Note : This video is not in English
We have just added 5 brand new screens, and a excellent movie about Huxley's music. It also includes a great amount of of gameplay footage including both PVE and PVP.{mosimage}
Huxley Official Screenshots
Video Mirror #1 (Download) | Mirror #2 (Steam)
The Official Huxley Korean website has launched!, which includes the the sign-up page for the closed beta test that is scheduled to start September 13th. We strongly suggest if you are not a resident of Korea to not attempt to sign-up. We will get our chance soon!{mosimage}
We have just recieved a press release, that gives us details about the beta (In English). Many things we know, such as how long the beta will run and the date it starts. But in other news they are also giving away a few prizes. Such as a 22icnh LCD monitor, 8600 GT, and G5 mouse by Logitech.
The last bit of information on this press release troubles me, But I wont speculate at this time. It states "Huxley's Overseas launching schedule will be determined, after the commericial release of Huxley in Korea. Does this infact mean Huxley will release first in Korean, then North America and other locations?
View the press release :
Visit the official Huxley Korean site : www.huxley.co.kr
We have added several images into our screenshot database, thanks to forum member Zypher for providing these. Along with the new images, we have also been able to find older images that we added at a earlier date. But we have re-uploaded them at higher resolutions.{mosimage}
Play Magazine, have just done a interview on producer Kang and Kevin Riepl (Music Director). We are able to bring you the scans, right here at Huxley Evolved. I have outlined some keynotes, and I also apologize for the small text it may be difficult to read.
We have contacted Webzen about the recent announcement about the Huxley Closed Beta. We have official word that this phase of the beta will be Korean only!{mosimage}
"Hi Stephen,
I received your voice mail about the Huxley beta. I am sure you are asking about the beta for North American players. The newsletter you saw was announcing the dates for the first Korean closed beta test – it is not for North America. I apologize if there was any confusion. Currently, we do not have dates to announce for the U.S. beta period, but once we have more definite information we will be sure to let you know."
Huxley Evolved has just received a press release, stating that Huxley will start closed beta sign-up August 28th, 2007 following with the beta start of September 13th, 2007!
-999 Slots will be available {mosimage}
-Beta will last for 5 days (Should increase overtime)
-Phase #1 to be Korean Only.
View the official press release below :
Visit our Beta HQ, for details on how to sign-up!
We have been searching around the web, after finding many new images from foreign sites a few days ago. We figured, there just has to be more! Honestly, I think that the lack of news/media we got, was because of most of it was going towards Korean websites. But without further ado, we have added 29 total images, and a new/old actual gameplay footage.{mosimage}
(Every Image, and the new/old video has been published before, simply on foreign websites)
View Unofficial Images
Watch Video Here
We have been emailed by one of our members CoyG, as he found a number of images. Including : 5 new in-game screenshots, a Huxley advertisement sign, the Huxley Website Design!? and a older unreleased Computer Games Magazine with Huxley as the cover art. View all In-Game Screenshots Here{mosimage}
We have been able to find 8 new images for Huxley, they are a lower resolution and not official so therefore will be put into our Unofficial Images section. {mosimage}
Update : We have been able to get all 8 higher resolution versions of the new images, thanks to CoyG for emailing us these images!
{mos_fb_discuss:9}
A Korean game site called 17173 , has just posted a Q&A for Huxley. It provides some rather intresting information, but somewhat difficult to understand, it also just reassures us of the beta coming in September. Because the Q&A is in Korean, we have used google translater in order to put it into english. Which you can view here.
Here is a quick overview of what I got out of this Q&A :{mosimage}
-Huxley now supports 10,000 players instead of 5,000 that was reported since Huxley was announced. Im not to sure about this, until its confirmed by webzen.
-Huxley is 70% Complete.
-Huxley Beta September, Open Beta in Dec/Jan and then the release Q1-Q2 2008.
-Huxley will run fine on a Nvidia 6600, but they note no other requirements noted (Not a big help)
I personally didn't get any of the other questions, Im just happy to see more Huxley news, and that information about a possible jump in players per server.
A number of unofficial images have been found on Huxley Versus by Ao1xSniperkev. But the images orginate from This Is Game. As we do not want to mix these images with official ones we have made a section for unofficial and leaked images in our screenshot database. There are 6 total images and we have added a older character customization image from awhile back to the section aswell.{mosimage}
Webzen has released there Q2 2007 earnings, as none of the real numbers have real importance to us. In the last image of the PDF pack it shows release schedules for all of there games. Huxley is on this list with a end of Q3 showing a start of closed beta testing, then a mid Q4 to early Q1 2008 open beta. And finally finishes in a early Q2 2008 Release date. Download the entire fincial pack here{mosimage}
In the near future you can expect new content to be updated on a regular basis. Until then, please be sure to Register as we will be looking to identify closed-beta and focus group participants.
Thanks for your interest in Huxley, a game we believe will be the world’s first true FPS-MMO!
Webzen"
Huxley Evolved is a fansite dedicated to the upcoming MMOFPS Huxley being developed by Webzen. Here you will be able to find the latests news on Huxley, the Unreal 3 Engine, and other upcoming games. Huxley Evolved was founded in July 2007 and is owned and operated by fans of the Huxley community.
Huxley is an MMOFPS being developed on the Unreal 3 engine by Webzen. The game takes place in a post-apocolyptic world where humans have mutated and are divided into two opposing races, Sapiens and Alternatives. Forced to battle against one another for the continuance of each race, Sapiens and Alternatives are willing to do whatever it takes to wipe out the conflicting race and gain control of the world and its resources.
