NR Interview with David Dobson on upcoming VU:

I've noticed that for lots of people for whom English is a second language, they tend to learn it with an American accent. Consequently, they find it easy to understand Americans (and Americans find it easy to understand them), and seem to have more trouble understanding those who speak it with a different accent (eg Aussie, English, Scottish, Irish).

I guess a lot of us are so exposed to American culture (particularly Hollywood movies) worldwide that it's hard not to get used to the accent, and I think that factor is far more influential than it generally gets credit for.

I understand Americans very easily, for example, since I've been so exposed to it, but since my Aussie accent is unfamiliar to them, I find that unless I slow right down and "tone down" the accent (or Americanise it a bit, I guess), I'm a bit hard for some Americans to understand.

In fact, I think I'm more easily understood by Europeans who have English as a second language than I am by Americans who learnt it as a first language!

Scottish accents are difficult for me for the first 30 seconds until I reboot my mindset, but I find English accents are very easy to understand. I find that people in the UK understand Aussies a lot more easily too.

Dave's got a great Aussie accent for sure, but it's not surprising to me that it might be hard to understand for someone who learnt American English as a second language.

I think it's a bit of a two way street in international English communication. We Aussies can try to tone down our accent when we think of it, and I guess we also need to educate the world more about what we sound like too!

Keep listening Xandra, a bit of Aussie is good for you

Also, as an aside, if any of you Aussies get the chance to ask Jim (Snape), to speak with an Aussie accent, it'll be worth the effort. I find it hilarious. He's got a natural Welsh accent, but crikey is his feigned Aussie funny after you've become used to how he sounds.


The other thing we do a lot is use colloquialisms that make no sense elsewhere. I notice this when I go to other countries who have excellent English. Some of the things we say make no sense to most people anyway, so that probably doesn't help either!

 

Actually Jim its Cockney Rhyming slang, and as a native speaking cockney I should know :

 

A transcript is being produced by us at NR. If you would like to do a bullet point list and provided you have the time, it would be much appreciated by all.

Either way or both ways, I feel that Xandra and Ron are correct in that we do need to provide something in text for non-English speaking players. As everyone knows, we do our best with the interviews which takes coordination and work. What people often don't realize is that the AFTER-Production can be even more work and ofc time consuming.

Thanks to all for listening and for your comments and suggestions!

Isc

 

Y'all mind convertin' it to Texan too?

 

All - I've closed this thread for now. When the transcript is ready it will be posted here and to the other threads associated with this interview.

 

Here is the interview transcript PART 1 - Thanks to Cyborg Bill and DJ Brownie for their help with this:

Rick : All right welcome to Normandie Radio everybody Im DJ Isclay and I am here with David Dobson of
Arkadia studios. We wanted to sit down with David and talk about the new Version Update. Welcome to the show David, its always
good to have you.

David: Good to be here and share some info that I can.

Rick: Alright. Well why don't you tell us what you have been up to the last couple of weeks and where your at, and
also about the new bundle of joy that's on the way.

David: Yeah. tenth of december We've got a baby due so its booked in for a "C'zer"(caesarian) so hence we know the date. We are
counting down the days now, and We are down in Australia for the birth of this one. I headed down to Australia about a week ago.
You know, I handed things over to the team in Singapore and they have things well under control which is great.

Rick: Good stuff. Sounds really good. Hows your wife doing? How is she feeling?

David: Ahh she is doing pretty well. She'd like the baby out.

Rick Yeah I bet.

David: Particularly for that us men never go through it, just the idea of having your skin stretched out with a
basketball in your stomach, it doesn't look comfortable.

Rick: Yeah I imagine not. It's a stressful time too but its a happy time, I know that.

David: Yeah, It's been a good chance for me to help out with the two year old we've got and chase him around, because as he gets
faster she's been getting bigger and slower. She is closer to the birth.

Rick: Alright, now daddy has to do all the chasing.

David: Yeah. I think he worked out a few weeks ago that "Hey! Mom cant catch me anymore" Beauty! (Laugh)
Now Im here but it's meant we had a busy couple of weeks, my wife headed down to Australia eight weeks ago so I had a pretty
intense seven weeks without the family there in Singapore, basicly working seven days a week. And a week over in Sweden
which was good a couple of weeks back.

Rick: O.K.

David: Then a very productive week and then a very busy couple of weeks before I headed off down here.

Rick: Then your going to be down in Austrailia then for a month or two right?

David: Yeah. Heading back in January

Rick: Oh right.

David: The team in Arkadia, they're very self motivated, we dont have a very strict way of operating so whether I'm there or not
the guys get in, get their work done, and produce plenty of content to a good standard, so that means I'm just on skype every day
and keeping up to date.

Isclay: Well it sounds good and lets talk about that for a minute, I mean,we know that you have a great team back there are Arkadia
Studios, and so you're staying in touch with them and they are staying in touch with you but this is a hard working bunch of folks
the way I understand it.

David: Oh they're great. Funnily enough, Im not actually speaking to them every day. Some days there's just no need to discuss anything.
They know what needs to be done, a lot of the work particularly for the Artists takes some times weeks to do, sometimes months.
They dont need to talk to me on a daily basis. Half the time the guys will skype me in the office and I'm like "Hey, Im right here".
(laughing)

Rick: (laughing) Yeah

David: Just gets a little too easy, they got their headsets, on the musics going, theres some models and they just type in skype.
It makes very little difference actually when Im down here, which is good, gives me that flexibility.
I know that the content keeps being produced when Im away. Some time I think the rate goes up when Im not in the office distracting
anyone.

Rick: well I think the players are particularly interested in the team and the dynamics of the team as far as it goes. You talked about
that quite a bit. I guess that for us and for the people that play its good to know that you trust your team, and that they trust you.
I think thats a cohesiveness that alot of companies just dont have.

David: I agree. Its something that whether it's this business or any other business, just developing a team like this that is self'
managing and.... I suppose having everyone on the team understand the customer, what you guys as players want and expect in terms of
quality and things. Theres a good understanding in the team that if they make a mistake how it plays out and what it might effect.
It just means that our QA is fairly straight forward because the guys work on the basis of "dont make mistakes in the first place", so
although we still have QA which is realistically mostly Chris and I checking things over, it's more pushing the QA back on the original
content creator to put stuff in that's bug free and error free in the first place.

Rick: Yeah. I think we've all been really pretty happy with the content releases that have come out, We have said it a hundred times.
When we get content from Arkadia its good content. That's a high bar, that's a high standard and I know its hard to reach I imagine
some times.

David: It is but the team is very stable and keeps getting better with time, everyone on the team has been there a long time and that
certainly makes it easier as time goes on. It's all about wanting a team that's gonna be there years later. Its not so much pushing
everyone into overdrive till they burn out and quit. We are building a good team where people are respected and they do good work.
I always, when Cyrus particularly, pass on when there are comments about the quality of an update. You know if people make comments on
the forum about it they will be passed on to the art team especially so that they know people notice when you do good work and they are
thankful for it.

Rick: Oh yeah. Thats the way.

David: Its motivating for them so thats a good thing.

Rick: Alright. We want to ask you, mainly we wanted to talk to you tonight about the version update that's comming and possibly
anything you can tell us about the next version update. So if you have anything you want to tell us? Fire away!

David: O.K. I guess this version update isnt probably as big as we typically do, and in part there's a couple of reasons. One: We are
trying to shift developement over to almost being an update ahead if you like. It sort of culminates this update will be the one that's
not as big as usual. But then February and then consequential updates after that will be a lot bigger. It gives the team more time to plan
things out. It makes our dealing with Mindark a lot easier because we can give them a lot more heads up on what we are working on months
in advance instead of weeks in advance.

Rick: sure

David: That sort of speeds things up, gives us a lot more time for testing so that something like what happened with the Arkoin brokers
we can avoid in the future. Im sure you'll ask about that later, we'll get to it.

Rick: hah yeah we will.

David: This one we are introducing a few terrain changes with this update. There's a plan there to slowly improve the terrain across
Arkadia and increase the diversity of the terrain. Bring it to be more alien in the look and feel of a planet.Its quite a change around
the Quarry and also up through the Celeste outpost and the valleys running up from that. We'll be keen to get feedback on it, whether
people are liking the changes, what they like about those things as we sort of progress forward with rolling it out across the planet.

Rick: I see it. Any changes over at Celeste Harbor? the north and south and Military area?

David: not really .. no. this is really, what we're I suppose focusing on is that.. when we built the planet there was a need for speed
to get the whole planet done and get it out. We were, I suppose, ambitious in creating four distinct terrains with desert, jungle,
grassland and snow. What we've now got is that ability to take a bit more time to really focus on smaller areas. I think that's what
you'll notice in these new areas. There's a lot more attention to detail about the place with every rock and plant and tree and shrub
and everything else. So that the areas start feeling like they are more detailed and had more work put into them. Based on the learnings
from doing that we'll start rolling that out as I say across a lot more of the planet.

Rick: Ok. Always like those kind of changes. I think everyone does. I know that when version updates come I go to my haunts, places that
I usually go and Im looking at the terrain and Im going ok that's changed and that's changed and this is added. That's always interesting.

David: Yeah. It's fun to see it develop and it's nice from my perspective to be able to have that time to focus on smaller areas, to get
things done. Its all about raising the bar, the focus as far as the developement of Arkadia was getting to what I was sort of referring to
as a minimum spec for the planet. Where it was the terrain was all done, there was an adequate range of creatures out there to hunt,
that there was an introduction of more game play like the instances, there was an economy in place as far as base resources of mining and
getting treasure hunting in and so on. So we are transitioning into a phase where we can start focusing on taking that time for quality
developement. Not to say everything developed was garbage, of course it's not but we certainly see how we can really push the cryengine
a lot more and improve the look of things and improve the optimisation. I suppose this has been happening all year, look at the new
creatures that have been put in, the Kamaldon, the Teledon, the Riptor and so on. Just through developement, time, and techniques and
things we've dropped the poly count on those creatures. I think the Kamaldon was sitting at about eleven and a half thousand polygons
and is now down to thirty three hundred. It just means it runs better on everyones PC and so as we have been updating creatures we have
been doing it to that sort of level. Even the brand new ones like the Gallard, the Riptor, the new Kadra.

Rick: Yeah and Im not even a hunter but Im obviously out mining quite a bit and I do see them and when I get near them and I notice the
changes in them. You know I noticed that they've changed. Their structures have changed and their movements have changed. I think I'm not
any different then anyone else, I think everyone's noticed that.

David: Yeah we're sort of backing off a bit on the developement of mobs for the moment. There was a big push with all new mobs through
the instance. We wanted to get some of the newer player mobs in like the Nusul, like the Gallard that was added last update. This update
I'm pretty sure Chris is putting more spawns of the Gallard around for newer players to hunt. So we've been able to pull Nahesh
who's our lead animator. He actually came from working with technicolor in India before he joined us in Singapore so he had been working
on producing trailers for Triple A games out of the U.S. A lot of the trailers you see for the Triple A Games titles that every one
thinks are produced by the dev companies in the U.S. were actually being worked on by his team out of India.

Rick: no way

David: He's been able to switch over to more recently to doing some more work on that, working with Cyrus on video production because
we've got, I suppose upcoming opportunities to integrate more video into the game. We're sort of experimenting at the moment, still not
sure exactly how it's going to work, how well it will work, it's more about experimentataion. Trying to work on cut scenes and things
particularly around sort of going through the door of an instance would be a good example, where we'd want, the actual door to the
instances is a much more complex design then it first looks. It's all set up where when you turn the key all these parts of the door move
everywhere and everything else. So we want to introduce a cut scene into that point where as you put the key in you'd see a cut scene
while it loads you into the instance. Showing the door (sound effects)choon choon choon choon choonk and opening up.

Rick: Oooh right. That sounds really cool.

David: There's alot we can do going forward and we're still working with Mindark on the technicalities of running a cut scene at that
point and so on. I'm confident we'll get there. It has alot of value particulalrly through the new player experience. You know training
and running videos to convey a story. It's all about building I suppose. I think people have seen it with Arkadia it's all about layering,
layering, layering and building on each thing, just constantly making it better and better and better. I suppose in getting the first
instance in there's a lot of learning around that and in time we'll add a lot more. It's just making sure we've got everything down pat
and it's working properly the way we want.

Rick: Right on! Also I wanted to ask you too.. you were just in Sweden so is there anything interesting about your trip to Sweden
that you'd like to share with us?

David: There's a really good Irish pub there. (Laughing)

Rick: (Laughing) Well tell us about it.

David: It was a good trip. A very positive productive trip. I suppose just particularly with the relationship with Mindark I'm working
towards a future that's good for everyone. I cant really go into much detail about most of what was put forward, But part of it was for
me putting forward a few ideas on what we're trying to do particularly in regards to quests that are a very long chain. Got good support
for that. The writing guys are already working on that. Its going to, I suppose, probably delay alot of the story driven missions a bit
Which is unfortunate. But we're aiming by sometime mid next year sort of rolling in, I suppose rather then having missions that are just
you go do the mission and that's it, everyone building on to the next one and the next one. We dont want to put in five links in the
chain when we wanto to put in a hundred. We want to developit all the way through and then put it in, so if people want to play at a
cracking pace they can. A lot of this, understanding from my perspective of running the company, it's almost like your building pylons
of a bridge. Its putting it in properly. Once it's built and it's in, thats it! It's in and we can go on to the next piece. Its about
putting those foundations in place working so we're not having incremental as much as we've had in the past. I know its at times its
pretty frustrating it is for me too, there's been elements where we've expected things to go in as a complete system and we've only got
part in. An example is the instances and then the Arkoin brokers. I suppose I might as well cover those while I'm at it.

Rick: Oh yeah lets talk about the Arkoin brokers.

David: That was obviously one of the top items on the agenda in going to Sweden. To get them in and get them in in a way that works for
the long term. The frustrating part is they are not going to be in this week. Looks like February we are expecting to have them in.
However. We sort of worked through with the guys at Mindark to come up with a design of those mission brokers. I suppose it can best be
described as combining a shop keeper and a mission broker in one. What that then allows us to do is put items in with a number available.
What we couldn't do before and one of the problems we're having is you put something in and the entire market can be flooded because
there was no sort of stop point for how many of that item could be taken from that mission broker. In order for us to put better items
into the brokers we need to be able to put a limit. Now that limit might be two hundred of an item. It doesn't have to means it's going
to be three. It just means that we can put better items then we would have previously which will benefit everyone in the long term.
It also means we can do things like real world products. Take for instance the Alienware computers. We could just put them in an Arkoin
Broker with a number of Arkoins to aquire one of those items and then it'll say a little 3 next to it that there are three of these
available. That means people can sort of target it, collect coins, and things like that.

<end part 1>

 

Here is the interview transcript PART 2 - Thanks to Cyborg Bill and DJ Brownie for their help with this:

Rick: sure sure

David: It keeps it..It gives us a lot more control and it gives Mindark balancing team a lot more control which makes them more
comfortable which is a good thing too. We could put in..it could be limited edition clothing items, as an example, we want to say
we only want one hundred sets of this clothing to reach the game at all. We can put it in with a number available which is a hundred.
That was something we were discussing with Mindark quite a while back and we're really keen to have in there. Its much easier for us
rather then trying to run everything via the forum. If we got tools in the game to do it it's better for the players to just do things
in the game rather then have to join the forum or take screen shots and all that sort of stuff. We get a lot more flexibility. It gives
us an ability to put a better variety of items in. There's a bit more time to wait unfortunately but it will be a much better system.

Rick: So is your goal to try to put that into February's version update or is that still maybe not....

David: I'm fully expecting we'll have it in by February. I think if we had an update early Jan we'd probably get it in for that. I know
the guys at Mindark are working hard. DON'T misinterpret that. If we did have then we'd probably have it done by then.


Rick : alright (laugh)

David: (Laughing) The next VU is going to be in sort of earlyish Feb and we'd expect to have it in then. We're expecting February will
be a very big update.

Rick: Well we're all looking forward to that. Now. Yao-te had a question regarding the Arkoins. We had an interim sort of an auction
system in for Arkoins and he wondered if possibly another system like that, another for Arkoins for the interim between now and February
was going to be implemented or do you know?

David: No. There's no plans to do that in the short term. It's really not that far off. we're talking two months there abouts, Which can
seem like a long time in entropia (laugh) but it's not that far off. There will be plenty of content coming with the Arkoin brokers at
that time.

Rick: Alright. I think the Arkoins is what a lot of people wanted to know all about. We are looking forward to Tuesday and also February
sounds like its going to be something really big. Also another question I had was with land areas. At anytime in the near or
distant future are land areas gonna be sold on Arkadia or no?

David: Yes most likely. It's certainly something we are looking at but not confirming any dates or numbers or anything like that. We are
certainly looking at it. We spent a lot of time in the past month or so looking the whole of next year and what we're expecting to get
done. How anything like that would tie into the update schedule, dev time, story based missions and things like that. It's always a bit of
a complex juggle to make sure it all fits together and you know your not trying to introduce something like October next year
that's not going to have a problem with something you did earlier in the year. We'll probably expect to have more information early next
year I'd say.

Rick: Alright we're looking forard to that.

David: Maybe the next chat for theh next update. We'll see what we've got.

Rick: Alright. Ive got a question that just came in live from our good friend Kikki jikki, he just asked me to follow up with you on the
ACA brokers. Can you comment on that?

David: Yeah they're fixed for the update. They JUST missed the patch. Im tryin to think if we had a patch, I've got a feeling we didn't
have a patch and that's why they weren't put in and fixed straight away.

Rick: O.K.

David: It's something I know Chris fixed straight after the last update. I've confirmed with Chris before I left Singapore that's all
fixed.

Rick: Alright that's great. That'll answer that question for him. Now I know we wanted to keep this interview short and so is there
anything else that you would like to let us know or anything you'd like to comment on just for the record?

David: ( big exhale whooo) I think that we've covered most of the really pressing issues that are happening at the moment so, You know
we're still around on the forum. I've been a bit quiet on the forum the past couple of months. Really, I think Chris made a post saying
you know if the team here gets quiet you know that we're working hard.

Rick: (giggles) Exactly. We're good.

David: Its been a real strategic time for working through the whole of next year. Particularly as I say there's long chain quests we're
looking at. They've just got so many broad impacts across the story, the economy, the whole game play that they are taking a lot of work
to prep up. We have to have pretty big proposals ready to explain to Mindark exactly what we are trying to achieve.

Rick: I do want to comment on both Cyrus and Chris in the fact they DO come into forums. They do and have been around to answer when
someone puts out a question that's really relevant and really needs an answer. Chris has been there and Cyrus has been there and you
have too in the past. That's just a tribute to you guys in general.

David: We're certainly doing our best. We've had a few sort of tricky ones like the Arkoin brokers, we're just reticent to put out any
information until we had solid information as to what's happening and when its going to be. It wasn't out ofthe question that it might
be ready for this update. I can say now that it's definately not in this update because it's more so something Mindark's building then
we are. I can't just go and check with the developer as easily to see where it's at. Certainly we are still keeping track of the forums
and watching them. I suppose I've been tied up, there's been some pretty big things happening with marketing, we've had the MOL release
announced and we're now up on their home page as one of their featured games at the moment. We're still working with them to really push
a lot harder out to their customer base. We've also got some other pretty big things on the go that are taking up a lot of my time.

Rick: Oh I bet.

David: Still working on a lot from down here so.

Rick: And obviously still working with the Alienware folks on different stuff and that seems like that's been a good relationship for you.

David: Thats been great! More then anything it's a very premiere brand for us to have partnered with over long period of time, and
maintain a good relationship with. That's now sort of helping us as we push to bring on more product partners which obviously delivers
more beneficial products to the players on Arkadia. So it's always been the plan to really scale that up. It's part of a rare situation
that we managed to bring Alienware onboard so early. Typically corporates like to see examples of what you've done before that you've
had relationships for long periods of time and all that. We're getting to that point where it's becoming a lot easier, of course once
we've brought gunners on board we're going to expand out that over the next few months. We've got a few other big things in the works
that are pretty exciting. Of course we've got the things Mindark are working on with the avatar update.

Rick: Yup I was just going to touch on that. I was just going to touch on the avatar update and see if you had any comments you
wanted to tell us about.

David: Everything's done from our end. It's had our lead artist tied up for a couple of months working on that which again is partly
responsible for why there's not as much new content coming out. You'll see a lot of the content we've been working on when the new avatar
update happens. In effect we have been able to improve on the armors and clothing and that sort of thing to go with it. I can't really
go into a lot of details or push Mindark to release more when they can't. It's certainly a very exciting update because it's just a
monumental improvement on what we've got. It's something I'm really looking forward to and I think we're going to see more diversity.
The quality of the armors and clothing and things is absolutely noticeable. It'll only be good.

Rick: I think a lot of people are eagerly awaiting to see what those changes will be. For some people I think they are a little nervous
and other people are just excited to get the new systems in and the new avatar changes in. We're going to be watching for that for sure.


David: We've certainly passed around our preference that Mindark wait until they've got it right before they release it. I think that
there were some hopes that it might be out already, but it's like keep testing make sure it's all perfect. ( laugh)

Rick: Rather have it right the first time. I know that's the Arkadian way anyway..

David: Its obviously, We've seen it ourselves over the past eighteen months or more since launch that anytime we have sort of rushed
things, its, its, we havent really put in stuff that's all broken, but there's been times when we put in incomplete systems and it
doesnt have major impact on, lets say a major positive impact to sort of rush stuff in. It makes it harder to jump on interviews like
this and say sorry we're going to wait till February till that happens. It's always nicer to go Yes! I ve got great news we've got itc
oming in this week.


Rick: yeah Hard to come on and say "Oh yeah, well this happened and so now you'll have to wait for a patch." We understand that part.

David: Exactly. We're certainly getting ourselves in order to avoid any of that sort of stuff going forward. The planet's sort of
developing out nicely now. We are getting far more to the point everything we're adding is nice to have then needed. Like when we're
putting shops and apartments into the game, they were needed. Getting the first clothes, were needed, but getting the next batch of
clothing is nice to have.

Rick: right

David: It gives us a bit more time to be more creative, you know get things done the way we want.

Rick: Thats great. Look I wanna go back to Alienware just for a second because one of our guys Cyborg Bill, he just asked if you guys
have ever thought to have Alienware pre load Entropia Universe onto some of their primary products. Is that something or is that a good
idea?

David: We've had alot of discussion about that with Alienware. They do have a program where they do that and hence they preload antivirus
software and things like that. The challenge is that the cost of getting that done at the factory is quite prohibitive. They do charge to
do it. We're not quite big enough, influential enough to get them to do it for nothing. They actually see it as a profit center. They make
money by, whether its Mcafee or what ever antivirus being installed on their machines so it hasn't been possible to get it done for free
as much as Id love to get it done. The cost of it has proven to be far higher. It's all a ration, how much the total spent on say a
thousand computers at x price per computer versus the same money spent on other forms of advertising. It just hasnt stacked up at this
point, so theres no plans at this point to do that. we have been discussing the idea of putting a dvd in with computers when they are
shippped which is a bit cheaper.

Rick: Oh there you go yeah.

David: You got the balancing act of they are less likely to install and play it so the conversion rates a lot worse when you put a dvd in.
We're just trying to work out what going to work best and obviously we gotta spend marketing dollars wisely.

Rick: Exactly. I would think that going forward with Alienware with the relationship you guys have been built it may become easier over
time to do something like that. Thats just me, Im just spitballing but that's, I think that maybe can be something that comes easier and
maybe cheaper later.

David: Its all about longevity in the relationships. Putting the Alienware hover pods was really well recieved by Alienware they
sort of spread that around amongst their people. It's always challenging dealing with a very large organisation making sure different
elements of the organisation do their part to help promote the game. We are still working with them on getting a lot more with their own
forum Alienware Arena and their facebook pages and things like that. This last promotion we did, had mentions on their facebook page
which resulted in people coming and trying it out. We've just got to work on those things on a long term basis. Bring on more things.
The ultimate thing with the Alienware is it really gives a benchmark when we go speak to other vendors about their products.

Rick: alright alright . Well uh, My producer Mel here has told me that we're prepared to create and run an advertisement for Alienware
if they are interested. you can ask them for us. (laughing)

David: (laughing) Ill let you know.

Rick: (Laughing) I think we can wrap this up. We wanted to kind of keep it short. Its really always good and we're looking forward to
Tuesday and obviously February. I can't say enough about it, its always good to talk to you.

David: No worries man. Thanks to everyone for listening. Keep a watch out for the update notes. There's more to it then I have said so far.

Rick: Im sure

David: I hope you enjoy it.

Rick: We definately will. We'll tell everybody goodbye now and thanks a lot for joinng the interview and we certainly thank you David
for dropping in and talking to us.

<end of interview>

 

Actually isclay its Cockney Rhyming slang, and as a native speaking cockney I should know.