Vortex Gaming

Naddic Games, developed by Naddic Games and serviced by Nexon, will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the otherworld action 'Closers' this December. Although there were some difficulties in 2023, the Closers, who returned to New Seoul via Busan and Antarctica, prevented the dimensional species 'Lilim' from causing nightmares and depicted the process of confronting the conspiracy of another threat, the 'Cult'. And last April, through the after-story audio movie of the World Peace Gate, they illuminated a new background, 'Paris', and foreshadowed another development, such as revealing the new character 'Yuria' ahead of the summer update.

In addition to the in-game aspects, there have been changes externally as well. Lee Seung-heon PD, who was in charge of Closers since 2022, stepped down, and Kang Hyun-jun PD was newly appointed in December 2023, leading Closers. Over the past 7 months, Closers has been refining the story of Season 4 while gradually improving convenience and optimization. We were able to hear from Kang Hyun-jun PD about the vision of 'Closers', which is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary, and how it will move forward.

Q. You are adding a new character, Yuria, in this summer update. What kind of character is she?

= She is a new character who joins the Black Lambs team. She awakened her Phase Power in the early days, but after experiencing some trials, she gave up being a Phase Power user and debuted as an idol before returning to Closers. We plan to tell the story of why Yuria, who debuted as an idol, returned to Closers through the update on the 11th.

Q. It's been a long time since Misteltein that a new lineup has been added to the Black Lambs team. Is there a special reason for assigning the new character to the Black Lambs team?

= There are two reasons. Currently, Closers has a total of 20 characters, five in each of the four teams, and I thought that adding a new character to a new team lineup would make it difficult to connect the main story. So, I designed it to participate in the existing team in order to increase the concentration in the main story.

Another reason is that Closers is almost 10 years old now, and I feel that the team members who have been in the lineup for that long have a fixed way of interacting with each other. In this situation, I wanted to inject a new member to refresh the team with new chemistry, and I also wanted to show another charm of the team by creating more diverse chemistry.

Q. Each team has been assigned 5 members to create new characters, but with the sudden addition of a 6th member, users are in a mixed situation with anxiety that one person might suddenly disappear and expectations that new members might appear in other teams as well. Can you explain more about the change in the policy of adding new characters?

= After Yuria, new characters will be added to each of the existing teams, one by one. The order is not yet confirmed, but you can think of the Wolf Dogs team as the next in line. If there is a 50/50 split between worry and expectation, I hope you will have more expectations. There will be no players disappearing or disappearing from the story, and we are considering various ways to add one more person to the story that five people have built to create more interesting interactions and a richer story.

Q. You have announced 'Paris' as a new area after the story of Season 4 has been somewhat completed. I am curious about what kind of formidable enemies and new content users will encounter there.

= First of all, let me tell you about the summer update. We are not showing it in a form where the story unfolds abruptly. Rather, we want to illuminate it in two dimensions: the past and the present. Closers users are familiar with 'Hecatoncheir', which is in an undead state, so many users have been wondering how strong he would be when he was alive. So, we created a situation where you can feel the majesty and power of Hecatoncheir in the era of the Dimensional War by looking at the memories in Western Europe in the past. Rather than dealing with the story that is currently unfolding there, you can think of it as a stage to introduce the background. The full story will be released in the winter, and you can think of it as a dimension to show variations in preparation for that.

Speaking of formidable enemies, in addition to the Dragon King Raid where 'Hecatoncheir' appears, Astarte will appear as a new epic monster. As I mentioned on Channel On, the main goal of the Memorial Investigation Team quest that will be introduced after the update is to show what kind of relationship Astaroth and Hecatoncheir had, and what happened between them.

Q. On the other hand, it feels like the story of Season 4, which returned to New Seoul, the 'root' of Closers, is facing a different phase. In particular, the 'Dragon' was mentioned in the audio movie, so can it be seen as groundwork for preparing for a new season?

= That's right. However, I'm a little cautious about saying it's a new season. After all, if it's Season 5, it feels like we're finishing this Season 4 and preparing something bigger. Rather than the start of a new story, it would be better to see it as a change in atmosphere and mood.

Q. You have announced 'Trans Discs' as new equipment. How is it different from the 'Trans Discs' that you farmed in the White Night Fortress and the Extreme Night Fortress before?

= The existing Trans Discs were equipment created with a transformation gimmick. It was equipment based on the Supreme Wings costume, which is a setting where the Supreme Disc chose Closers and passed on its power, but users were more reluctant to forcibly transform their characters than the developers thought. Based on that feedback, this time, instead of transforming, we reinterpreted it in the form of using the power of the monster contained in the Trans Disc. To make it easier to understand, if I were to give an example of another game's system, it would be like the striker system in a fighting game.

Q. The third Memorial Quest is announced to be about 'Tina'. Is there a special reason for selecting Tina? I'm also curious about what kind of story you will tell.

= First of all, looking at what I aimed for when I took office as PD, there are many contents that go back to the past. Adding a new character to the Black Lambs team and character remakes were also what I aimed for. In that sense, I was also drawn to the audio movie of Tina and the Trainer, which many users liked. There were many people who were interested in that story, but I felt sorry that I couldn't explain it with just a 7-minute audio movie.

The scenario writers had already conceived the story in more detail in their heads, and I wanted to provide an opportunity to expand on it. If I were to say 'detailed', it would feel like narrowing the scope, so I would say it's the story of Tina and the Trainer in those days.

Q. You have prepared a jumping event along with this summer event. As there are many contents and systems accumulated in Closers, what have you prepared for new or returning users to settle in?

= Returning users adapt relatively quickly, but new users often have a lot of difficulties because there are many old systems and accumulated contents. So, we have been preparing to inform them of what contents we can do now.

To this end, we plan to add a growth guide with the update on July 11th. After all, Closers has been lacking in content that guides new users on what to do. We felt that we had not systematically presented what dungeons to run and what to do with the current specs in the game. So, this time, we have prepared a system that allows users to immediately know what content to run with their current specs by clicking on the category through the growth guide, and to move directly to the area.

Q. On the other hand, skill remake work has been carried out for early characters such as Seo Yuri and J. What aspects did you focus on in the remake? I am also curious whether you plan to carry out additional remake work for characters that have been released for a long time.

= As it is a game that has been around for almost 10 years, I thought that the quality difference between the early characters and the recent characters was quite significant. So, I wanted to proceed with the remake in two dimensions: quality upgrade and simplification. First of all, in terms of quality, the early characters used effects and motions that were made in the past, so they felt a bit bland. So, I wanted to upgrade this part.

In addition, in the process of Closers upgrading and making various updates, the structure became very complex, with each character having six upgrades and a total of 24 skills including the skills attached to each upgrade, and 3 levels of mastery. There were also hidden gimmicks, so it felt a bit difficult for new users to approach. So, while I was remaking it, I wanted to simplify it so that new users could easily approach it, and I also wanted to simplify the tooltips.

As a result of the remake, the effect quality was quite good, but there was a lot of feedback from users that the change in the feel of operation was quite large compared to the existing one in the process of gimmick integration and simplification. Based on this feedback, when proceeding with the next remake, we will increase the effect quality and move in a direction that does not harm the existing feel of operation.

At this stage, we expect to remake about one character per quarter. However, we are currently adjusting the direction of the remake by reflecting user feedback, and it may change slightly depending on how much speed we gain in the stage of adjusting and developing it.

Q. Convenience issues are unavoidable for games that have been serviced for a long time. Can you introduce how you are preparing improvement measures for this part?

= It was a problem that I had been thinking about for a long time, so I have been preparing for it step by step. First of all, in the spring, we focused on improving the pet inventory.

In fact, when I played on the live server, it was inconvenient to have to change pets every time I entered a dungeon. Also, as is often the case with games that have been serviced for a long time, the inventory was always running out. To fix this, I thought of two ways: to handle it with content or to handle it with a system. However, if we approached it in terms of content, it was often only convenient at the time and then became complicated again. For example, consolidating materials to reduce the number of items that take up inventory, but eventually something is added later and it becomes complicated again.

So, recently, we have been approaching it more systematically, such as being able to use items in the warehouse immediately or changing credits to account integration without having to move them through the account warehouse. Of course, we also want to improve the content. Even now, there are cases where 8-year-old materials are piling up when running old dungeons, and there are various barriers to entry for new users, such as tooltips, outdated UIs, mastery, and cube systems. We have set up a structure to organize it all at once, and we will tell you how we will improve it as soon as the update schedule is set. And we will also fully improve the convenience of the Black Market.

To tell you more about the direction, I personally think that the most important thing about 'convenience' is that you don't have to be aware of something and use it without knowing it. Rather than researching a system that has been introduced, I think that the intuitiveness that anyone can come in and use naturally is what Closers needs now, so I am improving it with this goal in mind.

Q. Various improvements have been made to optimize the game, such as supporting 64-bit clients, but users often mention phenomena such as frame drops. What additional measures are you taking to improve this?

= First of all, we are approaching it by dividing it into two issues. The first is the issue of severe stuttering when the game is turned on, and the second is the issue of momentary occurrence.

First, we looked for the first issue, that is, the issue of continuous frame drops. As I mentioned through the last Channel On, there were some effects in the client that were not visible after being used but were not removed. The developers call it 'zombie effects', and we found them one by one and made sure that they could be removed after being used.

We also checked that the vortex-shaped effect that we had been working on was quite burdensome. Users who run Bihyung and Gangrim will immediately recognize this, and we are improving this part with a system that allows frames to continue more smoothly than before. We expect to be able to apply the improvements within the summer.

Looking at the situation where frame drops occur momentarily, they mainly occur in cases where dozens or hundreds of attack judgments occur in the process of spamming skills. Closers aims to show off exhilarating action while spamming skills, but we are considering ways to maximize the efficiency of attack judgments without harming this feeling, so that they do not occur all at once and are integrated, or that they can come out smoothly. I think the update can be made within the second half of the year.

All of these things are actually bottlenecks that occur in the interaction between resources and game data. This is because the actions of multiple characters are performed in real time in a short period of time. The development team is also doing its best to optimize that part. In addition, the phenomenon of 'getting God-gamed', that is, the server connection being terminated while running a dungeon, which has been around since the early days, is still occurring occasionally, and we are improving it to reduce the frequency of its occurrence.

Q. I remember that there have been several large-scale improvement attempts in Closers, but there have been difficulties in the middle. So, some users may be anxious or even distrustful. Do you have any special preparations to minimize this and move forward as planned?

= First of all, I think communication is important. So, we have been trying to transparently tell users what we are doing now through update letters, developer letters, and Channel On. And we will continue to improve.

At this stage, I think it is important to be 'accurate' rather than 'a lot'. The contents that I have mentioned so far are things that are definitely in progress or that we are definitely preparing. If we announce many things, we will be full of expectations, but if that is canceled, the disappointment will be greater and the trust will be broken. Rather, we will only deliver what we can do accurately and what is definitely decided, and we will gradually rebuild trust.

Q. In fact, while 'Closers' has experienced several failures in the past, it has not revealed them. On the other hand, it was impressive that you directly revealed the contents that were discontinued during the last broadcast. Also, you communicated with users through the second broadcast this time. How do you plan to expand communication in the future?

= The content that was recently canceled was 'Another Closer', which was a content that aimed to show a new play style and increase the fun of nurturing from an IF perspective, such as what if that character made a different choice? At first, we worked on 'Lee Seulbi's Another Closer, but it overlapped with other development schedules, and we judged that it would take too long to build a new Another Closer for all characters. We judged that it would deviate from what we originally aimed for, so we eventually abandoned it.

But if we don't tell you that right away, users will have no choice but to wait for it. I thought it was better to be honest about it, even though it failed. I thought it was our job to show the development process transparently and make users understand.

As I mentioned earlier, I think the best way to gain trust is to keep your word accurately rather than saying a lot of things or saying that you will do a lot of things. Everything that has been said in the videos and developer letters so far, as well as in this interview, has been said when I was confident that it was possible, and I will gradually implement it to build trust.

Q. In the developer's note, you said that you have been thinking about the essence and identity of Closers while reorganizing after taking office as PD. What is the 'essence' and identity of Closers that you think of, and what is the direction?

= 'Closers' is a subculture game and an action game. Of course, we have to show attractive characters and stories as a subculture, and the key to 'Closers' is high-speed action that constantly uses skills. Another thing is, including 'full dubbing'.

I believe that attractive characters are completed by combining all things such as appearance, personality, and combat style. As an example, we put a lot of effort into the modeling and motion of 'Yuria', which we will be showing you this time. We tried our best to put personality into every skill motion. If you look at the last motion without canceling, you can see that she is taking a selfie or singing with a microphone, and we tried our best to show every little detail that matches the concept, personality, and style.

Also, one of the characteristics of 'Closers' is that NPCs are also very popular. Sometimes users even ask us to release them as playable characters, and there are many attractive characters among the NPCs that we are introducing with this new update, so it will be one of the fun elements to log in and check them out.

Speaking of combat as an action game, 'Closers' has skill trees, but there are almost no combo sequences. In other words, it is a game that you play according to your own rhythm. Since there are more than 20 skills, rather than setting the order for each one, there is fun in using combat skills at high speed according to your own rhythm. When users choose a character, they tend to choose it because it is fun or because it suits their hands.

Therefore, in the recent update direction, we are avoiding as much as possible the contents that interfere with the character's movement to move forward with their own rhythm. Starting with the improvement of the primordial Tiamat, we are creating the four dungeons that we will show you through future updates in a form that allows you to continue the offensive without being disturbed, so please look forward to it.

And one more thing, the last thing I mentioned, 'main story full dubbing', is the most important point. The development teams and voice actors are spending a lot of time and money on it. However, we will continue to maintain that identity in the future.

Q. On the other hand, there are users who are anxious because of the recent series of failures last year and the sad news of domestic subculture games and long-term service games. Can you explain the vision of 'Closers' in the future?

= There are users who have been loving Closers so far, and there are many people in our development team who love Closers. We will continue to work hard to maintain the service.

'Closers' will be celebrating its 10th anniversary soon, and we are always approaching game development with a new mindset. We are creating each motion and effect from scratch, and 'Yuria', which we are introducing this time, is the first step. As an aside, 'Yuria' was fun when I played it, and it came out beautifully when I went into the game.

Through this interview, I hope that users who will be encountering it after a long time will enjoy playing the new character 'Yuria' and enjoy the different and much changed play, and feel that it has developed a lot in 10 years.

웹진 인벤윤서호 기자
2024-07-11