'Father of RO' Set about New Martial Arts MMO to Challenge Blade and Soul

Kim Hakkyu, "Father of Ragnarok Online (RO)" who once developed the great games like Arcturus, RO and Granado Espada (GE), has announced to develop a new project. According to info from the game industry, Kim Hakkyu has been working on the development of a new MMORPG codenamed "ProjectLD" since last year.

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Kim Hakkyu - Father of RO

"Martial arts world" and "matchless fighting skills" dreamed of by all martial arts fans

The new genre of game that Kim Hakkyu will launch this time is just the martial arts game that he has never tried to develop. According to him, though no detailed game content has been unveiled till now, it's sure that the game will be a martial arts themed game. As a martial arts fan, Kim Hakkyu hopes to endow this game with more elements different from those in the existing martial arts online games, bringing forth a totally new style martial arts game never seen before.

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Actually, at the end of September, Kim Hakkyu made a survey titled "Survey on the New Project" on his personal homepage - "LameProof". Many questions about martial arts were presented in the survey for net users to answer, like "What's your ultimate goal when exploring the in-game martial arts world?", "Suppose you are a martial arts expert, what kind of actions and fighting skills do you think you can perform?" and "What's your favorite game content among the various martial arts themed games?"

Some other questions regarding more detailed content were also featured in the survey, including "What kind of weapons do you desire most in the martial arts world?", "How do you think oft martial arts training?", "Which celebrity in real life do you think is the one closest to you in the martial arts world?"...

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ProjectLD is expected to compete with Blade & Soul made by NCsoft next year.

NCsoft is set to unveil the latest game content for Blade & Soul via "GStar 2009", which is to be held at BEXCO in Busan from Nov. 26. Scheduled to launch 1st closed beta for Blade & Soul in the middle of 2010, NCsoft is now pressing on with the game's development work.

IMCGames also expressed that the development team has completed the general scheme of ProjectLD so far and plans to officially unveil related game info after the second half of 2010.

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After Kim Hakkyu, CEO of IMCGames, announced that a next-gen martial arts MMORPG was being developed, it seems that this game has hardly been able to escape the competition with the next-gen martial arts project - Blade & Soul, which is also under development by NCsoft.