Impression of Gravity... Well, there has to be a report regarding how the visit was, right? So here we go! I skipped my morning health fitness workout this day XD;;; Dated August 2nd, 2002 - in Seoul, Korea... - 12:30 PM - I went to Chang-dong Subway Station Line 4 with my mother, and with some waiting, my friend sinch the 5th grade (I'll call him Samael - a nick he uses in SC/RO). We rode the Line number 4 subway, and switched to Line number 3. We then went to Apgujung-dong where Gravity is located at! Riding subway is so fun, so cool (literally), and enjoyable. Did I ever mention public transportation system in Korea just plain rocks? ;) So does all those food places and the PC bangs!!! 555! XD Anyway, upon arriving at Apgujung-dong, we decided that we should find somewhere to eat... - 1:45 PM - After eating lunch in a some posh expensive Japanese restaurant (cost my mother about 42 bucks), we set out to find this elusive company known as Gravity. Well, the start wasn't that great. The map which I printed out from Gravity's site was totally messed to a certain extent. We had to go back and forth and couldn't find the darn building! - 2:25 PM - After some wandering around, we did find the 'Sin-gyu Building' which Gravity is located at. Yay. The building was rather small though... After entering, I found out this wasn't the one! O_o;;; There was no Gravity anywhere! Thinking that there has to be something wrong, we set out again in search of another 'Sin-gyu Building' (Yes, there are TWO Sin-gyu buildings in the same area, as it turns out -_-). - 2:40 PM - Finally, the call to Gravity went through (after so much searching on foot and asking random passerby), and a guy so kindly directed Samael (he has a cell phone - but then most of middle-to-high schoolers in Korea has a kickass cell phone anyway -_-) where to find Gravity. It turns out we passed the very building while we were trying to find place to eat first! -_-;;; After a good round of cursing out for us being so stupid, we start to drag ourselves to the Gravity building. The building happens to be situated next to an middle school, and a Kaplan (those SAT / PSAT prepare guys) place located at the 1st floor of the building. The name of the building was also 'Sin-gyu Building'... 555 - 2:50 PM - We go to the Gravity's floor at 6th (the 5th is the operation team), and someone just happened to be there. Sensing that we're here for something, he gently asks if we're looking for something. Note: We cannot enter the office at all because they have key card security where the employees have to put their card to the reader to unlock the door and enter. I answer 'Christy' then he goes. Then someone else comes back and she says there are 'Chris' and 'Christy'. I guess my pronounciation of name 'Christy' wasn't perfect XD;; So I say Christy and in a moment - she comes! (unfortunately I could not get any pictures of her because she wasn't feeling very well today...) Well, she and I had some small talk regarding recent event and why this certain someone who also runs an RO site (who shall be nameless) happened to be on a not very good term with Gravity. We got some misunderstandings sorted out, and I was taught some good things I should think about. I guess Christy and I are on okay terms, although she explained many things on how she cannot be close to any of the webmasters of the fansites. I understood, and they make sense - a perfect thing to do for Christy, really. Anyway, when we arrived, it happens Mr. Kim Hakkyu (CEO of Gravity) was at a meeting and could not talk to me yet. So, Christy takes our party on a tour of Gravity (the camera was ready and took like 17 pictures XD). First thing I saw was the animation/graphics team. I saw employees working on a sprite of something (I think it was female Dancer). I think from here we can find the pervo one who did female mage sprite and the female priest death pose. -_-; I also noticed Christy introduced me to the leaders of each group like this - 'Here, meet Luna (like I said, I prefer to keep my real name secret although you'll probably see my picture ;p). He came from the States, and he is the webmaster of RagnarokSource - an English Ragnarok fansite with many users.'. Also she kept on calling me 'Luna-si', that -si being an suffix added when someone adult addresses someone who is an adult male in Korea (it is used when not known well or is on business). O_o;;; I'm an adult? Kekeke XD Then we were introduced to the client/server programmers, the database managers/programmers, and Japanese server administrators. Most of the employees are young... but I hardly expect anyone over 35 to actually be into Ragnarok, much less gaming at all XD; I also noted they had some Japanese mangas and tons of programming books all over the place. The leader of hardcore bug testing had tons of stick-it notes with things to look into and fix all over his computer. O_o; I also met with a person who coordinates with English server administrators way over at states. I bet he's swamped with requests... After this room, we were led to the 5th floor, which has operation teams working hard. While we were going down, I found 4 men smoking who just happened to be in the marketing team. XD We were led to a smaller dark room. It so happened the people there were game masters of Korean Beta! While I tried to take a picture, they were like, 'whoa' and... well, the picture I have will show you ^^; Probably trying to avoid being seen so they don't get beat up by some angry users XD;;; It happens one of them was a hardcore tester, and another a webmaster who slept from overworking XD The actual operative team we could not meet because Christy explained that they are very busy and our presense probably isn't good to them for now. We then saw the billings department. Korean RO went P2P only yesterday, and tons of people signed up... They were on the phones, busily looking into things, etc. Then we were led to the Korean webpage/server administration team. There were a LOT of people there. As Christy explained earlier for me, Korean Beta has about 70% of the team, and rest for other versions. Also, Gravity may... err, assimilate English, Japanese, and others into the Korean Beta team (makes sense, because I did hear somewhere Gravity is planning to integrate the clients into one package). After the whole whirlwind tour of Gravity, we went to 6th floor (while going up, we met with marketing team leader, who happened to be smoking and looking at me super weird in a threatening way - Christy complained and then explained who I was, then he suddenly looked at me normally and in surprise XD). It happens that Mr. Kim Hakkyu was done with his meeting and could have a small talk with me. So we did that (look at the interview part for what happened). After, we were led outside, and Christy got us 3 Ragnarok posters (standard huge size). I understand that my visit was strictly business (I wasn't there for fun or for free stuff, really), so I took the small gift with dignity (if that is the right word XD). So since they were the same, I gave one to my friend and I kept the remaining 2, with plan to give one away to someone special... ;D When we were about to depart, Christy said this - 'we'll always have hope about you'. :) Whee, I guess it was a success... - 3:50 PM - We drag ourselves out of Gravity building, then we go a bit of shopping at Rodeo Road, and head back home tired. I guess in terms of business, it was successful. :) Thanks for Gravity for letting some unknown guy in and then take a look at everything XD - End of report -