"Lord Nine," Winner of the 2024 Korea Game Awards, Paves a New Path for MMORPGs 2025-01-13

“Excellence Award at the 2024 Korea Game Awards,” “#1 Most Loved New Title by PC Café Gamers in 2024”—these are the accolades claimed by Lord Nine, serviced by Smilegate Megaport. Since its launch in July last year, the game has made impressive strides, surpassing 200,000 concurrent users.

On January 11, Lord Nine held its “LORD-MAP Half Anniversary” event, marking its first offline gathering with players. Ahead of the event, we met with Executive Producer Kim Hyo-jae to discuss the significance of the event and the future direction of Lord Nine. 

Q. Could you please introduce yourself?

"Nice to meet you. I'm Kim Hyo-jae, Development Producer at NX3GAMES and the Executive Producer of Lord Nine."

Q. “Lord Nine” promotes itself as an “All-Class” MMORPG. Could you tell us more about the game?

Sure. Let me start with the concept of a Lord. In the game, nine Lords are characters who have risen to prominent positions. Each has a unique backstory, and within the game’s lore, they embark on a journey across the continent of Elsea to earn a new title.

One of Lord Nine’s standout features is its flexible character system.

Players start by choosing a Lord and can freely switch between classes like archer, knight, or mage. For example, a character who begins as an archer can later become a knight wearing robes, or a mage clad in plate armor—allowing for truly unique and unconventional builds. 

In other games I’ve worked on, players had to choose jobs within fixed class boundaries, which could be limiting. Lord Nine, on the other hand, allows players to develop their characters through various classes and weapon masteries according to their personal play styles—this is what we mean by “All-Class.”  

Q. LORD-MAP Half Anniversary held on January 11 was Lord Nine’s first offline event for players. It must have felt special—what was your mindset as you prepared for the event?

For me, the most important goal was to clearly communicate Lord Nine’s service philosophy—“keeping promises made to our players.” At last year’s new title showcase, we said, “We want players to feel proud just by being Lord Nine users.” I hope this event is seen as one step in fulfilling that promise.

Q. Various game-related updates were shared during “LORD-MAP Half Anniversary” What aspects did you focus on the most?

We’ve been sharing upcoming updates monthly through programs like Lord Night and Lord Talk. This time, we used the event to reveal our 2025 update roadmap and present the game from a long-term perspective.

Most importantly, we wanted to express our gratitude to the players who’ve been with Lord Nine so far—and who will continue the journey with us in the future.

Q. You’ve been communicating closely with players through content like Lord Night, which aligns with Smilegate’s overall service philosophy. From a developer’s point of view, what kind of impact do you expect from this event?

I’m hoping this event marks the beginning of even deeper communication with players. In the past, the lack of communication between game studios and users often led to negative outcomes, but I think times have changed a lot since then.

Nowadays, players often won’t even play a game if they can’t communicate with the developers or studio. That’s why game companies must consistently understand the direction and content that users want and reflect that in development.

This event gave us the opportunity to hear directly from users and will definitely help us develop Lord Nine in the right direction based on that feedback.  

Q. Lord Nine achieved top sales rankings on both Google Play and the App Store within six days after launch and also won the Excellence Award at the 2024 Korea Game Awards. Do you have any particularly memorable moments from that time?

This happened last year at G-STAR I bumped into a player sitting alone at a restaurant, playing Lord Nine with such a joyful expression on their face.

At that moment, I realized, “Wow, something I created is giving someone real happiness.” It was a powerful and rewarding experience as a developer.

Q. At the pre-launch press conference, you stated that the goal was to offer a new experience without straying from the traditional MMORPG framework. What kind of new experiences is Lord Nine delivering, and how far do you think you’ve come in realizing that goal?

During development, we placed a strong emphasis on balancing new elements with classic ones. Players can sometimes feel uncomfortable with games that are purely novel.

What Lord Nine aims to offer is the freedom for players to explore a wide range of character classes and develop abilities in line with their preferred playstyles—thus expanding their gameplay experience.

Traditional MMORPGs often forced players into rigid systems, but Lord Nine was designed to help them break out of those molds and enjoy a more personalized gameplay experience.

Q. MMORPGs are known for their exciting inter-faction wars across worlds and servers, creating tons of player-generated stories. Are there any standout server situations or memorable episodes you’ve seen?

There was a recent “Boss Hunting” event on a newly launched server, hosted by an creators. The goal was to defeat a boss and be the first to collect ten chests and send an in-game mail.

What made it unforgettable was that a player collected nine chests and then formed an alliance with a rival faction to get the last one—essentially betraying their own guild.

It was a bit concerning, sure—but also incredibly dramatic, like something out of a movie.

Ultimately, it reminded me that MMORPGs are a genre where players can become entangled with one another in ways that often spill beyond the in-game systems themselves.

Q. The current world-server alliance content is already engaging. Are you planning anything on an even larger scale beyond the current server structure?

We’re preparing content where players can invade other worlds. It will allow players from different worlds to both compete and cooperate, and we aim to release it sometime this year.

Q. As you prepare Lord Nine for long-term service, what sets it apart from other games in the same genre?

I believe the biggest differentiator is that both veteran and new players can enjoy most of the game’s content.

Instead of restricting content to high-level users, we want to continue developing Lord Nine in a direction that provides accessible content for as many players as possible.

By staying player-centric in our service approach, we hope Lord Nine remains a game that players will love for a long time.

Q. As both a gamer and a developer, how would you personally define a “fun game”?

To me, a fun game is one you’d want to recommend to someone else.

I believe games are even more fun when shared with others. When you play with friends, you naturally talk more about the game, learn new things, and meet new people.

Lord Nine brings together nearly everything I dreamed of when I first began developing games. In that sense, I believe I’ve realized a good part of my vision as both a gamer and a developer.   

Q. Final question—do you have any message you'd like to share with Lord Nine players?

Though there have been ups and downs since launch, I want to sincerely thank all the players who have been on this journey with us.

We will continue listening more closely to our players' voices.

We believe 2025 will mark the launch of Season 2 for Lord Nine, and we are preparing a wide range of exciting new content.

We trust that our players will guide Lord Nine toward the direction it should grow.