The GigaOM Show: K2 Network's Joshua Hong
Want to know how online games are going to make money in the post-World of Warcraft era? The GigaOM Show recently sat down with Joshua Hong, co-founder and CEO of K2 Network, the company behind Gamersfirst, a free-to-play game network that boasts some 4 million monthly active users. Om’s smart and gracious co-host, Joyce Kim, invited me on to chat with Hong, who was advocating the free model long before Electronic Arts got into the act.
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4 million active user translates to a rank not even in the top 100,000 according to Alexa?
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/gamersfirst.com
according to compete.com the site does not even have any traffic worth mentioning…do they really have 4 million active users?
I’m a new reader. This is the first time I’ve watched one of these. They’re great and I look forward to watching the next one.
The people that play the games that K2 Network host are having a lot of problems with K2 Network not providing the services promised. Some of the problems are as follows:
The game MU Online that is hosted by this company is plagued by bug abusers and hackers which seem to get worse by the day due to K2 Network not wanting to enforce their policies.
Customer Service tickets receive automated responses and are automatically closed without the issue(s) being resolved.
Compromised Accounts not being investigated and players losing all their items to hackers.
No Live support.
Hackers are being allowed to run freely in the game because K2N doesn’t take the time to investigate hacker reports in a timely manner. This is largely due to Automated Ticket responses and lack of live support.
Bug Abusers. There are several areas in game that a player can position themselves that causes monsters not to be able to attack them. These area are considered bugged and people caught using them can be banned. K2N has stated that they would keep an eye on these areas and ban players that use these bugged areas, however, K2N has yet to patrol these areas, which has allowed the ingame market to get unstable and caused unfair player advantages.
Lack of Communication.
Outdated Policies and Terms. These items should be updated.
False (Misleading) Advertising.
Unstable Servers. On this K2 stated that they had maxed out the bandwidth of their ISP (intelenet) and were in the process of getting another ISP, however after about 1 year, they are still with intelenet and the servers are still unstable and many players have serious lag issues which has caused many players to leave. This is another example of the broke promises and lies that K2N has told.
I could add several more but I think it would be best it people see for themselves, therefore I invite anybody that is interested in the truth about the services that K2 Network provides to visit the Official Global MU Online forums hosted by K2 Network at the following address:
http://globalmuonline.com/forum/index.php
Thank You
SilverNite
Hi , im a global mu online player like Silvernite and i know him from the forum , too make it short K2 sucks. i mean it , suck big time, every thing he sayd is true and every day in the forum there will allways be 3 or 5 topics complain about k2 network, please , stop running this game. you only make it worse. thanks.
And sometimes, GMO(official Global Mu Online) forum moderators close topics that are related to game bugs, hacks, exploits, complaints, and others topics that could (and i think they should) be fought back by K2n.
Sometimes, its not even hard, as the hackers do it in plain sight, and even laugh on other players faces.
This is probably not the environment that should exist into a P2P (pay to play) game, as it doesn’t happen on other servers and games, namely World of Warcraft.
I understand that there can’t be an immediate response to ALL complaints, but for sure it could exist instantly for some, or at least resolve every true, solid and valid complaint in a short span of time (1 week or something like that).
Yeah SilverNite and Mer pretty much summed up the game.
I personally play GMO and im an active use of their forums. K2N cant handle either. The Mods are okay and they doo quite a good job but the ones hired by K2N arent good enogh.
When you pay to get something you obviously want to recieve.
well K2N doesent deliver…..
Nor are they capable of handling a forum either
k2 is one of the worst companies to ever exist.
I play Knight online.
The problems include:
Chinese people farming for gold.
Turkish people hacking accounts.
Bad, unstable servers.
A Free Game that people cannot log into due to that the last 20% of the servers are dedicated to “paid users” however rather than just adding capacity they choose to do the option that makes them money.
Their customer service sucks, you can’t even call someone for help, and they could give less of a care about your problems with your account.
I could go on for an hour.
I would recommend to anyone becoming involved with k2 network that you reconsider where you will spend your gaming dollar. This company is full of promises about how wonderful they are but in actuality they suck.
Thanks,
Tam
id and cipher and you give the grief i solve but does not have more time
i noticed that he says that there is also a customer service set up in “orange county” and INDIA , i dont see why things like this arent displayed on there site.
i for one feel that its unfair that for British ( not sure if it applys to people outside U.S.A) been charged extra to purchase a premium or G1 credits for living out side of America.
In reply to the forum remark , I for one know for a fact that one of the forum mods is a American Teenager.
i noticed that he says that there is also a customer service set up in “orange county” and INDIA , i dont see why things like this arent displayed on there site.
I am a Knightonline player, and i for one feel that its unfair that for British ( not sure if it applys to people outside U.S.A) been charged extra to purchase a premium or G1 credits for living out side of America.
The game has many disabled features, with the abillity to Delete characters disabled , forcing player to purchase other accounts or start up more accounts.
also they advertise that there are special area coming soon ive seen this messgae for the past 18 months and had no response in too queries i have made towards the K2 via there support ticket. which result in many unanswered questions
In reply to the forum remark , I for one know for a fact that one of the forum mods is a American Teenager.
K2 ideas are good in theory but are failing in practice. In game events are overrun by to many users which causes the K2 servers to lag to the point were game play is unachievable. The idea of free to play is not a bad idea; it’s only that K2s inability to keep their technology meeting the demand of players has made this idea ineffective.
Also
Scamming and hacks smash the notion of any fun that could be had, and currently most offenders go unpunished. If somehow K2 does take action against offenders and they ban an offenders account the offender is simply able to make a new free to play account and start scamming/ hacking again. K2 has yet to adopt a policy of ip banning known offenders ip addresses, which would greatly help in the above problem. Like Tam said before, K2 opts for any solution that will bring the company money, all the while they are causing paying and non paying members to leave their game for companies that can make good on their promises and provide a game that’s fun and even more important playable =/
I’m not going to even go into their customer support; the one word that comes to mind is automated, or maybe nonexistent.
If you’re just getting into MMORPGs consider how long you might be involved with the company that supplies the game you play… be sure to place your faith in a company that deserves it.
Peace
As pretty much everyone has said before, K2 is probably one of the worst companies that exists.
I play Knight Online.
You have no idea how bad this game has gotten, ever since K2 has bought this game till now, its gone to shit.
I have been playing for almost 5 years now, premium user every month, i pay $35 a month now for Platinum Premium.
I get no customer service, K2 doesn’t even care about me, I don’t think they care about any of their players for real. MANY users have been getting hacked constantly, the knight online database is so insecure, its been hacked constantly, the servers are down and K2 doesnt notice for 3 -4 days, and the KNIGHT ONLINE WEBSITE is hacked RIGHT NOW. If anyone tries to log in to the site, they will have there character hacked, all items will be lost, they will probably lose experience ( you lose experience when you are killed by a monster ). This has been happening for a looooonnnnnng time.
So pretty much K2 really needs to get their act together and do something. I could say soooo much more, as I have played for almost 5 years now, and they have sucked this entire time.
The only reason I play is because of my friends I have made in game.
K2 = Don’t ever EVER start playing any game hosted by them.
And F2P….. pure lie.
Worst company in the world.
Knight Online player.
Well, lots of complaints about K2 are inflated by disgruntled players, but the company does have a lot of work to do. They do not deserve the B rating from the BBB. Not an F, but somewhere around D-C would be most accurate.
I used to play knight online but the hacking and cheating made me stop.
I then started to play War Rock another K2 game but a F2P first person Shooter. In the beginning it was great – some bugs but hey it’s free.
But since a few months its overwhelmed by cheater – hackers – and the few updates only give a bit of rest for 1 day. I used to buy premium but every room i go in there’s at least one cheater which kills you in the second after respawning -where’s the fun in that.
The problems that I also saw in Knight online are pretty much the same as in Warrock. And if silvernite is right about global MU it means that K2 really sucks.
I’ve been playing WarRock for about 1 1/2 years ,Gold Premium Player…
Yes it is a fun game to play as long as there isn’t any hackers/cheaters/script kiddies that just ruin the game play.
A few months back K2 decided to change the anti-cheat system from Punkbuster to
Hackshield this was a very Bad idea..
Since December 2008 there has been more CHEATERS then ever.. example – at least 4 hackers per room playing interrupting Normal game players , they
the hackers use Superjump,invisibility,multiple grenade hack,kick and the worst OPK
(one position kill).. With these hacks you can NOT complete a single game
without having any chance of taking 2 steps before you die..
K2 has promised dozens of times that they will Ban these “no paying” cheaters but after several Months the same no skill playing hackers are still online, same name, same hacks….
No real customer support, you get a automated response, Thanks We will look into the situation….submmitting a ticket does nothing..
technical difficulties,disconnections,wrongful billing,double billing,etc..
“objective is to rid the game of illegal and unfair activity” Still waiting for this to happen..
I used to worked for this company and yes, their entire infrastructure were a mess. The system (database,network, etc) were full of bugs. We got tons and tons of complaints of customer from all kind of sources (billing, website bugs, in-game bugs, hacks, etc) everyday and they just do not have enough man power and resource to tackle these issues. You know how they incorporate games from country like Korea and so they do not have full access to the game source code so like everytime the game got hacked or has bugs, they can’t trouble shoot and have to wait until the Korean fix for them and that should take from at least one month to maybe a million years or so.
This company is all about MONEY. There is a website called GamersSecond.com created by employees at K2, it’s true.
My advice is do not waste your time and money on this game. you won’t get the result you want.
K2 Network isn’t one of the worest online game companies…it is the WOREST!
I Play Sword of the new world/Global Mu online have been playing sword for about half a year and mu for 4 years…..there’s no customer service at all i repeat NO CUSTOMER SERVICE in any game of this dam network their target when they buy the games out and host them is to destory it not to develop’em…all their games are full of BUGS/HACKERS/DUPERS/BOTTERS/Several DC…etc ppl are cheating all over the games by all possible and nonpossible means because they can’t find a better host for their hacks and dupes than our beloved K2 network and their dam websites are not updated at all their last update their is like 3 months ago and what they say??…our games are F2P …fukin Liers! u won’t pay in p2p games as much as u pay 2 ‘em every little thing in the game which u can’t play with out it is a premium item ..and ofc they leave the ppl who buy ALOT of Gcoins to bot and dupe without banning them and they can do whatever they want in the server and they ban others who are innocent and did nothing at all and when u submit a ticket u get a constant reply as if u r talking to a robot…..
so guys if u really looking for an online fun game to play ..am sry to tell u this but u came to the WRONG place here with K2 network no fun they steal ur money and u don’t play a fair game…u better go study/work than playing a game from their network…thx for reading this:)
I’m a knight online player how simple and how simple and bi must be aware of the situation you’ve got un. bugger and a lot more tricks Hacer keyloger we gave this game would give money, but we need to take the money right and slowly Unfortunately we can not retrieve online players dropped signifies kniht Shall we follow in bilyorsun stop uz
At one time they might have had 4 million active users. Its far from it now though. k2 networks is incompetent when it comes to running games and policing its game servers. Their games have more cheaters than non cheaters. And rather than police servers and ban the cheaters the “game masters” spend their time having sales for marketplace items to make money.
Dear Sir,
My account has been terminated. I have been playing the game and investing a lot in it for a very long time. I have been a very loyal customer of yours for years. It is the only thing I care about in life. I haven’t been able to focus on anything since I lost my character!!! I am respectfully asking for a chance to get my character and account back. Please get back to me with your response. I look forward to your kind response. Best regards.