AsianMedia serves up great online gaming with Lineage II’s Philippine servers

ASIAN MEDIA Development Group (AsianMedia) jumps headlong into the big leagues with the much anticipated Triple-A online game, Lineage II™ on its new Philippine server.

AsianMedia acquired distribution rights in South-East Asia for the medieval fantasy MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) from Korean gaming giant NCsoft. With Lineage II™, regional gamers are finally getting what they have long been seeking – a challenging and immersive online game that delivers premium content.

AsianMedia President, Felizardo de la Merced stated that “AsianMedia is committed to raising the bar for online games within the region by providing top-rate content with the IT infrastructure to back it up.”

The company expects the burgeoning market for online games within the region to generate annual revenues of US$141 million by 2010.


Building the foundation for great online gaming
AsianMedia has made substantial investments to house top-of-the-line gaming infrastructure for Lineage II in the Philippines, which will serve as the hub for the hundreds of thousands of gamers expected within the South-East Asian region.

AsianMedia recently chose HP as its technology provider to ensure the highest satisfaction for Lineage II gamers in the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. HP will provide AsianMedia with an online gaming infrastructure solution consisting of ProLiant and BladeSystem servers, StorageWorks data and network storage solutions, networking products, and services.

Information and Communications Technology Head, Apol Salud points out that Lineage II will be the first MMORPG to use HP’s Blade Server in the Philippines. “HP blade servers will allow AsianMedia to provide virtually unlimited expansion for Lineage II in terms of capacity of gamers and game content, while minimizing the amount of downtime for maintenance and upgrades,” he says.

“The Lineage II servers are also tightly integrated with Telco grade network equipments from Cisco Systems to increase its efficiency in handling large amounts of data traffic,” continues Apol.

“This allows ‘direct peering’ with our partner telecommunication companies such as PLDT DSL, Globe DSL, Telekom Malaysia, and SingTel so, in effect, our servers’ capacity for high volume traffic matches that used by the telcos themselves,” he adds.

“We have a true ‘world server’ capable of maintaining the highest quality of service and performance, whether it is accommodating a single user or 100,000 concurrent users,” Mr. Salud states.

To complement its gaming infrastructure, AsianMedia has also set up a 24/7 customer service center using Dell servers to address regional and local gamers’ concerns.


Delivering the goods to gamers
AsianMedia Chief Operating Officer, Ronald Allan Aquino is confident that Lineage II will quickly win the hearts and minds of gamers throughout the South-East Asian region.

“We have a great product in Lineage II and we’ve done everything we can to ensure that we provide the best gaming experience possible to those who log in to our servers to play,” says Aquino.

“This is the kind of game where you simply cannot afford to be lagged if you expect to get anywhere in PvP (Player-versus-Player) or PvE (Player-versus-Environment) scenarios. We are indeed fortunate to be working with only the best IT solution providers so our gamers can have the same great experience whether they’re in Malaysia, Singapore or the Philippines,” he adds.

Lineage II has drawn millions of loyal fans worldwide with its combination of fantasy combat and the unique social/political/economic power struggles developed through the community and by the in-game actions of individual gamers.

Gamers may play alone or as part of a group to fight monsters and complete quests for new skills, experience points, and items. Lineage II also features siege warfare; but to make sure PvP stays under control, the design includes a Karma system that provides negative consequences for killing other players when they do not fight back.

Lineage II features greatly improved third-person 3D graphics thanks to the Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games.


About AsianMedia
Established in 1999, Asian Media Development Group, previously known as AMDG, built up a nationwide sales and distribution network for licensed PC games which penetrated more than 90% of internet cafes in the Philippines. Expanding into the online gaming market in 2007, the company adopted a vibrant new logo and re-emerged as AsianMedia to reflect its commitment to providing the best online gaming experience for regional gamers. To learn more, visit AsianMedia.ph.