In the case of Aion, then, this meant literally starting from the beginning - not just going through the game line by line and translating the text, but looking at "how each player learns the backstory while playing through their own personal narrative," said David Noonan. But even then, it's not always that simple - after all, Aion is a game developed for an Eastern audience by an Eastern developer. While Western fantasy is heavily steeped in Tolkien-esque mythology, Eastern games typically are not.

To that effect, Daneen McDermott pointed out that, "Both Elyos and Asmodians are the good guys. Even if they don't agree about it." There were other hangups beyond the culture gap, too - technical ones. The cutscene animations were drawn to the original Korean voicing, for one, and even names were an issue: "In Korean, if you want to call something the Impenetrable Iron God Shield of the Acadian Hero-Nymph, you may need as few as seven characters. That's roughly as wide as the word 'Roughly,' by the way," remembered Stewart. Other difficulties included translating poetry, jokes, and storybooks - or even just making sure you haven't written yourself into a corner when altering text to fit Western sensibilities, since the original developers in Korea are still making new content for the MMORPG. It's certainly not easy work, and the balance between throwing out the original content entirely and "slavishly maintaining EVERY bit of meaning" even if that destroys the pacing and storytelling, is a tough one.