Massively - Daily News About MMOs

GDC10: Massively's day 3 roundup

by Jef Reahard Mar 12th 2010 (20 minutes ago)

We're back with the latest edition of our GDC10 roundup. Yesterday was another big day in the world of MMORPG news, and Massively staffers were working overtime to bring you fresh scoops on the latest projects from your favorite developers. As always, there's a lot more to come as the Game Developer's Conference rolls on, but take a moment to check out these stories you may have missed.

Stick around as we're gearing up to bring you interviews with Bioware, En Masse, Gamigo, and The Secret World's Ragnar Tornquist later in the week.

All Points Bulletin beta kicks off

by Kyle Horner Mar 12th 2010 (50 minutes ago)

It's been a while since beta sign-ups opened late last year, but All Points Bulletin is finally moving into closed beta, it would seem. Several people are receiving emails welcoming them into Realtime Worlds' persistent online world that's a cross between GTA and the ultimate set of customization tools for characters, cars and music seen, well, probably ever.

Between video podcasts, interviews here on Massively and plenty of wishful thinking, it's been a considerably long wait. Our best guess is that the initial wave of invites is a fairly low number, as it usually is, so don't feel too distraught if you weren't invited. These things have a way of expanding over time, after all.

GDC10: Massively set to appear on live Internet TV

by Kyle Horner Mar 12th 2010 (1 hour ago)

SOE

CCP

Massively's own Editor-in-Chief Shawn Schuster will be appearing on Internet television today at 12pm PST live from GDC 2010. That's right, Gamebreakr with Gary Gannon is going to do a live streaming web show and this particular blogger thinks it'll be worth catching -- even if only so Shawn knows that countless people are staring at him while he's on air.

Actually, the show's had plenty of interesting people from the gaming realm on already including CCP's Nathan Richardsson, President of SOE John Smedley and Christina Norman of BioWare. And, as our leader extraordinare, Shawn will most definitely make for an interesting guest. We can't wait to see it!

View the live stream right here.

GDC10: The future of Champions Online

by Kyle Horner Mar 12th 2010 (1 hour ago)

Champions Online

Cryptic

We had the opportunity to sit down with Bill Roper at GDC 2010 and discuss the general future of Champions Online. There are two themes to Bill's answers during our talk: just about everything is free and listening to community feedback.

First of all, melee powers like Might are getting reworked based directly from player feedback. The goal is to make players feel as though they're on par with ranged powersets in PvP situations. Generally, people have been saying they felt "gimped" and the goal is to fix that. There's a complete reworking of the supernatural set coming as well, which will separate the previously single powerset into two new ones.

The Daily Grind: Do you follow industry personalities?

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 12th 2010 (2 hours ago)

Every field has celebrities of one stripe or another, and MMOs are no different. Some of them start off as programmers, some start as producers, and some start as commentators that later move into an official capacity. Some have a track record of success, some have a big success and a big failure, and some are considered to be solely at fault for anything that goes wrong in a game. But no matter what the background, they're personalities of note, whose words start having an impact on people even when they're not working on a big project. People listen to them, quote them, and take note of their various projects.

Especially in light of recent personality-based developments, it's certainly worth asking how much people really follow the paths of programmers outside of playing their games. The MMO industry doesn't follow Richard Garriott like mainstream media follows Brad Pitt, but he still finds ways to be seen even when he's between major projects. Do you follow specific people in the gaming industry, either out of liking what they've done or wanting to avoid what they're working on? Or does the practice annoy you, and all you want to focus on is the actual games they produce?

GDC10: Runes of Magic releases Chapter 3 information

by Beau Hindman Mar 11th 2010 (11 hours ago)

This May, Frogster will introduce the third chapter of Runes of Magic which will include a new continent, regions, dungeons to conquer, a new skill system, a level cap increase to 60 and an expansion to guild wars: siege weapons!

An ancient kingdom called Dalanis lies in chaos as adventurers attempt to help the child-king Callaway regain the former glory that once was. The citizens cry out for it and long to return to the older days when their ancient heroes walked the lands.

Adventurers will first walk into Thunderhoof Hills as they venture into the Elder Kingdoms, and will experience varied and surprising landscapes, none like they have seen before. First they will travel through a forest and then pass the waterfalls, only to choose one of three new cities to meet friends, trade and to relax in. Without leaving the zone, players will be able to investigate a graveyard populated by kings from the ancient past. Be sure to grab a reliable group of friends to explore the new dungeon that runs underneath Thunderhoof Hills, the dreadful Dungeon of Dalanis. Join me after the jump for more details as well as a look at new screens, art and a trailer for the expansion!

EQ wants you for St. Patty's Day

by Jef Reahard Mar 11th 2010 (12 hours ago)

SOE

Sony Online Entertainment Project Manager Ashlanne has announced Everquest's 11-year anniversary and St. Patrick's Day party over on the official forums.

The event kicks off on Wednesday March 17, 2010 at 1:00 PM PST and is expected to last approximately two hours. To join in the festivities, head over to the SOE UStream channel and get ready to chat with the Everquest Community Team and other special guests.

In addition to the usual St. Patty's Day carousing, party-goers can expect to watch interviews with various Everquest alumni, assist the Community Team in making special St. Patrick's Day crafts, and chat live (via text) with both the EQ Community and Development Teams.

This week on The MMO Report

by Jef Reahard Mar 11th 2010 (13 hours ago)

This week's MMO Report finds host Casey Schreiner talking up a host of industry topics including Star Trek Online's new episodic raid content, signs that World of Warcraft may have finally peaked (again), and Square-Enix's Final Fantasy XIV teasers bundled with the newly released Final Fantasy XIII for the Playstation 3.

We know most of you are here to see Casey's customary shout out to Massively.com, and you'll find that around the 2:25 mark. If you want to keep watching, well, don't say we didn't warn you.

Don't forget to check out the complete video embed after the jump, and watch for brand new episodes of The MMO Report every Thursday here at Massively and at G4TV.com.

Get your Champions fix on Facebook

by Beau Hindman Mar 11th 2010 (14 hours ago)

Champions Online

Cryptic

Recently we spotted an interesting post from Bill Roper, Design Director for Cryptic Studios' MMO Champions Online. On his Facebook page he showed a slightly blurry picture of a developers booth with the simple caption "GDC 2010: The developers of our Facebook Game." Sure enough you can now play a Mafia Wars style Facebook game while wearing your tightest spandex! It runs in your browser and hooks up to your Facebook account so that you can choose to announce level ups and achievements. You can also invite friends to form a superteam, customize your secret base and even attack other players.

Developer Lolapps claims to have "over 40 million active users per month, and has the largest network of social games and applications on Facebook." It looks like they know what they are doing, so it is definitely worth a look. Head over now, make your hero and get to stopping crime!

Ask Cryptic fields Champions Online Revelation questions

by Kyle Horner Mar 11th 2010 (15 hours ago)

Champions Online

Cryptic

Champions Online's upcoming Revelation update is coming very soon and Cryptic's answered a bunch of (somewhat random) community questions regarding the substantial free content add-on. We're not sure if there was any kind of theme to this Q&A other than, "Hey, what would you like to know about Revelation?" Perhaps there were a couple people dressed up a vampires, in spirit of the new zone Vibora Bay, but that's a somewhat commonplace thing nowadays -- vampires, we mean.

Before we spin-out into a crazy off-topic rant about kids and their vampire tendencies, we'd like to point out that it sounds as if Cryptic is moving towards a more staggered update approach. Instead of spending six months creating one big update, they're looking to push out smaller chunks of content on a more frequent basis. They haven't specified whether that means every month or every few months, but we do know some new missions with longer storylines are coming -- as is some low-level experience curve smoothing. It sounds good to us, but we'll let you be the judge of that.