Massively^™

Years ago when Blizzard sounded the trumpets and announced that WoW was in the works I dreamt RTS and MMORPG mechanics would fuse together to whisk in a new era in massively online gaming. I swore that if Blizzard copied the Diku formula popularized by EverQuest I wouldn't bother playing it. That is until magical forces intervened, and I found myself in the WoW friends and family alpha and loving every second. WoW improved on familiar loot-n-scoot, and level based PvE gameplay, but I still hoped that I'd someday play an MMORTS or some bastardized attempt at one and actually like it. That's not to say there isn't anything out there or in development. Two games come to mind are Mankind and Dreamlords, take them for what you will, but it looks like Saga is a real solid attempt to fill a void.

The graphics aren't top notch, but the gameplay looks interesting, and I hope others would appreciate the efforts from a smaller independent development studio as I do. There is a free client available, but several features are not usable unless you upgrade to the full version. There is no expiration date on the trial, and if you are concerned about a monthly subscription fee, don't be because there isn't one. The payment model is based on the purchase of booster packs. The booster packs contain cards, and these cards portray units and spells that you then use to build armies and maintain your nation. The end game actually revolves around PvP against other player built nations. You can read a much better detailed account on the missions, PvP, the card system, in this great first look posted on Brandon Reinhart's blog. You can find more information about the game and where to download it on Saga's official site. I'm about to try it out firsthand, and if you've played it please feel free to share your thoughts about Saga below.

He is an EverQuest 2 player that rose to power leading one of the largest fansite communities. He earned the esteemed "Community Influencer" rank that opened the gates to game designers and allowed him to forge ties with prominent SOE staff. With his connections it wasn't long before the site he administrates, EQ2 Flames, served as a clandestine outlet for EQ2 developers to post on. Behind the scenes "LFG" played a role working with inside sources to leak information that resulted in the EQ2 Test Server scandal. The forum also resulted in leak of the news (almost a month before it actually happened) that former Senior Producer, Scott Hartsman, was to part ways with Sony Online Entertainment.

His actions wouldn't come without serious ramifications. Last week SOE terminated his "Influencer" membership, citing a lack of participation and misconduct as the reasoning behind their decision. In the destructive wake that followed an ugly entanglement by both SOE developers and EQ2 players has surfaced. Allegations of cheating, developer corruption, and other scuttlebutt permeate forum posts. This is a drama that pits community against community, developers against players, and more than likely developers against developers. It is a story that has shaken up a very large community and that has once placed SOE in a questionable spotlight. I contacted "LFG", the EQ2 Flames administrator, to help bring some clarity to it all.

In the interview below several allegations involving SOE employees are levied. These along with other accusations on EQ2 Flames also raise other questions regarding SOE's internal policies. At the time of this posting SOE's community team had not yet responded with an official comment. When SOE does respond we will post it in full.

With such a huge patch CCP wants to make sure that every change listed makes it in this installment. The notes were pulled from the official site until further notice. That's not stopping us from posting them anyway. If you'd like to get a jump start on reading there's over 7 thousand words to mull over after the jump. Disclaimer: the following notes are preliminary. The notes might see various changes, but I'm sure these are solid. The final notes should be published on the EVE site sometime tomorrow.

Ken Smith, writer for MSNBC's gaming section sure does crank out a bunch of Top 5 lists, some are ridiculously bad. In a more serious effort, The Agency is the only MMOG to rank on his "Top 5 Most Anticipated Games of 2008" list. Who cares, right? Tons do, well enough to say "your list sucks." Skimming through two hundred plus comments Warhammer Online received more votes than any other MMOG due to launch sometime this year. (Who knew MSNBC's gaming site was that popular?)

Tapping into Massively's metrics I can tell you that Warhammer Online easily beats out The Agency in the war for eyeballs, but you know what other MMOG beats it? If you guessed World of Warcraft, you're wrong. Second Life currently holds the top spot. Don't worry, we'll be posting more and more about Warhammer Online and The Agency, more so after both games launch.

As for the video above, if you've been keeping tabs on The Agency there isn't much new footage. Matt Wilson, the dev shown peddling the goods, claimed the team is still undecided on whether or not PS3 gamers will play with their PC counterparts on the same servers. John Smedley, SOE President, reiterated last month that it was unlikely given that it would give PC players an unfair advantage. Given the conflicting statements, I guess it's still up in the air, although, I'd go with Smed on this one. Smedley also reassured player accounts will be universal and not tied to a specific platform. As noted in the video, the game is still in alpha.

This is the best interview with Metzen I've listened to in regards to Blizzard's lore. It's so good, I read the interview too. If you're fan you can't miss what one of the creative masterminds behind the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo universes has to say. Maybe I'm a groovy fanboi, but I highly recommend it. There's even a small tidbit about the Death Knight lore in WotlK.

The World of Warcraft segments feature WoW CM Nethaera interviewing Geoff Goodman, WoW Designer, regarding the Magtheridon encounter. The other World of Warcraft portion focuses on a question and answer with CA Bornakk and Tom "Kalgan Chilton, WoW Lead Designer. Highlights include:

The U.S. intelligence community wants to employ counter terrorism measures by utilizing data-mining and profiling software in various online spaces such as video and even online gaming. In the unclassified Data Mining Report Act, (pdf) one initiative called the Reynard project would determine the feasibility of detecting suspicious behaviors and actions in a virtual world that could indicate a threat to national security. You read that right.

"Reynard is a seedling effort to study the emerging phenomenon of social (particularly terrorist) dynamics in virtual worlds and large-scale online games and their implications for the Intelligence Community."

"The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world."

This is probably a good time to stop referring to my spells as WMDs, and reciting The Communist Manifesto in guild chat. I don't want to end up in a secret prison somewhere drinking a lot of water because I'm obsessed with engineering and PvP. What the CIA should do is recruit top ranked WoW Arena players to infiltrate the Chinese servers to steal gold farming secrets.

[via Wired]

Lineage
[Worldwide]: 1,049,763 subscriptions (down 93,936 from Q3)
[North America]: 6,414 subscriptions (down 585 from Q3)

Lineage 2
[Worldwide]: 926,570 subscriptions (down 4,693 from Q3)
[North America & Europe]: 79,986 subscriptions (up 943 from Q3)

City of Heroes/Villains
[North America & Europe]: 136,250 (-3,063 subs from Q3)

Guild Wars
[North America & Europe]: 4,878,000 boxes sold (+378,000 from Q3)

Subscriptions continue to decline, but the impact isn't very noticeable unless you look at the loss over a greater period. Over a million subscriptions have been lost since the Lineage franchise peaked. No exact subscription numbers are given for Tabula Rasa, but an educated guess is discernable with the available projections given by NCsoft's CFO Lee Jae-ho. Tabula Rasa's given projection stands at 16 million for 2008. Its subscription fee is the standard $15 a month, added up for the year that amounts to $180. 180 into the projected 16 million and you get 88 thousand users.

Imagine being a developer and finding a publisher for your dream MMOG. Now imagine losing that publisher a year later before production was set to ramp up. That's exactly what happened to the guys at Spacetime Studios working on Blackstar, a space based MMOG. NCsoft canned the project last month over reasons unknown to the public. At first glance I have to wonder if I'd rather see Tabula Rasa canceled if I could switch it with this title. I'm not slamming TR with the hate, it's just that I think I'd find Blackstar a more interesting Sci-Fi MMO that appeals to my liking. But there is trouble brewing for NCsoft that may explain why Blackstar may be the victim of a bloated investment gone awry.

I believe monetary policy entered NCsoft's equation to cut-off Blackstar. NCsoft currently isn't in a great position to keep pumping money into their numerous development projects given Tabula Rasa's enormous failure. The numbers from NCsoft's last quarterly annual report are ugly. Tabula Rasa was in development for six long years. To fund it all NCsoft was rumored to have invested over 100 million dollars. Tabula Rasa closed last quarter with disastrous financial results that totaled a mere 5 million in revenue. The news resulted in NCsoft's stock to crash to an all-time-low. The timeline seems to fit and place the pieces together. Now that Blackstar is no longer backed by NCsoft, Spacetime Studios faces a difficult undertaking in finding a new publisher.

[Updated: 2/28/07. This post has been updated to reflect that the 100 million dollar figure was pure speculation and rumor that I acquired from an article by the Korea Times. David Swofford, Director of PR for NCsoft NA, has gone on record to debunk that number, claiming Tabula Rasa's development cost was a mere fraction of that cost .

"It's a fraction of the cost and more in line with what's generally accepted in this industry for a company to spend on a Triple-A MMO project. "

Swofford also went on record to say that Tabula Rasa's financial performance was not the reason behind NCsoft's decision to drop their contract with Spacetime Studios, whom are developing Blackstar.]

Remember the WAR 'this is glory' video from a few weeks back? It was a scripted pile of crap, but anyone with some common sense knew it didn't actually portray WAR's RvR realistically. What is realistic? Chaotic bedlam! This new video ganked from Gamespot showcases how PvP plays out on a smaller and more nubish scale. Classes in on the action: Witch Hunter, Chaos Chosen, and the Witch Elf.

Paul Barnett appears, surprise, and dials down the hyperbole explaining in calmer terms the hobby experience that will make WAR a free-time friendly fun MMO to play. That way WAR players can still go to the bar wearing Warhammer shirts, and bring along some Warhammer figurines to impress the svelte ladies or the burly gents. While I really enjoy the hobby versus immersion outlook, there will always be hardcores that take it to the immersive extreme and play until someone in a bio-hazard suit shows up with the eviction notice.

It's nice that there are some MMO developers that want to make sure their players stay safe and function as normal law-abiding citizens that can afford their subscriptions and buy all sorts of WAR loots. I still have a bad feeling WAR will be an immersive soul-sucking experience. I better get to work on fire-proofing whatever I can. If you still hunger for more footage, and like me you're stuck back in the line for a beta invite, there are more gameplay videos to watch. If you want to join the line, be sure to register for the Warhammer Online beta.

[via Keen and Graev]
[Video Source]

Two classes down, the Scion of Set and the Lich classes will not make into the final build, but their abilities will be implemented and spread across other classes. The class list falls to 12, and not much information has been shown or divulged about the Ranger class. Until now, apparently someone forgot they signed an NDA and posted this AoC beta video showing their level 12 Ranger dinking around outside or in Tortage. (Note: The annoying random Ventrilo chatter has nothing to do with the video.)

Not much can be discerned from the combat at such an early stage in the game. Ranged gameplay looks to utilize a soft-lock and manual targeting. There is no specific targeting to the head or leg, but according to the tester there is some discussion on the AoC beta forums about a damage bonus when manual targeting is used. Other random tidbits include the zone sizes being similar to EQ2's larger zones. The tester also claims that the character creation is so unique and versatile he hasn't come across another human character that looked exactly like his own. (I hope this is true.)

It's important to note this particular beta footage excludes high-resolution textures, and the ass-kicking Cheetah 2 engine upgrades. The client was being run and recorded on the following computer specs: C2D E6550, 2GB Ram, and an 8800GT. This is great news, as optimizing continues the performance will improve on lower-end computer builds. You can sign up for the beta over on the official Age of Conan website. Be sure to check out Massively's exclusive look at the Barbarian and Dark Templar classes if you missed out the first time around.

What do you guys think of the video? I want to play the game more than I did before.
[via The AT Wire]

At this year's CES, an Age of Conan Developer stated they would forego the traditional open beta process and would instead draw more players from their applicant pool as the beta expanded. We know that a month ago over 10,000 invites were pushed out, that number is currently at 15,000 according to the AoC beta fairy. With over 100,000 in signups finding testers isn't a problem, and as word from CES spread the AoC forums erupted in nerd-fury. Today, a new happy day, Shannon 'Pharamond' Drake, AoC's community manager posted that it was all a misunderstanding.

"We are planning to have an open beta for the game as we get closer to launch, however, it will be through specific partners and require an application/registration process, much like most of the other betas for most other games."

So there will be some type of an open beta. Well, this message stinks of Fileplanet. It seems to be the cool thing to do nowadays for those looking to run an 'open beta.' I'd prefer some early type of pre-order beta or early launch that Pirates of the Burning Sea are doing, and Hellgate: London did. Age of Conan's beta is definitely one of the more secretively run in the past few years. I don't know anyone in the beta, nor do my friends know anyone in the beta either. Do you?

It should be interesting to see whether or not a smaller beta test is more beneficial than larger open betas that normally last for several months on end. I hope so. It sucks not getting into a MMOG beta you want to play, but the negative buzz created by players early-on is not helping traditional pay-to-play MMOGs succeed in a genre dominated by World of Warcraft. Age of Conan is due to launch on March 25, 2008. Let's hope that is not when the real open beta begins. Be sure to check out our AoC coverage from CES if you are looking for our latest infos and some exclusive videos.

The final segment focuses on World of Warcraft and clocks in at 8 minutes. CM Drysc interviews Jeffrey "Tigole" Kaplan. Kaplan mainly rehashes what the designers are doing with the upcoming Sunwell 2.4 patch. WoW Insider has been covering this ad nauseum, but here's what I gleaned:

• First 3 Sunwell Plateau bosses and their difficulty levels are tuned against Tier 6 players.
  
• No attunement to enter or for the first 3 bosses.
  
• Overall faction for Sunwell Isle is the Shattered Sun Offensive.
• Aldor and Scryer storyline continues as their forces combine to battle against the Burning Legion. NPC changes will be reflected in Shattrath.
  
• Sunwell Plateau loot rewards will be Tier 7; including, armor sets bonuses and class specific loot but no unique sets in terms of looks.
• Kaplan assures that the Tier 7 look will diversify better than the comparisons made with AQ 40 itemization.
• Magister's Terrace 5 man dungeon both heroic and normal modes, and it will have a similar difficulty as Shadow Labyrinth and Shattered Halls.
• Magister's Terrace is a 4 boss dungeon. The first 3 bosses drop one 1 in 15 blues, which are normal level 70 dungeon loot. The last boss will drop 1 in 10 epics on par with lower-end Karazhan epics.
  
• Magister's Terrace itemization is intended to play a deeper relevancy in WoW's itemization today by offering better rewards than older dungeons but not over doing it.
• Possible class balancing depending on the results from the 2.3 patch, but nothing concrete at this time.
• Daily quest allotment will be raised from 10 to 25.

That's a wrap on my show notes. Be sure to check out the official BlizzCast page where you can view the transcript or download the audio. Chris Metzen will be joining the next episode. I'm definitely looking forward to that, and maybe we will get some information on the World of Warcraft movie. Blizzard is also giving away some sweet Logitech 5.1 speaker sets and Starcraft II garb to those who leave feedback about their first show. My thoughts about the production and format are after the break.

This is the big Stargate Worlds debut trailer that appeared last night on the SCI FI channel. Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's IT Director popped by the Stargate Worlds forums and provided the following details about the video:

• The footage is CGI; however, it does use some in-game art assets and is intended to resemble the look and feel from the actual game.
• Two worlds are shown in the following order: Agnos and Anima Vitrus (new)
• Three races: Asgard and his drone, SGC Solider with improved body armor, female Jaffa solider with a staff weapon and Horus guard helmet
• Heavily modified P90 implies broad weapon customizations

If that glimpse wasn't enough for the interstellar traveling junkies there is a very slight extended version over on Gamespot. The bigger news regarding Stargate Worlds comes from all the juicy details found in Gamespot's interview with Rod Nakamoto, CME's Senior VP of Product Development. Quick fact list from their exchange:

• Unreal 3 Engine and Big World back end
• Two factions
• Classes: Jaffa, Goa'uld, Asgard, human soldier, scientist, archeologist, and commando
• No vehicle combat or player controlled starships
• The MMOG will follow the events from SG1 but feature different stories: Replicator War, the Apophis War, the Tok'ra war with the Goa'uld, etc.
• Beta testing starts this spring and with the launch to follow in the fall
• 15 USD monthly subscription rate
• Possibility that SG cast members to do voice-overs
• Evolutionary Combat and Advanced AI
  

The translation from the show to an MMOG might work well, certainly, better than other properties such as Firefly. I guess it also helps that you know Stargate Worlds is actually in development and Firefly MMOG will probably never see the light of day. No matter the content, I don't trust any MMOG that was only tested for a short period of time considering Stargate Worlds hasn't been in full production (announced in 2006) very long. It takes time to implement quality content, but maybe CME's Developers can pull it off. What do you guys think?