Massively^™

Back at E3 2005 I had the opportunity to interview David Jones, creator of Grand Theft Auto, about their cops and robbers MMO, All Points Bulletin . Since its announcement at E3 not much has been revealed about the game... until recently. Last week rumors swirled that APB was going to turn into GTA Online, then there was the re-acquisition of the IP rights by Realtime Worlds from Webzen, and now we have an in-depth and revealing interview with Walter Kong, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Realtime.

While the concept of APB may sound similar to Grand Theft Auto, it's not. In APB gamers can play as either cops or robbers within the three dimensional, open world. What's more, Realtime is going to use "players as content. " Basically, they are attempting to take the PvP experience and craft missions around it. Most games are either PvE or PvP; APB will bring those two very divergent styles together.

Eurogamer is reporting on rumors of what could be the holy grail of online gaming: a Grand Theft Auto massively multiplayer game. Rumors are circulating that Realtime Worlds reaquired the publishing rights for their in-development All Points Bulletin for a very specific purpose. Originally to be published by Webzen, Realtime now hopes to sell the game to Rockstar as a framework for a GTA MMO.

According to the site, they were tipped off that a GTA transition was the rationale behind the rights re-purchase. The article goes on to report that Realtime is claiming ignorance of this rumor. They admit that they pulled back the APB rights from Webzen to "give them some options", and that they'd be open to working with other companies to see the game published. Rockstar hasn't, as yet, commented on the rumor.

Have you been enjoying GTA IV? Would you jump into a GTA MMO?

If you somehow missed All Points Bulletin back when it made some serious waves at GDC '08, then here is your chance to get all caught up. GamesRadar has a preview up that pretty much sums up what we know so far about the title. While the preview is short, it only serves as a reminder to why we're prepared to give a pinky finger or two for this title. Well, the pinky finger offer is only good if the game is able to deliver on its promises, as we're somewhat attached to them.

We're pretty excited to see how development of the game will progress now that developer Realtime Worlds has secured $50 million in funding. Our imaginations are going fairly wild thinking about what new features could make it into the game now.

[via WarCry]

In a new interview with Walter Kong, the Senior Vice President of Business Development at Realtime Worlds, explains the logic behind his team's recent reacquisition of the publishing rights for their upcoming game All Points Bulletin. Their latest round of fund-raising, which netted them a cool $50 million, gives them the a much higher degree of flexibility than they would have had under Webzen, so they took the opportunity to go independent, for a while anyway.

Kong explained that just because that just because they moved out from under Webzen doesn't mean they are necessarily looking to self-publish; they just want to keep their options open. What seems clear from the way they've handled themselves so far is that all the veteran blood, including CEO David Jones -- the brainchild of the Grand Theft Auto series, has made them shrewd in the ways of the business. Here's hoping they're as savvy at making their game as they are financing it.

Gamasutra is reporting that Realtime Worlds, makers of the Xbox 360 title Crackdown, has regained publishing rights for their in-development MMO. All Point Bulletin has been in development for some time, and the publishing rights for the game were sold to Webzen (Mu Online, SUN, Huxley) back in 2005. A large round of venture capital investement has afforded them this opportunity, though the article notes it hasn't been publicized what those rights cost.

Grand Theft Auto creator David Jones is head of the company, and says that this move 'marks a major milestone' for Realtime. The Urban MMO is slated to be arriving on PCs and Xbox 360s in the near future.

A crime MMO might seem like a great idea, riding on the coattails of such gaming successes as the GTA series and Max Payne, but what about in the MMO space? Would killing the mafia boss or jumping your car over a moving train be quite as fun and translate as well if it were done as an online multiplayer experience? Well, so far we have two shots at it (pun intended): All Points Bulletin and the recently-announced CrimeCraft. Will these games, and the possible onslaught of copycat games be able to recreate the success of their single-player ancestors?

In a recent article at MMOcrunch, they take a look at these possibilities and break down the genre according to what most interests us. They make a very good point about how most of the fun in these games is usually the destructive environments and generally screwing with the AI by blocking the streets with burned-out cars and downed telephone poles. This would not work quite as well in an MMO setting, unless someone at Realtime Worlds or Vogster Entertainment can prove us wrong.

Part of the fun of fantasy and science fiction MMOs is playing a race substantially different than your own, whether it be orcs or aliens. But when you feel like playing close to your own type, and aren't Caucasian, do you feel underrepresented?

Games like Age of Conan and APB offer some pretty sophisticated character creation tools that allow more accurate rendering of facial morphologies -- epicanthal folds vs. no folds; lip thickness; cheekbone sharpness and angle, etc. Most of the rest simply allow you to change skin color, yet leave the actual skull structure of your characters alone. This is not a deal-breaker by any means, but does it ever bother you?

Techcrunch is reporting that developers Realtime Worlds (makers of last year's Crackdown, which could be an MMO, and the upcoming All Points Bulletin, which we heard lots about at GDC) have picked up a whopping $50 million in funding from a round of investment capital, including lots of it from Maverick Capital.

So good news for APB fans -- of course, it's just a fraction of that billion dollars that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick claims anyone will need to take on World of Warcraft, but $50 million buys a lot of artists, programmers, and servers, all things that a great MMO needs for a strong launch. APB is still in the development stages of course -- we've heard that it'll drop this year, though at this point (and with the extra cash going into a little extra development), we're probably looking at a spring 2009 release.

In case you haven't seen it, Crispin Boyer of EGM sat down for an interview with Rockstar founder Sam Houser to talk in-depth about all things Grand Theft Auto. In addition to some tasty preview bits, Boyer raked Houser over the coals a little bit, trying to glean from him what the future of the franchise might be. In terms of multiplayer, Houser didn't shy from expressing his enthusiasm for the idea of a GTA MMO. Specifically, he said such a title, "is very, very doable and is a very, very compelling proposition." In a subsequent question he refers to a mainstream subscription-based MMO on a console as "the Holy Grail."

The problem, as Houser sees it, is in combining the GTA gameplay with the idea of a persistent world. Without the right constraints, the game might amount to little more than a city of a couple thousand players all shooting at each other with rocket launchers, instead of an interesting, compelling MMO experience. From the tenor of his comments, it doesn't seem like Houser and Rockstar currently have any specific plans for an MMO just yet, but we imagine they're going to be paying very close attention to Realtime Worlds' All Points Bulletin when it comes out later this year, as its 'cobs and robbers' gameplay is the closest to GTA we've seen yet.

Age of Conan

Conan gets mounted

One of the hottest tickets for MMO enthusiasts at GDC08 was the Funcom session showing off new features in their upcoming Age of Conan. Mounted combat was the eye candy of the day. Game Director Gaute Godager walked our team through the basics of head to head battles astride War Horses, War Mammoths and War Rhinos. For the reading-averse, you can also listen to an audio recording of the presentation.

Every so often a game comes along that seems imbued with the essence of my childhood imagination -- its as if the game has it coursing through its veins. For instance, my personal interest in Spore stems from the fact that it's tapping into my fantasy of playing a game that lets me shape worlds -- one that I've had since even before my teenage years. Still, there hasn't been an MMO yet that's truly tapped into any of my more youthful wishes. Sure, City of Heroes delivered the first realization of creating my own personal super heroes, but when looking at what a game like Champions Online could provide in comparison -- at least in the superhero genre -- its quite apparent that CoH was barely scratching the surface.

Enter All Points Bulletin, a game that had developer and journalist jaws alike scraping across the floors after its demonstration was delivered in a manner not unlike -- say -- the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What word is perhaps most synonymous with the current MMO playing field? Grind. Realtime Worlds' Dave Jones (no relation?) is setting out to change that with the studio's first massively multiplayer title All Points Bulletin we've been following eagerly. He's hoping the formula Crackdown + MMO = crack will be proven true with variables like infinite, professional-looking character and vehicle customization, contemporary setting, integration with last.fm and dynamic, variable team-sized missions hidden in the equation. Hit up our symbiotic other selves at Joystiq for the complete overview of APB.

2007 was an incredible year for MMOs, with tons of updates to existing games and a benign rash of new titles as well. I'm not much for predictions, but I'll tell you what I'm hoping for in 2008, since you all asked so nicely:

Blizzard to out-Diablo Mythos with their new MMO -- Let's face it, playing Mythos is ten kinds of fun, and most of that fun revolves around the type of gameplay that the original Diablo invented, and Diablo II refined. Mythos currently fills the gaping void left behind by Blizzard's continuing not to update the Diablo universe with a new game, but wouldn't you like to see it done up properly?

Google to provide some real competition for Linden Lab -- Right now, Second Life is the only cat of its breed, and it's snoozing in the sun. The ability for users to create their own content is arguably SL's biggest draw, and it's fueled many careers, but the interface issues, rolling restarts, updates that fix things only to break other things, and age verification problems leave me wanting someone to learn from these mistakes and bring us something better. We know Google's working on something ... here's hoping it's a Third Life.

A new genre -- So far, we've had Fantasy MMOs rule the day, with Science Fiction a close second, and a hodgepodge of other titles kind of experimenting with concepts a little bit. And pirates. But I'm looking for something new. Something that combines my love of cryptography with Cthulhu, perhaps. Or something that lets me relive my days playing cops and robbers. Whatever it is, this is the year to strike!

Resolutions? Hmm. I guess I resolve to keep playing those smaller MMOs and telling you what I think of them, and trying not to be too dismissive of those I find lacking. Ooh, that's gonna be difficult -- I'm quite fond of the snark, I am. What are your New Year's MMO hopes and wishes?

In the waning weeks of December, we've already started turning our eyes towards the new year. 2008 is already showing a great deal of promise for the MMO community, with the impending release of Pirates of the Burning Sea, Wrath of the Lich King, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Though most of these titles are still a good ways away from hitting retailer shelves, we've already got a pretty good idea of what's in store, not just in terms of assets and information that's already been released, but also from hands-on impressions and beta testing. In other words, as excited as we are, there probably won't be terribly many surprises as it concerns these titles. They're practically a given.

As luck would have it, those aren't the only titles we'll be drooling over next year – this much we know. There are a number of games in development out there that have shown up on our collective radar screens over the past few months, but only as tiny blips. For the most part, they still represent riddles wrapped up in mysteries with a side of question mark. We've assembled a list of the top 10 MIA MMOs - those mysterious games that represent the future of the MMO... if only we knew what they were.

In the first part of this feature, we'll take a look at the first half of the list.

It seems I spoke too soon regarding the lack of a Crackdown MMO! APB is Realtime Worlds' action MMO, and judging from the awesome character concept artwork, it's going to have a lot in common with Crackdown. And I'm interested because in at least one way it's going to feature something I wrote about: criminals vs. law enforcement.

More to get interested in: 'The game itself centers on player vs player combat and will be the first massively multiplayer online title where player skill determines character progression as opposed to the traditional model of time investment." That's a tall order, and one I'm keenly interested in seeing how it's going to be implemented. That aside, the art direction on this game is gorgeous -- I'm happy to see that the 'good guys' (law enforcement) are just as visually interesting as the 'bad guys' (criminals). Check it: the photo there? That's a cop. Uh huh. The Artwork section of the site has a bunch of great pics; go check 'em out now. It's not gameplay, but it's enough, by gar.

APB is coming out in 2008, according the site, and let's hope this is the hit the Crackdown could've been.

[Thanks, Chris!]