Filed under: Interviews

Are you pumped for DC Universe Online after watching the recent "Who Do You Trust?" trailer or our own interview with John Smedley? We can hardly blame you -- it's tough being a superhero waiting in the wings. While we count down the days until its November 2nd launch, there's a lot more DCUO goodness to be had.

Massively was on hand at the DCUO panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, where Jens Andersen, Chris Cao, Marv Wolfman, Jim Lee and Mark Hamill (who is reprising his voice work as the Joker) were on hand to answer questions about DC's upcoming title. Hit the jump for the full skinny on time travel, heroes, villains and Bat-shark repellent.

There's less than a month left before the release of Going Rogue, something that many City of Heroes players are looking forward to with heavy anticipation. The team at Paragon Studios has been anything but stingy with information about the upcoming expansion as well -- they've been more than happy to share just how impressive the features are going to be. We had a chance to catch up with the the team at SDCC 2010, which gave us the opportunity to take a closer look and get a few more insights about the game's development.

Melissa "War Witch" Bianco was on hand to share several details about the game's upcoming improvements, and while many of the elements previewed at the convention are familiar to players following Going Rogue, there are some new revelations beneath the cut. If you're allergic to cuts, you can at least take solace in the confirmed fact that the expansion will feature seven new costume sets, including the Praetorian Police costume and the Resistance outfit. For more on missions and how they'll be implemented in the upcoming City of Heroes expansion, click on away.

There's a lot going on with Star Trek Online at the moment. Not only does the game have a major update fast approaching and the occasional microtransaction controversy popping up, but it's also recently been given a new executive producer. Daniel Stahl has had the reins for a little under a month, but that's still enough time to have a notable influence on both the direction of the upcoming update and the overall direction of the game.

We recently had a chance to sit down and talk with the new executive producer about his work on Star Trek Online, the game's strengths and weaknesses, and where development is headed for the future. There's a new direction in store for the game, or perhaps it'd be more apt to say a new focus. If you're interested in the game's past and future, or even just in the various rumors that started flying about the game going free-to-play, take a look past the break for the full interview.

We all know that know that story is the fourth pillar for The Old Republic. We also know BioWare has the reputation for having some of the most compelling stories in the gaming industry. In fact, story is written into its mission statement: "BioWare's vision is to deliver the best story-driven games in the world." So it is no surprise at all that when the team came to Comic-Con this past weekend, it consisted of mostly writers.

Massively's Dan O'Halloran nabbed the Managing Editor on SWTOR, Alexander Freed, for a conversation. Freed has scribed much of the story and dialogue for this epic MMO, as well as been the writer for the exciting adventures of Teneb Kel in The Blood of the Empire webcomic.

Continue on after the break to catch Alexander Freed's insight into what the different types of quests will be available in SWTOR, what compelling choices players have to make, and what it takes to write for a project of this magnitude.

Last week we had a chat with Sony Online Entertainment's President John Smedley about preorders and beta for DC Universe Online. We talked quite a bit about the ability to play as Batman via a preorder bonus, and one of the questions we asked was "Will there be more opportunities in the future to play as familiar DC Universe villains or heroes?"

John replied that they were thinking about it, but it sounds like the DCUO team has been doing a lot more than just thinking about it. We caught up with DCUO Studio Art Director Mike Daubert at Comic-Con this weekend, and he had some pretty exciting news for us.

Follow along after the jump to see what he had to say!

The hype for Guild Wars 2 seems to get bigger every week, so it was a natural choice for the Massively staff at Comic-Con to seek out some time with Guild Wars 2 designer and Ghosts of Ascalon author Jeff Grubb.

If you're relatively new to the Guild Wars world, Jeff provides a nicely detailed overview of what's been happening with Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, and the first tie-in novel. If you're a firmly established citizen of Tyria, you'll enjoy the look back, and you'll certainly enjoy the hints he drops here and there for upcoming events and reveals.

Follow along after the jump to see what Jeff had to say.

San Diego has been the place to be for the past few days, with developers bringing out all the latest and greatest to show off at Comic-Con 2010. We at Massively have been pretty busy, in part with Aion's web producer Lani Blazier.

Aion's free expansion Assault on Balaurea is just over a month away, so Lani had plenty to talk about. She gave us a look at what we can expect with 2.0, and spent a bit of time answering our questions afterward. Follow along after the jump to see what she had to say.

In an effort to get players more involved in the development process of EVE Online, CCP Games began the Council of Stellar Management programme back in 2008. Twice per year, developers meet up with this democratically elected group of players to discuss issues ranging from bug-fixes and balance tweaks to feedback on future expansions and how players recieved the previous expansion. The latest summit was not without its troubles, with chairwoman Mynxee and council member Ankhesentapemkah expressing their concern over CCP's attitude during the summit.

In the first of our two-part interview with EVE's Council of Stellar Management, we asked some general questions about how the summit went and what could be done to improve the CSM process. We gained valuable insight into what exactly CCP committed to do this term, what happens to ideas put forward by the CSM after approval and what's being done to improve communication between the council and CCP. In this vital second part of the interview, we moved on to more hard-hitting questions on player reactions to the summit meeting minutes, CCP's current assignment of development resources and whether the council can really achieve anything over the next 18 months.

Skip past the cut for an illuminating look at the council's opinion on these explosive issues.

While the new version of Lord of the Rings Online is still under NDA lockdown, Turbine's opened a crack in the door to allow a few beta testers to jaw about the LotRO store. On the EU site, beta testers were encouraged to submit their thoughts and experiences with the new store for non-testers to assimilate, with four stories chosen to be posted.

Although these stories come with the caveat that they were hand-picked to be shared, they seemed free to share both likes and dislikes about the store. Some of the positive mentions include the speed of the store's delivery to player inventory, the sheer amount of items available, fun items like emotes and mounts, and general ease of use. They report that cosmetics are a big hit with beta testers.

On the flip side, the authors were critical of the unfinished feel to the store and the fact you can't see the items you're purchasing in the dressing-room window. Generally, however, the four testers are upbeat about this new LotRO feature. You can read their full thoughts at LotRO EU's site.

When it comes to getting players involved in the development process, EVE Online's democratically elected Council of Stellar Management has up until now been a clear success. Previous council members have managed to get some important features implemented in the game and helped CCP with feedback on up-coming expansions. Last month, members of the fifth council met with CCP in Iceland for the first of their twice-yearly development summits. In meetings with developers, they put forward issues deemed important by the player-base. Initial impressions from the summit appeared grim, with both chairwoman Mynxee and council member Ankhesentapemkah voicing concerns on their personal blogs. Players were left waiting for the official meeting minutes to be published so they could decide for themselves whether or not those concerns were justified.

The summit meeting minutes were released last week to some strong reactions within the community. The bulk of the negative reactions seemed to stem from CCP's inability to commit definite resources to any CSM issues. The community backlash was further amplified by a later devblog setting out CCP's current development schedule for the next 18 months. Of course, the people best qualified to talk about how the summit went are the council delegates themselves. Having been present at the meetings and knowing more about CCP's future expansion plans than the rest of the player-base, members of the council should have a much clearer picture of the state of play than the average player. To help clarify some of the community's biggest issues, Massively caught up with the CSM delegates and asked them some important questions about the summit and CCP's current development plans.

In this first of our collossal two-part interview with EVE's Council of Stellar Management, I probe members of the council for their thoughts on the summit.

Massively Speaking Episode 108 returns this week with two segments: the news with Rubi and Shawn, and an interview with Perfect World Entertainment by Shawn and Sera. In that interview, PWE's Jason Varden and AJ Potter discuss their newest entry into the closed beta market: Heroes of Three Kingdoms.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to shawn@massively.com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

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The Heroes of Might and Magic franchise has a long and rich history with PC gamers, although the series has somewhat fallen into obscurity as of late. Ubisoft is looking to thrust it back into the spotlight with the upcoming Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms, a Civilization-type title. We've been tracking MMHK since this year's E3, and recently MMOsite.com grabbed some facetime with Ubisoft's Chris Early about the game. (Note that this isn't the Heroes of Might and Magic Online that's also nearing release.)

A browser-based title imported from overseas, Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms encourages players to slowly build up a city (and later, cities) and interact with their neighbors. This can take the form of peaceful resource trading, hostile skirmishes, or large-scale strategy. While MMHK is set in the Might and Magic universe, the game differs from Heroes of Might and Magic's playstyle -- for example, combat is automatically resolved instead of turn-based. One of the most interesting features of the game is that it has a six-month cycle, after which winners are declared and the server resets for another grand struggle.

The interview spends a bit of time prodding Chris Early about the advantages -- and potential imbalance -- between free players and those who drop cash for advantages (such as more cities to control). Early claims that while paying players will have more options available, free players are still a significant force, especially if they specialize. You can read the whole interview over at MMOsite.com.

MMO players looking forward to DC Universe Online got lots of exciting news earlier this week with the announcement of preorder bonuses and beta signups for the game.

As always, fans had plenty of questions as well as a few concerns here and there. We had some questions of our own here at Massively, so we went straight to the source. Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley took some time to sit down and chat with us, and we covered plenty of ground.

John gave us new closed beta details, discussed the PlayStation 3/PC crossover, and even gave some hints at possible upcoming content! Follow along after the jump to see what he had to say.

Hiromichi Tanaka has been making the rounds of late -- while we had our own chance to interview him during E3, he's been giving several different interviews on a multitude of topics as Final Fantasy XIV nears its launch date. The most recent translated interview from JeuxVideo has Tanaka talking in brief about the upcoming game, but also about his own play experiences. Among the more quotable parts of the interview is a simple statement: Square-Enix isn't trying to compete with World of Warcraft, but to draw in players who might not have looked at the genre before.

As Tanaka puts it, the game is designed to be accessible to fans of the long-running franchise who may never have considered playing something multiplayer. He also stresses the emphasis on allowing players to use their time in the game as effectively as possible, citing the Guildleves and the Armory system as two examples wherein players can maximize the useful time spent in-game. Lastly, when asked about other games he's enjoyed, he somewhat happily admits that he's been too focused on developing Final Fantasy XIV to enjoy much since Final Fantasy XI. The full translation is transcribed here, with the embedded video in French (if you happen to be fluent).

Raptr is a pretty ambitious project, even if you think about what has been accomplished so far. Essentially, the service is connecting all of your gaming-related services under one profile, one messenger, and one new iPhone app. Think of it as your Trillian messenger for gamers. I have a short history with Raptr but never really warmed up to it until recently. I wanted a service that would allow all of my friends, across all of the different networks that I visit, to see what and how much I am playing.

Now that I have made a newer profile and have really started adding a few friends, I am sort of shocked at it's usefullness. Not only does it let me sign in to most of the major messaging services, game networks and social services like Facebook, but it allows me to see what my friends are doing as well, in some very specific ways.

I was excited to get a chance to talk to Raptr CEO Dennis Fong and was impressed by how such an ambitious idea has now turned into a real, working application.