Massively^™

G4's X-play gained access to the FireSky Studios where the developers are hard at work on Stargate Worlds. G4 was allowed to open the Stargate and returned back with gameplay footage, while undergoing their mission they infiltrated Studio Head Dan Elggren, Creative Director Chris Klug and Art Director Howard Lyon. As for game footage Elggren took a character through several environments of a pre-alpha build and played through an assault on a drug lord stronghold on the alien planet Lucia. The game is looking great, albeit some video lag in some parts. No earth-shattering revelations were disclosed, but if you'd like learn about the game be sure to check out all our SGW coverage.

Firesky, MGM Home Entertainment, and the United States Armed Forces will be showing Stargate Worlds at Comic-Con 2008 in San Diego. The convention will run from July 24th to 27th. Firesky plans to deploy a full-sized stargate replica outside the convention center for photo ops. Fans will also get to be among the first in the public to see gameplay footage. Check out booth 3525 if you're going to be there.

Footage is exciting and all, but we're intrigued by the partnership with the Armed Forces. Presumably this means recruiters will be present at the event as well. The Stargate franchise has always had a close relationship with the military; its central characters have mostly been members of the Air Force. In fact, Stargate SG-1 has featured a handful of cameos by real-world military figures, including Air Force chief of staff Michael E. Ryan, who played himself in the episode "Prodigy."

[Via Ten Ton Hammer]

I know there's been a The Daily Grind about this subject already, but I felt like talking about my own personal kaiju (giant monster) MMO and this is just the place for that. Growing up there were certain things I could count on. For instance, there would always be some sort of Anime marathon in the summertime on the Sci-Fi Channel and that very same channel was also usually good for giant monster movies. Oh yeah and you could always count on a new Megaman game coming out that year.

It's strange how this never occurred to me but giant monsters are almost perfect as a theme for an MMO. Purely because the theme itself provides a gigantic, epic sort of combat gameplay that is central to the thrill of massively multiplayer online games. Whether it's a game where the players create and control their own giant monsters or fight against the monsters is the choice I've been struggling to answer -- but then something dawned on me. The two game types, when combined, make for a very interesting type of MMO experience.

Can you hear that? It's the sound of thousands of Stargates being activated all over the galaxy. You're probably wondering why it's happening -- you might even be a little scared. Well, don't be scared. It's just what happens when the Stargate community finds out they'll be able to ask Khatie and Scepter questions about Firesky's upcoming game, Stargate Worlds in an upcoming chat.

The chat is schedule for Friday, June 20th and will take place at 1pm PST, 4pm EDT, 10pm BST and 9pm GMT according to a recent news post on the game's official website. A full hour will be spent talking about all things Stargate and attendees have been asked to come to the discussion early for the best chance to see their submitted questions answered. You've got a week to think up some clever questions so get to it. We'll be looking forward to seeing if any new juicy details are revealed by either Khatie or Scepter.

Get ready for information overload all you Stargate fans, because with summer setting in (at least for the upper half of the hemisphere) Firesky will be making big announcements for their upcoming MMO, Stargate Worlds. You can expect to hear new information about planets, racial abilities and even details on the origin of Op-CORE -- the evil human faction featured in the game. News of which expos the development team plans on attending are also soon to be announced but that information will be revealed at the Stargate Worlds official website.

It's likely that Massively will be attending at least one of the expos that Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment goes to, so expect us to poke and prod them for the sake of new and exciting information regarding their game. We especially want to know what they think of our Jaffa jokes, as everyone we usually tell them to just gives us strange looks before walking away slowly.

Massively's recent ION Game Conference coverage featured an article on developing MMO's as if they were TV shows. This idea was introduced by FireSky's Joseph Ybarra, Senior VP of Strategic Operations. FireSky hopes to run with the concept of dishing up MMO content updates in episodes, with predictable development cycles of roughly six weeks. This marriage between MMO and TV production could also lead to developing 'pilot games,' which makes sense from a company perspective. After all, it involves smaller budgets and entails less risk. The developer can expend a small amount (by standard game development budgets) and gauge player interest. If that title proves to be popular, future iterations of the game could be developed with larger budgets, building upon the storyline of the previous episodes.

Do you think that gamers would have more of a say in what the creators do with these stories than they do with TV shows, since an episodic MMO is an interactive medium? Would this be a welcome change in the MMO industry, as opposed to waiting for a few years for that next game?

The guys over at MMORPG.com caught up with Joe Ybarra from Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's (or CME for short) Stargate Worlds last week at ION to talk about their upcoming MMO. If you didn't catch it when it originally went up, we sat in on his "MMOs and Hollywood" panel during the conference. Joe has a lot of interesting things to say about not only the industry at large, but his companies' game.

Being that Stargate Worlds is expected to pull in both the TV series audience as well as MMO players, the team at CME is designing their title with a high level of accessibility. The title's story takes place in a modern -- or even futuristic -- setting, which means combat is similarly modern. We really love the idea that combat is being designed as a one-against-many affair in Stargate Worlds. Joe mentions that the minimum is one player-on-three NPCs and their median is about five or seven against one. That means you can expect battles to feel very action-packed, especially when you're in a group with four of five other players!

Yesterday was the final day of ION 08, but that didn't mean there weren't some incredbly great panels to attend. "Taking Your Community From Pre-Launch to Live" was just one of these panels and to make things even better it included some previous speakers I quite enjoyed hearing from.

This time around the moderator was Steve Danuser (38 Studios) while Craig Dalrymple (Sony Online Entertainment) took a panelist seat along with Katie Postma (Firesky), Meghan Rodberg (Turbine) and Victor Wachter (Cryptic Studios). It's important to point out that all the panelist are in fact community managers, as opposed to Steve Danuser who is the lead content designer and director of community development for his company. However, Danuser was previously a community manager for EverQuest II.

Onto everyones favorite topic: "Fuckwads!" They're usually absolutely negative, but can they be converted?

Katie says, "You can convert them!" She's rather optimistic as her URU Live experiences have taught her that anyone genuinely interested in a game can be turned to the light side. Apparently back in Katie's URU Live days there were three guys who "vehemently" disagreed with each other, but did agree that the game was broken. These three guys had an incredibly impressive discussion in a thread, so Katie invited them all into a chat room one day. She told them how impressed she was with their ability to articulate their complaints and issues. So she asked, "Do you want to be moderators?" and they agreed! In the end these three players ended up being huge advocates of URU Live. Two of them even did some tech support for the game.

Identifying what a person is trying to accomplish through their behavior is also key, says Victor. Some of these people are just trying to get some attention unfortunately. Time can be wasted on the wrong people, so being able to locate and invest in people who can be brought over from the completely negative is an important skill.

Meghan brings up the ones who are hopeless. There was a poster in the Lord of the Rings Online forums (a LotRO Scholar) who took great pleasure in beating people with his intellectual epee. This person eventually had to be banned, but since he'd developed a niche group around him he did take some people with him. However, it truly was the best choice for the community.

If they're not a true "fuckwad" who's just trying to beat people with their intellectual epee then give them an NDA and beta access, says Craig. Letting them see the game -- and try the game -- for itself can alleviate many fears.

How do you balance the smaller fansites with the big PR-fueled media outlets?

"It's hard." laments Katie. Meghan chimes in with agreement, "I love the grass roots." she continues, "they're the people supporting you for basically nothing." They do it purely out of love and passion. "You can't not appreciate that." admits a solemn Meghan. Still, the truth is that developers need marketing and PR. "Sometimes you want to give the smaller sites screenshots, but you just don't have them." It's a tough place to be.

Something that Craig points out is that simply showing up letting small sites know that, "Hey, you guys rock!" is all the validation most of them need. It's easy and very important.

Katie mentions that she filters the smaller sites through her by taking their questions and answering some of them to the best of her ability. Then, she takes these answers to the PR folks, who of course just have to improve them (can you see the high-level trickery here?) before giving them back to her. This is a great way to reward the smaller sites.

Someone in the audience suggests that big sites have passionate writers who are hired for that very fact. "Big sites aren't all completely soulless." remarks Steve.

A trick that Craig makes use of is quietly suggesting to smaller websites to pay attention to news feeds over the next hour or so. This way the big sites still get that sexy press release while the small sites are able to talk in-depth about it right away. Katie brings up the problem of there being so many smaller fansites that tipping even several can make others feel like there is preferential treatment going on. She did however invite a local fansite to attend office events, purely because said fansite was nearby.

Steve asks about hanging the big carrot stick in front of players so they'll be good in order to earn a early beta slot. He asks if the panelists have been any good or bad uses.

Immediately Craig chimes in with, "Such as using a website where you have to play for membership to download the beta?" A square upper-cut to the jaw if I've ever seen one.

Another thing to keep in mind is that giving beta keys to smaller sites so they can give them away in contests is tricky. The contest has to be incredibly fair and nigh un-cheatable. Also, it's important not to announce the names of the winners in beta slot contests, because while that may sound cool it's only really announcing the 999,999 other people that they lost.

Of course the risk of letting influential individuals from the community into the game early on is "unexpected results". There's a lot of excitement about a game between the moment it's announced and the day it launches. Many players can't touch or feel the game out for themselves, so there's a risk of players building up a game in the mind that's completely different from the actual title.

Craig says that it's also important to clarify what's really going into a game with the game's lead. Otherwise you'll end up over-promising, which is of course very bad. "Yes you're going to have unicorns that poop Pegasuses!" exclaims Craig. He something else well-worth remembering, saying "Once you say it, that's it. It's for real now. Somebody from the company said it and that's it."

Next is the topic of dropped features which have been previously promised.

We don't talk about something publicly until we see it, says Meghan. Most of the panelists have learned this lesson in the most bitter of ways as all heads are nodding in agreement. "Don't talk about it until you see it." goes the mantra.

Katie says to be honest and genuine, admit that you were told to say it and so you said it, then apologize. Craig chimes in to say clear communication is incredibly important in all things. "It almost never happens, but there are times when you are told to go and say something by someone in the company." Craig reveals a bit surprisingly, to me at least. "I don't say this very often," begins Victor, "Part of our job is to advocate for the customer." A community manager sometimes needs to remind upper management that their reputation with the community literally relies on what they say. Craig also recommends trying not to say something that was dropped will be in a patch or expansion unless a lead developer commits to it.

"I like getting paid, so at the end of the day I'm going to do my job." notes Craig. It's best not to lose your job over it. Hopefully -- if you're lucky -- the company you work for respects the role that a community manager plays in the success of the game.

Meghan brings up the fact that it's a good idea to slowly break the news to the community when you do make the post. Make it an open discussion and lead up the breaking the bad news slowly.

"Hey, we cut that feature!" yells Craig while giving two thumbs up.

In all seriousness, a community manager has to speak to the large audience first. If there happens to be small pocket of players that are complaining loudly it's ideal to attack it and find out their issues. However, the general audience does come first. Meghan adds, "Just making sure that players know you're working on it helps."

Another fun story from Katie, this time about a player they recently let into the "Friends and Family Alpha" for Stargate Worlds. This player literally could not get into the game. They ended up getting in touch with a developer through an instant messenger and figured out what the issue was together. Bringing the right players intimately close with developers and making them a part of problem solving is a huge part of the overall success equation.

How do you handle negative buzz coming out even with an NDA in place?

Even with an NDA there will be a point when information gets leaked out. Victor suggests taking as much control of the situations as can be taken and to look for the right people to help you spread your message. Allowing people from the community to write up a personal blog post and then send it through PR to "OK" it is smart. Combat fire with fire, essentially.

Katie laments that, "There is always a vocal minority."

"SOE has a crack team of ninjas." Craig says in response to the NDA question.

"Your team is on crack?" queries Katie.

"Yes." says Craig with a great deadpan voice. Or maybe he's not kidding. Who can tell with Grimwell?

What we do know -- or Craig knows, at least -- is that when NDA discussions are leaking out into the Internet it's a sign that these people didn't have a provided place to vent these problems. Without any place else to go they simply post out on their own blogs or forums.

How do you deal with a buildup of negative-focused communities?

"Send them lots of cupcakes." Advises Craig, most wisely. (We finally know the secret to getting SOE to send us lots of cupcakes!) The truth is that these players -- or groups of players -- aren't really interested in your game, they're just interested in being a part of the hate club. It's fun for them to be hateful and spiteful. They simply don't want to do anything else but be angry.

The panel finished with lots and lots of different topics being covered, all of which continued to show me why these people are so important to the successful launch of an MMORPG. Every one of these community managers seem incredibly good natured. That's saying a lot when you consider that this is a group of people who constantly sit between the ire of fans and the supposed apathy of a developer. It's a tough job, but somebody has to constantly remind us that we're all just passionate people who all love online games.

One of the strengths of MMOs are their communities. The stronger a community around an MMO is the more likely that game is to last into the foreseeable future. "Successfully Managing a Community Emergency" was a panel at ION 08 full of the people in charge of the communities we all take part in. Fittingly enough all of these men and women have their own friendships based on their shared experiences as well, which makes for a kind of interesting mirror effect. It was like watching the same group of people who post on these forums talk about them -- except with a bit more maturity than you'd expect. Though don't get me wrong, there was a lot of goofing about as they tackled different forum emergencies.

The panel consisted of Katie Postma (Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment/Stargate Worlds), Victor Wachter (Cryptic Studios/Champions Online), Alan Crosby (Sony Online Entertainment), Meghan Rodberg (Turbine/Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online) and was moderated by Craig Dalrymple (Sony Online Entertainment/EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Free Realms).

Joseph Ybarra, SVP of strategic operations at Firesky, the publishing subsidiary of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, presented a session today at ION 08 about the Stargate Worlds production model that borrows heavily from Hollywood and TV models. The goal for SGW is to approach content updates for the game more like a production cycle for television, in which an episode takes a predictable amount of time to complete (14-16 weeks in the case of Stargate Atlantis).

After some background on Firesky and CME, Ybarra showed the Stargate Worlds trailer and launched into a discussion of the strategy with SGW. The idea is to adopt a movie model for the development phase and a TV model for the post-launch "live" phase. They chose to use the BigWorld middleware platform and Unreal Engine technologies in an effort to use proven tools: "don't reinvent the wheel." This allows them to both minimize risk and focus on the content.

Late last month Stargate Worlds' developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment announced that they would be creating their own publishing subsidiary. Called Firesky, the publisher shares many of the same executives as Cheyenne Mountain, including Senior VPs of product development Rod Nakamoto and strategic operations Joe Ybarra. Today, as MMO week continues at GamesIndustry.biz, that site has a discussion with the pair on what kind of experiences they hope to offer future players.

From the developer's perspective, there are a number of advantages to making an MMO about a television show. Given the episodic nature of TV, releasing serial content within the context of the SGW gameworld becomes second nature. Ybarra and Nakamoto also comment on some of their future plans, hinting at a "Project Anderson" that seeks to combine the best aspects of a social network and an MMO. "We also intend to deliver products that are very different from MMOs but still have an online component, that still widens our audience and brings in different types of gamers besides just the MMO players."

Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and their newly formed publishing company FireSky have some incredibly huge plans for the future of gaming. Stargate Worlds, the virtual MMO of the hit television show, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Joe Ybarra, FireSky's Senior VP of Strategic Operations, recently spilled the beans about some of those plans... and they are nothing short of revolutionary.

FireSky was created to publish SGW for a very simple reason. CME felt that they knew their product better then anyone else, and because they already had in-house talent with backgrounds in publishing, they figured why not do it all? With an already established focus on the service aspect of their product they truly believed they could create a customer support organization and technical infrastructure that was superior to anything out there. That in and of itself is a very bold move, one that not many companies would even consider let alone actually implement.

But FireSky has a far greater purpose then just game publishing.

Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the developers behind the upcoming sci-fi MMO Stargate Worlds, announced the formation of a new game publisher called FireSky that will release SGW and other unannounced titles. FireSky is headed by the same guy who holds the reins at Cheyenne Mountain - CEO Tim Jenson. Several other CME execs are on board as well, including Senior VP's of product development Rod Nakamoto and strategic operations Joe Ybarra.

Just as intriguing as the announcement was this bit of info that Tim Jenson revealed: "It's almost time for us to lift the veil and show the world some of the unique projects we're working on in addition to Stargate Worlds."

We had no idea they were working on anything else. This oughtta be good!

[Via Gamasutra]