Massively^™

Webzen published a press release today announcing the start of Huxley's open beta test phase in South Korea. No word yet on when gamers in other regions will be able to participate. There have been hints that Webzen is backing away from the North American market, but today's press release reiterates the company's dedication to releasing Huxley "in markets around the world." This comes after an announcement that portal NHN will be distributing the game in North America and Europe, so we're pretty sure things are good.

The press release is full of not-quite-true statements that Huxley is the very first game to combine the FPS and MMO genres. PlanetSide and Neocron come to mind right away, and there have probably been others. Still, we're watching Huxley with curiosity. Its production values are sky high (just look at the recent cinematic trailer) and its Unreal Engine-powered graphics are impressive. Webzen plans to release the game in Korea in 2009, so we'll be waiting a while yet.

[Via Big Download]

It's not a bad thing that Huxley gameplay looks a lot like Unreal Tournament III, but it is a bit disconcerting for anyone interested in the MMOFPS in regards towards its possible uniqueness. The fact that what we're seeing in this video amounts to a standard deathmatch is probably the biggest reason for the comparison. While we professed our enjoyment of Huxley's recently released cinematic trailer, neither that nor this look into the game have told us why Huxley is any different than the many other FPS and MMO games currently proliferating across the market.

Don't get us wrong, though. We're always interested in different experiences here at Massively, so you can expect us to be playing Huxley whenever it manages to wash up on our shores. We're just hoping that the experience amounts to more than running around beautifully rendered worlds shooting things up, because that can be found elsewhere.

[via Rock, Paper Shotgun]

We have to concede, we were not terribly impressed when we got wind of some of Huxley's non-combat areas as long as four months go. Chalk it up to the editing, we suppose, but the ten consecutive minutes of clomping around a barren cityscape left us barely able to keep our heads up. We were much more impressed with the recent cinematic trailer for the game, but it did little in the way of explaining how Huxley was going to change the way we play MMOs.

Well a new video has surfaced with better editing, the removal of that incessant clomping sound of walking on pavement, and some looks at non-static NPCs, shops, and the games' train system. We realize that Huxley's success probably hinges more on whether the FPS action is up to current standards, but for MMO junkies like ourselves, the little things like shops and quest hubs can have a much greater influence on whether we choose to play the game or not. Check out the new video after the jump.

[Via Blues News]

Epic Games is apparently doing a good job selling and supporting its Unreal Engine 3 in the Korean market. Yet another developer has licensed the engine for an MMO project. This time it's T-Entertainment, which is working on a "space opera" MMO called L2. Wow, that sounds like the name of another Korean MMO!

Welcome to the club, T-Entertainment! Meet AcroGames and Bluehole; they're also Korean developers using Unreal Engine 3. Oh, and of course you know about Webzen's Huxley, which is built on Unreal Engine 3. Yes, also Korean. Let's not forget the illustrious NCsoft, which already used the previous version of Unreal for Lineage II, and plans to use version 3 for not one but two new projects.

There was an interview with Epic Games' Mark Rein at Gamasutra several months back. He said that Epic is working hard to propagate Unreal Engine 3 in Korea, but described serious challenges -- particularly with customer support. It looks like Epic is finding ways to deal with those challenges after all.

[Via Worlds in Motion]

The rumors of Webzen's North American demise have been greatly exaggerated. News on the inter-streets is that Webzen has found a PC-version publisher for their MMOFPS game Huxley in gaming portal heavyweight NHN USA, which is a subsidiary of the Korean NHN. There still isn't any mention of the 360 version, however. This is a pretty big deal for Webzen as it means that Huxley will be sold through the incredibly huge ijji.com videogame portal. That's the same portal through which over six million people play tons of games including Gunbound, Gunz, Drift City and Soldier Front.

You may or may not know about ijji.com, but trust us when we say it's a pretty big win for Webzen. Originally announced when Hoover build the dam, Huxley has been in the works for a long, long time. Which is the main reason we've all been questioning its US release solidity. All joking aside, the real question we should be asking is whether or not NA and European players will even like the game. Some of us here at Massively haven't been decidedly impressed by anything so far. Only time will tell.

Two Hammers at MMO-centric blog gamebunny writes that Webzen is slowly making a retreat from the North American market. The Korean publisher, currently developing the much-anticipated Huxley, has cut Parfait Station and Wiki (aka Project Wiki) from its game roster on the North American site. Although Webzen has not announced cancellations of the titles, only three games remain displayed on the site: MU, Soul of the Ultimate Nation, and Huxley. Release dates are not set for SUN and Huxley.

The disappearance of Parfait Station and Wiki comes on the heels of Webzen relinquishing their publishing rights to All Points Bulletin, three years after having obtained them. Real Time Worlds bought back the rights to APB in April. These changes could diminish Webzen's presence in the North American market for the foreseeable future, and their radio silence on where Huxley is in terms of release doesn't help matters. Quite a number of people seem to be excited about Huxley, particularly among the Massively team; we can only hope that Webzen is just re-prioritizing their projects and releases for North America, and that they're not going to disappear on us anytime soon.

Huxley promises to be a great game combining the MMO and FPS genres in a new and entertaining fashion, and I am all for creativity and license. But that's just the problem. When I heard about Huxley the game, my mind immediately leaped to the possibilities of some other first person shooter games derived from the other works of Aldous Huxley, and frankly, that boggles the mind.

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?

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.

As we noted when we named PlanetSide our #3 Sci-Fi MMO to date, it's good to see the "MMO" try on some new (i.e., non-RPG) clothes now and again. That's why we've been keeping a close eye on Webzen's MMOFPS Huxley. Updates on Huxley have been coming in a trickle in recent months. Videos have been released now and again, and we knew it was in closed beta, but Webzen hasn't said much to the public lately. Good news: the silence was broken by an article at IGN the other day!

The basic info is all there: two persistent cities supporting up to 5,000 players in a post-apocalyptic Earth setting, instanced battles with hundreds of players, and differences between the PC and XBox 360 versions of the game. There are also several new screenshots and videos. The game looks a lot like Unreal Tournament 3. Not a surprise, since it's a first-person-shooter running on Unreal Engine 3.

According to the article, the PC version of Huxley will launch States-side before year's end, with the 360 version following about six months later.

[Via XBox 360 Fanboy]

All right we admit it -- they also feature a good amount of NPCs and a very pretty cityscape, but we can only take so much endless running before our attention wanes. The first video was five minutes of running and after that we figured, "The next video will have something else, obviously." Well -- obviously -- we were wrong, because it was another four minutes of running around, looking at some static NPCs, trolley cars passing by and smokestacks. Now don't get us wrong, we definitely appreciate Huxley-Evolved for the high quality videos of the game engine doing its thing -- we guess we're just really anxious to see this game in action.

Huxley is of course being developed by Webzen and is currently scheduled for a released date sometime later this year. Be sure to check out the second video after the break, if you want to see more Huxley footage.

The CMP games-flagship site Gamasutra has up a Massive article about the state of Korean gaming, which basically means it's almost entirely about online titles. Journalist Brandon Sheffield sat down for a chat with some of the biggest names in Korean gaming for the piece, and comes away with fascinating analysis of the Eastern push West. Big names he talks to include Nexon's (MapleStory, KartRider) international business development manager Stephen Lee and Webzen's (Huxley) development strategy manager of global studios, Sang Woon Yoon.

If you had any notions that the increasingly visible influence of eastern-style online games was going to be lessened in 2008, think again. Every person Sheffield interviews has big plans for the US and EU markets, from a port of MapleStory for the DS to big 'next-gen' console expansion plans in Korea and beyond.

Most interestingly, it looks as though the more Korean developers push into these markets, the more they're adapting to the local climate: [Webzen's Sang Woon Yoon] observes that though the Korean market is lucrative due to its high number of online users, the packaged software market in the U.S. allows Webzen to "...calculate ROI easier than online games. Also the next-generation consoles like the 360 shows great graphics, and a lot of CPU power... We have no choice but to go for those," noting, "We can't really push for the Korean way. In America, it just doesn't work."

Still in the dark about Huxley, that much-delayed MMOFPS game from Webzen? You've seen amazing screenshots and beautiful combat videos, but you're still not sure about this title? Never fear! The company is offering two videos with some of the first in-game footage we've seen of your initial entry into the game world. The fine folks at Huxley-Evolved have been making sure that they get out to all the fans that want an in on this unique game concept. The first kicks off your adventure in the world of Huxley, while the second (below the cut) sees an avatar exploring one of the game world's cities. Fascinating viewing.

Thanks, Stephen!