electronic-arts posts

All Points Bulletin beta kicks off

by Kyle Horner Mar 12th 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Betas, New titles, News items, All Points Bulletin, Crime

It's been a while since beta sign-ups opened late last year, but All Points Bulletin is finally moving into closed beta, it would seem. Several people are receiving emails welcoming them into Realtime Worlds' persistent online world that's a cross between GTA and the ultimate set of customization tools for characters, cars and music seen, well, probably ever.

Between video podcasts, interviews here on Massively and plenty of wishful thinking, it's been a considerably long wait. Our best guess is that the initial wave of invites is a fairly low number, as it usually is, so don't feel too distraught if you weren't invited. These things have a way of expanding over time, after all.

Tags: all-points-bulletin, all-points-bulletin-game, apb-ea, apb-game, apb-podcast, beta, breaking, closed-beta, ea-all-points-bulletin, ea-apb, ea-games, electronic-arts, electronic-arts-all-points-bulletin, grand-theft-auto, gta, invite, podcast

EA: SWTOR is our largest project

by Jef Reahard Mar 11th 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, MMO industry, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic may or may not live up to its advance billing as a potential World of Warcraft competitor. If it doesn't, it won't be for lack of a budget, according to a statement given by Electronic Arts' chief financial officer Eric Brown yesterday.

While meeting with Wedbush Morgan Securities in New York, Brown characterized the forthcoming Star Wars MMORPG as the "largest ever development project, period, in the history of the company." Brown declined to give specific financial details, but it's clear that EA and Bioware aren't leaving much to chance when it comes to spending money on development.

According to Eurogamer, Brown went on to discuss the estimated costs of bringing Blizzard's World of Warcraft to market back in 2004, and noted that the lifetime development costs likely topped $100 million "to actually ship it and obviously then there's maintenance subsequent to ship and expansion packs."

Tags: bioware, bioware-mmo, ea, electronic-arts, star-wars, star-wars-the-old-republic, the-old-republic

APB video podcast Ep. 17 talks more music creator and player

by Kyle Horner Mar 9th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: Video, New titles, News items, All Points Bulletin, Crime

The last All Points Bulletin video podcast featured a pretty in-depth look at the music creator coming with the game, but afterwords the community still had several questions. So this week, community guy extraordinaire Chris Collins presents viewers with some more answers on the music creator from the game's audio lead, Roland Peddie. Plus, we get an in-game example of how the music player functions when driving or walking around San Paro.

Between creating music and playing whatever you like while cruising around the city, we suspect All Points Bulletin will garner quite the creative following, and we're very excited to hear and see what comes of the game. Next week, we should be getting the final part of this "music trilogy" of APB podcasts, complete with a community Q&A.

Find the full video podcast after the break.

Tags: all-points-bulletin, all-points-bulletin-game, apb-ea, apb-game, apb-in-game-music, apb-music-creator, apb-podcast, chris-collins, ea-all-points-bulletin, ea-apb, ea-games, electronic-arts, electronic-arts-all-points-bulletin, in-game-music, music-creator, podcast

The Digital Continuum: The importance of involvement

by Kyle Horner Mar 8th 2010 at 4:00PM

Filed under: New titles, Opinion, The Digital Continuum

There's something to be said about feeling like you're fully engaged by an MMO. By "fully engaged" I don't mean that an MMO should be incredibly challenging. I also don't mean that it should "feel immersive" via sandbox or any other design philosophy.

What I mean is that -- and this is obviously just my opinion -- a game should do its very best to make sure the player is always instantly, nearly and eventually involved. I know that sounds confusing, but let me explain before you start attempting to mail me lettuce so that I can pay a friend to throw it at me.

Tags: activision, activision-blizzard, bioware, bioware-mmo, bioware-mmorpg, bioware-star-wars, bioware-swtor, blizzard, ea, electronic-arts, featured, lucas-arts, lucas-arts-mmo, lucas-arts-mmorpg, opinion, star-wars-game, star-wars-mmo, star-wars-mmorpg, star-wars-the-old-republic, star-wars-tor, starwars, starwars-the-old-republic, sw-tor, swtor, the-digital-continuum, the-old-republic, world-of-warcraft, wow

The Daily Grind: GDC10 predictions?

by Kyle Horner Mar 8th 2010 at 8:00AM

Filed under: Events, real-world, New titles, Opinion, The Daily Grind

With GDC 2010 officially beginning tomorrow, March 9th, we'd like to hear your MMO predictions. And remember, the wilder the better. Although, if you've got some inside info, we're always happy to receive hints via our contact form.

Here are some of our predictions, see if you can figure out the wild crazy ones:

Red 5 Studios minimally reveals the name of their first title.
BioWare attends, but Star Wars: The Old Republic maintains a low presence.
Realtime Worlds will be there showing off something awesome about All Points Bulletin. This particular blogger will obsess over not attending and missing out on seeing the game again.
Massively Editor Sera Brennan will be dared and subsequently sing a most heinously embarrassing song. She'll later regret these events, as the very performance of said song will delay, at minimum, five MMOs set to release sometime within the next 24 months.

Think you can do better? We agree, but would like to see proof, mind you.

Tags: all-points-bulletin, all-points-bulletin-game, apb-ea, apb-game, bioware, bioware-mmo, bioware-mmorpg, bioware-star-wars, bioware-swtor, ea, ea-all-points-bulletin, ea-apb, ea-games, electronic-arts, electronic-arts-all-points-bulletin, gdc-2010, lucas-arts, lucas-arts-mmo, lucas-arts-mmorpg, opinion, red-5, red-5-studios, star-wars-game, star-wars-mmo, star-wars-mmorpg, star-wars-the-old-republic, star-wars-tor, starwars, starwars-the-old-republic, sw-tor, swtor, the-daily-grind, the-old-republic

More woes with Warhammer Online's new weapons

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 5th 2010 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Bugs, Patches, PvP, Warhammer Online, News items

It's a highly-anticipated feature, but it's been causing more than a few headaches for Warhammer Online's developers. We're speaking, of course, about the RvR weapons that were one of the large features of patch 1.3.4 and have been proving rather awkward in implementation. The short version is that when prices were lowered in a recent live change, there was a bit of an unintended rush of progression, which the developers stepped in as quickly as possible to fix. The problem arose with the people who had been progressing legitimately and wound up finding themselves denied their weapons and the corresponding achievements.

The development team has posted a new item asking for players to petition the GMs in a specific fashion to resolve the issue, as well as giving some insight into what went wrong with the whole fix. In short, when they asked players to petition, they didn't ask for enough information the first time around. The statement includes an apology and an assurance that the matter will be quickly escalated for resolution. While it's been an unfortunate period of back and forth for Warhammer Online, hopefully the issue is finally resolved and players can begin enjoying their new battle-earned weaponry once again.

Tags: bugs, ea-games, ea-mythic, ea-warhammer, ea-warhammer-online, electronic-arts, glitches, mythic, mythic-ea, mythic-entertainment, rvr, rvr-weapons, war, war-ea, war-patch-1.3.4, warhammer, warhammer-ea, warhammer-online, warhammer-online-ea

Warhammer Online tweaking their weapon prices

by Eliot Lefebvre Mar 3rd 2010 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, PvP, Warhammer Online, News items

The problem with testing things in any MMO is that so much is contingent upon who decides to log in to the test servers and how much they're willing to play. Ultimately, for all we hate untested dungeons or mechanics or whatever, the only real test for them is to have them go live. Warhammer Online hasn't had too many problems with their most recent patch, but the exact pricing of the newly-introduced RvR weapons has been a bit of a sticky widget. So they've done the most responsible thing possible: they've gone ahead and tweaked the pricing right away.

Low-Renown weapons are the most affected by the price cut, but every weapon has been given a nice drop in cost to make the more accessible. The full announcement goes into some detail about the philosophy behind it, no doubt part of the effort at increased transparency from the development team. Best of all, there's no delay in the changes -- they've already gone live and can be enjoyed by all players. So if you feared the long march in Warhammer Online for a decent weapon from RvR and for RvR, you've had a lucky day indeed.

Tags: ea-games, ea-mythic, ea-warhammer, ea-warhammer-online, electronic-arts, mythic, mythic-ea, mythic-entertainment, price-drop, pricing, reduction, rvr, rvr-weapons, war, war-ea, war-patch-1.3.4, warhammer, warhammer-ea, warhammer-online, warhammer-online-ea

The Daily Grind: Feeling jaded on MMOs?

by Kyle Horner Feb 28th 2010 at 8:00AM

Filed under: New titles, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Reading the comments around Massively, sometimes we wonder if any of our readers are feeling jaded with the current crop of MMOs. In fact, we often wonder if even the upcoming titles like All Points Bulletin, Final Fantasy XIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic are of any interest to many of you.

And, if nothing out there is really doing it for you, we'd like to hear what would. Of course, we're far more interested in hearing what isn't appealing to you and why. It's an unpredictable world out there where games like Perpetuum look to meld open economy/PvP with giant robots in the future. So why wouldn't anyone elses' crazy MMO idea have a shot at taking root?

Tags: all-points-bulletin, all-points-bulletin-game, apb, apb-ea, apb-game, bioware, bioware-mmo, bioware-mmorpg, bioware-star-wars, bioware-swtor, ea, ea-all-points-bulletin, ea-games, electronic-arts, electronic-arts-all-points-bulletin, ffxiv, final-fantasy-xiv, lucas-arts, lucas-arts-mmo, lucas-arts-mmorpg, perpetuum, realtime-worlds, square-enix, star-wars, star-wars-mmo, star-wars-the-old-republic, star-wars-tor, starwars, starwars-the-old-republic, sw-tor, swtor, the-daily-grind, the-old-republic

Taris adding a little post-apocalyptic flavor to SWTOR

by Kyle Horner Feb 26th 2010 at 1:30PM

Filed under: Video, New titles, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic

For those of us who played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the name Taris will immediately spark up some memories of those first few hours of playing the original game that started it all. Taris, for the record, was an ecumenopolis (or city-wide planet) much like Coruscant, only unlike the more famously known hub of the galaxy, Taris was destroyed and forgotten during the events of KOTOR.

This week's new Developer Dispatch video covers the dev team's efforts to make a uniquely post-apocalyptic zone for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it really delivers. Even if you haven't had the pleasure of playing KOTOR, we think Taris is going to be something to really look forward to -- except perhaps those Rakghouls.

Find the video below the break.

Tags: bioware, bioware-mmo, bioware-mmorpg, bioware-star-wars, bioware-swtor, developer-dispatch, ea, electronic-arts, kotor, lucas-arts, lucas-arts-mmo, lucas-arts-mmorpg, star-wars-game, star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic, star-wars-mmo, star-wars-mmorpg, star-wars-the-old-republic, star-wars-tor, starwars, starwars-the-old-republic, sw-tor, swtor, taris, the-old-republic, trailer, video

New All Points Bulletin community Q&A focuses on customization and grouping

by Kyle Horner Feb 25th 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Interviews, New titles, News items, All Points Bulletin, Crime

If you're anything like us, All Points Bulletin is an MMO you're quite looking forward to playing and any information on the game is like the sweet nectar of life. That's why we'd like to point you towards this great community Q&A over on APB Evolved, a fansite easily worth checking out if you're interested in Realtime Worlds' crime-based MMO.

The Q&A is brief and informative, covering topics like customization beyond character creation, group missions, raids and even whether or not All Points Bulletin has melee combat. You might find yourself surprised by the answer to that last one -- we know that we were. Keep on the lookout for more of these Q&As, as they're planned to be weekly.

Tags: all-points-bulletin, all-points-bulletin-game, apb-ea, apb-evolved, apb-game, community-qna, ea-all-points-bulletin, ea-apb, ea-games, electronic-arts, electronic-arts-all-points-bulletin, qna

Blizzard, NCsoft talent form developer En Masse Entertainment

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 24th 2010 at 8:00PM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items

The MMO industry, despite some setbacks over the past year or so, has been growing at a steady rate for some time and doesn't show much sign of slowing. It's hard to argue that two of the most influential companies in that success have been Blizzard Entertainment and NCsoft, with the former keeping a stable of several successful games and the latter running a game well-known enough to not need a mention. So when staffers from both companies join up to form a new development studio, it's worth paying some attention to what the company is doing.

En Masse Entertainment, as reported by our sister site Joystiq, has just announced their formation as a company. Their staff includes talent from the aforementioned studios as well as Microsoft, ArenaNet, and Electronic Arts. According to the official press release, their first project is bringing the Korean MMORPG TERA to western audiences -- which might sound like another free-to-play game coming over until you note both the stunning visuals and the fact that it's slated to be a subscription model "like other triple-A titles." We'll be keeping a close eye on the new studio -- it could be a combination that produces some interesting results.

Tags: arenanet, blizzard, blizzard-entertainment, ea, electronic-arts, en-masse-entertainment, microsoft, ncsoft, studios, tera

Warhammer Online gets a new producer's letter

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 24th 2010 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Patches, Warhammer Online

Hot on the heels of the 1.3.4 patch, we've received another letter from Warhammer Online's producer discussing the state of the game and its immediate future. Carrie Gouskos, who has apparently inherited the position formerly held by Bruce MacLean and Jeff Skalski, has taken the opportunity to share information of the coming updates to the game. It's also a chance for a new outline of how the team wishes to improve upon community relations, with the promise of more frequent news and updates along with early player involvement in the testing process.

In addition for soliciting players for loading screen tips, the letter talks about what can be expected with the next two small patches for the game, 1.3.5 and 1.3.6. The former is slated to shift the core experience of cities and city sieges to an RvR experience, emphasizing PvP combat and with encounters balanced to shift based on population sizes. On the other hand, the latter is going to examine armor sets closely and try to provide a redesign for maximum player benefit. Warhammer Online fans can look forward to more about these features in the coming months, with any luck.

Tags: bruce-maclean, carrie-gouskos, city-siege, ea-games, ea-mythic, ea-warhammer, ea-warhammer-online, electronic-arts, jeff-skalski, mythic, mythic-ea, mythic-entertainment, pvp, rvr, set-redesign, state-of-the-game, war, war-ea, war-patch-1.3.4, war-patch-1.3.5, war-patch-1.3.6, warhammer, warhammer-ea, warhammer-online, warhammer-online-ea

[Updated] WAR 1.3.4 patch coming soon, brings Scenario and City Siege enhancements plus more

by Kyle Horner Feb 23rd 2010 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Patches, Warhammer Online, News items

Warhammer Online's 1.3.4 patch ~~has gone live as of today~~ is coming soon. The update includes a torrent of changes with a primary focus on streamlining Scenarios -- the game's beloved-yet-flawed ~~open-ended PvE encounters~~ easy-to-access PvP instances -- and City Sieges. These changes are aimed at pleasing the game's community, who've been giving plenty of feedback to Mythic.

The original problem with Scenarios were a matter of player population. If you didn't have enough people to ~~complete a 5 or 10-person~~ start a Scenario, well, you were waiting in queue forever. Hopefully, the issue of achieving "critical mass" should all be in the past with the 1.3.4 patch. While new weapon rewards are being added to Scenarios, not everything is making the cut. Less popular Scenarios have been removed, although Mythic is promising that some will return in special weekend events.

For an in-depth explanation of the Scenario changes, look no further than this awesome developer post. You can also find a shortlist of the various updates and improvements after the break. Or, if you prefer, you can find the full breakdown of patch 1.3.4 on Warhammer Online's official patch notes section.

Update: Due to the 1.3.4 patch not going live as scheduled, we've updated the post to reflect as much. Additionally, we've corrected factual errors as well. Our apologies to anyone confused by the original post.

Tags: ea-games, ea-mythic, ea-warhammer, ea-warhammer-online, electronic-arts, mythic, mythic-ea, mythic-entertainment, war, war-ea, war-patch-1.3.4, warhammer, warhammer-ea, warhammer-online, warhammer-online-ea

Development diary explains the Warhammer Online changes

by Eliot Lefebvre Feb 22nd 2010 at 7:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Patches, PvP, Warhammer Online

The rebalancing of Warhammer Online's Scenarios has been an arduous process for both the players afraid of losing well-loved content and developers trying to narrow down the field to help everything achieve critical mass. After a fair dose of testing and evaluation, they've reached a point where they're comfortable letting development manager Mike Wyatt write up a development diary giving a clearer picture of what informed the rather sweeping changes to the game's structure.

As Wyatt puts it, first of all, trimming the number of Scenarios consolidates the best-liked encounters and weeds out the less-popular versions. Second, a smaller number of Scenarios allows better balancing and tweaking of each, helping improve the overall experience. Lastly, the smaller number can have their rewards more easily brought in line, to avoid making one Scenario much more profitable than others.

What follows is a listing of the Scenarios that will rotate in and out versus those that are constantly available, which seems a bit smaller than the last one we received. The diary makes no mention of population concerns, content loss, or the general community reaction (ranging from "meh" to "no"). Still, with an ambitious change we can only hope that Warhammer Online's revisions prove to be a good thing for the game as a whole.

Tags: developer-diary, ea-games, ea-mythic, ea-warhammer, ea-warhammer-online, electronic-arts, mike-wyatt, mythic, mythic-ea, mythic-entertainment, rebalancing, scenarios, war, war-ea, war-patch-1.3.4, warhammer, warhammer-ea, warhammer-online, warhammer-online-ea

The Digital Continuum: Fears and opinions

by Kyle Horner Feb 22nd 2010 at 12:00PM

Filed under: New titles, Opinion, The Digital Continuum, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Anyone who's been playing MMOs for a little while has probably been looking forward to an upcoming game at least once. They also probably put a lot of expectations onto that game based on either their first game or what they thought an MMO should be. We've all done this at least once in our time as fans, and we've all been wrong to do it.

I've wanted to create some kind of data point -- even a fairly shaky one -- to prove this statement of mine. So, when the Star Wars: The Old Republic community created this thread to express their fears, I had my opportunity. In a wholly un-scientific manner, I've combed through the entire 17 page thread and tallied up all the fears within. This should be an entertaining ride.

Tags: bioware, bioware-mmo, bioware-mmorpg, bioware-star-wars, bioware-swtor, ea, electronic-arts, faetured, lucas-arts, lucas-arts-mmo, lucas-arts-mmorpg, opinion, star-wars-game, star-wars-mmo, star-wars-mmorpg, star-wars-the-old-republic, star-wars-tor, starwars, starwars-the-old-republic, sw-tor, swtor, the-digital-continuum, the-old-republic