Massively^™

Sometimes we like to sit back and dream of what it might be like to design an MMO. We'd put together some fiendishly difficult boss battles, or plot some intensely engaging storylines ... or maybe just throw in a ton of Fury jokes. And then we snap out of it and get back to work.

Tracy Seamster is a game designer for SOE's The Agency, to which she transitioned after writing for Everquest II for some years. If you've ever wondered what the day-to-day job of a game designer might be like, you can look for the answers in this interview. Covering such topics as finding inspiration, the tools used by a designer, and the particular challenges in writing for an MMO, this interview gives a behind-the-scenes look into one of the industry's more coveted positions.

[Thanks, Beth!]

Masthead Studios has licensed SpeedTree modeling software to add a higher degree of realism to their upcoming MMO Earthrise. The software suite is now used extensively in the game industry for foliage modeling. What, you've never heard of SpeedTree? Well you've almost certainly seen it before. You're not likely to stop and notice the trees and shrubs as the FBI and military are trying to cut you down with automatic weapons in GTA IV. You probably won't admire the indigenous plantlife while you're trying to frag your opponents in Unreal Tournament III either. But the unnoticed backdrop for your carnage in these games was built with SpeedTree. While we may not pay attention to them directly, these details that permeate our virtual environments can have a big impact on our immersion in those settings. Neverwinter Nights 2, Crackdown and Viking: Battle for Asgard are other prominent titles enhanced by SpeedTree.

Earthrise is in good company on the MMO front with Masthead's decision to use SpeedTree, joining the ranks of Stargate Worlds, Fury, and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. If the actual game environments can live up to the screenshots Masthead Studios has released, Earthrise stands to be one gorgeous MMO.

In a recent blog post, Elder Game's Eric Heimburg takes a sardonic look at some of the more heavily worn bumps on the road that is MMO development. Without naming any names, Heimburg suggests developers conduct an intervention if their company meets a certain number of the criteria, lest their game join the cavalcade of mediocre to crappy MMO releases on the market.

Among the more prescient of the criteria in this blogger's mind is the one where instead of having a lead designer, companies design by committee, or the one where the publisher imposes changes to the core game from outside. If only fans had a clearer picture of the way their favorite developers were structured, they could apply these criteria beforehand and weigh the odds of a stinker before sinking their hard-earned cash on it. Makes you wonder how many of these criteria Auran met before Fury fell flat on its face.

City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour, now in Open Beta, brings with it a vast assortment of Quality of Life fixes and tweaks.

One small but highly significant fix slipped through the net and missed appearing in the first round of patch notes: the buildup of Brute Fury in PvP and against Archvillain and Giant Monster class enemies has finally been persuaded to work the way it should have. Brutes gain an additional 5 points of Fury when attacking these targets, which more than doubles their Fury building rate. The short version: a Brute can now kill you far faster than you'd expect, and can contribute more to drawn-out fights against the game's toughest enemies.

The Brute community has anticipated this change for a long time now. Without the fix, their viability in PvP was not much to write home about. Now, Castle the Powers Guy has made a lot of Brutes very happy.

Kaiserin tells the story best, with a one-shot painted comic strip.

Fury, the maligned combat MMO by Auran Games, has had a pretty rough history. Despite the critical drubbing, the low player numbers, and the loss of a huge portion of its development crew, Auran has managed to stay together with a skeleton crew, working on the problems that made Fury such a target for ridicule.

Well, according to an interview with CEO Tony Hilliam, conducted by australiangamer.com, they've made significant changes to the title and renamed it FuryLeague, which will focus more on the competitive aspects, and less on the MMO features. Additionally, there is the prospect of winning game gold that can be converted to real money, which, because the game is skill-based instead of luck-based, means that it's not gambling and is therefore legal.

The full interview is available, and the Qualifying Season has already begun. Admit it: you're just as curious as we are. Give it a spin and let us know what you think!

[Via Kotaku]

The upcoming release of Age of Conan has brought this question farther into the light, with its foray into real-time battle. Sure, there have been others -- the late, not-so-lamented Fury being a great example -- that have tried to redefine what MMO combat can be like, but many games are content to offer the tried-and-true click to attack model, with slight variations.

When it comes to fighting in games, surely the biggest defining factor is, or should be, "Is it exciting?" Given that singular criterion, then, which game has the best combat? Which one gets your blood racing? Which MMO really lets you, as the kids used to say, throw down?

Here's a corollary post to an earlier story. Our cousin site, Cinematical, has brought teh funneh with a post about which board games would make awful movies. In that spirit, we now present to you a list of games that would make terrible MMOs, in no particular order.

Please note that these are merely our particular opinions, and we're not saying that a cleverer-than-thou developer couldn't make a great MMO out of these games ... but for reasons we'll state here, it's highly unlikely. Then again, sometimes the best-sounding ideas turn out some awful games themselves (*cough* Fury *cough*), so it all evens out. Excelsior!

Raph Koster, president of Areae, and Sean Riley, Lead Programmer, held a panel the final day of GDC '08 called 'Reinventing MMOs: a Metaplace 'antemortem'', which was all about dissecting why the concept of MMOs needs updating. Going in, I was hoping for insight, which I got, but wasn't expecting a lot of technical talk, which I also got.

And the takeaway I got from this session is this: Koster's doing some good, forward-thinking work, but Metaplace doesn't really shine for me just yet. Details on both after the break.

John Romero and Mike Wilson might be indulging in increasingly childish verbal fisticuffs over the famous "John Romero's about to make you his bitch!" advertisement, but all of that testosterone-laden scuffling kind of glosses over the fact that antagonizing and belittling your players is not a great way to gain a solid following. Especially if your players are over ten years old.

Well, according to Signe at F13, Auran (or whoever's really in back of the game Fury these days - funnily enough it appears to be Mike Wilson's Gamecock) wants you to suck it down and stop being such a shameful girly loser in what has to be one of the outright worst MMO incentive emails I've seen so far, endearingly titled "LOSER! LOSER! LLLOOOOSSSSEEEERRRRR!"

Shot in-game by a guild called The Black Plague, this video is sure to change some impressions people might have about Dungeons and Dragons Online. I have to admit, because my last interaction with D&D at all was the original sit-down-and-roll-some-dodecahedral-dice version, I was totally unprepared for the level of action inherent in DDO PvP.

This is sheer lunacy. Watching this video gives the impression you're actually watching an Unreal Tournament mod -- this is the PvP that Fury wanted to be. The meleé combat alone is worth the price of admisison; it's fast, it's hectic, it's sloppy, just like real life! Except with CTF elements thrown in. Check it out after the jump -- it's DivX, so make sure you have the plugin installed.

[Thanks, Schad!]

There's a forum post at atomicmpc.com that involves itself with the fact that Fury is still being sold in retail outlets (Electronics Boutique specifically named, though apparently there are others), when the game is free to download and free to play. As written here, though, it's not quite so cut-and-dried, as there is a slight benefit to owning the physical disc.

My question, however, is this: given the depth of negative press Auran has gotten for Fury, is it worth paying for at all? Across the board, Fury's gotten nothing but horrible reviews, and I'm surprised the game exists at all. This is an industry story on the level of Duke Nukem Forever, or Daikatana. Is the disc worth owning for any reason other than a White Elephant gift?

According to hollywoodreporter.com, Second Life enjoys the 8th Most Effective Placement on TV this year, behind Nexxus on the show 'Shear Genius', and in front of Visa on the show 'What Not to Wear'. Interestingly, according to the graphic, this is the public's response to SL's appearance on The Office, even though said appearance was virtually 1% of the entire content of the show, as opposed to the CSI: NY episode, in which SL is the subject of the plot.

Now, what this means to you and me is probably not a whole lot. As I understand it, this measures how the product is perceived by John Q. Public, and in this case, being on The Office means that SL has gained some respect by merely rubbing shoulders with that popular sitcom. Perhaps if Fury had been able to swing a mention ... nah, some things you just can't save.

[Thanks, Neptune!]

Our Chris Chester first posted about the upcoming Warrior Epic here, and Possibility Space's Brice Lucas has sent along word of WE's new trailer, available here.

I have to say I'm excited by the artwork on display at WE's website -- there's a wide variety of creatures and characters, and as a whole the game looks unique. I could have used a bit more depth in the trailer, but these days we know enough not to go by marketing material in judging a game, don't we?

[Thanks, Brice!]

The entire Auran staff may have been let go earlier this week, but former Producer David Gillespie has a post up on his personal blog that defends Auran's staff, and the decisions made by management. This is the "Game flopped and the entire team was laid off, but the staff were the best!" law -- a far too frequent occurrence in the gaming industry. This law works in opposites, too. Sid Meier eats babies.

David Gillespie left Auran long before it went into administration, but he obviously had a lot of respect for everyone there. I didn't know Auran were the same developers responsible for 90's RTS classic Dark Reign, though. And there's an industry lesson to learn from this -- no matter how talented your team, how great your working environment, how successful your studio has been up till now -- if you make a commercial MMO that's a failure, you're in a whole world of trouble.

Maybe now that Fury is free, I should download it just to see what it was really like-- but on second thoughts, I think I'll pass for now.

[Via warcry.com]

Yesterday, Games Radar ran a piece on the ugliest video game box art of 2007, which got me to thinking about some of the MMO boxes sitting up on the shelf next to my desk. Now, one of the earliest things that ever drew my best friend into EverQuest so long ago was the presence of a hottie blond elf babe on the cover. Being a dutiful friend, I joined him -- and I have to admit, she's definitely not hard on the eyes. Since then we've seen a lot of box art across the genre; some truly excellent, some utterly pathetic.

This morning, we'd like to ask what your personal choices for best and worst MMO box art are? For me, best would be hard to pick because I really love fantasy art and I think there are some talented artists doing MMO boxes on that side. That said, I can pick worst out pretty easily. My personal worst would have to go to the person who did the box for Fury. I'm probably going to get some hate for kicking them when they're down, but to be honest, the box design was poor from any standpoint other than being prophetic. For those of you who haven't seen it, take a gander at it above. It looks like it borrowed heavily from the Lord of the Rings Online in it's fire-on-brown theme, but whereas the LotRO box has the ring any fan knows and loves, and the helm faded into the background. The Fury box art has a great big flaming F on the cover, the title, a quote, and some overall blah elements. As far as generating excitement that makes one think of PvP butt-kicking, that certainly isn't it.

So what do you think? Are you equally as fond of hottie elf chicks, or do you prefer the stark name only on your game box? Perhaps you think the hot chick on the cover is overdone and would rather see something new altogether for MMO box art?