Massively^™

In our recent talk with Matt Wilson at E3, we were given a lot of really illuminating information about classes and guilds in the upcoming SOE title, The Agency. It would seem that the Agency crew is doing a very good job of listening to many of the frustrations of MMOG players, while taking the time to study popular games like Team Fortress 2. If you've been wondering about the different classes and abilities, as well as social structure in this upcoming MMOFPS, then you'll be interested to hear what's in the works.

Massively: What are the classes or archetypal roles in The Agency?

Matt Wilson: Our four primary classes are basically Combat, which is the ability to have weapons and have high defenses. Stealth, which is more of a high-DPS, sniper rifles and other things that you take into battle, [Undercover] Stealth which is very important, which is sneaking around and distractions. And finally, there's the Support classes like your Medics and Field Techs. Field Techs are about defense, turrets, other cool things like that. Medics are more about supporting the team, being able to support med stations while you're out in the field, heals, that kind of thing. Those are the general archetypes. Then we have specialties that fall out of those, allowing players to specialize further in each class.

The Podcast of Reckoning recently had the chance to sit down with Josh Drescher, the Associate Producer for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Their lengthy discussion covered a lot of aspects of the upcoming Guild Beta, information we imagine you'd be keenly interested to see in print. Thankfully the GreenSkin is all over it, offering up another '50 bits of information list' culled from the podcast. Some of them are just wacky fun, but others are really interesting and give us a good sense of EA Mythic's dedication to the art of WAR. Some examples:

• The developers have joined some of the major pre-release guilds in secret, to get a better 'feel' for player interests.
• Exploring the world and engaging in multiple parts of the game will offer players a more 'well rounded' character than one who simply power-levels through the game.
• There are extensive guild tools in the game built from the ground up by and for guild leaders and members.
• The developers see the testers as a part of the team, and treats their feedback with a great deal of gravitas.
• Drescher's wedding was actually scheduled to avoid Warhammer's development period. That's dedication.

Make sure to check out the 'cast as well.

The long-anticipated Warhammer Online guild beta appears to finally be moving forward, as we've heard via the grapeline that European guild leaders are being notified about the imminent start of the guild beta. According to this email, guild leaders are being given until July 2 to submit the information for members hoping to participate in the beta. Interestingly, the NDA for the beta will remain in effect for the duration of the guild beta, so don't expect to see full-fledged personal accounts for a little while yet.

This information will likely bristle some who were likely hoping that they'd be able to enjoy the open beta sometime this summer. It's probably too early to rule that out at this point, since we don't have any information yet about how EA Mythic will be handling the North American guild beta, and that has to be an important stepping point before they're willing to show Warhammer Online to the greater public.

In the mean time, why not enjoy the recent MMOG Nation podcast, where our own Michael Zenke sits down for a candid chat with WAR designer Paul Barnett?

Have you returned to EverQuest as part of the Living Legacy promotion? Or are you a veteran player who is just looking for a new home? Perhaps you're just curious about the state-of-play in one of the MMO genre's oldest, yet still thriving, games? Maybe you're a guild leader looking for some new blood? If any of these is you, why not stop by the Norrathian Guild Recruitment Festival and have a look around, or sign your guild up so prospective new recruits can see what you're about?

When you have the right group of people, everything is just easier. When your guild members communicate well with each other, and each person knows her role and responsibilities, there isn't anything you can't overcome. At least, in that particular game. But what happens when you try to transfer that guild to a different game?

Although many MMOs have similar classes and structures, it isn't always a one-to-one correlation. Your tank might suddenly find himself with a much more challenging job than in the previous game. Your healer could see a new class and decide he's done with his old job and wants to try something new. Maybe the functions of the group just don't work in the new game. When your guild wants to tackle the challenges of a new MMO, how do you go about settling in? If it isn't happening, how do you fix it?

The creators of the sci-fi MMO Earthrise have been very active in recent months -- granting a number of interviews, releasing monthly newsletters, and participating in dev chats. Stratics recently hosted the third Earthrise 'House of Commons' dev chat, with three members of the Masthead Studios team.

The Masthead Studios devs that took part were Atanas Atanasov (CEO of Masthead Studios), Apostol Apostolov (Lead Game Designer), and Moll (Community Manager). Their discussion ranged from the professions available to players to the extensive crafting system in the game. Read on after the jump for details straight from the devs about what we can expect from Earthrise.

All week long, Massively.com has been offering up feature after feature on EA Mythic's in-development MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The Massively goes to WAR feature series has taken you front to back through almost every moment of our time at Mythic's Virginia headquarters. To wrap it all up, we've got a handy-dandy clickable guide to the series. Whether you're into hardcore PvP, dungeon delving, crafting, or are a total MMO newb, we've got you covered. Click on through, and explore the world of Warhammer.

<-- Jump back to part 2

Is there a formal in-game mechanic for alliances?

Christian: There certainly is. We do allow formal alliances in the game, you can form an alliance with up to ten guilds, and you can assign officers within that alliance structure, though that is very limited. We actually have a roster for the alliances, you form it just from this window, and then it populates with your alliance roster. Note that every member from your alliance is not displayed in this roster, only your guild, the alliance leaders and the officers, because that would be - if you had ten guilds in your alliance, that would be a lot of people.

<-- Jump back to part 1

We note there is a website and an email address down there at the bottom of the tab? What are those?

Christian Bales: That's just my web, that's test for now, but that's when the guild leader wants to set the actual guild's email address and the guild website.)

Josh Drescher: You can set that to be whatever you want, so ... Obviously, one of the cool things that you really want from a guild is a sense of belonging, the team jersey, you go and dress up in your Redskins jerseys or wherever you're from. It'll have the guild heraldry. The heraldry is a customized, unique sort of heraldry for your specific guild. So a symbol on it, specific color scheme, shape, patterns and so forth that's applicable only to your guild, that your guild will have the ability to place on various things.

Christian: On your standards and on your guild cloaks.

The conventional wisdom in any service-driven industry is that it's far, far cheaper to retain an existing customer than to recruit a new one. This is especially true in the MMOG industry, where your business model is largely dependent on maintaining a long-term subscriber base. The concept also applies to transaction-driven and episodic games, where you need your customers to want to stick around and continue spending money. Box sales are great, but ultimately they're pretty useless except as an indicator of how many people actually bought the game -- returning players are the bread and butter of the MMO world.

In fact, that's exactly why companies are so interested in finding out why you're quitting their game. If they can fix issues that are making a lot of people quit, they can retain more customers and drive up their revenue. Surprisingly, Blizzard is the only company I know of which actually makes people fill out an exit survey in order to cancel a subscription. It's not that annoying and it gives them great information about how to make their game better for you (so if you're adamant on copying Blizzard, that's a good thing to copy). Unfortunately, Blizzard keeps notoriously quiet about their internal numbers like that. So why exactly do people quit MMOGs, and what can and should game companies be doing to keep you interested?

Everyone plays MMOGs at different speeds. Some people spend just a few hours a week playing, and some of us spend altogether far too much time on these games. I submit, for evidence, that 4-hour raids three nights per week is considered a "light raiding schedule" by most raiding standards. That's almost a part-time job, when you count the time you spend farming for mats and doing random other runs on top of that! Still, it doesn't matter how much time you actually spend playing -- anyone can get pretty wrapped up in their favorite game. Even a "casual" player can get to the point where they're just playing because it's what they do, instead of playing because they're having fun.

Whether you play for 5 hours each week or 50 hours each week, sometimes it's good to step back, take a breather, and get off the game for a while. Right? It seems so simple, so obvious. "Yes, of course it's good to take a break," you say, nodding along with me. "Just as soon as I get my Tier 9 Sword, Epic Firetruck, and Gleeful Gnome Pet, I'll do that. Though, I should really wait until my Tier 10 Sword and Mega-Epic Firetruck... and then help my guildies get theirs." Meanwhile, there's that nagging feeling in the back of your mind: Is this actually fun?

As has become tradition for this blogger, every year on Memorial Day (aka 'the birthday') weekend, lots of people from our guild like to get together and party down. There are friendships in our guild that span many years and almost as many games. Of course, beyond just discussing whatever is going on in MMOGspace, there's lots of good food, beer, and geekery to be had for everyone!

Since this is the perfect weekend for getting together with friends and family here in the States, we thought that we'd ask you -- do you ever have guild parties in meatspace? Are there any particular times of the year that you and your guild-mates like to get together, like at a convention or fan faire? Or is your guild a strictly online-only guild?

Outspark's Secret of the Solstice has gotten a new feature in the form of guilds, which has been a frequently-requested addition for a while. According to the site, guild features include emblems, storage space, a bank, and system-wide notices to all guild members, though emblem-creators are warned that only the first emblem is free to create, so be careful.

Other Solstice-related news is the addition to the game of Korean-themed items to further commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Apparently, wearing food items on one's head is a popular thing, because players will have the option of choosing to wear dim sum as a hat. According to the site: "Two dumplings make you look yummy." We'll, uh ... we'll just leave you to it.

[Thanks, Travis!]

Another exciting aspect of Funcom's upcoming Age of Conan is the Guild City System. This is mostly unique to other MMOs, in that you build the guild city not as a hall, but as an actual city with multiple buildings within. Each building serves its own purpose for offense and defense against other guilds and attacking forces, and is upgradeable to different tiers, much like an RTS.

In a recent article at MMORPG.com, they run down the details of each of these guild city buildings, and their biggest advantages. Also in this article are some details on guild leadership itself. In order to create a guild city, your player will need to be a guild leader, level 40 or higher, and have a guild membership of at least 24 players. You will then have the choice of 3 environmental locations currently for your guild city. Let the land-grab begin!