interviews posts

We've covered a lot of newly released (and as yet unreleased) games this week at GDC 2010, so it's always good to check in with an MMORPG that's been around for awhile to see what's coming down the pipe. Today we caught up with NCSoft's Andrew 'Tamat' Beegle, North American Community Manager for Aion, and asked him all sorts of questions about Aion's big 1.9 patch.

The update, already live on the game's Korean servers, will be coming to the States and Europe in short order, so read along after the jump to get a taste of what NCSoft has in store for it's loyal Daevas.

Nine short months ago, Dungeons and Dragons Online was "the forgotten MMO": "a game that really doesn't jump to the forefront of the MMO market, but stays quietly in the background, chugging away with a loyal fanbase and consistent content updates." The timing of that story on Massively was uncanny, because ten days later Turbine dropped the news on the gaming community that Dungeons and Dragons Online was going free-to-play. Opinion on the decision was sharply divided, with many players saying they'd take a look at the game and a small but vocal minority declaring this to be the death knell of DDO.

Today, the numbers speak for themselves. Their revenue is up 500%, they've had over one million new players, and you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who would refer to the game as "forgotten." Turbine has arguably set the standard for a hybrid free-to-play business model, and it's paid off very well. However, it wasn't always a sure thing and it certainly wasn't a snap decision. Follow along after the jump for our interview with Executive Producer Fernando Paiz at GDC as he explores the thoughts behind the business model and where it's taken Turbine.

MMOs are a strange genre without many of the clearly-defined borders for something that is or isn't a part of the field. Not surprisingly, there's a lot of innovation in the field that's confined strictly to the absolute edges of what could be considered an MMO. Games such as MAG and Global Agenda feature several shooter conventions mixed with several MMO conventions, and it's an interesting formula. Land of Chaos Online is pushing the formula as well, by adding in third-person shooter elements to a Defense of the Ancients-style match format.

The game is on the outer edge of the genre, but it draws much of its gameplay and feel from MMOs, with a strong emphasis on coupled character persistence and more shooter-style elements. We caught up with Achim Kaspers, managing director of Burda:ic, during GDC to talk about what the game would play like and get an idea of what we could expect. More information on this unique game after the cut.

Yesterday at GDC, Bigpoint announced their upcoming Battlestar Galactica MMO. Today, we had the opportunity to speak with Jan Wergin, the Chief Technology Officer from Bigpoint for a closer look at the game.

The initial announcement was met with a bit of apprehension from fans -- they love the IP but aren't sure how well it will translate into an MMO, particularly a browser-based MMO. Follow along after the jump as we take a look at that and much more in our interview with Bigpoint.

EVE Online is as much a setting as it is a massively multiplayer online game. EVE's galaxy of New Eden spans thousands of charted solar systems, with thousands more waiting to be discovered in the uncharted frontiers reachable only through wormholes. For all the myriad opportunities New Eden offers players to explore and create, there are just as many risks. The dangers that other pilots can pose also provide memorable stories that few other MMOs can match. The outlaws of EVE Online halt the calming lull of mining lasers, inject some thrills into otherwise routine trade runs, and disrupt the rote completion of mission objectives. More often than not, encounters with New Eden's pirates will leave you with a pounding heart and surge of adrenaline to go along with the flaming wreckage of your ship, if not a one-way trip back to the cloning facility. They create that fear of what threats lie on the other side of the next star gate and ultimately set the tone for New Eden. But even among these criminals there are a few whose accomplishments truly stand out.

The capsuleer called Mynxee is a well-known pirate in New Eden's underworld. Hers is a name remembered well by the many victims who've met their end under rapid fire from her autocannons. She is the founder and CEO of Hellcats, an all-women pirate corporation in EVE Online, and a central figure in EVE's criminal society. Outside of New Eden, Mynxee has built up quite a following through her Life in Low Sec blog and is one of EVE's more active pilots on Twitter as well. If there is such an individual in New Eden that can be viewed as its pirate king, Mynxee is undoubtedly its queen. She first caught Massively's attention years ago with her flashy red dress (size -10), but she's since become a pivotal figure in New Eden, popular with players from all walks of life in EVE.

Massively recently spoke with Mynxee about the allure of being an outlaw, and how she has expanded the scope of her piracy -- bringing it out of the shadows of low security space and into the light, where players feel they are safest.

Allods Online has just announced an extension to its fourth closed beta testing, with an open beta looming on the horizon. We've been giving the game some healthy coverage since it entered the early beta stages, and we're always excited to interact with the developers and publishers whenever we can. But now it's your turn!

As with our previous Community Q&As, we want to hear from our readers on the pressing questions you have for the developers. Whether you've been enjoying your time in the game or not, we want to know what you'd like answered. So if you'd like your question considered, simply leave a question as a comment on this post by Monday, February 8th at 8am EST. Or, if you'd feel more comfortable with email, send one off to me at shawn at massively dot com. We'll gather up the questions and send the best off to the Allods team for the answers. Once we get the answers back, we'll post them here for all to see. Please remember to keep your questions respectful and your criticisms constructive. Beyond that, have at it!

Massively has been following the development of the sci-fi MMO Black Prophecy very closely, and was pleased that the title's developer Reakktor Media wanted to do a series of focused Q&As with us on several aspects of the game. Our last such Q&A started at the beginning with character creation, but in our second installment of the Black Prophecy interview series we discussed the game's mission design. To that end, we posed some questions to Lorenz Dames, the Lead Game Designer on Black Prophecy.

Lorenz explained a great deal about how Reakktor is approaching solo content vs. group-oriented gameplay. He also told us how Reakktor Media is merging the completion of mission objectives with dogfighting your fellow players through PvP missions, where other players will try to counter your efforts to complete goals. Our interview should provide Black Prophecy fans with a solid overview of the game's mission design, which will be an essential aspect of the sci-fi MMO's gameplay.

We're always on the lookout for more info about Earthrise, an upcoming sandbox MMO with a far future, post-apocalyptic setting. The latest interview updating on the game's status is a Ten Ton Hammer Q&A with Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov. The studio head explains a bit about the combat system revamp, aimed at keeping Earthrise's combat dynamic and fast-paced, with a more intuitive interface as well.

The interview also hits upon how they're fine tuning the game's economic systems as well as balancing rewards as players progress, plus Atanasov talks a bit about Earthrise's "exploration mode" (which imparts faster movement but greater vulnerability to damage) and specialized crafting. Check out Ten Ton Hammer's Q&A with Atanas Atanasov for an update on the state of Earthrise.

The Asia branch of CCP Games had modest beginnings -- the company's Shanghai office was simply formed to administer EVE Online in China, although there was always the hope that the team would eventually be able to develop new games as well. Now CCP's Shanghai office is growing into a full-fledged game development studio with their work on DUST 514, a ground-based console MMOFPS that ties in with the galactic struggle for control between players in EVE Online.

A recent interview with Gamasutra's Christian Nutt discusses CCP Asia and their work on DUST 514 from both a western and eastern perspective. Environment Director Larry Herring and Lead Level Designer Jing Yu Zhu give us a better idea of the challenges (and red tape) involved with developing games for Western markets in China, and a look at the console game development scene in Shanghai.

You might recall that, back in September, Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon and the Lab's director of Marketing and Communications Catherine Smith took a trip to Amsterdam, where it was revealed that they were seeking space for a new marketing headquarters for Linden Lab.

Well, the new office isn't open yet – that's coming in January – but Ms Smith has already relocated to Amsterdam, which actually made her a bit easier to catch up with for a talk about the new digs and new initiatives.

Black Prophecy is one of the hotly anticipated games on the horizon that sci-fi MMO fans have been wanting to hear more about. Until recently though, Reakktor Media wasn't quite ready to reveal many of the specifics of what the game will offer. We've known that Black Prophecy's gameplay will differ from titles in the genre like EVE Online -- with Reakktor's game a bit more accessible in terms of learning curve and with a more dynamic feel to piloting space ships. Plus, if the screenshots and video footage are an accurate indication, Black Prophecy will be visually stunning as well.

Business-wise, things have recently changed for the better at Reakktor Media and the Black Prophecy project is once again moving ahead at full speed. More info about this title is on the way as well; Reakktor was kind enough to agree to do a series of focused Q&As at Massively about various facets of the game. Over time, this series will cover topics ranging from Black Prophecy's modification system to details about how players will build space stations. Since we're going to look at some of the fundamental aspects of Black Prophecy, it makes sense that we'd begin this series where the players themselves will begin -- at character creation.

In our first Q&A in this series, Massively spoke with Jens Kortboyer, Lead Artist on Black Prophecy, who walked us through the design decisions Reakktor made in creating the look of the Genides and Tyi characters, as well as the visual choices players will have when starting out.

One of the nice things EVE Online players have to look forward to with the Dominion expansion launch today is the addition of redesigned planets. EVE developer CCP jBot was recently interviewed about the game's new look at MMOZONE and explained how CCP Games generated the planets with their in-house development environment. The work was done in tandem with the company's Shanghai team working on the ground-based DUST 514; the shaders they created allow the devs to manipulate landmasses and oceans, cloud density, city lights, and even regions with vegetation. Textures for 10 different planet types coupled with new planet shaders "should ensure that every planet in EVE is unique," said CCP jBot. The end result is that New Eden will now have procedurally generated gas giants and ice planets, not to mention various terrestrial worlds.

CCP's goal is to have the look of a given planet be identical in both EVE Online and DUST 514. CCP jBot told MMOZONE: "We're working hard to make sure when you're in space over your favorite planet in EVE or on the ground of that same planet in DUST 514 that it feels right. Obviously there are different constraints between console and PC that we live under which could mean a slight difference in the look but we're pretty excited about how things are looking on all platforms."

Scheduled for a release in 2010, Dawn of Fantasy is a title we hadn't been hearing a great deal about before now, but certainly not for lack of impression. The game promises to offer both single-player modes and a large-scale MMORTS mode, allowing players to command small units up to huge armies across the world of Mythador. With three races, promises of huge-scale city warfare, and a flexible and adaptive system, it's shaping up to be an impressive offering in the currently rather anemic MMORTS field.

We recently had a chance to talk with Executive Producer Konstantin Fomenko and Assistant Producer Alex Walz of Reverie World Studios, who were kind enough to offer us several screenshots in the gallery below as well as an exclusive interview. We're also working on getting our readers entry into the upcoming closed beta of the game, so read the interview after the jump, and take a look at the official site for more information about the game. If you're a fan of the RTS genre, you've got some reasons to be excited here.

There's only a little time left until Lord of the Rings Online launches its next expansion, Siege of Mirkwood, but the players still have questions and the developers are thankfully quite happy to answer them. Not so long ago, WarCry had their first developer chat transcript up for fans of the game to digest. A fair bit of new information has come out since then, and so a new chat transcript is available with more information for the playerbase to mull over for the next week. Unfortunately, it's rather negative, since there are an awful lot of questions whose answers just so happen to be "no."

In no particular order: there are no current plans for expanding the housing system, there are no plans to convert Lorien tokens to Mirkwood, no player-created content systems in the works, no way to send mail with more than one attachment. On the other hand, there's more discussion of the Skirmish mechanics and their comparison with Dungeons and Dragons Online's difficulty-tunable instances, talk about how levels and items will be affected, and the expansive amount of content promised within Mirkwood itself. The full transcript is going to be a bit of a read, but it should tide over anticipation for the fast-approaching launch date.

Two of the biggest aspects of Champions Online are easy to point out: the character creator and the wide selection of powers. Certainly it's not the first game to use a classless system by a long shot, but the visual and immediate nature of power selection and the cosmetic effects of those choice are a big part of the game's distinctiveness. So it's hard not to be interested when Bill Roper sits down and talks with MMOCrunch about which powers he thinks worked excellently out of the gate and which onces were a bit less impressive.

Bill gushes quite enthusiastically about powers such as Force Cascade, Killer Instinct, and Thermal Reverberation -- powers that encourage alternate playstyles or different combinations of abilities. He's also enthusiastic about Uppercut and Haymaker, which he feels have an excellent payoff if they're used successfully and force the player to think more carefully. On the flipside, passive offensive powers don't have nearly enough effect, Chain Lightning tries to encourage alternate approaches but fails to do so, and summoning doesn't mesh nicely with the game's core play aspects. Roper also talks about what's being planned for the underwhelming powers to help bring them more in line, as well as discussing data mining and the infamous launch day nerfs. Take a look at the full interview for more details.