Massively^™

We spent the better part of yesterday under the auspices of EA Mythic, talking with them about the many and sundry parts that make up the Warhammer whole. You're going to see plenty of content about the game going up today and into next week, but right away we wanted to respond to you - the reader. Yesterday as a part of our ongoing "The Daily Grind" dialogue, we asked what you wanted to hear from the developers and designers. You responded, and many thanks to those of you that did. We'll make sure to throw out opportunities like this again in the future - you deserve a chance to get your questions heard.

We didn't have the chance to ask every question, but we've got a much better understanding of the game and its context now than on Wednesday. We'll run down the questions asked by our participating readers, and hopefully offer up a general view of the title. Read on for those notes, and check back later today for more from EA Mythic and Warhammer Online.

A twelve-question Q&A session with the developers of Final Fantasy XI up at WarCry covers a laundry list of long-term player questions. The discussion centers on some particularly thorny issues for the highest of high end players. It also tackles with some persistent quality of life issues germaine to any Vana'diel adventurer. High-end players will enjoy the exploration of Dynamis, the ultimate conflict known as Absolute Virtue, and the ongoing problems with Named Monsters. All players will recognize the problems inherent in spellcaster food, battle music, and the possibility of changing nations.

WarCry also has up a few notes from the upcoming June patch. Quality of Life sounds like the big priority for Square/Enix right now, with Synthesis, Armor Storage, and player housing Furnishings topping the list.

Recently, it was announced that former PayPal and eBay executive Geoff Iddison was taking over as CEO for Jagex, best-known for their browser-based fantasy MMO RuneScape. Then we heard about the launch of Jagex's latest project FunOrb in February of this year. In a recent GamesIndustry.biz interview with Geoff Iddison, we learn more about his projected role with this new casual games portal and what he thinks about the future of the MMO market.

Of course Jagex plans on keeping up with RuneScape also, as they've just rolled out a German version last year, and plan on introducing another European language version later this year. With FunOrb, they're tackling the casual market, as so many other companies are doing lately as well. While the casual market is an inevitable direction for these companies, we hope their investment in RuneScape proves that the more dedicated market is not being shunned in the process.

The second closed beta for Aion is over, and all eyes are now on Korean Closed Beta Test 3. But recently, some members of the Aion Source forums were able to answer some questions on the game from fans of the upcoming NCsoft MMO.

Overall, the beta testers were much happier about Closed Beta Test 2 than Closed Beta Test 1. There were many complaints about class balance and respawn timers in CBT1, but that all seems to be fixed currently, showing that NCsoft is listening. These testers also cite some of their favorite parts of the game, namely the gorgeous graphics and flowing animations, which tend to be focus points on many of these Korean-based MMOs. Be sure to check out the complete Q&A as well as some exciting videos of Aion so far.

Within the gigantic sandbox known as Metaplace, there is a new game in town. Created by alpha tester DrOffset, this new game entitled Life of the Party helps to showcase the ease at which player-driven content can be created in Metaplace. DrOffset mentions the fact that his game has involved around eight hours of development so far, and most of the scripts he's used are from the wiki itself, freely available to anyone. His 2D artwork was created himself, yet he plans to animate them three-dimensionally.

In his Q&A by Areae Community Manager Tami "Cuppycake" Baribeau, DrOffset explains the exact premise of his mini game and how he came up with the idea. According to Metaplace's motto, players can "build anything, play everything, from anywhere" -- and DrOffset's Life of the Party certainly demonstrates one way to achieve this in a simplified, yet entertaining manner.

Earlier this week we gave you a glimpse of what went on during NCsoft's City of Heroes/City of Villains Meet & Greet held in Milpitas California on November 30th. Before going into detail about the event, however, we'd like to make one correction to our earlier article. When we said that "some in the audience seemed unhappy that all their enhancements and abilities would be viewable by their PvP opponents," we made it sound as though all of your build information would always be visible on the City Vault, and this is not the case. As noted back on the 20th of November, "you will have the option of hiding your Statistics, Powers, Badges, and Friends list from inclusion on the public web page." You'll have to live with knowing your character's name, image, level, server, archetype, and origin are searchable via the Vault, but -- based on what the developers have told us in the past, and what they reiterated at the Meet & Greet -- you'll have control of everything else. They also advised us that a Leader Board listing will be part of the City Vault: if you're a PvP fanatic, you'll always know where you stand.

Have a question you'd like to pose to Vince D'Amelio, City of Heroes Senior Programmer? If so, the WarCry Network wants to hear from you.

The concept behind the "Ask a Dev" series is elegant in its simplicity: find a CoX developer who has the time to answer questions, ask the community what questions they most wish answered, then put the two together and have the issues addressed by the minds behind the game.

So go ahead, ask your questions, you know you want to. And remember, there's no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid Rikti.