Massively^™

Blizzard Entertainment's Rob Pardo is a bona fide Rockstar in the gaming industry. In his recent keynote speech at the Game Developer's Conference at the Paris GDC he continued to indirectly extinguish rumors that suggested World of Warcraft is coming to a Console, rumors that stretch back years. While not specifically talking about World of Warcraft, when Pardo was asked what kept MMOs from Consoles he responded:

"Lack of hard drive space, and difficulty in certifying patches. Basically just that.... another problem is that they want a piece of the subscriptions (laughs)."

That's a simplistic answer coming from the Executive VP of Design at Blizzard Entertainment, but there it is laid out in plain sight, a truth even if shared in a humorous fashion. Giving Microsoft or Sony residuals, most likely a big chunk is one thing keeping World of Warcraft off Consoles. Is that a bad thing? No, but Blizzard could be missing something here, and just maybe Rob Pardo is plain wrong about what's keeping MMOs away from Consoles. It's simple really...

Let's get honest for a second here -- every MMO that seems to come out nowadays is the same game with a new paint job and one game design feature expressed above the rest. Currently, that game is Age of Conan, where larger breasts and the real-time combat system got the spotlight in this round of game making.

If game designers keep this up, we're going to watch the market dwindle as new gamers become jaded with new games just repeating the same content they've already been through over and over again. What we're looking for is an MMO that can break open the market like World of Warcraft did when it launched.

According to Earnest Cavalli at Wired, the Wii is the holy grail that MMO developers should chase after; a veritable icon of how to bring the market to a wider audience than just testosterone pumped adolescents.

Darren over at The Common Sense Gamer is wondering out loud whether or not it's fair to point at Age of Conan's combat system as its true next generational feature. He wants to know if -- like the Nintendo Wii -- what make's something truly next generational is the way you interact with it. His point being that the way Age of Conan's combat system works causes the player to become much more invested in what's happening on their screen.

We do wonder if it's just the combat system that makes AoC so much fun. As Darren mentions in his post, there's something to be said for the game's graphical prowess and visual feel that makes it so unabashedly Conan.

Both Microsoft and Sony have big plans for the MMO genre on their respective consoles. Games like Huxley and Age of Conan are slated for the 360, and NCsoft's pairing with the Japanese hardware giant could mean any number of new games for the PlayStation 3. The console company that has remained silent on the MMO front so far is, of course, Nintendo. The Wii hardly seems like the ideal platform for a massively multiplayer experience, the possibilities of Pokemon aside.

Just the same, EA Mythic's Paul Barnett recently singled out Nintendo as the most likely to capitalize on the console possibilities of MMOs. Barnett notes that the dominance of one game has resulted in very specific thinking about the genre. As a result, game makers are having trouble concepting an online experience to be console-based from the ground up. Nintendo, Barnett feels, could overcome this hurdle. "The best example I can find for a perpetual online console game is Rock Band, with it Xbox Live community store. It's somewhere in there. I don't know what it is, but that's perhaps the closest I've seen to convincing console people to do things together, to do things online, to do things that cost money, to earn income."

Question: What's the difference between John Q. Public saying they "have a neat idea" for a Pokémon MMO and the maker of casual Wii title Pop saying the same thing? Answer: a foot in the door, and little else. That hasn't stopped nnooo.com from pitching the idea to Nintendo via their website, along with ideas for games based on the Battlestar Galactica, James Bond, and X-Men franchises. We're not saying they don't have the talent to back this claim, but a casual title is a far cry from a polished MMO -- and possibly Nintendo's first one, at that.

Even assuming this pitch had a chance to be taken seriously by Nintendo, it's highly unlikely the company would let a third-party develop it, judging by their existing Pokémon line's history. You know, if we're calling dibs, we've already pitched two of these ideas ourselves. Hmm ... Massively Games ... has a nice ring, doesn't it?

[Via NintendoLife]

Happy Friday! Time once again to ask the most important question there is to ask here at Massively: What are you having for lunch? I just had a Potbelly open up down the street from me and... no, I'm only kidding. We want to know: What aRe yoU Playing?

Tateru Nino, as usual, is eating hardy -- she's got Second Life and City of Heroes queued up, as well as a slew of non-MMOs to play. Chris Chester is planning on diving into Age of Conan as soon as he gets a chance, and I know that most of the Massively staff are heading to the Hyborian Age as well. As for me, World of Warcraft continues to be a staple, but truth be told, I probably won't be able to step foot in an MMO this weekend -- I'm going out of town for most of it, and when I do get back, I have a recently purchased Wii system now hooked up to my television. As a first game, I'm planning to check out LostWinds (and if you have any other recommendations besides Super Mario Galaxy, which I'm already sold on as a huge platformer fan, let me know). Of course I'm anxiously looking forward to news of an Animal Crossing MMO now, too -- as if the offline version wasn't addictive enough. Curse you, Tom Nook!

So what are you up to in the world of MMOs for the next seven days?

In a discussion with the CVG site, Valve's Doug Lombardi revealed that the trend-setting company is always looking to new genres. Talking primarily about their hopes to someday make a game for the Wii, Lombardi offers up tantalizing hope for MMO-playing fans of their landmark first-person shooter titles. The site quotes Lombardi as saying, "Gabe (Valve co-founder, Gabe Newell) is a huge fan of MMORPGs and he's always wanted to make one ... But that's a big risk to venture out on." Developers in the company are also looking to make kids titles for Nintendo's console, a direct result of the aging and family development of the games industry.

Lombardi goes on to say that these areas of interest would really stretch the company creatively, and they'd love to tackle them ... but that we probably shouldn't hold our breath. Their leap outside of the FPS comfort zone to the Wii or MMOs won't come this year or next. But it does, at least, give us some hope.

The Pokémon brand is one of the largest and most successful franchises the gaming world has ever spawned. There are no less than 10 videogames, 1 trading card game, 12 movies, an animated series, 10 soundtrack CDs, a bunch of manga -- but no official MMO.

Why this hasn't already happened is beyond the imagination of this blogger. C'mon, a world in which thousands, if not millions of wanna-be Pokémon trainers are working hard to be number one, constantly pitting their captive critters against each other, and every iteration of the game franchise is only one-on-one? This isn't rocket science; it's not even science fair volcano science. But if we were to imagine a Pokémon MMO, it would look something like this:

Here's a weird Venn diagram for you: those of you who remember Shadowbane with fondness and also love the Nintendo Wii will be totally excited about this piece of news. Stray Bullet, the Austin, Texas MMO developer, have announced that they're working on a new MMO. At the same time, they've posted a few openings on Gamasutra's JobSeeker board, one for a Senior Programmer for an un-named Wii project, and the other for a Gameplay Programmer for an MMO project. Neither posting mentions the other, but chances are, they're for the same project.

Really, there's no bad time for wild speculation, so let's get the ball rolling! We're envisioning, obviously enough, actual hack and slash combat with the nunchuk and wiimote. Maybe crafting might take on a whole new dimension with the use of the motion-sensing abilities of the Wii. Maybe it'll be a massively Mii experience! Whatever's coming down the pike, we'll keep our ears to the ground for more info. With this on the way, can the Animal Crossing MMO be far behind? Hey ... what're the odds that this is the Animal Crossing MMO?

SocioTown? Seriously, didn't anyone in the marketing department realize the potential implications of an ironic name like that? Despite the fact that SocioTown is not a new title by Rockstar Games, as the name would suggest, it is still creating a buzz. Who knows, maybe the out-of-context name will be a bonus for the game's sales. Heck, it worked for the Wii.

So besides the name, how is this new browser-based social-networking MMO any different from the others currently working their way through open beta? According to the website, SocioTown is "the biggest and most sophisticated browser-based 3D virtual world to date". Your friend network is automatically based on who you talk to the most, which is an interesting feature. You can even perform your own music within the game, to be rated by the other players in real time. If they love it, you're on the fast track to rehab, but if they hate it, you could end up with a temporary music ban! Now we just need one of those in real life.

Standing in front of a large-screen television, leaning, turning, and twisting as the on-screen character mimics his actions, Philippe Bossut could be playing the latest Wii game. But he is not wielding a Wiimote or any other controller, and Bossut's avatar is flying not through Super Mario Galaxy, but Second Life. Through the use of a special 3D webcam and some custom software written by Bossut, Segway-inspired movement in the real world can control things in the virtual world. Running, turning, flying, even creating objects are done with nary a keyboard or a mouse in sight.

Back in the 80s, virtual reality was cumbersome and uncomfortable, requiring a head-mounted display and a special glove to move around the world. Twenty years later, the display is gone and the gloves are off. We've had Second Life to be the world of imagination; now we're developing the means to put ourselves into it. HandsFree3D currently can do little more than move your avatar around -- but imagine if this was combined with puppeteering -- the ability for your avatar to mimic your real-life facial expressions and body language? And perhaps add in the Emotiv headset that reads moods and emotions straight from your brain? This truly revolutionizes interactions with the virtual world and those who dwell within it. In a few years, the idea of sitting at a keyboard to play a game may well seem quaint and old-fashioned.

Check out the video of HandsFree3D in action after the break.

Are casual, social games the wave of the future? In years to come, will we lovers of the swinging sword, the flashing fireball and the gigantic gun be left reminiscing about the "good old days" as we sign on for another evening of massively multiplayer bingo? The makers of Mytopia took a look into their crystal ball, saw the success of MySpace and Facebook and casual-game havens like Popcap, Yahoo! and Neopets and said, "These great tastes... would taste great together!"

Thus was born Mytopia, a Flash-based virtual world where you can create your own super-deformed avatar (like Wii's Miis) and play popular board and card games with people from around the world, build friends lists, send email, and gamble away virtual money challenging other players to backgammon, chess, Sudoku and several other similar games. It works not only as a standalone web site, but also as an application you can install in Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. No matter how you arrive in Mytopia, though, you'll be able to play with everyone else -- there's only one game world shared by all.

Mytopia has a cheerful art style, bouncy music, and well-rendered board games. What it does not have, though, is bloody avatar fights in the Battledome. Come on. Even Neopets has that.

[Via Techcrunch]

Despite the hopes and well-wishes of Nintendo console owners everwhere, the big N has reaffirmed that they basically have zero interest in a Massively Multiplayer game right now. A Gamespot interview with company president Satoru Iwata clarifies that, in order for Nintendo to get involved such a game would have to be appealing for everyone aged '5 to 95'. That certainly explains why Square/Enix expressed no interest in porting Final Fantasy XI to the Wii console shortly after its launch.

Iwata goes on to say that the Mii customization system is about as complicated as they want to make an interface right now. Further, they're not interested in competing with the virtual world services on the market right now. If they were to enter the markplace, they'd "focus on doing things that nobody else would do ... We'd be sure to make it something that nobody would call it a product similar to another company's offering." There have been persistent stories about companies developing an MMO for the DS, though. Perhaps the handheld's unique nature would allow them to go outside their comfort zone a bit more?

How sweet would a Massive game on the Wii be though, eh?

[Via Eurogamer]

The acerbic lads at Kotaku bring the snark once again with their announcement of an announcement over Square-Enix's upcoming virtual world called Virtual World ... virtual world. There, I couldn't resist.

The post's comparison to Second Life, however, is slightly off-the-mark, as SL doesn't run on ad revenues, while Sony's Home certainly will. Similarly, Virtual World will feature ads for Square-Enix games, and given that Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon will be a Wii title, there could be other Wii titles on display as well.

Besides the ability to have tea with a Chocobo, will there be any reason for people to want to enter Virtual World? And besides, everybody knows Chocobos like Gysahl Greens anyway -- I mean, duh.