Interviews

Today's Q&A focuses in on 2Moons, the second major MMORPG from resurrected Acclaim and the first adaptation from the brain of famed designer David Perry. The game promises adult, violent content and is North American adaptation of a Korean MMO.

WarCry: During closed beta, how pleased were you with the feedback you got from your testers?

Rusel DeMaria: One of Acclaim's major philosophies is to involve the game community fully in the process, through surveys, feedback on forums, beta testing and any suggestions they want to make. During our closed beta period, our testers gave us great feedback, directly in the game, in the forums and through our survey. We're working to implement improvements to the game and have already completely rewritten the story based on their feedback. Meanwhile, all-new features are going in that our players are going to love. We are particularly excited about the Dead Front events, which will involve up to four full parties in a mad-crazy series of battles and tasks, culminating in a huge boss battle, followed by a PvP free-for-all. It's a wild event, and open to players in various level ranges.

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In Part 2 of SWG WarCry's interview series from SOE's Fan Faire 2007 in Las Vegas, we sit down with SWG Systems Designer Mark "Tunso" Halash and SOE Events Manager Jason "Pex" Ryan, and find out a little more about the Storyteller system, the idea behind it, what's in store for the future (space?) and what effect it's had on the game.

Click the video link to the left to check it out and click here to view all our Fan Faire coverage, including our interview with SOE Director of Community Relations Alan "Brenlo" Crosby.

Next up: SWG WarCry interviews SOE Producer Lorin "DeadMeat" Jameson and SWG Lead Designer Thomas "Blixtev" Blair

We're back with a new edition of our monthly "Ask Turbine" series. In it, we chat with Jeffrey Steefel - the game's Executive Producer - about the latest hot-button issues that face Lord of the Rings Online. This time, Site Manager Tim Turner had the honors.

The reputation system fit well into this model of finding ways to support the different playing style. The reputation system allows for short solo type quests when you don't have a ton of time, or if you just want to go hunting without having to grab a full fellowship. Early reports from Roheryn are showing that players really enjoy this and I for one have enjoyed the story line associated with some of the different factions. The real test of course will be when this goes live.

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SWG WarCry staffer Ara recently had a chance to talk with Italian director Angelo Licata about an excellent addition to the Star Wars universe, the feature-length fan film Dark Resurrection, which is now available with English subtitles:

WarCry: What where some of your inspirations in the Star Wars universe while creating this movie?

Angelo Licata: The greatest inspirations came from videogames, first of all Knights of the Old Republic, both first and the second parts have created in me the right questions, and the answer is Dark Resurrection.

WarCry: How long did the project take you from beginning to end?

Angelo Licata: From the concept to completion almost three years.

SWG WarCry would like to thank Angelo Licata for this wonderful addition to the Star Wars Universe. The full film can be downloaded from the Dark Resurrection site. A special thanks also goes out to Fabrizio Cardone, the team's International Relations person for acting as an interpreter and assisting WarCry with information about the film.

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Gamecock is a new, upstart independent video game publisher who prides themselves on the freedom they give their developers. They are perhaps equally known for their eccentricity, right down to the company name "Gamecock" all the way to lavish parties at industry events. Most recently, they crashed E3 with their own "convention", EIEIO.

Gamecock CEO Mike Wilson (the self styled Grand Champeen) took the time to talk to us about his company, which plans to bring the PvP MMORPG Fury to market this fall. Read on for his unique views on this industry.

WarCry: The Gamecock crew obviously likes to have a lot of fun, ranging from rooster costumes to big parties to EIEIO, your own personal convention. Is there room for both fun and business in the industry? You hear stories about dotcoms imploding because they goofed off too much. Is this something you're concerned about, long-term?

Mike Wilson: Absolutely, the games industry wasn't always so stuffy and restrained, back in the golden age of games people were having fun all the time! The problem comes when fun gets pushed out of the mix, then people don't want to work anymore. How would you like it if some executive who knows virtually nothing about games was standing over your shoulder telling you what to do with your game - not a whole lot of fun there. When we work, we really work because we love it and when we play we go over the top because we deserve it and in an industry like this, we need it.

The idea that this industry needs to "grow up" comes from a bunch of old farts who hang out at country clubs and unfortunately run most of this business. It's not coming from gamers, and it's not coming from game creators. So let the suits be suits, but it has nothing to do with making quality games and I will not yawn my way through life to make them feel more comfortable.

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Our bi-weekly Q&A series continues today with Richard Duffek's answers on five important questions. He discusses group sizes, customization of guild banners and much more.

WarCry: Group sizes seem to be set to 6. For raids, or large encounters, how many groups do you need to take on things like the Bloodthirster, or other epic mobs?

Richard Duffek: We will have a system in place similar to DAoC's Battlegroups, where you basically have a "group of groups" taking on large encounters. Different encounters will be geared to different sized BGs, but that's something we'll be tweaking through beta as more and more testers throw themselves onto the giant pile of corpses surrounding the Bloodthirster's feet.

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Today's feature looks at Myth War Online, the MMORPG translated to English by IGG. In this interview, we talk to Dicca Huang, the Product Manager for the game about its progress since launch and what the game is about.

WarCry: What's gameplay like? How does a player spend his time in Myth War? What's the average day like?

Dicca Huang: Myth War is an ATB bout system MMORPG with wonderful scenes and special system, Players can enjoy the game through various systems sets. Different players have different ideas and play methods, so the characters they achieved are different. There are no best play method and time arrangement, which is also the fun of Myth War.

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Empire of Sports is an MMORPG that allows players to experience life as a professional athlete. Like most RPGs, you start as a rookie and move towards the top tier, but instead of bashing monsters, people play actual sports. The initial incarnation of the game promises basketball, tennis and skiing.

WarCry: The first three sports people will be able to play are basketball, tennis and skiing. Why did you choose these three? Wouldn't soccer have a wider appeal?

Christian Mueller: The reasons for choosing these sports is based on their distinct styles of game play. Most notably, that basketball is a team sport, while singles tennis is you against an opponent and skiing is all about your skills against the environment.

For Basketball the game play is inherently, exciting, fast paced and good co-operation is essential if you want to win. With different team sizes, players won't be restricted to the traditional 5 v 5 game, but you've always got to find a team and opponents. I personally really like this, since tactics and play will constantly evolve as players learn to play as a team, either by practicing together regularly or, by contrast, working quickly with new team-mates for one off games.

Then we have the single player sports. For me they represent a perfect balance. In tennis and skiing, you're on your own. Sure, when it comes to preparation and training, working with other people will be helpful, but in the decisive moment, you're alone on the court or slope - and every decision counts.

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Richard Duffek is the Community Manager for Warhammer Online and today once again submits to his regular barrage of questions from our own WAR Site Manager Matt Lowery. This week, Richard chats about customization, travel, public quests and more.

WarCry: In all the videos we have seen, the Empire seems to have a similar look. Can I make a dark skinned Empire character? Are there any color choices for the Orcs, Dwarves?

Richard Duffek: There will most definitely be various skin tone options for the different races. Some races will naturally have a wider range than others, but we realize how important customization is to our player base and we want to give you as many options as we can

That being said, we haven't integrated ANY of the character customization elements yet. Everything you're seeing at this time is effectively a placeholder/test model.

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Tales of Pirates launched with some success for IGG and today we catch up with Frank Yang, the product Communication Supervisor on the progress of this cartoon-styled free-to-play pirate MMORPG.

WarCry: Several other pirate games are scheduled to hit the market or are already there (Yohoho Puzzle Pirates!, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea) - in a sea full of pirate games, what makes your game stand out?

Frank Yang: Same theme but different style. Here's a comparison: All the meals are delicious, all the chefs are great, Tales of Pirates stands out because its flavour is more popular - it's a full age game, whatever the age you are, if you are 10, you will like this 3D cartoon game style. If you are 30, you will still like this style, it could relax you from hard work and not too childish for grow up.

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Today we feature our exclusive interview with Nathan Richardsson, the Executive Producer of EVE Online. Our own JR "razor" Sutich had a chance to sit down and quiz the CCP puppet master about the just launched Revelations II expansion pack.

WarCry: The expansion has just launched. How did it go? Talk about some of the ups and downs of getting this expansion integrated.

Nathan Richardsson: It went quite well. We hit our target date and we had a longer testing process in this launch cycle. We spent much more time on improvements and fixes than we did on adding new features. We're still in the mode of deploying fixes and increasing performance. We are planning to have a pure optimization release coming out in mid-July.

The problems we encountered were due more to the extent of improvements, optimizations and fixes. We're touching a lot of legacy code and changes to it tend to blow up at the worst of times, like when launching the expansion ... or two days later... at 5 in the morning... while you're having sex. (Well, I was dreaming about it. Don't ask.) Since then, we've been deploying server-side updates about two or three times a week and we're still investigating performance issues related to bugs.

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Today we have a special treat, as new SWG Community Manager and SWG rookie Joe "GreyPawn" Pishgar answers a few questions on the nature of community management:

GreyPawn: Working for fansites for as long as I have certainly helps to give me an edge in dealing with them. I've run a few of my own, too, so I know what they need to work, and how to help them grow. I've always felt that fansites and even guild/clan sites are integral to the growth of a community. Knowing the ins and outs, like for instance what sort of news to provide and who to go to for it really helps.

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In the second half of our interview with Robert Rice (part one is here), he talks in more depth about his start-up MMORPG Immortal Destiny. Rice is the CEO of Neogence Studios, a new Raligh, NC based MMO studio.

WarCry: Your FAQ mentions that there are seasons in your world, something no other game does, because at a very basic level, it's really hard to put snow on the ground and change the trees. How are you going to pull that off?

Robert Rice: Lots of beer, pizza, and really passionate engineers that like to solve difficult problems. We believe that the cornerstone to a mind blowing MMORPG is the world environment itself, so we are placing a heavy emphasis on the underlying technology here. I can't tell you how we are going to pull it off exactly, as I am not a programmer, but we are doing it.

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Today we come back with five more questions and answers from Warhammer Online Community Manager Richard Duffek. Within, we get answers from the EA Mythic employee on things like siege, instancing and playing together.

WarCry: With each race having its own starting lands, how easy will it be for me, as an Orc to team up with my friend who is playing Chaos?

Richard Duffek: Technically one of you could go to the other's starting land almost immediately. If you know your way around the game, you can run through the starter areas to the first warcamp and travel from there to your capital city. From your capital city, you can travel to your friend's warcamp and run down to his starting area. For the more patient types, by playing through the starter areas naturally, you should get there within about ten hours of gameplay.

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Earlier this week, NCSoft announced that they would cease operation of Auto Assault on August 31st, 2007 and we then spoke to David Swofford about the announcement. Now, in an exclusive interview with NetDevil CEO Scott Brown we learn that the developer has no plans to purchase the game back from its publisher, which effectively spells an end to Auto Assault.

NetDevil has no plans to salvage their automobile MMORPG Auto Assault, according to CEO Scott Brown. Publisher NCSoft announced early this week that after an inglorious year and four months of commercial service they will close the doors on August 31st of this year.

"We talked about it and sort of left it where it is," Brown told WarCry in a phone interview late Thursday. "We just couldn't come to an agreement."

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