Interviews

In the second of our twice-monthly interviews with NCSoft's Tabula Rasa, Community Manager April "CuppaJo" Burba talks to us about the death penalty, level restrictions, raids and more subjects. Remember, check back in a couple weeks for more, as well as our report from an even they're holding this week in Austin.

WarCry: You have said that Tabula Rasa will use Instancing. Could you explain how often we will see instancing, and what kind of things we can look forward to seeing in the instances?

April Burba: Instancing runs about 40% of the game at the start and then moves to about 60% towards the end. Instances are more like single player games - lots of story, lots of amazing things going on. Instances in TR blow me away. There is more thinking going on in instances with cameras, alarms, and interacting with your environment and it's just cool as hell.

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In today's interview, we talk to Ron Meiners of Multiverse about their MMO platform. This single client solution is offered up to dozens of developers to produce their own MMORPG projects. Meiners, their Developer Relations Director, answers our questions about their product and what it means to you.

Ron Meiners

WarCry:Aside from the number of games, your engine has also generated some mainstream press with big names like James Cameron mentioned. What has this kind of press done for you?

Ron Meiners: The press has been really kind to us, and I think they're excited by our model too: enabling low-cost creation of virtual worlds is going to drive a lot of creativity and innovation. As I said before, I think we're living in a very exciting time in this regard. We want people to know that they have an alternative to creating this technology themselves, or paying a high up-front licensing cost. We want people to know that we have a solid platform, which is very extensible, and one with a very supportive and energized developer community. The press understands this and has helped get the word out. And it makes a big difference...one of our goals is to create a network of virtual worlds that is all accessible by the same common client, the Multiverse Client, so every new project adds to all of our success.

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Richard Duffek - Warhammer Online's Community Coordinator - drops by for the second in our exclusive run of twice-monthly interviews. Every few weeks we'll catch up with Richard to go over the issues of the day in Warhammer Online, EA Mythic's upcoming MMORPG.

WarCry: The tabletop game allows you to customize your units color, look and equipment. We know as you level your look will change. Can you talk about some of the options you have to capture the imaginations of those who loved painting their miniatures in terms of character customization?

Richard Duffek:: While there will indeed be a lot of freedom in the actual character creation, much of the customization will come while you're actually playing the character. The trophy slots on your character are probably the best example. All throughout the game you will find various trophies that you can hang off of your character in many different manners. They will be purely cosmetic, only there so you can personalize how you want your character to look. Want a dwarf skull hanging from your belt? You can do that. Want some dragon teeth mounted on your shoulder? Sure. We understand how important individuality and customization is to the average MMO player and are definitely striving to provide as much of it as we can in WAR.

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BigWorld is a third party MMO platform that has carved out a niche as one of the top engines available to MMO developers. Director of Business Development Gavin Longhurst took some time to discuss their work, where they're headed and how they got there.

WarCry: There are a lot of engines/platforms on the market right now. What makes you stand out?

Gavin Longhurst: In commercial terms, massive online games are a relatively recent phenomenon when viewed against a backdrop of single and small multiplayer console and PC titles which go back some thirty years. Single player games solve some similar technical issues - obviously there is a huge amount of crossover, but online games and virtual worlds place the emphasis on different parts of the gaming infrastructure not just on pretty pixels. How do you stream vast amounts of players and world data across the world? How do you handle tens of thousands of simultaneous actions and game events across the online world? Security? What about 24/7 and redundant uptime components to enable you to deliver the game to all people at all times? BigWorld started out to address this initially niche market. In terms of differentiation, BigWorld has demonstrated and shipped MMO titles which have been end-to-end built on our massive-ready client/server architecture.

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Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising is on the way from Perpetual Entertainment and SOE's Platform Publishing. At SOE Gamer Day in New York last week, we caught up with Perpetual President Chris McKibbin to discuss and demo this squad-drive title that seeks to fuse the best parts of single player RPGs and MMOs.

"Far more people know the fiction of mythology than any license," McKibbin pointed out during our demo. It's something most people don't think of when they see a game like Gods and Heroes, but it's a valid point.

At a basic level, anyone with a high school history education likely knows enough about Rome to get by. That familiarity makes the more obscure points easier to grasp. The core of the game's overarching story pits an ancient race of gods called the Telchine in a war against the Olympians for control of the heavens. The players, as the half-children of deities, adventure on Earth on behalf of their parents (the Olympians) to thwart the Telchine schemes. The average player likely has no earthly clue what a Telchine is, but most everyone has a vague idea that Jupiter is more than just the name of a really big planet. This familiarity breeds curiosity, and is more likely to capture the average person than Elves and Dwarves.

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The news hit like a train today. SOE bought Vanguard and Sigil. The move meant that just under half of Sigil Online Games employees are without work, the other half have been offered jobs by SOE. Those that stay will continue development of Vanguard in what is now SOE's Carlsbad office. We spoke to Courtney Simmons, SOE's Director of Corporate Communications and PR, about the deal and found out what happens to Jeff Butler, a new MMO prototype he's working on and where SOE sees Vanguard in their portfolio.

This new Carlsbad office is led by Director of Development Dave Gilbertson, formerly a Sigil VP and Producer of Vanguard. Former head Brad McQuaid was retained in an undefined advisory role, while Jeff Butler - the other titan of the Sigil team - is moving to SOE's San Diego office to prototype a potential new MMO project.

Butler will lead a team of five developers on this unidentified MMO prototype. However, Simmons was careful to point out that this project is by no means in full scale production. It is anyone's guess what it is or whether it ever sees the light of day. At best, it is years away from public eyes.

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In the second of several articles from SOE's New York Gamer Day, we look at EverQuest II. At the event, we heard a presentation from SOE and sat down for an interview/demo with Executive Producer Scott Hartsman to learn a bit more about the upcoming Update 35 and the just-announced Rise of Kunark expansion pack. Here's what we learned:

The trip down memory lane continues with this fall's expansion pack, Rise of Kunark. The "spiritual successor" to one of the original EverQuest's most enduring expansion packs, Rise of Kunark takes players back to the jungle islands of the original game, but with a twist. They promise a mix of nostalgic and brand new zones for players to explore. This is a careful balance for the EQII team, Hartsman told us. On one hand, they're hoping to bring in more of the old EverQuest players, but on the other, it cannot be such a throw back that new players get lost. In many ways, the nostalgia is like an Easter egg for longtime fans who will get a kick of seeing brand new versions of areas they loved, while brand new players will just wander on through and enjoy the new content for what it is.

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SOE looked to the future at an event this week in New York and WarCry was there. Dana Massey reports on where the business is going and gives an overview of where its at in the first of several articles from that event.

COO Russell Shanks summed up the focus of SOE in three words: "diversifying, globalizing, hiring." These echoed Simmons' statements and also hinted at the larger theme. SOE is a company that wants to bring MMOs to the mainstream in a way no one has yet to accomplish.

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Our own Dana Massey recently spoke with Tracy Spaight about the upcoming game Phylon.

WarCry: Phylon joins the ranks of MMO third person shooters and was clearly inspired by Rapid Reality owned Endless Ages. Can you talk about what the two titles have in common and how things have changed for Phylon?

Tracy: With Phylon, we've tried to capture some of the features that made Endless Ages fun, while creating something unique. Endless Ages players will find much that is familiar, but with some cool new twists.

Like Endless Ages, Phylon features Amphibians, Humans, and Blobs as playable species. Phylon employs the same fast-paced style of combat, with jetpacks and cool weaponry. Players can still kill each other in all sorts of creative and interesting ways.

For all the info, click that little link down there. All the cool kids are doing it.

Mike Wallis, formerly of EVE Online fame, has founded his own studio in Nevada. Announced a couple weeks ago, Colony Studios was originally formed to try and make a Battlestar Galactica MMO. When licenses failed, they decided to go their own way and do something original. We caught up with Mike to discuss his studio and his plans.

WarCry: You told RPG Vault you originally came together to build a Battlestar Galactica MMO, but that things didn't work out. Now you're working in your own IP. Talk to us about some of the advantages of having that kind of freedom? Some of the disadvantages?

Mike Wallis: An obvious advantage of owning our own IP is not having to renegotiate usage rights or anything like that. Using our own IP also helps with balance and it precludes the need to shoe horn in elements that may not work well in an MMO. For example, there are only 12 unique human looking Cylons in BSG, so it is difficult trying to make them into a player race. Things like that can eat up a great deal of production time.

As far as advantages of using an established IP, the biggest one is that you get a built-in core audience who immediately become potential consumers. That is very enticing to investors and publishers.

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You know them as the people behind Jumpgate and Auto Assault, but soon enough, they'll be known for their next two projects: Warmonger and LEGO the MMO. NetDevil is hard at work on all four projects. In Warmonger, they explore the power of PhysX; in LEGO, well, we don't know, but it's LEGO!; Jumpgate is their classic space MMO, which is about to get a facelift; and Auto Assault is a Mad Max style post-apocalyptic MMO, for which we have Auto Assault WarCry. Our wide-ranging interview with NetDevil President Scott Brown, we learn about all four.

WarCry: Obviously, the PhysX helps you in LEGO. Talk to us about getting the LEGO IP and why you think it can become a solid addition to the MMO genre?

Scott Brown: There is absolutely no tie between PhysX and the LEGO MMO project at this point. There are so many possibilities with the LEGO IP in that just about any game can really be made out of LEGO and we are exploring lots of cool possibilities that we can not really go into at this point. It is such an amazing project for our team and working with LEGO has really been a dream relationship.

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Lord of the Rings Online is a week and a half old and we had a chance to sit down and interview Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel as part of the ongoing weekly "Ask Turbine" series, which now comes your way in article format each week. Steefel talks about upcoming content, technical hurdles, the economy and more.

The economy is apparently that issue. Steefel noted that MMO economies are so large and have so many variables that it is impossible to balance them perfectly and they tend to be one of those things that is nearly impossible to predict without a launched product. So far, he is not unhappy with how their economy performed, but that it will be constantly monitored.

"We've had a fair amount of discussion back and forth with our community about the economy," he told us. They need to make sure that at each level players have the money required to repair their equipment, buy some cool loot and not be awash in coinage. For example, their earlier patch addressed an issue where farmers became the nouveau riche.

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Today we're happy to kick off a new twice-monthly Q&A series with the people behind Tabula Rasa. Every couple weeks, we'll bring you a Q&A with Community Manager April Burba or some other member of the team. Today, we get our first five questions in.

WarCry: There has been much talk about Logos in TR, and the unique language they make. Will people be able to enjoy the game if they don't wish to learn the Logos language?

April Burba: Yes. Learning the language will not be required, however, players are bound to pick some up during the game as they are exposed to it. It's also really easy to pick up, so I expect that many people will be able to get the basics of a Logos paragraph in game without having to know every Logos symbol in existence.

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Sanya Thomas no longer works for EA Mythic, WarCry has learned. For over six years, Sanya Thomas has helped blaze the trail of community manager over at EA Mythic (formerly Mythic Entertainment). She began as the Community Manager for Dark Age of Camelot just prior to its launch and eventually was responsible for all their titles as their Director of Community Relations. Today, we have an exclusive interview with Sanya about what happened, her time at Mythic and her future.

[Update: A few minutes after this story was first published, EA Mythic announced the change on the Camelot Herald (story).]

WarCry: You are known to be the long time Director of Community Relations for EA Mythic. When did you and your company of six years part ways?

Sanya Thomas: I got my jungle of houseplants moved out of the office last week.

WarCry: Can you talk about the circumstances of your departure?

Sanya Thomas: We mutually agreed to separate.

You can read more at the link below.

Todd Harris, the Executive Producer of Global Agenda, has taken the time to answer our questions as they finally reveal their futuristic spy MMORPG to the world at large. This article represents some of the first concrete information available online about the game, who also debuted their trailer across the web today.

WarCry: For a start-up, the Unreal 3 engine is a big time investment and testament to the confidence you have in your product. Why did you select it and what advantages does it provide you over other engines?

Todd Harris: Unreal Engine 3 enables the high end graphics we want for Global Agenda and provides a very powerful toolset for our artists. By combining this next-generation graphics engine with a programming team experienced in backend server and network technologies, we're well positioned to create a truly exceptional product. To get the most out of Unreal 3 we've gathered a team from some of the biggest names in the industry, people who lent their talents to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, City of Heroes, the Call of Duty franchise and more. By combining the best technology with the best people, we think we have a recipe for success.

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