Previews

As Teleios posted below, several WoW WarCry staff members have been invited to the Burning Crusade Closed Beta! I'm one of them, and have been playing around with it for a bit. Without further ado, I bring you:

"The Mage They Called Jayne(z), Part 1: Welcome to Outland, Yo."

My story started late in the middle of the night.

To be fair, it started almost two years ago when I asked my friend Jordan if I could "sit down and try that new WarCraft game," having never played an MMO before in my life. But this particular chapter started late in the middle of the night. I was surfing various internet forums, preparing to go to bed, when I came across an interesting topic notifying the WoW-Addicts on that particular forum that "OMG GUYZ TEH BETA STARTED!1" So, I checked my email, found the beta key, and started the download.

Of course, being as the network I'm on hates torrents, I draped a blanket over my laptop monitor and allowed it to finish overnight. This morning, it's done-and so, I triumphantly click the button to begin installation of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

The game is installed. The character is transferred. The new login screen is, incidentally, totally badass.

The hero of Azeroth, the (Troll) Mage they call Jayne-will ride triumphantly into Outland!

And, y'know, probably Fireblast a critter or two. 'Cause that's just how he rolls.

Click below to read the whole thing and see our first screenshots of The Burning Crusade!

I had the chance to catch up with Feargus Urquhart at GenCon Indy '06. As I was about to ask my first question, Feargus goes "So what has changed since we saw each other at E3?" I commented that was exactly what I was about to ask. We both laughed at the question, and Feargus was like so let me show the changes.

Read more.

World of Warcraft WarCry is happy to announce that we have an Exclusive on the lore for Tempest Keep, an instance coming in The Burning Crusade. Check out the story behind The Tempest Keep.

The mighty Tempest Keep was created by the enigmatic naaru: sentient beings of pure energy and the sworn enemies of the Burning Legion. In addition to serving as a base of operations for the naaru, the structure itself possesses the technology to teleport through alternate dimensions, traveling from one location to another in the blink of an eye.

A special thank you to Blizzard for this exclusive.

Having spent the last two hours with lead developer, Josh Sawyer, we decided to release him back to work....and he was called downstairs to a meeting, most of which he had skipped in favor of continuing our discussion. We shook hands and sent him on his way. Senior producer, Ryan Rucinski collected us and took us into his office. I was curious about animations and changing the colors of things so he opened up the toolset.

Colors & Tinting In the Toolset

I asked Ryan whether or not dragons' colors could be changed right out of the box. He decided to show rather than tell. In the creatures list, four dragons were listed and he opened one up (an ancient black) and we commenced to paint it with vibrant pinks and yellows to determine how much of the base color could be changed. Honestly, not much of the exposed skin color could be altered. Yet when we got to the armor, things really changed. Ryan played and applied colors all over the place. By the time we were finished, the dragon was hot pink with dazzling lime green highlights.

Once we finished playing with the dragon, we pulled up a bugbear chief and changed his body hair to a shocking lemon yellow, though the effect had to be placed overall instead of in specific spots as with the dragon. It seems bugbears are somewhat monochromatic. We did change his belt and accessories to other colors. By the time we were finished, he was ... er ... unique.

The ability to change colors and apply highlights right "out of the box" is huge and available right off the bat. The color palette is broad and the interface for choosing colors is very easy to use and apply to creatures and objects. As environmental artist Scott Everts told us at the beginning of the day, the toolset is the same one that the developers use. If it looks good in the game as created by the developers, it can be done by 'casual' users as well.

Combat Animations

Combat animations were next on my list and I launched a series of rapid fire questions at Ryan. Each character will begin with two animations and 'earn' two more, one at BAB +5 and another at BAB +10. These four animations will run in a random cycle when in attack mode.

In addition to these four "base" moves, there are more moves specific to the various weapon types. One handed weapons have a set of animations as will two handed weapons. Swords will strike differently than staves. Axes will look different than clubs, etc. Honestly, we didn't think to ask about bows but the assumption (yes, my mother warned me about those...) is that ranged weapons will share in the glut of animations as well.

Additionally, certain combat feats will have their own animations: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave etc. Each has its own look. Collectively adding the animations together renders a HUGE number and variety of attack appearances. According to Ryan, it's impossible to assign an actual number to the breadth and variety of combat animations.

Read more about Races & Classes.

After the discussion with Scott Everts about the toolset, Shane must have noticed that Josh and I were perilously close to sensory overload and suggested lunch. This was a good thing that allowed us to process the information that Scott had imparted and also offered me another chance to slip in a few general questions.

Community Manager Shane DeFreest, Senior Producer Ryan Rucinski and Atari NWN 2/D&D producer John Galloway packed us off to a very swanky restaurant at a nearby mall called The Clubhouse. We ate out on the patio, which, being from Phoenix (land of 110 in the shade) was a treat. We ordered and the three looked expectantly at me for my questions. Here they are in no particular order:

• Has coding been 'locked down'?
  
  • NWN2 is feature complete then. It has been locked down in that respect. No new content is being added. It is in the bug testing and QA stage.
• Has NWN 2 entered QA testing yet?
  
  • It has begun and will continue through 'gold' status.
• Any updates on the system requirements?
  
  • No changes have been made to what's been announced but the specs are still not "official" at this point but are still the best guide to what will be needed to run the game.
  
  [li]What are the differences between the two Limited Editions that have been so widely discussed lately?
  [ul][li]There will only be one deluxe edition released in the United States, the contents of which will be revealed in the very near future. Europe may have multiple editions but the US will have only one.
[/ul]
[li]Is your work progressing in such a way as to be ready for a September release?
[ul][li]Simple answer? Yes.[/ul]

Arriving at Obsidian's offices on July 10, 2006, my Warcry compatriot Josh and I were greeted kindly by the receptionist, Jessica Edge, not coincidentally a former Black Isle employee who has only recently come back to the fold. We chatted a bit and discovered that she had been the webmaster for several of the Black Isle games including Icewind Dale 2 among others.

In the course of our conversation it was revealed that OE is comprised of over a hundred employees, having added approximately thirty in the last several months. Because of this expansive growth, the offices now encompass an upstairs suite and a downstairs office group. The move is apparently a work in progress as several pictures still decorate the ground rather than the walls though several KotOR 2 posters were in evidence. I wondered idly if they'd notice if one went missing though I was unsure how I would spirit a poster-sized framed picture into my laptop bag.

After a short time, senior producer Ryan Rucinski came down to let us know that Shane was running a bit late but nearly in mid-sentence, Shane popped in the door. After introductions, we determined a basic schedule for the day and headed off to the art department for a look at the toolset. Environmental artist Scott Everts gave us the grand tour and the largest impression I came away with was the sheer immensity of the thing.

Here is a smattering of what we saw and heard, keeping in mind that there's little new under the sun at this point until the game comes out:

[ul][li]Areas are 32x32 with each of those units being 9mx9m. When an object was placed in one unit for perspective's sake, it illustrated the immensity of the area as a whole
[li]Lighting is colored in both directions (reflective)
[li]Shadows drop off in intensity, darkest next to the object and lighter the further away, for example
[li]Absolute control over objects: x-y-z scaling and scaling does NOT have any effect on processor use
[li]Placeables are:

• Dynamic: can be interacted with and scripts can be assigned to them. Dynamic objects block paths
  [li] Static: these block pathing
  [li] Environmental: no interaction, walkmesh goes around them (unpathable)

[li][b]Tilesets [/B]all have matching secret doors and rooms remain darkened on the map until opened
[li][b]Day and night cycle [/B]is astounding and gradual with the moon and stars following a logical path. The day's light gradually dims as the sun goes down moving to the full darkness of night and then the sky lightens as day approaches.[/ul]

Scott showed us concrete examples of each of the above using the toolset. He is a very articulate teacher and very passionate about his craft (and coffee!). The impression he left me with is that the toolset is a highly polished piece of software that is going to open the floodgates of creation. Yes, the learning curve is high but once mastered, it should give modders and builders an incredible opportunity to create professional modules and worlds for players.

Thanks to Scott for his answers to rather *coughs* naïve *coughs* questions.

Stay tuned for Thursday's article: Warcry at Obsidian: Persistent Worlds and the DM Client

While the mythical character's wings quickly burned away as he neared the sun, Icarus Studios appears to have learned the fable's lesson. Avoiding hype and focusing on the fundamentals of game design, the creators of the under-the-radar Fallen Earth have a new method of leaving a mark on the world.

We had a chance to sit down with Jim Hettinger and Christophe Watkins of the Cary based design firm and take a look at their post-apocalyptic view of the future. Hettinger, the CEO of the company, founded MPG-Net, the highly successful multiplayer gaming network, as well as previously worked on Kingdom of Drakkar. He and Watkins, the Vice President of Business Development, are old friends and previously worked together designing and producing mobile games, before venturing into the MMOG design field.

Read More for the full article!