Previews

Hero's Journey has been in development for a number of years and more recently the HeroEngine has taken center stage as one of the fastest growing MMO engine solutions on the market. Recently, Senior Editor Dana Massey met with representatives of the St. Louis developers to discuss the game, the engine and their progress. HeroEngine is now in use by five different developers, including BioWare Austin and Virgin Games.

Over the last year, the team has developed the resources to support both the HeroEngine and their proof of concept MMORPG Hero's Journey. Before, it always seemed like they had to pick one or the other. Their St. Louis studio now has 45 to 50 people on site and at work on the two projects simultaneously. This is nothing compared to the roughly 200 people on EA Mythic's Warhammer Online, but it crosses the line from independent production to a well-funded player.

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In the third and final article from Tim Turner's visit to Turbine's Boston HQ he looks at the soon to launch Lord of the Rings Online. In this article, he talks about the game, where it's going and some of its neat features including the in-game music system.

Next we discussed the music feature where a player can create and play music in game. I am sure many of you have seen some of the awesome videos such as the guy playing Dust in the Wind in game. You can also jump on the YouTube and do a search for LOTRO music for even more examples. So how can a music newbie such as me play a song in game? Well enter the new music feature coming in one of the first updates after launch. Basically using a standard format known as ABC Notation and using many of the free MIDI to ABC converters on the web any musically challenged person can convert a file and save into a special directory where all you have to do is play the song in game. Now obviously there will be some restrictions such as not all of the ABC Notation features are supported. I am sure we will start seeing more on this incredible feature soon.

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2Moons is the second major MMO headed our way from Acclaim this year. At GDC, we spoke to Howard Marks about this import being adapted for our audience by David Perry. The game promises a truly grown up and violent experience for its users.

While 9Dragons has blazed the advertising supported game trail, 2Moons has taken a more controversial approach. Both games feature advertisements built into the user interface and an item mall for an extra edge, but 2Moons seems to have struck a chord and inspired some emotions among the development community with their decision to go with optional advertisement display. The catch is that if a player chooses to turn their ads off, they do not gain experience as quickly as those who have them on.

At the Austin Game Conference last fall, famed game ranter, former Mythic Entertainment employee and current NCSoft MMO designer Scott Jennings openly ridiculed the plan during the MMO Rant session.

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During our time in San Francisco we took some time to catch up with Howard Marks, the man who brought Acclaim back to life as an MMO company. In the first of three articles based on this interview, we learn about 9Dragons as it approaches commercial service in April.

"The game is doing well, it's a niche game as you know," Marks told me when asked about the progress in beta. He alluded briefly to a plan that he thinks will "make heads spin" to improve the game's content prior to launch.

He also emphasized the company's belief in consumer feedback. Earlier this year, they commissioned a large survey of questions about 9Dragons. These spanned from gameplay to economics to presentation and with the results in, the team have been hard at work bringing these suggestions to the players. The full results of this survey are available on their website.

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JR "razor" Sutich took the bus to play Fury at GDC and files this report on the action oriented MMORPG. PvP is the order of the day for Australian developers Auran and they delivered a hefty dose to Sutich.

Early build or not, the games graphics were impressive, and the flow of battle was fast-paced. Almost like a FPS, so much that I caught myself doing a bit of jumping and circle-strafing. Attack animations were well done, and I had a favorite attack. Thankfully it was not only a debuff, but it charged a powermeter that allowed me to follow it up with another special attack, doing a great amount of damage. This is what allowed me to exact revenge on my nuker friend shortly before the time ran out on the DM. I didn't come in dead last, and fared somewhere near the middle of the group.

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Richard Garriott's brainchild is on the way in 2007, NCSoft promises. This sci-fi shooter/RPG was on display at the Metreon in San Francisco during last week's GDC. Garriott showed off the game, his language Logos and much more. Here is our report.

With a unique combination of shooter and RPG mechanics, Tabula Rasa tricks the user into a fast-action mentality, while preserving the integrity of the underlying RPG mechanics. Guns in RPGs are one of the toughest things to pull off and in Tabula Rasa, they seem to have done. The palyer controls their crosshairs with the mouse, just as in most shooters, but as they pass over enemies, the targeting sticks. To fire, they click and then the game mechanics determine the rest. Thus, while players quickly move from target to target with their attacks, there is no fear that a bullet will pass between the enemy's knees and miss. It's all about the player's stats vs. the enemy's.

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JR Sutich on the Razorwire got to peek at the upcoming changes in Issue 9 of City of Heroes. He filed a preview on his site for everyone to enjoy.

Costume pieces aren't the only thing that players can make however. Enhancements that are better than Single Origins and Temporary Powers can also be invented. The cool part about the Enhancements is that there will be named sets. These work to give additional bonuses the more pieces of the set you decide to put in your slots. That's right, it's like player-crafted raid gear.

Of course, once you make this stuff, you may want to sell it. What better place to do so than in the new Auction Houses for Heroes and Villains. Sure the Villains get their stuff off the back of a truck, but that's where I get most of my best deals anyway.

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Age of Conan is the third game and second MMO on the way from Funcom. Published by Eidos, Age of Conan hopes to leverage the resurgent IP and publishing power of Eidos to take a swipe out of the MMO market later this year. We saw this dual-platform MMO (Xbox 360 version coming in '08) at GDC and file this preview.

For players, there are a number of ways to tackle a camp and few of them involving pulling away lone mindless automatons with a bow to fight them out of agro range. For example, a player could choose to try and sneak into the camp and distract the bulk of the forces, while his friends pick off stragglers. Like a puzzle, there are built in distractions for players to find and activate. Yet, this is only one way to peel the potato. Players can also try and find, catch and quickly neutralize the patrol before it sees them and reports back to the main force. Each camp can also scale itself to the size of its attackers. If a player is solo, it's not very likely that a flood of extra bandits will come running out of the tents. If eight people are raiding, don't expect them not to. Funcom was clear though that the number is partly random, just to keep players on their toes. One day, a group might take a camp in a walk and the next find it much stiffer competition.

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Mmm, so pretty. Being without a Valentine, I've been forced to resort to the desperate measure of eye candy and in-game music. While there may not be any Barry White, what better place to forget my lonely existence some than Middle-Earth?

Ooh, shiny

If there was nothing else to mention, one thing would consistently stand out about Lords of the Rings Online: it is a very beautiful game. The art style does an excellent job of capturing the feel of the novels, as well as the movies. Moving through any given zone, you might be impressed by the reflection of your surroundings in a stream or lake, or merely by gazing off in the distance towards an almost watercolor-like horizon. It is easy to get lost in the visuals, especially as the signature pollen wafts by, or you stumble across a field of wildflowers surrounding an ancient ruin.

If you haven't figured out where the rest of the article is hidden by now, we're going to have to get you a helmet. But, to give you the benefit of the doubt, click Read More to see it all. Thanks for sticking with me all the way!

Point, click, press a few buttons... sure, it sounds simple, but there's really much more to the user interface. From finding groups to controlling your pet, we'll take a look at it today.

But how do you work this thing?

The user interface is often a deciding factor in the user's enjoyment of a title and Turbine hasn't been asleep at the wheel in this department. The basic layout should be familiar to most players by now, as it appears to have been heavily influenced by World of Warcraft. Your typical portrait and status bars reside in the upper left, mini-map at the upper right, chat interface on the lower left, and various and assorted icons at the bottom. One nice improvement is the reactive hotbars. Instead of displaying row upon row of icons (though this is an option), additional rows are only shown when pressing the corresponding hotkey. For example, if you had an attack bound to Ctrl+1, the Ctrl hotbar only appears when the key is depressed.

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Yesterday we took a look at character creation and some of the options therein. Today, we dive straight into the game world and take a look around. Oh, and Elrond doesn't look like Hugo Weaving.

Part the Second, in which Elrond makes his presence known

Instead of just plunking you down in the world and letting you have at it, new characters are safely deposited in an instanced introduction. In this introduction, epic events begin to unfold and the world of Middle-Earth starts to come to life for the player. As an Elf, I began in the Refuge of Edhelion, which was currently under assault and in a rather panicked state. In fact, the very first sight a fresh Elf is greeted with is fire blossoming in a distinctly elven city. Thrust into service after picking up a nearby weapon, it is now your task to help with the defense of Edhelion.

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Today we kick off the first of four parts in a series of articles taking a look at the upcoming Lords of the Rings Online. Join me in examining my first impressions of entering Middle-Earth in it's first massively-multiplayer incarnation.

Entering Middle-Earth

Beta. A word just about every gamer loves to hear. For some, it means a chance to make the games they love a little better before the gold announcement; for others, a chance to test-drive the latest titles without having to pay for them. For me? Well, it was my first chance to enter the latest world sculpted by Turbine and, hopefully, squash some bugs along the way. Feeling a bit blasé with the genre, I wasn't expecting too much. I was in for a surprise. Before going any further, it should be noted that the game is in a beta state, which means everything is subject to change and anything discussed here may not appear in the final release version.

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JR Sutich has spent the last few weeks in the Lord of the Rings Online beta and emerges today with our exclusive preview of the game. Doing his due-diligence, Sutich tried a variety of the game's core systems and reports back on some of the finer details many prospective players are craving.

Crafting is fun. And for me to say that means something, since I usually loathe crafting in MMOs. I think it has something to do with grinding 9,887 rifle barrels, or getting killed by a Forge in some other games. The crafting system is interesting and not too complicated. After choosing a set of professions, you are able to start making things that you can actually sell! There is a level of interdependency between Crafters which will also help a player driven economy. One of the great features is that once you master a level of crafting, you can then get critical successes which will result in improved products, some of which are better than epic loot of the same level range. This also applies to the tools that are used to make these products as well. I think that having the better gear possible to be made by players will add a level of commerce that hasn't been seen for quite some time.

Resource gathering is also refreshing in LOTRO. There are plenty of resource nodes to be found and they do not have static spawn points, but rather random within an area. This means that you won't be able to set a bot program to go to specific coordinates, in theory. Anything that hinders farming of this nature is a good thing.

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Steven-Elliot Altman, 9Dragons' Lead Writer, and Howard Marks, the CEO of Acclaim, took the time to answer some questions we had on the game that went into Open Beta today. This martial-arts MMORPG will be the first major title released by the resurrected Acclaim.

WarCry: Are you worried that the far more famous Shaolin or Wu-Tang Clans will attract far more people than the others and hurt the game's balance?

Steven-Elliot Altman: Actually, it's Wu-Tang Clan (the noble clan of peerless swords) and Heavenly Demon Clan (the sinister clan of demonic sabers), who passionately hate one another, that seem to draw the most disciples in-game. As a balance to that, those two clans are actually much more difficult to join, requiring a far greater degree of training and skill. Female players playing female characters dominate Sacred Flower clan, as expected, and Shaolin has an equal number of male players playing Shaolin Monks. The League of Beggars has that great drunken monkey style Kung Fu appeal, and The Brotherhood of Thieves has that Sopranos mentality and some of the coolest wardrobe items. We could let you check our server stats yourself... it's surprisingly well balanced among the six starter clans.

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This week, we traveled to San Francisco to see Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a new MMORPG from Disney and VR Studios. This teen-aimed game provided a surprisingly deep and action-packed experience. Check out the preview.

"Where Toontown ends this begins," Jason Everett, a Producer for Disney Online told me. The target market for this game is truly everyone, but in terms of focus, it is aimed at a slightly older audience than VR Studio's flagship title Toontown Online. Where in Toontown players throw pies into the faces of their enemies, in Pirates of the Caribbean they skewer them with a sword. Players can even gamble (against NPCs or PCs) on games of poker or blackjack!

The more grown up feel extends beyond themes. Like most mainstream MMOs, the game is full of numbers, a nuance I don't foresee the average nine year old getting too caught up in. When I moused-over different skills I'd earned, I saw the percentage increase to damage or whatever else they happened to do.

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