As presented by Robotic Brent.---
Podcast 132
This is VirginWorlds Podcast #132 for October 19th, 2008. I am your
host, Robotic Brent, and this is the Massively Multiplayer Gaming news
for the past week.
---
First, you are probably saying, "Hey, that's not Brent, that's a robot
voice." You are correct. Brent seems to have contracted a deadly
throat slaying ailment on his recent trip to London, and while he
doesn't sound all that bad, he can barely get two words out without
coughing up a lung, and so, instead you have me, Robotic Brent.
Interesting isn't it that I have nearly as much emotion in my delivery
as Brent does. Ha Ha Ha.
Yes, Brent flew into the UK this past week for work. And aside from
enjoying Boddingtons Pub Ale on tap and close to its home, he sampled
very little of London or the surrounding area. It was one of those in
and out work trips and he didn't get a chance to get away and meet any
of the UK podcast crew. Brent sucks. He was particularly taken aback
by that whole, left side of the road thing. Sure, seems obvious, but
when he climbed into the taxi at the airport, it was strange seeing the
steering wheel on the other side, and he had to admit, every car trip
was a white knuckle adventure because it seemed like every turn would
surely result in death and destruction. Somehow, he made it. Also of
note, not every woman that sounds like Elizabeth Hurley, looks like
Elizabeth Hurley. This was a horrible horrible realization that may
take many months to recover from. All in all, it looks pretty much
like home, aside from that whole left-side-of-the-road thing and the
peculiar controls on his hotel room shower, which took quite a while to
figure out.
At the top of the show, not much else to say. No new podcasts have
joined the Collective this week, though there is one in the hopper that
Brent needs to add. He needs to work harder. But I'll give him a
break. He isn't a robot, like me, after all. My ability to process new
data is far superior to his, he is but a one hundred and sixty pound
bag of water, while I am a fine tuned machine.
Also, no new VirginWorlds supporters have been added this week. We are still hovering just under the mark for goal #2.
And now, here is the M M O news for the week.
Adventure Quest Worlds.
Artix Entertainment, creators of online, browser-based, role-playing games written for Macromedia Flash, today announced the release of AdventureQuest Worlds,
its first 100% browser-based MMORPG. You may remember that Brent
intereviewed the crew from Artix a few months ago, and they talked at
length about their single player browser based games ... and they
hinted at a possible MMO in the works. It has now arrived. The crew
at Artix uses Flash to build eye catching battle-centric titles. Their
previous work includes the Free to play titles, Adventure Quest, Mech
Quest and Dragon Fable, which have had over sixty million players over
the past 5 years. Now they have announced Adventure Quest Worlds, an
MMO based on their most popular title, Adventure Quest. Daniel Vasile,
Business Development Manager of Artix Entertainment said: “Our Beta
testers’ positive responses indicate our move into MMOs was the right
decision. We’re especially excited that AdventureQuest Worlds
may be the first MMO developed by a small, family-owned game
development studio. Our project shows MMO developers and players
worldwide that a small, truly dedicated team can create a quality
browser-based MMOG without spending millions of dollars.” The game
play will, of course, involve battling armies of monsters in real time
combat, performing quests, meeting thousands (nay, millions) of other
players and donning customizable armors, capes, helms and weapons.
Character classes exist, but in the spirit of casual play, the player
can change amongst the different classes at any time and can level
those class up independently, unlocking new skills and gear as they
go. Artix is commited to weekly updates of new content, just as they
have with their previous titles, so player can expect to have a ton of
material to work through, whether they start playing at launch or later
on. If you'd like to take a look at Adventure Quest Worlds, please
visit www A Q dot com to sign up for a free account. It's all browser
based, so no downloads are required. Congrats to this small
family-owned business. While they're not the first to do this, Maid
Marian Entertainment did it several years ago with a one man team,
still they've launched a big game that will surely be a success, and
they didn't need millions of dollars to do it.
EVE ONLINE.
CCP
announced the next expansion for Eve Online this past week. It is
called Quantum Rise. They haven't said much outside the press release
yet, but here are a few things included in this free expansion: In game
Corporations will be able to set their products apart from the rest by
building trust in their goods through customizable storefronts.
Industrial ships are being rebalanced to suit the needs of haulers and
industrialists-including the latest edition to the fleet, a massive
capital industrial ship dubbed the Orca. A new certificate system will
give a quick and verifiable means to discern a pilot's skill level in
trading, gunnery or countless other professions, providing plenty of
bragging rights. Let's face it, ego is a big part of M M O gameplay.
The release of Quantum Rise, much like previous expansions, will be
done in multiple stages. The upgrade began with the recent
implementation of technological breakthroughs such as Stackless I O and
EVE 64 which upgraded the server hardware and streamlined communication
between server and client to severely reduce lag. In order to enhance
the ability for hundreds of ships to take place in combat at the same
time, CCP will be making significant hardware and server improvements,
they say, and I quote "to bring the most massive player vs player
experience available, expanding a boundless universe into a limitless
one." End quote. More to be revealed in the coming weeks. For further
discussion of Quantum Rise, I, Robotic Brent, recommend the EVE Online
Podcasts that you'll find on the VirginWorlds Podcast Collective, such
as Warp Drive Active, The Drone Bay and Micro Warp Cast. Also be sure
to check out two other Eve Podcasts that have sprung up somewhat
recently, FlyReckless and Titan Weekly, you can find them linked on
VirginWorlds.com.
Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Major avatar combat revisions are in development for Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Kevin Maginn, Lead Designer at Flying Lab Software, has written a dev blog on the subject.
Here is what he said: (Quote)
“Over
the last few months, I’ve been working almost completely off the radar
on just that: a major iteration of the avatar combat system. At the
same time, most of the content team has been doing the same for the
avatar missions; the animation team has been revising all the
swordfighting animations; the UI team has been revising the UI and the
particle effects; and the sound team has been iterating all the sounds
of avatar combat.
In
short, we’ve been stripping avatar combat down to its foundation and
building up again. We’ve learned a lot from the first major iteration
of the system; we know what worked and what didn’t, what was fun and
what was dull. We’ve gathered a lot of feedback from you as well as
feedback from our internal test team. We’ve applied that knowledge to
create a new system that (in my naturally biased opinion) is much more
fun and engaging, as well as easier to learn and easier to use.” (End
Quote)
This
is probably an extremely good idea as most people felt that the avatar
combat system was just 'ok' and somehow, the ship combat, while
effective, didn't seem to carry the title on its own. Kevin did not
give any details regarding when this content would release, but let's
hope it is soon.
Sword of the New World.
Update 4 is currently launched or mid-launch.
There
was a lengthy blog post on the subject, and I'd tell you about it, but
if you are not a Sword of the New World player, it would not mean
anything to you. Let's summarize. Sword of the New World is still
getting very active additions, and as Brent has said in the past, this
is a rather solid game for a free to play port from the east, perhaps
the best one he has seen. I, Robotic Brent, didn't particularly like
it, because, like Darren from Common Sense Gamer, I find ani-may style
graphics emasculating and when you have a dual core processor and 3
gigs of ram, you should be very macho, not playing elfen looking
boy-girls in lace and ribbons.
One note worthy addition
to this game is the new premium subscription program, with a full
customer support addition. All other players will only get basic
support (game client issues, bugs, etc). That means if you are not
premium but buy gold (via microtransactions), you will not get
support. They are also working to get name change, gender change and
character restoration options available to all players (these are paid
changes).
The 3 available Premium packs look like this:
Basic Pioneering Pack (Trial Pack) [$4.95 once a month]
Includes:
* 500 gold
* 1 Mystery Box
Veteran Pioneering Pack [30 Days for $8.95, 90 Days for $24.99, 180 Days for $45.99]
the Veteran Pioneering PackIncludes:
* 2000 gold
* 2 Mystery Boxes
* Receive 5% off on additional Gold purchases for the duration of the package.
next is the Expert Pioneering Pack [30 Days for $14.95, 90 Days for $39.99, 180 Days for $74.99]
the Expert Pioneering PackIncludes:
* 4000 gold
* 3 Mystery Boxes
* Receive 10% off on additional Gold purchases for the duration of the package.
and finally, the Master Pioneering Pack [30 Days for $24.95, 90 Days for $69.99, 180 Days for $129.99]
the Master Pioneering Pack Includes:
* 8000 gold
* 6 Mystery Boxes
* Receive 20% off on additional Gold purchases for the duration of the package.
Thanks to Jay for bringing this news to Brent's attention.
Blizzard's Next MMO.
Surprise
suprise, Michael Mor haim said the next MMO from Blizzard, which was
confirmed as "happening", is not World of Warcraft 2. Well duh. Even I
could have told you that, and I'm just a bunch of circuits with a
pretty aluminum frame. I was talking to Human Brent about this a few
days ago and he started to give in to the idea that Blizzard might in
fact be building a Starcraft MMO to follow on the Starcraft 2 release,
just like they did with Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft. He still
thinks that is lame, but is starting to accept it as a predictable and
boring possibility.
In other, some what related Blizzard
news, the leaders from Blizzard and Mythic have been participating in
some interesting mudslinging about who let who into which beta, game
imbalance, who will win in the long run and so forth. It is rather
ridiculous. I am shocked, completely shocked, that Jeff Kaplan from
Blizzard was allowed to say anything to the gaming press about his
expereince with Warhammer online or his thoughts. Typically Blizzard
just remains silent and stoic as if to silently indicate that their
competitors should, "Bring it". Mark Jacobs from Mythic, on the other
hand, continues to talk the same way he did when Mythic was independent
and not part of EA. This means, he pretty much says whatever he
wants. In this case, I think he would be best served by being silent
as well, and not implying that in the long term, war might beat wow,
because that's crazy talk. My favorite part was when he said “If you
look at ‘Warhammer,’ there were so many points [where] we
consciously made the decision not to be like wow and to try to push
the envelope. I think you’ll find that if you’re actually going to
compare the two products, I would say wow is certainly a more
polished game now than Warhammer is, of course they’ve had four years
and billions of dollars, but if you look at the innovations in
‘Warhammer,’ you’d be hard-pressed to find as many in wow.” End Quote.
After reading that, I laughed so hard, I had to reboot and defrag.
Pushing the envelope? Innovations? Uh oh, segmentation fault-
City of Heroes.
Quick bit on City of Heroes and Villians. Zombies have arrived for the Halloween season. Go kill them. End of story.Love.Human
Brent, being completely out of touch with the MMO world (gotcha) hasn't
talked about this one before, but it is billed as a
procedurally-generated moderately-multiplayer online world by one-man
studio, Eskil Steenberg. As a computer, I took particular interest in
the fact that this game or world or experience or whatever it is, is
supposed to be procedurally generated and was made by a single fellow
with a laptop, not that unlike myself. Rock Paper Shotgun .com , a
great gaming website, has the first trailer video form this game, and
calls it, quote, "A wondrous, impressionistic MMO world that
facilitates player
creativity and encourages co-operation, that looks incredible and
sounds too ambitious to be true. It’s a bold, brave project of
independent game development." end quote. And based on the video, this
is true, though I have to admit, I was surprised at the level of
violence depicted in this game called, Love. Or maybe I should not
have been surprised. You humans do tend to be a tad ironic. To follow
the development of this one-man MMO, visit: http://www.quelsolaar.comWrap Up.Ok,
short show for today, partly because news was light this week and
partly because you're probably tired of listening to Robotic Brent.
I'm sure Human Brent will surface soon enough. In the meantime, go
check out some of his favorite sites, Massively.com and Gaxonline.com.
Be sure to become a supporter of the site and various podcasts if you
are willing and able, several podcasts still are seeking sponsors. Have a good week gaming, and please be kind to your computer, we're amaziningly sensitive sometimes.Bye.
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