Interviews

In the latest community driven "Ask a Dev" Q&A; with a member of the City of Heroes team we talk to Melissa "War Witch" Bianco, the CoH World Designer. She answers a slew of questions in amazing detail, all of them from the community.

Remember, for our next installment, you get to ask the questions of Senior Programmer Vince D'Amelio. Check out the intro here.

Master0: Also will you ever introduce weather to create a more realistic environment?

War Witch: Ah weather. Yes, that's been brought up a few times.

So the short answer is 'no'. At the end of the day, we try to implement a system that has a lot of impact in terms of content and playability. Weather, for all intents and purposes, is an aesthetic that doesn't (ultimately) give the player anything to 'do'. (Well, except maybe slip and slide and not see well when it's snowing or hailing. I'm not knocking slipping and sliding. I love our chalet!!)

So this is my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Read more after the jump.

Current events overtook this a little bit, but today we have part two of our DigitalLife meeting with Jeff Anderson (now X-CEO of Turbine) and Adam Mersky. While Anderson has left, there is no reason to believe the content he discussed last week has changed, and so we bring you the second half.

In this part, we learn about a few things, most notably, some images of the Balrog.

We continue with Part 2 of our interview about Book 11 with Jeff Anderson, now former President & CEO of Turbine, and Adam Mersky, the Director of PR. We discuss the new 12 man raid coming with Book 11, and the new monsters we will be seeing soon. We also got a sneak peak at a new Minstrel instrument that will make you laugh.

Read more after the jump.

Wizards of the Coast have recently announced 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. While the details are still sketchy, we do know that as part of the release, WOTC is seeking to attract more online players to the old pen and paper games with a new division called Gleemax. Being a huge D&D; fan, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sit down and talk to Iija Rotelli, the director of online media at Wizards of the Coast. I am happy to report that if you are a gamer, any type of gamer, regardless if you play WOTC games, you want to check this out!

WarCry: So you are looking to help out the indie game developer? These are video games we are talking about?

Iija Rotelli Absolutely, all sorts of games. There are a lot of great games out there, both pen and paper games, and video games that you could get a lot cheaper than those big titles at games stores. We want to help the indie developer get their games to the gamers who want it.

One of the portals we are opening on Gleemax is for Avalon Hill. So we are starting to take Avalon Hill games and digitizing them for multiplayer online gaming.

Read more after the click.

Funcom recently hired a Community Manager for Age of Conan. The former Escapist/WarCry staffer Shannon Drake took over in Norway a couple months ago and we had a chance to do an interview with him about his new job.

WarCry: As the Community Manager of a soon to launch game, what are your immediate priorities for the community in advance of that launch?

Shannon Drake: My immediate priorities for Conan are contributing to the beta process however I can, especially by getting the community involved with it, and whetting their appetites for new information about the game. I also work with Marketing on promoting the game and letting them know the current mood of the various forums and communities, and I sit in on meetings and bug people around the company as a general voice-of-the-player.

Read more after the jump.

John Smedley is the President and CEO of Sony Online Entertainment. We had a chance to talk to him by phone last week about his company, the games they make and where they're going. Here's a sample:

"We are very focused on taking the grind out of our next round of games," he said simply. "Our next generation is not trying to do what we did in this generation." He cited The Agency, with its more mature theme, FPS elements and cinematic-storytelling as an example.

It's been a turbulent path for Smedley and SOE. The online game division of Sony began when the company purchased Verant, the studio behind EverQuest of which Smedley was a co-founder. That blossomed into "The Station", a game hub that has since been the model for the entire industry. It included EQ and a host of smaller games, like Tanarus, an online tank-combat game, whose mechanics were a forerunner to games like Battlefield.

Read more after the jump.

I just got back from Digital Life in New York, and my preview of book 11 with Jeff Anderson, President & CEO of Turbine, and Adam Mersky, the Director of PR. I got to spend so much time with them, and got so much good information, I am going to break the Preview up into two parts. The first part will cover housing, the game in general, & a new character from the books!

We also have a bonus feature that shows the first ever in-game videos of the creature Gollum. Check them out here.

WarCry: Ok, so this new character from the books that is getting introduced....

Turbine: Hmmm I wonder.... You wouldn't be interested in seeing him would you?

WarCry: You mean in game? Actually see him running around in game?

Turbine: Ya, you want to?

Click on "Read More" to see Part 1.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes gone through some tough times. Original developer Sigil was absorbed by SOE to keep the game afloat. Now we turn our attention to the game itself in this new interview.

WarCry: Sigil had been planning a number of additions to the game for the future, such as with expansions, such as mounted combat, ship-to-ship combat, new classes, and "RTS-Style city building". Are these still planned for the future?

Vanguard Dev Team: They are still on the big list of exciting things we want to integrate into Vanguard. However, the main focus for the upcoming months will be spent on performance, optimizations, bug fixes and polish. Once we have resolved those issues to our satisfaction, and more importantly our customers, we will tackle the huge list of features. That includes expanding our core gameplay mechanics as well as adding new ones where it makes sense.

Read more after the click.

Today we get back on track with our Warhammer Online Q&A; series. This time Matt Lowery asks five questions of the development team, that look at PvP, Public Quests, tactics and more.

WarCry: Public quests are designed for many people in the same area to participate in. Are these encounters dynamic? For example, if I am in an area with only 2 other players, will the game scale the public quest for how many are present? If not, how do you plan on adjusting these as players level are there are fewer lower level players in areas?

WAR Community Team: Public Quests are not dynamic; they're designed for a certain range of players, both in number and in level. As for adjusting them based on population, that's something we'll have to look at down the road when we get to that point in the game's life.

Read more after the click.

Raph Koster went from Creative Director at SOE to the head of a web-based MMO start-up Areae Games. What prompted the change in thinking? Koster shares his rather controversial thoughts on the gaming industry's shift from AAA games to web-based titles in this article.

"I think the big MMOs," mused Koster, "in some ways, they are becoming the next text games."

It's a radical statement from a man whose opinions run contrary to many of the other respected names in this industry. During AGDC, he was on the usual panel of industry leaders and as per usual, he showed his fundamental disagreement on where gaming is going.

More after the jump.

John Blakely, the VP of development at SOE Austin, gives us some insights into the DC Comics MMO they're working on. It's still absurdly early in the process, but it's never too early to turn our eyes towards their coming battle against Cryptic's Microsoft backed Marvel MMO.

What about a rivalry with their counterparts at Cryptic Studios who are hard at work on Marvel Universe Online for the PC and Xbox 360? One company is backed by Sony (Playstation 3) and DC Comics. The other is backed by Microsoft (Xbox 360) and Marvel Comics. Clearly, there are going to be some comparisons.

For those who sometimes get confused by the brands, DC Comics includes characters like Superman, Batman, Flash Gordon and the Green Lantern. Their competitors at Marvel have the rights to Spider-man, the Hulk, Captain America, the X-men and the Fantastic Four. Both are big properties.

Read more after the click.