Tagged News: qa

In the second half of our interview, we focused on Book 13. Yesterday, it was all about The Mines of Moria expansion pack. Today, we look at the next patch, in this transcription of Jeffrey Steefel's conversation with our own Jordan Deam.

WarCry: Going back to "biomes" for a bit, I understand in Book 13 you will be debuting a new zone [Forochel] which will be the first to feature open water. Will that be significant to the gameplay in this zone?

Jeffrey Steefel: It's extremely cold water; when you go into it, it's going to have a very bad effect on you very quickly. And so in terms of ... if your question is "are we going to be embarking on missions on ships in Forochel," the answer is "no." It's the first exposure of players to the edges of the continent and seeing that there are oceans out there, that there are opportunities in the future to venture out into them. But in the case of Forochel, it's really meant to be ... more aesthetic than anything. And obviously some of the creatures that reside there and some of the atmospheric effects happen to result from it being near ocean. But being in the water is not a major part of the gameplay in Forochel. Other than dying.

Read more after the jump.

Lord of the Rings Online will launch its first expansion pack in the coming months and they're starting big in the Mines of Moria. We spoke to Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel about this expansion in the first half of an epic interview, which we have now transcribed for your pleasure.

Check back tomorrow for Book 13 and general updates.

WarCry: Talking about the actual zone of Moria, how do you plan to differentiate sub-zones within the Mines to give players a sense of variety?

Jeffrey Steefel: This is where we get into that "we're still a long way away from launch," and we don't want to let all the cats out of the bag at the same time, so we're obviously going to be talking about all the different zones and how to differentiate them from each other. But what I can say is that you're spot on. We're creating a deep, giant, huge underground environment ... and one of the things we've talked about is how are [players] not going to feel like they've been treading through rock, you know, forever ... treading through dark passages and rock. As cool as Moria is, that would get kind of boring. And the truth is that Moria wasn't like that; Moria was an entire world underground, so there will be different biomes - "biome" is what we use to describe a type of environment in the world, so like "forest" is a biome, or "swamp" is a biome, or, you know, "snowy, icy" ... the Misty Mountains is a biome. There will be many biomes inside of Moria that are being being created as new that are very specific to Moria, and very distinct from each other.

Read it all after the leap.

Warhammer Online has been delayed from Q2 of this year until the fall. We had a chance to interview EA Mythic General Manager Mark Jacobs about the delay, the reasons for it and what that means for the future of WAR.

"If we had tried to force the game out in the 2nd Quarter, as we had originally planned to release it," said Jacobs. "We could have but it would have meant pretty much no time for polishing the game. The decision was to continue to iterate and reserve polish time."

The main area that requires further attention, according to Jacobs, is class balance. He explained how the classes of Warhammer Online do not necessarily fall into specific boxes as they do in many MMOs. Most classes are multi-faceted hybrids of several traditional RPG classes and this means they need to rethink some of the conventions of MMO balance. "If you don't release it right from the beginning with classes at least pretty much balanced, where they're all fun, you're not going to be in good shape in an [Realm vs. Realm] game."

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CCP's Pétur Óskarsson recently spoke to WarCry about EVE Online's experiment in game development democracy, the Council of Stellar Management. In this interview, we talk about the genesis of the idea, timing, scope and more.

WarCry: Are there any limits to how many times a player can be on the Council?

Pétur Óskarsson: Yes, everyone is limited to two terms of six months each. This can be concurrent terms or two terms in total over their lifetime. We want to keep the program a bit more inline with most Democratic states.

As I said before, the first year is going to be hard but we still believe it's worth the effort and worth the time. We really want EVE to become better and hopefully this council will become an essential part of EVE in the future. We're really kind of flying blind here and don't really know what to expect but no guts, no glory.

Read it all after the jump.

Our Jordan Deam recently spoke to The Matrix Online Producer Dan Myers about the movie-inspired MMO that recently turned three. After a shaky start, MxO was snapped up by SOE and has since gone on to carve out its own niche as part of the larger SOE family of MMOs. We find out how they've found their footing and where they're headed in this update.

Unlike most MMOs, The Matrix Online has primarily been about linear story development rather than providing a sandbox-style environment for unlimited player choice. The game picks up where the movies left off, and the developers are very serious about preserving that continuity while giving players an opportunity to keep the plot moving in new and interesting directions. When I slipped up and mentioned Neo in passing to Myers, he was quick to admonish me.

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At GDC 2008, we spoke to David Perry about Top Secret, the community driven and developed MMO project he's directing for Acclaim. He brings us up to date on the competition:

The game revolves around beast racing as an MMO. Players ride a variety of creatures in competitive online races as they advance their characters. It is a rather unique but scalable idea, which is good for a small MMO. At times, Perry mentioned, the design would just get too big, and they had to work hard to make sure the community stuck to the core themes.

Originally, they had simply hoped to hire a development team to produce the final design document, but the idea became so unique that they felt it just wouldn't work.

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Earlier today, Sony announced that SOE would move under the Sony Computer Entertainment (aka their game division) corporate banner. We wanted to find out what, if anything, that meant to SOE. So, we got on the horn and got some reaction from SOE President John Smedley. Here is what we learned:

"Nothing has changed inside SOE at all," Smedley said. "It's nice to be part of the Playstation group; we're excited about it."

Practically speaking, this is apparently a simple change in who Smedley calls boss. Previously, SOE had been under the Sony Pictures corporate umbrella and its President Yair Landau. Now, SOE is under the SCEI group, which is the corporate name for the Playstation or gaming division, and its President Kazuo Hirai.

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At GDC 08, we met with SOE Seattle Senior Designer Kevin O'Hara to get his thoughts on their upcoming MMOFPS The Agency. The spy themed MMO will be on both the PC and Playstation 3 and we got his perspective on where its headed.

O'Hara is part of a team of roughly 70 people at the SOE Seattle office, a group whose core has a lot of experience, if not a lot of games on the market. In early 2004, this was the same core group that was let go by Microsoft when the axe fell on the Norse mythology-based MMO Mythica. The cancellation was a harsh reality, but after some time in the wilderness of independent development, they reemerged as a team under the SOE banner and got to work on The Agency.

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At GDC we met with Nexon America CEO John Chi and Community Relations Manager Joseph Wreggelsworth to talk about Maginobi, the next MMO on the way from the same people who brought MapleStory to these shores. They talk about their new game, how they got to where they are and the importance of quality in the import MMO genre.

In most games, the day/night cycle is simply there to break up the mood. Occasionally, it might impact the spawns, but that was always the core difference between the virtual world game and the modern theme park-style MMO, which are clearly quite fun, but also simplified in many respects. In Mabinogi, there is a full in-game calendar, and depending on the time of year there are bonuses associated with it. This acts as a global mechanism that nudges - if not fully directs - players around the world, and should create more variety in where people play and hunt.

The very time of day also has a measured impact. At night there are different creatures to hunt and bonuses than in the day. This extends right down to weather. For example, in a rainstorm, players who rely on fire attacks will find themselves a bit less effective. At the same time, though, that rainstorm may be the key to some neat loot.

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Some of the most impressive and innovative developers at GDC do not directly make MMOs, but instead operate behind the scenes to make games better. Every year, these companies seem to fill two booths for every one that has a game in it. This year, we took the time to see a few of these companies and present a round-up of some of the more noteworthy stories we heard.

In the first part, we look at VOIP providers Vivox, MMO importers CDC Games, the novel PlayXpert and a riddle from Scott Foe of Nokia:

PlayXpert is a non-obtrusive user interface overlay that can be used in any PC game to control essential windows programs without changing screens. That's a fancy way of saying it lets people bring their instant messengers, media players, web browsers and other key programs into their favorite MMO. And, of course, they have a deal with Vivox to be their default VOIP provider.

According to CEO Charles Manning, PlayXpert has been carefully designed to play well with both in-game EULAs and system resources. While the explanation got quite technical, the basic idea is that the program insinuates itself over the game at such an early level that game operators do not mind and PlayXpert have worked with developers to make sure all is on the level.

Read more after the jump.