Developer Journals

In the latest edition of his periodic developer journals here on WarCry, Darkfall Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras talks about his company's philosophy on a range of issues, including: announcing a release date, the beta testing process and playtesting. He also reacts to some of the reaction to his last journal.

We prefer to do our testing this way so by the time we get to the playtesting, we'll have as close to the actual game as possible. We would like to let the playtesting carry on for a while uninterrupted just like the actual game would be instead of allowing access for a few days here and there. That's the best way to decide if the game is fun, something you really can't have an opinion on when it's not near-complete. In the playtesting phase, we're not looking for testers, we're looking for players, the same way most people enter a beta: to try out and play the game rather than help the developer with quality assurance.

Read more after the leap.

Exteel is the mech shooter game from NCsoft and today they released a developer journal and metric truck load of screenshots to show off weapon highlights in capture the flag and territory control modes. The journal goes over each weapon, then we have dozens of images of each in action.

Once most Exteel players complete the full range of tutorials and finish a few matches they should have enough in-game money (credits) to purchase a new Mechanaught, or at least purchase some new Mechanaught parts. One of the Mechanaught sets that will be immediately available for purchase is the Mekhi, a light Mechanaught design that is nearly superior in every fashion to the standard Pinkett Mechanaught that everyone receives when they first start playing.

Read more after the leap.

We're back! In a brand new developer journal, Darkfall Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras writes about "Full Freedom Gameplay and Substance". This is a lengthy one boys and girls, so buckle in.

On the topic on figurines: mounts which can be summoned using a crafted figurine which can be stored in your backpack. There are a hundred of pseudo-realistic ways to implement mounts in the game of which most are just a pain in the ass of gameplay. We believe that our way is the most gameplay, player, PvP, and crafter friendly approach. Other than that, the mounts are full service, you can do combat on them, move anywhere you like, they can be killed independently or from under you, they don't magically disappear when you dismount, they can be stolen, abandoned, and looted. Anyone can have a mount in Darkfall, and you don't need to fulfill a special set of conditions, reach a certain level, save gold for months, win a contest, or preorder the game to own one.

Read it all after the leap.

Sean Dugan, the Lead Content Designer for Stargate Worlds, penned a new journal that looks at the period in which Stargate Worlds is set. There has been a movie, a couple TV shows and all sorts of debate on how the game would fit into the established canon. In this journal, we find out exactly where the MMO takes off from.

Each choice has its own appeal and limitations. Start early in the series and you are limited by show canon. Create an alternate reality and you undermine the feeling that people are in the 'real' Stargate universe.

Eventually, we realized we needed to find a space for players where they could interact with their beloved show characters but not to feel overshadowed by them. Where players can credibly move from planet to planet through the universe without being totally hampered by the awesome might of the enemies they are facing. Where they can access cool off-world high technology without losing the grounding in modern day military science.

Read more after the jump.

Our Darkfall developer journal continues with its recent twist. Today, Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras answers 29 questions he gathered from the fan community.

Fan Question: What will the construction system be like? Also, will players be able to create a city in mountains or in underground locations?

Tasos Flambouras: I'm not going to directly answer this question because we intend to show you at some point how the construction system works. Describing it here is not descriptive enough. We've said before that "building anywhere" is relative. In Darkfall you can't build in any location you want, but this provides with unique clan cities built in awesome locations. So your clan city can be built on top of a glacier, have a waterfall hiding its entrance, be built on several levels on the side and in caverns inside a mountain, have secret underwater entrances, on a remote island...that kind of thing. These clan city features are not just about aesthetics, like where you ask about customizations, there is functionality in their layout. Darkfall's clan cities are extremely impressive and no two will be the same. Furthermore their location is strategic as far as geography and proximity to limited resources, making them points of conflict.

Read it after the jump.

In the first of what could be a few new takes on the developer journal series, Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras goes to a straight Q&A; of questions he selected from his community. This is obviously a week early of the regular bi-weekly timeslot, not that any fans will complain, I am sure.

Community: With the more advanced AI of enemy monsters, how relentless will they be when it comes to pursuit? Will they follow us a set duration of time or distance, would they be smart enough to stop if we ran to a city? Also, along a similar line, if an enemy monster is outnumbered and out matched will it flee to find nearby allies?

Tasos Flambouras: They'll follow you around but they won't follow you forever, they'll return to their area. They will call for help, and they'll also flee when the odds are stacked up against them or if they're damaged. The AI constantly assess the situation and will react accordingly but not in a consistently predictable manner. This is something I have personally never enjoyed in other MMOs that I've played, but it's fun fighting AI in Darkfall.

Read the Q&A; after the click.

In the latest Darkfall developer journal, we get a status update from Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras and he promises to chime in with a community driven Q&A; style developer journal next time.

Anyway, since the last journal some people had a few precious days off to go home and spend the holidays with their families. This year we had a very short break, less than we've ever taken, trying to get back to the loads of work waiting for us. We're regrouping now getting back to work on some really awesome new equipment. We've been doing a lot of work around the office setting everything up to run as it should. The new equipment has been helping to speed up the remaining tasks and making our lives a little easier with a lot of things. A sound studio is being set up on-site to help with the final sounds for the game. Also at the moment, we're building a new server cluster.

Read more after the click.

In the final developer journal of the year, Tasos Flambouras chimes in with answers to a bevy of community questions. Topics include arrow physics, solo-ability, trophies and much more.

We also get three exclusive screenshots of the game that show off an Ork female, Human male and Alfar female respectively all in monster armor. There is an image on each of the three pages of this extensive article.

Ork Female (Exclusive)

In another post the uniqueness of Darkfall's characters was put into question by one of the posters. We've talked about this many times in the past, and I think that in testing where most of our screenshots are taken from we don't pay so much attention to modifying or dressing up our characters so you end up seeing a lot of the same stuff all the time. We won't implement character creation morphing because we're shooting for performance during massive battles, rather than spending time drawing everyone's uniquely disfigured character. Still...we've done everything possible to give your character variation and uniqueness and your character will definitely stand out in a crowd if you want him/her to. Henning took some quick screenshots with some new facial / hairstyle / equipment variations of characters exclusively wearing armor they looted off of monsters. The female ork is wearing face paint and angra skeleton shoulder pads, beastman bracers, and a servants of Malaut girdle, and revenant greaves. The Alfar female is wearing face paint, zombie shoulder pads, hobgoblin bracers, and Ciel Fey boots. The human male is wearing face paint, black knight shoulder pads, gloves, girdle and boots, and a hobgoblin helmet. That's a tar lake behind the alfar by the way.

Read more after the jump.

Due to the perils of email file transfer, this article appears on Monday as opposed to its regularly scheduled Friday slot. Nonetheless, Tasos Flambouras gets us up to date on a slew of the latest questions the community has been asking in our regular bi-weekly developer journal.

All this work is making it hard to release more updates than what you get in this journal and even this is a stretch. We made an effort last week and got some screenshots from siege testing and released more later in the week on our website. We'll keep trying to make more frequent updates as time permits. We want to give you videos, and we will, as soon as we can get around to it.

The last journal raised some questions which I think need answers...

Read more after the click and our apologies for the delay.

Stargate Worlds is in development at the appropriately named Cheyenne Mountain. In the first of a series of developer journals here on WarCry, Lead World Builder Josh Kurtz supplies us with insights into cover in combat, a key part of their tactical combat design. He presents the journal in the format of a "question and answer session" with a "Jaffa Interrogator".

Jaffa Interrogator: But then what happens on a PVP server or in a wilderness space where there is PVP?

Josh Kurtz: That's a really good question, I'm glad you asked. Basically what this means for PVP is that you need to be very, very careful when moving through wilderness spaces alone in a PVP space. Can a hidden enemy lay around for hours just waiting for unsuspecting players to wander through an unprotected area so he can blow them away before they find cover ... yes he can, but by the same token a sneaky player can be aware of a wilderness space that looks good for an ambush and sneak around the outskirts looking for the ambusher and then ambush him in turn.

Read more after the click.