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Joystiq interviews DeathSpank's Ron Gilbert
Described as "the perfect melding of a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG gameplay of Diablo," Ron Gilbert's episodic endeavor also formed part of our recent GDC interview with Hothead Games. Though the Orphans of Justice still have quite a bit of growing up to do, we quickly quizzed designer Ron about Deathspank's upcoming lampooning of adventure game heroes, as well as the series' inevitable downward spiral in quality after the, uh, 600,000th episode.
A brief Fallen Earth update
So what's new with Fallen Earth? Well not a whole lot of new information is discussed in this article covering some information from this year's GDC. However, what little info there is packs a pretty good punch in the satisfaction gland for the post-apocalyptic Fallen Earth fan. For starters, it sounds like mounts -- in the form of ATVs -- are in for the early levels. The reason behind this choice seems to stem from the large expanses players will have to traverse -- so we're not entirely certain that low-level mounts are really all that different from no mounts with less distance to travel in-world. Unfortunately, we still can't be sure until the game comes out -- which could still be a little while even with 75% of the content already in the game. Having three to four thousand missions doesn't really tell us much, but since the lead designer of Fallen Earth Lee Hammock says the polish isn't there yet, we can assume it'll be some time before we see launch. We're still very interested in this title, simply because we're suckers for the dirty, gritty, post-apocalyptic future-scape massively games.
GDC08: Highlights from GDC
Don't miss our roundup of all the highlights from GDC 2008: MMORPG highlights from GDC08 GDC08 Highlights: Age of Conan, Requiem: Bloodymare and All Points Bulletin GDC08 Highlights: Eve Online, Fusion Fall and Lego Universe GDC08 Highlights: Freaky Creatures, Habbo and Love GDC08 Highlights: The future of Virtual Worlds and the end of GDC08 %Gallery-16378%
Joystiq interview: Penny Arcade Adventures
It's fair to say that quite a lot is expected from Vancouver-based developer, Hothead Games. The group not only has to deliver a series of downloadable and episodic adventure RPGs in regular intervals, but also appease a fanbase so large and rabid that it can click your website to death -- accidentally, if you're lucky. On top of all that, the poor developers are occasionally dragged into a tiny room for the sole purpose of being poked by a plethora of questions regarding their upcoming games.Penny Arcade Adventures producer, Joel DeYoung, and Hothead creative director, Ron Gilbert, had to endure just such a prodding during GDC, the results of which can be viewed after the break. Appropriately enough, our interview's almost as long as the title of the series: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.%Gallery-1545%
MMORPG highlights from GDC08
The Game Developers Conference of 2008 has ended, but the coverage Massively churned out on current and emerging MMOs lives on. We know you aren't chomping at the bit to wade through the dozens and dozens of articles we published covering the latest developments in the sexy, sexy world of online gaming development. No worries, we've done it for you.From our arrival to our hands-on coverage to our relentless hounding of big name developers, follow us on a magical, mystery tour through best of Massively's GDC08 adventures. Gallery: GDC 2008 Pre-show
GDC08 Highlights: Age of Conan, Requiem: Bloodymare and All Points Bulletin
Age of Conan Conan gets mountedOne of the hottest tickets for MMO enthusiasts at GDC08 was the Funcom session showing off new features in their upcoming Age of Conan. Mounted combat was the eye candy of the day. Game Director Gaute Godager walked our team through the basics of head to head battles astride War Horses, War Mammoths and War Rhinos. For the reading-averse, you can also listen to an audio recording of the presentation. %Gallery-16341%
GDC08 Highlights: Eve Online, FusionFall and Lego Universe
EVE Online Eve Online talks new ships and avatarsCCP's Senior Technical Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson had a lot to say about EVE Online's upcoming space station environments. At present, EVE's player characters are little more than still portraits -- in the playable portion of the game you are primarily represented as your ship, which you can use to navigate and explore the game world. Players will one day have the ability to exit their ship and interact with other characters as a human avatar. We still don't have an exact release date, but we scored the details on the proposed gameplay and development process. %Gallery-16525%
GDC08 Highlights: Freaky Creatures, Habbo and Love
Freaky Creatures "This is like Pokémon, but far, far cooler."Drive to toy store. Buy cool monster action figure. Discover flash drive buried in packaging. Use it to upload a digital version of your creature and then pit that bad boy in head-to-head combat against other players and their pet arsenal online. That, my friends, is Freaky Creatures. Don't pretend you're not drooling to learn more. %Gallery-16481%
GDC08 Highlights: The future of Virtual Worlds and the end of GDC08
The Future of MMOs The Future of MMOs panel liveblogTeam Massively was there to live blog one of the most anticipated panels of GDC08. On it were a few names you might have heard of, like Cryptic Studios' Jack Emmert, Nexon's Min Kim, BioWare's Ray Muzyka, and Rob Pardo (who has apparently worked on some sort of popular fantasy game). We blogged a blow-by-blow account of the jabs, cuts, and parries from these Massive genre heavyweights. %Gallery-16640%
WRUP: a ninja's destiny edition
Looking over this week's releases, the only title that really piques our interest is Naruto: Ninja Destiny. JC got his hands on it at GDC and confirmed that we weren't crazy when we gushed about how beautiful the game is. We're not Naruto fans at all, but we are fans of fighting games.What are you all planning on picking up? New game? Playing through an older title? What will you be playing this weekend?%Gallery-15479%
Pong creator Nolan Bushnell to enter MMO space
The man many call 'the Father of Videogames' -- as he is responsible for founding Atari and creating Pong -- Nolan Bushnell was recently interviewed by GameSpot at this year's GDC. The piece reads along smoothly enough, with Bushnell offering up his opinion on the marginalization of game arcades since the 80s, how to monetize casual games, and the importance of socialization.On this line of questioning, GameSpot asks 'Do you have anything in massively multiplayer games?' After a long pause, Bushnell confirms he does with a single 'yes', but reveals no further details, saying intriguingly ' ... as compelling as World of Warcraft is, it too shall find that there are other ways to play a game.'It's a given that he knows a lot about the industry, but that's not necessarily a quality guaranteed to create a fun game. However, he does know quite a bit about creating social spaces, which could be a big advantage in designing an MMO. What do you think, could something interesting come from Nolan Bushnell?
See the Battlefield Heroes debut trailer
We saw this trailer for Battlefield Heroes at an a EA/DICE party during GDC and it was enough to get us really, really excited for the game. Trust us on this one. As much fun as this looks in the video, it looks twice as good when you actually see it in action.After seeing the trailer (and the reaction from the hardened, cynical journalists at the shindig) it was pretty much understood amongst the Joystiq crew that Battlefield Heroes was going to be "a thing." Do you and your friends have a similar understanding yet? Is this trailer not enough to put you over the edge? Have you no soul?%Gallery-17121%
The Daily Grind: What would you pay for?
At this year's Game Developer's Conference, a lot of hay was made over the concept of microtransactions and the free-to-play model. Attendees seemed split right down the middle, some for, some against. It wouldn't be a stretch to characterize the Massively readership as similarly split. But for those of you who love your free-to-play MMOs, is there anything that would get you to pay a monthly fee?Many titles have the option to both play free and pay a monthly; Dofus, for example, and Second Life too, to polarize the offerings. Are there any such models that have shot themselves in the foot by making the paid content not appealing enough to energize users to pay? If not, what will it take?
Game Developers Choice Awards on G4 tonight
In case our live coverage of the Game Developer Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival Awards wasn't enough to sate your appetite for GDC's prestigious ceremony, G4TV will be showing coverage of the event tonight.A 30-minute recap of the two-hour event will air tonight at 8:00 PM EST (5:00 PM PST), as part of a special episode of G4's X-Play program. If you miss it, the episode will re-air several times on Saturday, March 1, Sunday, March 2 and Monday, March 3. Check out the episode guide for the full list of times.For those with a distaste for digests, the award shows' organizers will be hosting full-length streaming video coverage of both events on their respective websites sometime in the next week. We'll keep an eye out for when those streams become available.
GDC '08 breaks attendance record, press may need invite next year
As many who attended GDC recover from illness (thanks to days of rain and the plague-ridden in attendance), CMP Media says its 2008 conference broke a record and hosted 18,000 game industry professionals (previous attendance was somewhere around 16,000). Highlights included, well, we've covered all that already. GDC will be back at the Moscone Center in San Francisco again next year, blissfully later from March 23-27.Attendance could also take a tiny dip next year as Kotaku reports GDC may become invite-only for those seeking press credentials. Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference, tells the site that CMP hasn't nailed down details on how it's going to work, but they are looking at an "invite model for press access." Moledina is worried about maintaining the show's atmosphere and wants to make sure GDC maintains its core goals.Read: 2008 GDC breaks attendance recordRead: GDC, DICE, E3 could all be press invite only
Chronicles of Spellborn gets a video'd walkthrough at GDC
For those of you unfamiliar with Khaeon Games' Chronicles of Spellborn, here's a 40-minute developer-led tour through its opening stages, including character creation at this year's GDC.A great deal of time is spent going over the character's stats ... a bit more than I'd have had the patience to sit through, personally. Right around the 17 minute mark the character finally starts running around. Nice tidbits: you have a chance to pick up a piece of hardware that an opponent carries and wear it yourself, but not before taking it to an armorer or equivalent to have it fitted. The atmosphere of the world is nice and angsty. Combat is reminiscent of Age of Conan, where there is no lock-on targeting, and it's dependent upon facing.There's some promise here; sign up for the beta at their official site.[Thanks, Garold!]
X3F interviews Peter Molyneux about Fable 2, BC, XNA
We've already posted the audio of our interview with Peter Molyneux, but we know not everyone is down with spoken word. As such, we've transcribed the entire interview for your reading pleasure. In this massive interview, Molyneux discusses Fable 2 co-op (he thinks Live co-op is a great idea by the way), the possibility of versus multiplayer (which is also a good idea according to Molyneux), and we even manage to squeeze in questions about Microsoft's new XNA initiative and the ill-fated BC. Find the lengthy and informative interview after the break.
Joyswag: Win our GDC swag
So, we amassed quite a bit of swag from Game Developer's Conference. For those of you that didn't swindle some away from us at our Video Games Live meet-up in San Francisco, here's your chance to get in on the action. One winner will take it all! GDC swag bag (pictured above) PlayStation t-shirt collection (all size L, includes one In-Shirt XMB shirt) Nyko peripherals (secret, random selection!) To enter, simply tell us what was the most important story of GDC (here's an overview). Gears of War 2? Xbox Live Community Games? Uh, pictures of our food? The comment must be left before Saturday, March 1st, 5PM EST. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected in a random drawing. Grand Prize Winner will receive this GDC swag collection (MSRP: approximately $100). Click here for complete Official Rules. Eligibility is restricted to the legal residents of the 50 United States (including DC). You must be 18 years or older to enter.
BioWare founders: 'We're not done yet'
Right after our demo of the PC version of Mass Effect, we had the chance to sit with BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk for a quick catch-up on recent events. The two men were overjoyed to talk about Mass Effect's success and critical reception, as well as the uplifting effect the EA buyout has had on the company. The impression the two give are of guys who have just been given a chance at the brass ring. Their comments, intimating that BioWare itself is now a micro-publisher, praising their new co-worker's common sense, hint at a new era of opportunity for the company. We've already posted the audio from the interview, but for a full transcript of our discussion just read on below the cut. You can get a better sense of Ray and Greg's cheery outlook, see them again discuss the reason Mass Effect on the 360 had the UI it did, and watch them stonewall on a question about their in-development MMO title. The bottom line, unsaid in the interview itself, is a clear message: "Fans shouldn't worry. We're not, and neither should you." Here's hoping that they've got the right of it.%Gallery-16537%
Halo 3 outtakes: Full Metal Jacket & ranting lesbian space marine
The audio track of GDC is an under-appreciated gem of the conference. Though many of the sessions are highly technical in nature -- discussing the use of software tools and compositional elements -- enjoying the music and the auditory experience of gaming hardly takes a degree. I sat in on one of these sessions, "Halo 3: An Audio Postmortem", and was rewarded greatly. Not only did I have the chance to listen to Jay Weinland, C. Paul Johnson, Mike Salvatore and Marty O'Donnell speak on the process of composing for Bungie's titles, but the audio team brought hilarious outtakes for us to listen to.Read on below the break for a few words on composing audio for the series, Adam Baldwin's Halo-style take on Full Metal Jacket, and comedienne Debra Wilson's take on a angry, ranting, foul-mouthed, lesbian marine. Even better: the Wilson outtakes have apparently never been made available outside of Bungie's studio before. %Gallery-2155%
