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Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis passes away at 34
Giant Bomb founder and Gamespot alum Ryan Davis has died. Giant Bomb put out a statement this morning, saying that Davis passed away last week. The site did not divulge the cause of death. "Many of you know that Ryan was recently married. In the face of this awfulness, many of us will at least always remember him as we last saw him: outrageously, uproariously happy, looking forward to his next adventure with the biggest grin his face could hold," Matthew Rorie wrote. Davis founded Giant Bomb in 2008 with longtime compadre Jeff Gerstmann after they departed Gamespot. Our condolences go out to Davis' friends, family and colleagues at Giant Bomb.
GameStop earnings call adds to Guild Wars 2 release date speculation
Since players aren't tremendously happy with ArenaNet's answer of "when it's ready" every time the question of the Guild Wars 2 release date comes up, any hint of further clarification is something to be prized. As a game retailer, dates are the sort of thing that come up in GameStop's earnings calls. Covering the Q1 conference call released today, Gamespot has CFO Robert Lloyd stating that Guild Wars 2 has been bumped out of the current quarter, putting its release sometime after July. It's worth noting that as of this posting, GameStop's online listing still had the Guild Wars 2 release date as June 26th. As has been repeated countless times by ArenaNet devs, no information should be treated as official unless it's directly from them. Don't let that stop you from pulling out your favorite tinfoil hat and cooking up some speculations, though.
The Game Archaeologist and the Kesmai legacy
Most studios would be overjoyed to have pioneered one significant advancement in video game history, but then again, most studios aren't Kesmai. While it's not a household name today, it's reasonable to say that without the heavy lifting and backbreaking coding that this company shouldered in the '80s and '90s, the MMO genre would've turned out very different indeed. Last week we met two enterprising designers, Kelton Flinn and John Taylor, who recognized that multiplayer was the name of the future and put their careers on the line to see an idea through to completion. That idea was Island of Kesmai, an ancestor of the modern MMO that used crude ASCII graphics and CompuServe's network to provide an interactive, cooperative online roleplaying experience. It wasn't the first MMO, but it was the first one published commercially, and sometimes that makes all the difference. Flinn and Taylor's Kesmai didn't stop with being the first to bring MMOs to the big time, however. Flush with cash and success, Kesmai turned its attention to the next big multiplayer challenge: 3-D graphics and real-time combat. Unlike the fantasy land of Island of Kesmai, this title would take to the skies in aerial dogfighting and prove even more popular than the team's previous project.
Mythic: Wrath of Heroes gets rid of 'all the boring crap' of WAR
Mythic is taking an interesting approach in promoting its new MOBA, Warhammer Online Wrath of Heroes -- it's throwing Warhammer Online under the bus. At the Wrath of Heroes reveal panel at PAX, the Mythic team talked up its new project as something that Heroes' parent game is not. The team found that people liked WAR but couldn't justify investing in it, so Mythic wanted to create an experience for them. The team took what it saw as one the more popular aspects of WAR -- the scenarios -- and modified them to pit three teams (six on each) against each other for quick, 15-minute gameplay sessions. On death, you can choose any hero in your arsenal so you can adjust to whatever your team needs. This game format allowed the team to strip away the parts of the game it saw as unnecessary. "We went, you know what? If you play the MMO, we give you all this cool equipment on your adventure, and it's a neat thing to do, but let's just get rid of the boring crap and give people cool [stuff] to wear," Paul Barnett said. Citing the accumulation of multiple -- and sometimes quite situational -- skills over the course of "748,000 hours of grinding," Barnett said that his team got rid of this approach by focusing on only five skills per hero in Wrath of Heroes. He thinks that the small incremental progress of skills and skill effects in Warhammer Online is "dull" and instead extolls Wrath of Heroes for picking the best skills, effects and armor so that players don't have to worry about getting all of them. You can watch the full reveal panel of Wrath of Heroes after the jump. [Thanks to Joris for the tip!]
Hyperspace Beacon: Bucket list
Once we start Star Wars: The Old Republic, we will not be able to stop. After only playing the game twice, I have a hard time going back to other games because -- among other things -- voice-over dialogue is far superior to walls of text any day. Then, of course, we can't forget character choices. We will be able to tell the quest-giver what we think of fetching that item for him at the shop when he could just as easily get it himself if he decided to walk 10 feet to the building next to him. That leads me to the point of this article. Despite all the incredible things we will be able to do in SWTOR, certain others will be missed once the game launches. Particular staples of MMO games, in general, will never be seen again. As someone who is placing his MMO future in TOR, I suggest creating a bucket list. Let's face it: When The Old Republic releases, we cannot look back to other MMOs. They will be dead to us. After the cut, I have complied a list of 10 items that we will never see again once we start playing TOR. Count them down with me.
Nintendo patents "Massively Single-Player" term
Despite the fact that this may be the first time you've ever seen Nintendo mentioned on Massively, it may not be the last. According to an article at Gamespot, the 121-year-old Japanese console company has patented the term "massively single-player" to define a new genre of games that they hope to create. The basic idea is that you would play a single-player game, and (through an internet connection) what you do in that game would influence the environment or economy of the same game on someone else's console. Nintendo gives several examples of how this would work, including the construction of housing in a neighborhood, oil supply and demand, and even gossip, without those pesky "other players" messing up your game. The patent mentions the fact that people who share the same friends list may be able to see each other (much like Fable III does), but other than that, it's not so much the other players you see, but only their effects on the game's world. Does this sound like something you'd be interested in checking out, as an MMO fan? Let us know in the comments below.
The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: Ultima Worlds Online: Origin
Two months ago, we heard a rumor (which has since gone quiet) that a new Ultima Online sequel might be in the oven in Electronic Art's kitchen. As with any rumor, it was important to take it with a grain of disbelief, although a pinch of hope seems appropriate in this case as well. After all, Ultima Online's been begging for a sequel ever since the hit MMO started facing stiff competition in the form of 3-D worlds like EverQuest and Asheron's Call. For some of us gamers, word of a UO sequel feels like deja vu, and rightly so. This wouldn't be the first time that EA embarked on a project to make a more modern Ultima Online, nor would it be the second time. Indeed, the saga of Ultima Online's canceled sequels is as torrid as it is steamy and lusty. Ignore the words in the previous sentence, as those are just to up the hits on search engines. In our continuing series on the "what ifs?" of axed MMOs, we're going to head into a two-parter full of savage truth, dangerous decisions, and full-frontal nerdery. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the saga of Ultima Online 2.
Rumor: Turbine working on console MMO?
Internet scuttlebutt has it that Turbine is cooking up a console MMO codenamed Project Hendrix. A posting at GameSpot cites a Turbine job listing that seeks an engineer for an "unannounced online console project." The article also mentions the resume of one Josh Phelan, a Turbine employee who apparently mentioned the Hendrix title in his online resume (which has since gone dark). Turbine's console aspirations are nothing new, as studio VP Craig Alexander hinted at such desires as early as 2009. Commenter speculation links the job listing to the mysterious Pottermore title, and given Turbine's acquisition by Warner Brothers (which also owns the Pottermore trademark), it's not unreasonable to suspect that the sorting hat could be getting ready to assign a Potter MMO to House Turbine. Check out the details on GameSpot and let us know what you think in the comments.
The Game Archaeologist and the What Ifs: True Fantasy Live Online
As an extremely amateur historian -- and an extremely attractive archaeologist -- I've always been fascinated with the "what ifs" of gaming's timeline. What if Blizzard had pulled the plug on World of Warcraft during development as it did for Warcraft Adventures? What if Hellgate: London had a lot more time and resources before it launched? What if North America had embraced the free-to-play model much earlier instead of the subscription model? What if Shawn came to his senses before he hired me? Life would've been a lot better. Or worse. That's the problem with counterfactual history: We can make educated guesses, but we'll never really know. While it's sad to see MMOs shut down due to underperformance, it's especially maddening to contemplate MMOs canceled before they even made it to the starting gate. In a new periodic series here at The Game Archaeologist, I'm going to look at a few of the "what ifs" of prematurely terminated MMORPGs. And to kick us off, I'm tackling probably one of the most frustrating, painful subjects that still linger amongst potential fans. I'm talking, of course, of True Fantasy Live Online, the game that could've shown the true potential of console MMOs. Or, y'know, not.
Learn more about Tim Schafer than you ever wanted to
Okay, you like Tim Schafer. Sure, who doesn't? But are you ready to really get inside the mastermind of Grim Fandango, Psychonauts and Brutal Legend? And we mean deep inside ... like, "cut him open with a lightsaber and sleep inside him tauntaun style" deep. If so, you'll want to watch "Tim Schafer's History of Videogames Adventure," a charming Gamespot documentary about the developer's life presented as an adventure game of sorts. Did you know, for instance, that Lucasarts staffers were permitted to select Star Wars concept art to hang on their office walls? The video's full of all sorts of gems like that, and if you can get past how visibly uncomfortable Schafer is with talking about himself for this long, it's well worth watching.
SWTOR's Sith Inquisitor shows unlimited power!
In the new video released by BioWare, we are shown that brute force is not the ultimate power in the universe. Sometimes the power of the mind carries far greater dominion over your enemies than a physical assault. The Sith Inquisitor commands the Force with a thought and defeats her foes with a wave of her hand. The Sith Inquisitor is one of the most diverse classes in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Not only can she wield the Force to destroy her opponent, but she can also use it to heal and deflect incoming attacks, making her great for tanking. Gamespot revealed the latest class trailer from SWTOR, which you can catch after the break. Follow the journey of the Sith Inquisitor from her humble start on the Sith homeworld of Korriban to her influence over political leaders of the galaxy. Then hop over to read Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller's words about this class-that-fills-all-roles.
The Game Archaeologist jacks into The Matrix Online: The highlights
It's not every year that a movie comes along that captures the pop culture zeitgeist so powerfully and so quickly as The Matrix did. I recall lugging a few college friends along to see this in 1999 -- having heard only a few sparse details about it beforehand -- and coming out of the theater feeling as if we we'd been electrified. The bold mix of science fiction, martial arts, philosophy, action, and leather ensembles became the smash hit of the year, and a franchise was born. And while we had great hopes that this would be this generation's Star Wars, The Matrix ultimately proved to be a lightning-in-a-bottle phenomenon, impossible to recapture once unleashed. Sequels, animated shorts, video games, comic books -- none rose to the height of the original film, and eventually the franchise petered out. During this period, an odd duck of an MMO was born: The Matrix Online. When you think about it, an online virtual world where people log in and fight against programs was a really short hop from the movie series. MxO, as it was abbreviated, was an audacious game with unique features, story-centric gameplay and a sci-fi bent in a field of fantasy competitors, and while it only lasted four years, it was enough to make a huge impression for its community. So by popular demand, this month we're going to revisit the 1s and 0s of The Matrix Online to see just how deep the rabbit hole (and well-worn cliche) goes -- and what made this game stand out!
PlayStation Network credit card info appears to be safe: 'No unauthorized activity relating to Sony'
It looks like the beleaguered Sony finally caught a break. The company, which has struggled for over a week following a hacker attack that stole massive amounts of player information, says that it looks as though user credit card information remains secure and encrypted. It turns out that Sony had encrypted some personal info but not all of it. Gamespot also reports that several financial companies, including MasterCard, WellsFargo and American Express, have witnessed "no unauthorized activity relating to Sony." Sony's Patrick Seybold passed along the positive news: "The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack." Sony's PlayStation Network is still offline while it's rebuilt with a higher level of security. The company saw its shares drop 4.5% today on the Tokyo exchange to $27.71.
The Sims 3: Ambitions review (iPhone)
The Sims 3: Ambitions adds a few new things to the mix that you couldn't do in previous versions. It beefs up your Sim's career paths and options, including firefighter, chef, musician, athlete and artist. EA's also added the option to have babies in this new iPhone iteration. Other than that, however, The Sims 3: Ambitions is a streamlined affair with good enough but not astounding graphics, and, if you already play The Sims, a completely expected progression of gameplay. And for us, that progression is fairly addictive. The streamlined version of the full game focuses on the life and career of just one Sim, with a far more limited range of things you can do. Like the previous iPhone version of The Sims 3, life inside of a mobile device is a little more lonely than it was on the desktop: for some reason, my Sim finds less things to do with her time, has less friends, and spends a few minutes at the end of each day sort of just milling around waiting to be tired enough for bed. Fulfilling her whimsical wants (why she wants to kick over garbage cans has never made any sense) is a fun time-waster, but we've always tried to keep our focus razor sharp when honing our Sims, so hobbies have usually come second. Of course, my Sim is also learning to be a gardener. Since her chosen career path was chef, Charlotte (who is named after the author of Jane Eyre and has the honor of being my fourth Sim to bear this name) thought that gardening would be a fitting hobby to cultivate. I haven't yet gotten Charlotte to either the top level of her career or chosen hobby, but I'm fairly certain it's a goal I can achieve... and that's the whole point, isn't it? For those unfamiliar with the franchise (if that's even possible), this new iteration is probably a great starter kit. For diehards like ourselves, the open-endedness of this is a great, enjoyable time sink, to be sure, but it's also a tiny bit disappointing. Obviously we don't expect the full features of desktop versions of The Sims 3, but we can dare to dream of a day when the iPhone version hooks into the actual game, allowing us a little midday peek into the more fascinating lives of our smaller, incoherent selves. Regardless, EA's glorious franchise loses nothing by wasting our precious downtime in yet another way, and while the mobile versions of The Sims may never replace their full counterparts, these games certainly push the limits of the 'casual' gaming category.
Chris Cao talks mentors and progression in DC Universe
SOE's Chris Cao has checked in with Gamespot via a video interview that details several different aspects of the upcoming DC Universe Online superhero action MMORPG. Right off the bat, the goal is to immerse the players in the rich history of the license by choosing an established DC Comics superhero as a mentor during character creation. Meta-based heroes might follow Superman, for example, while tech-based players will initially look up to Bruce Wayne's caped crusader alter-ego. Cao also talks a bit about the game's progression. Every even level you'll advance your powers, first by choosing a base power like fire and then expanding on it as you level. Initially you'll be setting people on fire, then detonating anything that's on fire, followed by the ability to spread fire. "Every other level you'll get to choose more of those types of abilities," Cao says. Every odd level you'll choose skills, which are based on your weapon or your movement style. Skills basically give you combos, whereas powers give you the iconic, superhero-ish abilities you've come to expect in a comic-inspired game. Check out the video, and the extensive gameplay footage, after the cut.
DC Universe previewed, Andersen talks character customization
With the launch of DC Universe Online just around the corner, we're starting to see a bit more information revealed about Sony Online Entertainment's superhero extravaganza. Gamespot reports on its lengthy hands-on at SOE's Austin development studio; highlights include a quest chain in the city of Metropolis as well as observations on the game's RPG and gear mechanics. Fan website DCUO Source also contributes some interesting info in the form of a collation of comments from the game's Facebook site. Ordinarily, reader comments regarding teaser videos aren't anything to write home about, but the fact that SOE's Jens Andersen chimed in to answer questions provides some interesting reading. One exchange that seems particularly noteworthy is Andersen's response to a fan concerned with the lack of information on DCUO's character customization options. "Character creation will be ongoing throughout the game with our appearance collection system and real items with stats forming a great fusion between form and function," Andersen says. "This means less choices upfront but more meaningful ones as you go through the game. It's a far cry from starting in rags and a loin cloth like in fantasy MMO's but it also isn't a fluff fest of everything which takes away the impact of getting cool stuff in games you can show off to your friends," he writes.
Hyperspace Beacon: E3 -- extravagant extraterrestrial exhibition
The Hyperspace Beacon is a weekly guide and discussion by Larry Everett about the yet-to-be-released game Star Wars: The Old Republic. We have been teased, taunted, and tantalized this week before the Electronic Entertainment Expo, so much so SWTOR fans don't know topsy from turvy. In this Hyperspace Beacon, released just hours before Electronic Arts' press conference at the Expo, I will hopefully give you the lowdown on the latest news and perhaps help you appreciate the magnitude of the startling reveals. On the surface they may seem like hyped-up teases with very little to latch on to, but I believe they have exposed quite a bit. As Massively reporters packed their bags to head to Los Angeles, Bioware did not stop tossing tidbits at its diligent disciples. First, we were treated with a hands-on walkthrough from Gamespot detailing the beginning quest for most of the starting classes. Twi'leks and chiss were cited as playable species in this revealing report. Also, Gametrailers.com probed the path behind producing an exciting E3 trailer. Besides touring Blur studios, the interview taunted us with a brief look into this year's animated short story. Continue on after the break to find more insight into the extravagant extraterrestrial exhibition that is this year's E3.
Ubisoft announces five new MMOs "in development"
EA recently announced their controversial Online Pass program, a business model that looked pretty appealing to Ubisoft. CEO Yves Guillemot says that they are "looking very carefully at what EA is doing," so we will probably see them adopting a similar program in the future. The Online Pass program requires players to either purchase the games new, or pay EA $10 to unlock online content on used or rented games. According to a recent report at Gamespot, that's not the only project going on at Ubisoft right now. While they are considering something similar to Online Pass for the future, the focus is more on the development side for the time being -- specifically the development of MMOs. They say they've got five free-to-play MMOs in the works, including the Heroes of Might and Magic MMO that we heard about last month. Heroes of Might and Magic, currently in closed beta, is the game we have the most information on, but we'll keep an eye out for news on the other four titles Ubisoft has planned.
Official Xbox 360 USB drives priced by GameStop
GameStop has leaked information about those official Xbox 360 USB hard drives we've heard about (first rumored and then officially), and they ain't cheap. According to the confusingly similar GameSpot (who saw the prices temporarily listed on GameStop's website), there will be both 8GB and 16GB drives available, the smaller for $39.99 and the larger for $69.99. According to Major Nelson, we'll see them in stores in May. Of course, the system update will also allow you to use any USB drive (not just the official Xbox-branded ones), but before you get visions of 1TB of storage plugged into your Xbox, remember that there's a 16GB limit on each of two possible devices, so you can have only 32GB total. Fortunately, an unofficial 16GB flash drive is about half of Microsoft's price over on Newegg. You may have to tweak things a little bit, as the official drives are meant to be "plug and play," but it can't be that complicated. The GameStop listing is down for now, but we'll see these drives officially in just over a month or so anyway. [via Engadget]
Community backlash leads to Global Agenda review score being pulled
GameSpot was not so nice to Global Agenda -- a 5.5 out of 10 was fired against the game earlier by the gaming website. However, that didn't stop the Global Agenda community from doing some digging and turning up the reviewer's in-game character. A character that only had six hours of play time attached to it, no alliance, and no agency for conquest matches. The resulting evidence was provided by Global Agenda's player statistics system -- a pretty robust system that allows anyone to pull up a character's statistics simply by typing in their character name. Once this evidence came to light, the community began to send e-mails to both the reviewer and GameSpot's Justin Calvert, who has since removed the review. Calvert has apologized (post confirmed by Hi-Rez Studio's Michal Adam) to the Global Agenda community and Hi-Rez Studios, and has reassigned the review to a new writer. GameSpot's internal policy is to spend 30 hours on an MMO before publishing a review. [Thanks to Antilogic for the tip!]
