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WoW Source talks Warlords of Draenor, new female Forsaken models
In the latest episode of WoW Source, Morgan Webb sits down with Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas, Senior Art Director Chris Robinson, and Game Director Tom Chilton to talk BlizzCon 2013 and the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor. Along with an overview of the various features of Warlords, there's an exclusive look at the new female Forsaken models. Although these are just stills of the character model in progress, they're gorgeous -- and I can't wait to see them in action and live. Check out the full video for insights and news about BlizzCon 2013, the development of Warlords of Draenor, and more. Those amazing new character models pop up at about thirteen minutes into the video, along with more footage of the other new character models already revealed at BlizzCon 2013.
The MMO Report: Aztec pandas make no sense edition
Morgan Webb dethrones Casey this week on The MMO Report, having made the journey to Anaheim to interview Blizzard's reps about World of Warcraft's upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion. J. Allen Brack and Tom Chilton focus on the philosophy of this expansion and its shift from previous expansions' ominous tone to a more playful theme of adventure, exploration, and oh yeah, the war between the Alliance and the Horde. The pair also highlight changes to underdeveloped zones, pet battles, repurposed classic dungeons, phased farms (actual farms!), and solutions to the faction grind problem. Most interestingly, they tell Morgan that Pandaren came first... and the Asian motif followed. After all, they joke, it just wouldn't have made sense to put Pandaren in Aztec ruins. Get your panda on in the full video behind the break!
The MMO Report: Casey says frak edition
This week's MMO Report is all about Casey's ego. Not one shred of MMO news bullied its way onto the show this week, unless you count a story about Battlestar Galactica Online reaching two million subscribers as news. OK, maybe you can count Age of Conan going free-to-play, or maybe the newest Minecraft update is technically news. Perhaps Perfect World Entertainment buying Cryptic Studios would be considered news, too. But let's not forget: The MMO Report is really about Uncle Casey's Mail Bag. So that is exactly what will fill the rest of this post. The Mail Bag this week is all about love, love, and memes. Fans share their love for each other, love for Casey, and love for Morgan Webb. Yes, she's been gone for two weeks, but apparently Casey's manly smell has not ousted the memory of the time Morgan hosted the MMO Report. One fan has not forgotten; he was so inspired that he created a meme about it just to show how much he cared. Jump past the break if you are interested in catching a glimpse of Casey Schreiner's ego. We have the full video ready to go. Maybe you will catch the news that we missed while staring at Casey's incredible beard.
The MMO Report: The throne of agony edition
This week on the MMO Report, our very own mountain man, Casey Schreiner, decided to grace us with his presence after taking off a week for his birthday. I mean, really... where is his loyalty? Thank goodness he returned because the internet would have exploded if we had to see another flawless MMO Report from Morgan Webb. The internet can't take that level of perfection. At any rate, this week we discover just how awesome Massively is as Schreiner reports on our report of the Bungie MMO rumors; then we find out that Second Life may be just as weird as we thought it was; next, the power of the Guild Wars 2 Engineer has inspired Casey to tackle the next level of greatness; and lastly, we find out what can no longer be contained in Casey's Mail Bag. Life is too short for you to miss a single episode of the MMO Report, so catch it after the break!
The MMO Report: Lineage shutdown, Lion's Arch, and Sith Inquisitor trailer
Today's MMO Report, sadly, suffers from a distinct lack of Casey Schreiner. But all is well, as G4's Morgan Webb has stepped up to the plate to cover for Casey as he celebrates his 30th birthday. The first order of business is the announcement that NCSoft will be shutting down the North American Lineage servers on June 29th. All inactive accounts for the 13-year-old game have been reactivated, and the game will be free-to-play until the servers go dark. Secondly, we move on to the much-anticipated Guild Wars 2 and the confirmation that Lion's Arch, a social hub featured in the first game, would be making its return in Guild Wars 2. Be sure to check out our coverage of the unveiling of the fly-through video and some analytical commentary from our own Rubi Bayer. Next up is some screen-time for Minecraft. While the game is not strictly an MMO, there's no doubt that the indie title has gained immense popularity in the gaming community. Morgan reports that Minecraft creator Notch is contemplating holding a Las Vegas launch party... err, convention tentatively dated for November 11th. Star Wars: The Old Republic's Sith Inquisitor made its trailer debut earlier this week. Being described by Morgan as "the one player character you really don't want to meet in a dark alley," the class incorporates elements of both spellcasters and stealth classes into one mean, Force-fueled combination. Lastly, we have a fly-through video of the starting zones of Perfect World Entertainment's Ether Saga Odyssey. The free-to-play MMO launched late last month. For the full Casey-and-mailbag-deprived video, scuttle on past the cut.
Judge John Hodgman decides ... is using a strategy guide cheating?
You may find this hard to believe, but we agree with you: Video game podcasts are boring! Here are the games we've been playing; here's a digested audio blast of the week's news; here's an email from a fourteen-year-old with an entitlement complex. We're glad to be done with them. But we've got a problem: There's an overwhelming dearth of non-video game podcasts about video games. So it's with great pleasure that we bring you the following news: The latest episode of Judge John Hodgman, the popular comedy podcast featuring the titular nerd wunderkind, is titled Tips and Tricks and Justice (trivia: You have our own Justin McElroy to thank for the title). The case before Judge Hodgman: Is using a strategy guide for a video game tantamount to cheating. To help Hodgman render a verdict, he's enlisted expert witness Morgan Webb who brings some street cred to the proceedings. Want to know what game pushed Josef to the edge? Or maybe why his friend John says it's cheating? You'll find the podcast at the Source link below and just after the break ... a poll, so we too can judge strangers. It's so empowering.
The MMO Report: Catackalysm special
First things first, to really understand this week's intro to The MMO Report, you need to do a wee bit of homework, assuming you don't already get the reference in the title anyway. Pop over here and watch this user-created video about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. We'll wait. OK, all caught up? Great. Off we go then! This week, Casey is joined by the lovely (and World of Warcraft-addicted) Morgan Webb, who sits down with Game Designer Tom "Kalgan" Chilton for a chat about the myriad things that have come in Cataclysm. Sure, it's chock-full of the normal things one would expect, like talk about things players both old and new will be experiencing in the expansion. Morgan also gets Tom to tell us more about some of his favorite quests in the revamped areas, as well as a bit more insight into Blizzard's development cycles for this expansion -- certainly a hot topic this week. In all, this will definitely be a treat for any World of Warcraft loving gamer. We've tucked the video behind the break for your enjoyment, or you can catch The MMO Report every Thursday on G4TV.
This week on The MMO Report
Ya know, I'm starting to like the fact that Casey Schreiner is still on vacation. I can't really pinpoint what it is, but it seems like the spot is being filled quite well. Ok, so it might have something to do with this week's guest host, I admit. Morgan Webb takes the host seat this week as The MMO Report talks NCsoft's record profits, Star Trek Online's risky business and the fate of World of Warcraft. Check out the complete video embedded after the jump, as well as a new episode each week here at Massively and G4TV. And before you ask, Morgan did not recreate Blair's epic intro from last week. Sigh.
G4 talks to Blizzard about five years of WoW
We are quickly approaching the fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft's release (my calendar has it on the 23rd of November), and G4 has gotten a head start on celebrating -- they sent Morgan Webb over to Blizzard headquarters to talk to the team, including Tom Chilton, Alex Afrasiabi, and Jeff Kaplan, about what things have been like in the last five years since WoW's launch. There's nothing super groundbreaking in here, but there is lots of reminiscing about the game's early thinking -- Chilton talks about how dual specs were never even considered as an idea (until they, you know, were) and what things were like in the early post-launch days. Pretty stressful, sounds like. Afrasiabi talks about how the quest team puts together and tracks all of the game's quests (he mentions both Metzen and the game's historian as the "lorekeepers" of the game), and the fact that they've put together "millions of words" of story and background lore for the game at large. He specifically talks about Cataclysm and replacing questlines, and says that if something does get removed from the game, they're hoping to replace it with something better, but most "fan favorites" will stay. And finally, Jeff Kaplan looks back on the early game itself, from unfinished zones to broken balance to launch day exhaustion. G4 teases something about the next MMO project, but all he says is that he can't talk about it. Oh well -- if we can't look forward, at least we get a nice look back from the folks at Blizzard who've been there since the beginning. You can see all four of the videos after the break.
The Los Angeles Times visits BlizzCon
The LA Times has a story up that's about a month late -- it tells the story of a guild meeting up at BlizzCon last month (they were actually at the Lost Bar, a place we at WoW.com know well from past meetups) and doing everything players do at BlizzCon: meet each other face to face, talk Warcraft, and enjoy everything Blizzard has set up on the convention floor. Truth be told, the experience sounds pretty tame to us -- BlizzCon is BlizzCon, it's a ton of fun, but it's not that alien of an experience to go with your ingame friends to a gaming convention.Then again, maybe we're just biased. Maybe having guildies as friends is really a fascinating thing to someone who's never done it before, and maybe the spectacle of BlizzCon really is so interesting that you can just report it in the paper. They do chat with Morgan Webb (why?) and they get one line from Blizzard COO Paul Sams, but otherwise, it's just basically the story of the Dread Pirates and their trip to BlizzCon (complete with veiled accusations of misogyny and a dictatorial guildleader -- thanks, LA Times!). To folks who don't play World of Warcraft, it might be interesting, but for most players, especially those who've been to BlizzCon already, it's mostly business as usual.
Morgan Webb plays Punch-Out!! with Jimmy Fallon
Wow, writing that headline was as close as we've ever come to being Perez Hilton. What an odd moment. Oh, but anyway, G4's Morgan Webb was on Jimmy Fallon's show last night and she brought along the new Wii version of Punch-Out!!.So now, just a paragraph after feeling like Perez Hilton, we're going to tell you that if you check after the break, you can watch Jimmy Fallon fighting King Hippo as Morgan Webb, Ice-T and Elmo look on. ... This is turning out to be a really weird Thursday.
Fable 2 wins top honors in X-Play's 'Best of 2008'
The moment you've all been anxiously anticipating is finally here! The winners of X-Play's "Best of 2008" awards have finally been announced -- though perhaps a bit prematurely, as Calvin Tucker's Redneck Jamboree won't be hitting store shelves 'til next week. Fable 2 took the gold in the "Game of the Year" category, beating out Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Left 4 Dead and Resistance 2.X-Play made some solid choices for the winners of other categories -- The World Ends With You took home "Best Handheld Game", Rock Band 2 clinched the "Best Music/Rhythm Game" category, MGS4 won "Best Action/Adventure Game", and Fallout 3 beat out Fable 2 in the "Best RPG" category. So, for those playing along at home, Fable 2 is the best game that came out this year -- but not the best RPG. Can someone whip up a Venn diagram to try and explain this one to us?
Hands on video footage of superhero MMO Champions Online
Gamers in that sweet spot where massively multiplayer online games and comic books intersect have long enjoyed playing City of Heroes, and are likely to well into the future... but clearly there's more room in the superhero game genre. Some MMO players are looking forward to a superhero-themed game with a different take on the genre than what's been done before. For them, the upcoming game Champions Online has some appeal. G4tv's X-Play recently took notice of this and interviewed Bill Roper, the Cryptic Studios Design Director, about what Champions Online has to offer gamers. The video interview, "Hands On: Champions Online", is in two parts. First Roper speaks with Adam Sessler, introducing the game concept, its setting, and creating your own personal nemesis in Champions Online as you progress. Afterwards Morgan Webb delves a bit more into the core game mechanics of Champions Online, such as how loot will augment your avatar, and the incentives to play in groups with other people -- one of the key reasons gamers jump into MMOs in the first place. Roper goes on to address the possibilities of gameplay on both PC and consoles. In fact, the gameplay shown throughout the videos is done with an Xbox 360 controller. Roper also reiterates the Champions Online release date, which he says is still slated for Spring 2009. If you'd like to see what all the fuss about this new superhero MMO is about, we've got both videos embedded for you below the cut.
X-Play delves into Wrath of the Lich King
X-Play took a look at the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft and while no new ground was covered on the information front, they did get a look at one of the final battles in the Death Knight starting quest line. Of course, if you're trying to avoid any sort of spoilers concerning the Death Knight or generally anything WotLK-related, you may not want to risk taking a look at the segment.Worry not though, because as we said there ain't much meat on them bones. One thing the segment does point out is that this expansion is yet again aimed solely on high-level content. The subject isn't new by any means, but it did serve to remind us that old-world content could really use some love from Blizzard once in a while. You can find the video after the break.
X-Play extends to one hour in December
G4 television president Neil Tiles has announced on the company's website that video game infotainment program X-Play will become an hour long during December. The growth spurt can apparently be blamed on all the holiday releases and titles coming in 2009. If the show succeeds in its extended play format, it may find the change permanent next year.X-Play went to a daily half-hour format earlier this year, seeing host Adam Sessler take the managing editor position of the stalwart show. Say what you will about X-Play, but the show has survived every iteration of its network over the last decade -- even when its title didn't.[Via BD]
Dungeon Runners gets some G4TV love
You remember Adam Sessler right? You know that guy who stands next to Morgan Webb during X-Play? Yeah, there is someone else there, we promise. Anyway, in a recent episode of G4TV's The Download, Sessler reviews NCsoft's Dungeon Runners for the masses.His review doesn't reveal anything new about the game, but it's always nice to see when the larger gaming media covers the games we love so dearly. Plus, in this video, we get to see more of the little Bling Gnome doing his duty, so to speak. What we really find interesting though is the fact that many of the comments seem to revolve around the fact that people haven't heard of this game before. A little publicity never hurt, right?
Warhammer Online interview on X-Play
We feel that we should preface this piece of news by telling you stalwart Warhammer Online fans that there's no fantastically new information about the game discussed in this interview. Even the gameplay footage is stuff we've already seen. Instead, this seems more about telling people who haven't heard of EA Mythic's upcoming labor of love Warhammer Online why they should be interested in the game. Both Paul Barnett and Jeff "The" Hickman talk to Morgan Webb about their game and while Paul looks particularly tired (with very good reason, though) he still sells the game with his usual plucky-yet-fierce demeanor.World of Warcraft is of course mentioned by Webb, but they guys do a pretty good job steering the discussion away from Blizzard's golden boy and towards why their game will be worth all of our time. We imagine that it would be tough to try and overtake a conversation when you're up against both Jeff and Paul, as they're equally charismatic guys. So check it out, the video isn't very long and should entertain you a little bit what with Paul's semi-incoherent rambling about soccer hooligans and posh English people on drugs.[via Keen and Graev]
Sessler speaks about X-Play format shift
Love it or hate it, GameSpot TV Extended Play X-Play remains the golden child of the Comcast-owned G4 network. Since the channel's rebirth in 2004, the program has kept its position as the highest rated show on G4 -- beating out reruns of Cops and Cheaters by what we can only assume is a narrow margin. Despite X-Play's pseudo-success, the show will see a major format change come mid-January. Joystiq's own Kyle Orland got a chance to talk to Adam Sessler, X-Play's host of ten years (and G4's recently appointed Managing Editor, Games Editorial) about the show's makeover. According to the Sess, the show will now air five days a week, focusing its attention on gaming news in addition to its usual reviews and feature segments. This doesn't mean the show is ditching its hit-or-often-miss sense of humor: "The tone of the show isn't going to be some grave, severe thing, because at the end of the day this is video games," Sessler said.Sessler goes on to defend G4's somewhat lackluster programming lineup, saying he would rather "see a network with a lot of fresh content that's not always consistent on one topic rather than the same three hours repeated ad nauseum." We agree that it would be difficult to come up with an entire day's worth of programming based on video games, but perhaps they could find something a tad more relevant with which to fill those grim interims than syndicated episodes of The Jamie Kennedy Experiment.
Morgan Webb talks gaming's double standards
As the start of a week-long series on women in the game industry, MTV Multiplayer has a revealing Q&A with Morgan Webb, the curvier half of the hosting duo behind G4's X-Play. While the interview covers a lot of topics, perhaps the most persistent running theme is Webb's ambivalence about her status as a successful, visible female game journalist.On the one hand, Webb says, "it used to really bother me that men ... would assume that I don't really know what I'm talking about or would know less than a man on the topic." On the other hand, though, Webb acknowledges "I wouldn't be where I am if I were a man, to be honest. I wouldn't be on the show. I wouldn't be writing columns for FHM. I wouldn't be considered just like a rare and interesting... specimen or whatever, if I weren't a woman. So I am where I am because I'm a woman and that's just the way it is."While Webb is a big booster for the game industry, she says she doesn't necessarily see herself as a spokesperson for 'girl gaming.' "I don't think the world will necessarily be a better place if I get lots of young woman to play video games," she said. "If a woman wants to play video games, more power to her ... but I have a lot of girlfriends who couldn't care less about video games ... and I don't think their lives are missing anything for that."The lengthy full interview is packed with more of Webb's thoughts on forum trolls, posing for Maxim and the effects of being both one of gaming's most prominent women and a minor TV celebrity. Take a few minutes and give it a read.
PSA: Morgan Minute on advertising
We've discussed the potential benefits of in-game advertising before, but you know, we just don't seem to be seeing the benefits. Ads keep popping up in more and more games -- hell, we've even got spyware built into games to target us more efficiently with ads -- but where are the benefits? Games continue to sneak in more advertising, particularly from a few major publishing houses, but the cost of games continues to be the same. Don't even try to pull that buggery development cost reduction malarky. Plenty of publishers that don't use adware, spyware and basic in-game advertising have titles that cost exactly the same as the publishers who do use advertising models -- that makes no sense. Maybe if the message comes from G4's Morgan Webb, with great hair, make-up and a sloping v-neck shirt, it will emblazon the message upon the gamer masses, "Remember kids, if you watch ads, you should get free stuff!"
