architect
Latest
Insert Coin: PhaserTape turns your smartphone into a rangefinder (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. You've scoped that little laser dot on the cabinet at the far end of the room, right? Well, don't worry, you're not about to see an innocent stationery cupboard get perforated by a sniper. Nope, this episode of Insert Coin is actually about measuring distances using PhaserTape -- a peace-loving iOS- and Android-compatible peripheral that needs your help over at Makible. We think it could be a sweet little investment, and you only have to click past the break to discover why.
Some Assembly Required: Issue #1
Hello folks and welcome to the preview issue of Some Assembly Required. Massively has a whole host of MMORPG-specific columns for your perusal, as well as a few general jaunts that veer off the beaten path to examine several different aspects of our crazy hobby. Some Assembly Required falls into this latter category, and every two weeks either myself or MJ Guthrie will be taking you on various deep dives into the world of player-generated content. What's player-generated content? Well that's part of what makes this venture so exciting. Player-generated content is often seen as some sort of nebulous activity exclusive to sandbox games. Others take it to mean roleplay. Still others see it as unrestricted PvP and the metagame machinations surrounding it. For our purposes, player-generated content encompasses all of these as well as anything and everything that showcases the creativity of both individual players and entire communities.
The Game Archaeologist jacks into The Matrix Online: Jamming with Ben 'Rarebit' Chamberlain
When we started into The Matrix Online month last week on The Game Archaeologist, one of the comments caught my eye. Massively reader stealthrider wrote: Please, please do a tribute to Rarebit. MxO was his baby, and no one took its death worse than he. He did everything for that game, much of it single-handedly. Everything from playing the canon characters and co-writing the story to fixing hundreds of bugs and even creating a new zone from scratch. Not to mention developing and implementing the story missions, new items, the RP item vendors, and pretty much everything else in MxO's final couple of years. He even implemented and moderated a player-created minigame as part of the official story. He retired from game development in the months before MxO's shutdown. He was that dedicated to this game that he couldn't work on anything else afterward. He's a god among developers, and he is as sorely missed as the game itself. I think this sums up how many Matrix Online vets feel about Ben "Rarebit" Chamberlain. So instead of a mere tribute, we drove the MassivelyMobile over to Chamberlain's house (read: send a polite email request), and he graciously said he'd be glad to reminisce with us. So hit that jump to find out the last word on MxO from the dev who held it together!
Guest author missions launch in City of Heroes
Today's October 13, and that means it's time for a mission full of awesome! Do you have what it takes to aid the great Captain Dynamic? Can you handle working along side the LOLBAT, the superhero with the power of internet memes? Or, would you prefer working to help a civilian find some super powers?It's your choice as of today, when three guest author missions are unleashed into the Architect Entertainment systems. Stories by Rooster Teeth Productions (continuing their Captain Dynamic character), Scott Kurtz from the webcomic PvP (the writer behind LOLBAT), and Bill Willingham (the writer behind Irena Faust and her quest for magic) are all available for your consideration and play time.If you spend some time in Architect Entertainment today, be sure to drop your opinions on the three new missions down below in our comment box. Inquiring minds want to know how the missions are!
Save the convention, save the world
Ok, so perhaps our title isn't as catchy as Heroes season one, but beyond that, there's still a convention (and a time stream) that needs your help!City of Heroes has put up their Hero-Con mission arc, "How To Save A Convention," and they need well armed heroes to go and put a stop to a villain that threatens time itself! While this mission line will probably be a lot of fun for all City of Heroes players, it will have a particularly strong meaning for anyone attending Hero-Con this year. The mission line supposedly ties into the live mission that will be going on at the convention (and it also hints at a big announcement being made at Hero-Con this year), so pay close attention to all of the details presented!If you're looking for the mission, you can find it stored with the many other missions at Architect Entertainment.
Double experience and account reactivation weekend coming to City of Heroes
It's a whole new spectrum of experience, like a rainbow! Sorry, we felt the need to say that somewhere in this short article. But to celebrate the release of Issue 16: Power Spectrum to City of Heroes, all accounts are being reactivated and all heroes and villains will be netting themselves double experience this weekend. Plus, if you were a little short on spending money, influence/infamy is doubled this weekend as well.So, if you were a City of Heroes/Villains subscriber in the past, this weekend is your chance to re-download the game and check out the cool new additions like Architect and Power Spectrum. Customizable power colors! Finally!The "weekend" begins next Thursday (October 8th) at 12 PM ET (9 AM PT) and will continue until 3 AM ET on Monday (Midnight on Sunday, if you're of the Pacific Time persuasion.)
Breakfast Topic: Would you play a neutral character?
The Spawn and I had The Spousal Unit run Itchee the Gnome Warlock through Deadmines and now Itchee looks like a pirate. Yar! Though we are still doing the same warlocky things, The Spawn is now claiming that her character actually is a pirate -- which, as a pirate family, we encourage. But this reminded me of a conversation I had with TSU a while back. What if WoW had a playable neutral faction?One of the great things about Star Wars Galaxies, when it was actually fun to play, was that you didn't have to fight much if you didn't want to. There were master artisans and merchant malls that were available for getting the best armor or outfitting your home or whatever. I would love to see WoW incorporate some of these aspects as well as some from other MMOs to make a more persistent world. And I think they could do this by introducing a neutral faction.
Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers
Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.
A Mountain of Missions
A four day weekend spent largely in the new City of Heroes Mission Architect suite has been something of a startling eye opener for me. Like a great many people, I was always of the opinion that when it comes to User Generated Content, there was basically nothing an MMO could do wrong; the more options the better! Liberate the means of production! We can ALL be game designers, if only we have the tools! I certainly thought it would be well-received, but less than a week since launch there are at time of writing, a staggering 18,000 new story arcs in the game, and Sente at A Ding World has some fascinating breakdown of the figures so far. I have no idea how many missions were actually in the game prior to Issue 14 but it is a fair bet that the players have created more content in five days than NCSoft have in the last five years. And yet far from feeling liberated by the new system, I'm increasingly finding it confusing and not a bit daunting.
City of Heroes shows off Issue 14 Architect in new video
The time that many people have been waiting for has finally come! Issue 14: Architect has finally released to the live City of Heroes and City of Villains servers for players to enjoy. This new addition to the City of lineup adds in the ability for players to create their own content, including missions and full story arcs. Ever thought to yourself that your boss/teacher was an evil cyborg sent to bore the world to death? Now with the Architect mission creator, you can recreate them in-game and conquer them before they put Paragon City into a state of eternal power-nap! Brian Clayton, general manager and Executive Producer for City of Heroes/Villains said "We are very excited for City of Heroes to be the first-ever MMO to offer this revolutionary new system to our players. Within two weeks of opening the beta version of Mission Architect to our community, players published an astounding 5,000 custom stories, representing up to 25,000 user-created missions. Such a steady in-flux [sic] of fresh content offers the capacity for endless adventures to City of Heroes subscribers." If you're curious about this nifty new system implemented into City of Heroes, be sure to check behind the break for the hot, fresh launch video.
The Daily Grind: Are you going to check out the I14 open beta?
The wait is over for many City of Heroes and City of Villains players - Issue 14: Architect is now out on the test server as an open beta, just ready for you to jump in and try your hand at creating missions and story arcs. In the mood to create a mission where players get to battle your very own evil creation? Ever just felt like trying your hand at making up a good storyline, but didn't have the technical know-how to code all the other stuff? Then this open beta for City of Heroes and City of Villains players may just be the thing for you.So this morning, we thought we'd ask - will you be checking out the open beta for Issue 14? Does the idea of building your own content in CoX appeal to you? If you've already tried it out, how are you liking it? Or are you going to wait until it hits the live servers and they've worked the bugs out before you mess with it? Gallery: City of Heroes: Architect Edition
City of Heroes Issue 14 open beta has begun
City of Heroes has announced the open beta phase for Issue 14: Architect, which allows players to customize their own missions, at long last bringing player-created content to the superhero (and supervillain) MMO. The NCsoft announcement reads: "Now is your chance to play and give feedback on one of the most in-depth player created mission systems in an MMO to date! Your story/mission masterpieces will be available in-game for all your fellow gamers to play and rate - and the higher the rating, the more YOU benefit!" They also announced that they'll be handpicking the best player-created content as 'Developer's Choice' stories. Those missions will be identified by a unique icon and the creator will receive a Dev's Choice badge. The devs aren't the only ones who get to rate the best missions. There will be a Hall of Fame where the highest peer-rated stories can be recognized for being a cut above the rest. As with the Developer's Choice missions, these stories receive a Hall of Fame icon and badge, but these rankings established during open beta won't carry over once Issue 14 goes live.%Gallery-45908%
A chat with the architect of City of Heroes Issue 14
If you're anything like we are, the goodies coming in City of Heroes upcoming Issue 14: Architect have you pretty excited. Sure, opening up player-built content means someone will likely try to cobble together a flying penis in there somewhere (not that we'll likely ever see it, mind) but you have to take the bad with the good. After all, the refinements that are helping I14 become reality are the same ones that have brought other improvements like the ones for SG/VG bases.The folks over at Ten Ton Hammer got the chance to sit down and talk with Joe Morrissey, Senior Designer for City of Heroes. He explained some of the things we can expect with Architect, how the project fits in with the lore, and touched on some of the other things we've already heard in the hour-long audio clip we brought you earlier. Overall, though it's definitely an interesting teaser of what we can look forward to when I14 drops later this month!
Joe Morrissey reveals more details of CoX Mission Architect
One of the most eagerly anticipated features of City of Heroes Issue 13: Architect is the Mission Maker, which will let players build their own story arcs for others to play through. There's been a torrent of speculation about what we will and won't be able to do. Now, lead CoX writer Joe 'Hero 1' Morrissey has given a brief question and answer session live from PAX, via the CoX Test Server.Arriving in character as 'the Honoree', Joe proceeded to answer selected questions from the storm that followed his appearance, mostly in clipped Rikti dialect. An in-the-flesh presentation at PAX filled in some additional information. We were pleased to see that missions will indeed be more sophisticated than just radio missions with new text. Players will be 'able to customize existing heroes, villains and enemy groups with a dozen or so options, if not more at launch.' It will also be possible to include Archvillains and Heroes, though some of this content might need to be unlocked.
Further details emerge of CoX Issue 13: Architect
As the City of Heroes community fell upon and devoured the news of Issue 13: Architect like a pack of wild crack manatees, the developers occasionally ran out from under their desks to answer a question or two. The merits system in particular has been clarified, courtesy of Positron: 'Upon completing tasks in the game (Task Forces, Trials, etc.) you get an option of receiving Reward Merits instead of a normal reward. The number of merits is based on the difficulty of the mission, how long it takes to complete on average, etc. Thus things like the Katie Hannon TF have minimal merits associated with them, and things like the Shadow Shard Task Forces get bunches.' This is, as we had suspected, a step to counterbalance the quick farming of Task Forces, not by nerfing them but by making the longer Task Forces worth doing. We'd like to see them made more interesting, too - some of the real marathons are very old now, dating back to launch and the first two Issues - but it's a step in the right direction.
NCsoft announces CoX Issue 13: Architect!
The speculation that built up following Positron's haiku is over. NCsoft has announced its new free expansion for City of Heroes/Villains: Issue 13, Architect. The main focus is the Mission Architect feature, by which players can make missions for others to play through. Positron is emphatic that it won't be usable as a 'badging' or 'farming' system, and we're glad to see that. There's also a real surprise, something which we've not seen as a feature in any other superhero game, current or planned: a Day Job system that allows offline character progression, so that your character can fill in the mild-mannered reporter hours (while you're offline) as well as the super-powered hero ones!
Age of Conan Product Developer interview, with gameplay video
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Age_of_Conan_interview_and_video'; On December 5th, I was invited to the Eidos/Funcom Age of Conan press event, where I was privileged enough to be granted access to both the game itself and the development team. I was able to play the opening area, leading into the first town. I sussed out the combat and the conversation interface. I spoke with Jørgen Tharaldsen, the Product Developer, and he let drop a metric ton of knowledge upon my fevered noggin. I reprint here our conversation, interspersed with my handheld-shot video pieces, the first of which is shown above, which is where the game starts, with you as a survivor of a shipwrecked slaver ship. I'd like to thank Jørgen and the entire Eidos/Funcom team, all of whom I found to be gracious, witty, and enthusiastic about their game, which is refreshing to see. My take? The game looks incredible, and it's extremely immersive from the get-go. They say they're on schedule for an early 2008 release, so this is something to anticipate indeed. More videos and the interview after the jump!
Dungeon Maker website reveals silly plot
Dungeon making fans, take notice. XSEED's Dungeon Maker Hunting Ground has an official website now, with a projected release date right around the corner in June. XSEED also released Valhalla Knights awhile back, a title that was lampooned by critics for its restrictive game play and lack of story progression. How does the story in Dungeon Maker fare? Well, the new website contains some insight into the background story elements we think you'll find ... interesting. You control the Architect (not that Architect), a hero that arrives in town wanting to develop a monster-luring dungeon so he can sharpen his fighting skills, net some serious gold coinage and become the baddest dungeon maker who ever lived. The hero must face skepticism from the townspeople that don't believe the Architect has what it takes to make the ultimate dungeon. But eventually, the Architect begins to win support of the townsfolk by luring rare and powerful enemies into his ever-growing dungeon. In turn, the townspeople equip the Architect with new dungeon making abilities. Will our hero be able to lure the powerful and elusive Wandering Demon, freeing the townsfolk from its reign of fear and terror once and for all? Wow. The plot seems utterly ridiculous so it might be 0/2 for XSEED. On the other hand, a dungeon making game for the PSP is certainly unique. Perhaps its appeal might overcome such a far-fetched plot. We'll know a lot more once Dungeon Maker Hunting Ground is released in a few weeks. In the meantime, check out the game's website for more information.
Designer dreams big with uber-green Twirling Tower
While the architectural playground that is Dubai isn't running low on innovative buildings, David Fisher is hoping to add yet another skyscraper to the mix with his self-sufficient and energy generating Twirling Tower. The 68-story "combination hotel, apartment, and office" would sport floors that each rotate 360-degrees in the span of about 90 minutes, creating a "constantly changing architectural form." His claims begin to elicit suspicion, however, when a promotional video (seen after the break) for the building claims that it can snag enough wind to not only power the building itself, but to energize ten other similar buildings just like it. Of course, we aren't taking that too seriously considering that he actually mentions that supplying electricity to the floors would be "similar to how a moving train captures power by staying in constant contact with a power source, like an overheard wire or third rail." Nevertheless, Mr. Fisher sure seems determined to get this thing up in the sky, but as with most big dreams in Dubai, moving beyond the drawing board is where things get tough. [Via Inhabitat]
Switched On: The contractor and the architect
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a weekly column about the future of technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:
