dev-journal
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Changes to instances and raids in LotRO's upcoming Book 8
In a recent dev journal from Turbine's Jared "Amlug" Hall-Dugas, we get an inside look at some of the new changes to raiding and instances coming with Lord of the Rings Online's Book 8. As we first announced late last month through our Book 8 dev tour, these new instances are quite the focus in this newest content patch. This dev journal goes into a bit more depth from the technical side of what we can expect from the new instances, changes to existing instances and the changes to item drops in instances and raids. Amlug also explains the drop rate changes for First Age weapons per Watcher run, and the increased availability of Radiance gear for those runs. You can check out the complete journal over at Amlug's mylotro.com page, and keep an eye on Massively as we get closer to Book 8's release, later this month.
Fallen Earth Developer Diary: New Flagstaff University
Massively is proud to host a brand new five-part developer journal from the Fallen Earth team which will explore various levels in Fallen Earth, their storylines and how they make the player experience richer. This fourth one takes us through New Flagstaff University, and was written by Wes Platt, Content Team Lead for Fallen Earth.Higher education's never been quite so deadly as it is in New Flagstaff University.The campus was established by GlobalTech in the Northfields section of the Grand Canyon Province soon after the megacorp took over the national park from the federal government. A prominent and well-funded university, NFU provided top-notch scientific research and experimentation programs. In the century since the Fall, the school-like the great city that yielded its name-has crumbled into disrepair. However, it still contains equipment that's useful for scientific tinkering.
Darkfall producer talks about beta, testing and setting release dates
There's a PvP-oriented game with real-time, aimed combat, a wide variety of races and tactical gameplay, but it's name doesn't have Conan or Warhammer anywhere in it. Darkfall aims to be the best free-for-all, PvP oriented game ever made. "Too good to be true" is an accusation they hear often; and yet one they aim to live up to, says Associate Producer Tasos Flambouras in Darkfall dev journal #25. Though Darkfall is feature complete, they have not yet opened their doors to regular players. The devs have hired a team of professional beta testers to check through the game first. When they do open the doors, the game will be as close to a finished product as possible, and they can focus on tuning the game for various hardware configurations and stress-testing the server without having to worry about fundamental game issues at the same time.Darkfall NPCs go about their lives and level up as they age. Because the NPC AI is so sophisticated and seems exactly like a player to the servers, the NPCs themselves are doing a fair amount of game testing just by running around and exploring. Perhaps when the game goes live, the NPCs will eventually set up camps and build cities around popular player re-spawn points, the better to knock them on the noggins as they groan back to life. Darkfall's aim is to give players a world and let them do in it whatever they like. There won't be quests that tell you what to do, where to do it and what to do after that. It's well to the left of the sandbox-game MMO divide. Perhaps Darkfall will succeed where Shadowbane failed, to make a wide-open world where nobody is safe and anything can happen.
Mining in Jumpgate Evolution
Steve Hartmeyer dropped another dev diary into the laps of MMO Gamer, this time he talks about how mining will play out in their upcoming sci-fi MMO. Apparently it was a "major pastime" for a large portion of players in Jumpgate Classic, and basically formed the game's economy. That's all well and good, and I understand the need to cater to loyal players and all types of game styles, but Jumpgate Evolution (for me) better be more about the space combat (the "fun" stuff) then sitting around mining (what I consider insanely "boring" stuff). JGE's mining is getting a whole new face lift in terms of the process and the graphical presentation. Thankfully, they intend to make it fun by turning it into a treasure-hunting activity that can be done as casually or intensively as the player wants. Whew. NetDevil will be able to provide a clearer picture in a few weeks since the whole mining experience is just now entering the implementation phase and hasn't been put through the rigors of testing yet. So if the thought of working in a coal mine (pardon the song pun) spins your wheels, check out the diary for all the details (and there are plenty).
Jumpgate's evolution(ary) inspiration
By now you know I'm a sci-fi geek, reporting on everything even remotely interesting (and some of our readers would say, not even that on occasion) about Tabula Rasa, Jumpgate Evolution, Stargate Worlds, Earthrise, etc. I also have a fondness for the guys and gals at NetDevil, makers of the now defunct and often criticized (yet loved by it's core of loyal fans, myself included) Auto Assault. In a new dev diary posted on MMO Gamer, NetDevil programmer Steve Hartmeyer talks about the inspiration behind the evolution of Jumpgate. We've reported before that the space combat in JGE will be reminiscent of X-Wing vs. TIE fighter, but until now I didn't know what the impetus behind that comparison was. Apparently Scott Brown (founder of NetDevil) is a lot like me (and many others I'm sure). In 1977 both of us saw Star Wars - and it changed our lives indescribably. JGE stems from his passion for that masterpiece, but it's not the only ingredient. Hartmeyer goes on to include Battlestar Galactica as another key inspiration. Apparently the original Jumpgate development team was inspired by other shows I watched (and obsessed over), such as Space: Above and Beyond and Babylon 5. They had me at Star Wars. With the addition of these other sci-fi franchises which I loved so much, well... The rest of the entry is chock full of inspirational goodness. If you've been sitting on the fence about this game, it might be the very thing that makes you finally say: Hells ya!
New Jumpgate dev journal on MMORPG.com
NetDevil's Steve Hartmeyer penned a new entry for the Jumpgate Evolution developer journal on MMORPG.com. Today's topic deals with the "make or break" functionality of a game's User Interface (UI). While rarely something that actually "makes" a game, if not done properly, it can certainly break it. There really is nothing worse than a clumsy, annoying UI to wreck an otherwise beautiful game. As Steve says, if a UI doesn't work players will simply go play something else. And he's right. It's ironic how this major component seems to get completely overlooked by developers. There are a lot of games that simply have wretched interfaces. Take for instance EVE Online. Over this past weekend I spent several hours in game for the first time. It's simply not my cup of tea, yet I know it is for a great many people. Perhaps it's the enormous amount of micromanagement that must be done, but to me the UI was very confusing and annoying. Which brings up another point. What may be wretched to me isn't at all to someone else. So the big question for the developers becomes: with a myriad of presentation options (and an endless number of different gamers to please), how do you build the right user interface?Thankfully, the gang at NetDevil take this question very seriously, understand that it is important, and are hard at work to make the displays and controls accessible and easy to use. This is evident by this quote from Steve in his entry: Key choices must be practically self-evident. Frustration must be minimized, especially in the first fifteen minutes of play, when the new player is deciding whether the game is interesting or not.If anyone is planning on attending the Jumpgate - Stratics COH chat tonight, be sure to drill Steve on the UI. I'm sure he'll appreciate it!
Jumpgate's A.I. evolves
More details have emerged from the jumpgate via Steve Hartmeyer's Dev Journal over on MMORPG.com. Steve is a programmer at NetDevil working on the hotly anticipated (at least it is for many of us here at Massively) space combat MMO, Jumpgate Evolution.Steve's latest entry, AI System: Nuts & Bolts, takes us on an amazing detailed journey through the evolution of Jumpgate's artificial intelligence system. He explains how it morphed from "simply" populating space and simulating everyday tasks of an immense number of AI ships to a system that ultimately allows players to react to and participate in spontaneous events originated by the AI itself! Uh... holy crap! No wonder the dev team is so stoked about this game's AI system. Between the comparison to X-wing games we heard about yesterday, and now learning of the off the charts Intelligence Quotient of the AI... the needle just done popped off my Hot Meter! But there's more to it then the pure glee of such a cool game on the horizon. When you realize the capabilities of today's gaming AI (not just in JE, but where gaming AI is at right now and where it will likely lead), it all actually gets a bit creepy-cool in the "Wow, this sounds a lot like the theoretical beginnings of the Matrix or Cyberdyne Systems' development of Skynet" sort of way. Things that make ya go hmmm...
Jumpgate Evolution producer sets vision for accessibility
Accessibility is a big buzz word in the MMO industry right now. After some hardcore titles failed to gain traction, a lot of people are thinking that spending millions of extra dollars to make cutting edge games that only 5% of gamers can or will pay doesn't make a lot of sense.Among those people is NetDevil's Hermann Peterscheck, Producer of Jumpgate Evolution. He recently wrote up a dev journal post at MMORPG about accessibility. First he talks about making games that are, to quote Einstein, "as simple as possible, but not any simpler." Then he talks about hardware requirements as a barrier to entry.Looks like NetDevil plans to be conservative on both counts so as to reach a broad market. But that doesn't necessarily mean Jumpgate Evolution will be shallow. Peterscheck uses Chess as an example of a game that takes 20 minutes to learn but potentially a lifetime to master.
