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Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 8
So it's not that bad, but people grind constantly to pay for their PvP ships. We don't want people to do that so we're making it so you don't have to, much the same way that WoW did with the Shattered Sun dailies.
Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 3
People don't like it and there is a hard core of people who really enjoy it but, frankly, most people avoid it. Well, I sat down and started playing with it and decided that, in fact, it was pretty much what I wanted in terms of how interesting and complex it was. It was just, essentially, totally unplayable.
Dragon*Con 2008: Flying Lab Software on Pirates
At this year's Dragon*Con, we ran into Flying Lab Software's Russell Williams (CEO) and Kevin Maginn (PotBS Lead Designer) who had a lot to say about the design philosophy behind Pirates of the Burning Sea as well as the challenges of continuing to work on a live game. After its release in January, Pirates has continued growing with monthly updates, providing new game systems and new content. How do the designers decide where Pirates is going from here? We've got the skinny on both where Pirates came from and where it's going, after the jump. %Gallery-12977%
Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 7
Williams: You know, the thing about MMOs, especially if you look at Star Wars Galaxies, when Galaxies came out, not to beat on poor Rat one more time, but here I go – when Galaxies came out, the idea of the sandbox structure was the predominant theory.
Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 6
We just always assumed that players can always struggle through to find ways of making social match-making but the fact is that we have a lot more casual players as a demographic than in a lot of other MMOs because we have a much broader audience than typically the EQ people. Somebody data mined out all of our ship stats and that's the reference we use for our ships now.
Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 5
In EverQuest, there's a place called Lake Wrath. When I played EverQuest there was this rumor that there was a sea monster in Lake Wrath and that no one had seen it or that one person had seen it and he had a screenshot – or was it really a screenshot or was it a fake screenshot. The problem is that EverQuest had monsters that only spawned once a year.
Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 4
I'm sorry but that's the way it's going to be. quot; We had the luxury of ripping that out and going back in and doing it correctly. And so that's why the ship combat is so freaking cool and why avatar combat is going to be a hell of a lot better after we go through this process for it.
Flying Lab Software on Pirates, part 2
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a competitive game in which players take the role of adventurers in a romanticized version of the Caribbean in the age of sails and seek fame, fortune, and glory for themselves and their nations. This is really the vision statement that we should have had five years ago.
Massively goes to Dragon*Con: Funcom Q&A
Funcom was on-hand at this year's Dragon*Con, where they held a Q&A session regarding all things Age of Conan. What follows is as much of the event as could be transcribed from the audio we brought back with us. This writeup was completed based on audio with some garbled sections. Some details may be glossed over as a result. Without further ado:Q: Any plans to merge the servers?A: No. What we have looked at is ways of letting people play across servers, but we haven't made any plans to merge servers.Working with the tradeskill guys a lot lately and the resource team and we're designing new quests and areas for resource gathering and building and things like that. Tower objectives and so forth, they're the next step with the battlekeep system, so I work with the action dynamic team, who are the guys who do the massive PvP and Siegeing. Our first priority at the moment is to get 48v48 sieges running perfectly for everybody. Second priority is to get the next step out, which is Towers, so the guys are working on it.
Massively goes to Dragon*Con: Cryptic Studios Q&A
Cryptic Studios was on-hand at this year's Dragon*Con, where they held a Q&A session regarding all things Champions Online. What follows is as much of the event as could be transcribed from the audio we brought back with us. This writeup was completed based on audio with some garbled sections. Some details may be glossed over as a result. Without further ado:Cryptic Studios is Champions Online. This is not a product that we licensed. We actually partnered with them and purchased the intellectual property. So when all the additional supplements come out for the Champions pen and paper game, they're actually coming out with our cooperation. It's kind of jointly being developed. Cryptic Studios is now the owner of the Champions IP.
Funcom announces its Dragon*Con plans
American readers: are you going to Dragon*Con this Labor Day weekend? Funcom (developer of Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, and The Secret World) is! Its specific plans have been laid out at the Age of Conan website.The company will have its own booth, of course, which will be open from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM Friday through Sunday, and from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Monday. More interestingly, though, Funcom will be hosting what it calls the "FunCon Event" in the Sheraton Capital Ballroom on Friday at 10:00 PM. The party will feature music by DJ Tarryk and visitors from the teams of all three Funcom projects.The following day, Funcom will present its two currently-released games -- Anarchy Online at 10:00 AM and Age of Conan at 7:00 PM. Somewhere amidst all these proceedings, fans will have the opportunity to win posters, inflatable swords, t-shirts, lanyards, custom PC cases, and "one special customized Anarchy Online PC." That's cool. It's probably not cool enough to go out of your way to go to Dragon*Con for, but if you're already gonna be there you might as well stop by. Check out Massively's complete Dragon*Con schedule for other events and booths to hit up, too.
