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CCP wins Best Indie Studio award at Develop
CCP took home some hardware at last night's Develop 2012 awards ceremony. The indie outfit responsible for EVE Online and DUST 514 was recognized as the best independent studio in the biz. CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson accepted the award on behalf of the company and thanked Develop and his industry peers in the process. He also hinted at CCP's full plate, which includes the launch of DUST on the PlayStation 3, the 10th anniversary of EVE, and a World of Darkness event scheduled for September in Atlanta. [Source: CCP press release]
World of Darkness information revealed in open letter to fans
Outside of confirmation that CCP Games is still working on World of Darkness, news on the game has been hard to come by. Some of the reasons behind that were revealed by senior producer Chris McDonough in a recent letter to members of the Mind's Eye Society, a fan group devoted to the tabletop and LARP games in the same IP. While the focus in the letter was not on the MMO, McDonough did still discuss the state of CCP as a company and what it means for the game. In short, after a difficult financial year, CCP is devoting the lion's share of its resources to ensuring that DUST 514 is a successful game on launch. That doesn't mean that World of Darkness is being shelved -- McDonough stresses that development is still ongoing -- but it does mean that the company's first priority is elsewhere. How long that will be the case remains to be seen, but if you're hoping for more substantial news on the game this year, the odds are low.
World of Darkness creative director talks design and the MMO mainstream
A new interview at Gamasutra posits that CCP is gunning for mainstream success with its upcoming World of Darkness MMO. The EVE Online developer has cornered what's left of the hardcore sandbox market, so now it's looking to marry EVE's emergent gameplay with more familiar MMO staples. "The way to drag people in will be traditional themepark-style PvE play. Once players get into the setting, they'll see the appeal of the sandbox play," says WoD creative director Reynir Hardarson. Despite the concessions to mainstream accessibility, EVE's influence on World of Darkness will be more than superficial. "The live-action roleplayers of the Vampire the Masquerade tabletop game play this way," Hardarson explains. "It's really about politics and power plays." Why don't more MMO developers try their hand at sandbox mechanics? Hardarson says designing for emergent play is difficult because you can't test it. It's worth it, though, because MMOs that hand-hold and limit players to a linear path miss the point. "I'm not a five-year-old. If I want to go in the cave and I want to die, that's my problem," Hardarson says.
The MMO Report: Shut up about Mass Effect edition
This week on The MMO Report, Casey tells everyone to stop whining about Mass Effect 3's ending, laments the loss of the "online" part of Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online, touches on the World of Darkness keynote, and outlines The Secret World's preorder plans. He also reveals the identity of one of TERA's key voice actors: Michael Hogan (of Battlestar Galactica fame), who will play Samael in the final game. Finally, he pulls one measly letter from the mailbag and debates which class he represents in TERA. Enjoy the full MMO Report after the cut!
World of Darkness presented at EVE Fanfest 2012
Ever since CCP Games merged with White Wolf, it has been developing the World of Darkness MMO. The game is nowhere near complete, and fans worried that last year's heavy layoffs at the Atlanta office had slowed the game's production. We haven't heard much about World of Darkness since then, but today at the EVE Online Fanfest, a few new details were revealed. Attendees were shown some early in-game footage of a city and given a mix of information we already knew and snippets of new information. CCP wants to draw in the largely female World of Darkness fanbase. The game will have a focus on fashion, and CCP will control the theme of that fashion rather than letting players design their own clothes. The game will be based in the Vampire: The Masquerade universe, with an initial focus on vampires before the introduction of the other factions. Vampires will use human blood as a currency; it will be the resource they'll compete over, making human cities the central locations they will inhabit. When mages and other character types are released, they will compete for different resources. The game will have a single-shard world, with sandbox territorial warfare for control of cities mirroring EVE Online's nullsec warfare. Developers investigated using real cities for the game but found that "real cities were generally boring." Presenters told fans that the team will "be using stylised versions, but they will be named after real cities." Each city will be lorded over by a player prince, who will under rare circumstances be potentially subjected to permadeath. The world's original vampire clans will be available on release, and CCP confirmed that it won't be using vampire generations as a form of leveling system but instead will be doing something different with it.
Interview confirms World of Darkness dev team, predicts DUST 514 sales
When CCP Games laid off 20% of its worldwide staff back in October of last year, the World of Darkness dev team bore the brunt of the cuts while DUST 514 continued on course for its launch later this year. In an interview over at TenTonHammer today, CCP's new Chief Marketing Officer, David Reid, joined CEO Hilmar Petursson to discuss the development of both games. Hilmar reveals that a team of 60 developers are currently working on WoD, and that DUST 514 will be playable at this year's EVE Online fanfest event in March. Despite acknowledging that the entire PlayStation Network comprises a total of 60 million users, Reid asserts that DUST will bring "tens of millions of people that play shooters on PSN into the New Eden universe," going on to make the bold statement that "EVE could be the biggest game in the world at the end of 2012" as a result. Reid also claims that "EVE Online is the only game in the West that has shown consecutive growth year after year," a statement that's sure to upset RuneScape developer Jagex and others. The statement also comes with a slightly bitter note as this year EVE may have lost its record of continual subscription growth during the summer drama.
Risen 2: Dark Waters preview: Murky depths
There's an interesting trend lately of hardcore PC RPGs coming out of Europe, of which The Witcher 2 is only the latest and greatest so far. One of the earliest entries in this sort of splinter genre was 2001's Gothic, a game that was extremely popular among its European audience despite being the first title put together by German developers Pirahna Bytes. After a few Gothic sequels, the company introduced a new Pirate-themed RPG a few years ago called Risen and, this past week at E3, introduced that game's sequel to all of us. Just like the rest of this crop of European RPGs, Risen 2 seems a quality RPG wrapped in a not-so-great game. The graphics are definitely better, and the controls are a little more usable than they were (Deep Silver, who's publishing the game, went so far as to show off bugs in the last version to the press just to make clear how much better the sequel was). But in the end, Risen 2 seems like it will have all of the pluses and minuses that this type of RPG always seems to have. %Gallery-125724%
Moonlight Online reveals concept art for its starting cities
Earlier this year, IGG announced they had begun work on an MMO based in the Moonlight universe. Moonlight Online takes place in a dark world where werewolves and vampires war for supremacy. Since the announcement, IGG has been regularly pumping out concept art to give people a feel for the style the game is aiming for. We've been shown some werewolf and vampire characters, a dark armoured horse and a few buildings inspired by medieval and gothic architecture. New art has now been released showing the game's three starting cities: Castle Williams, Fort Traster and Wolfsburg Bastion. Castle Williams is a dark, gothic castle where all vampires first begin their journey. Home to the humans, Fort Traster is a municipality with a strong focus on teaching magic. As expected, werewolves start their adventures in Wolfsburg Bastion, a wild and untamed stronghold. IGG continue to release concept art on the upcoming title regularly, and updates can be found on the official Moonlight Online forum. %Gallery-107318%
Video shows CCP's incredible cloth and hair simulation
We've known for some time that CCP planned to use physics simulation to make the clothes in EVE Online's Incarna expansion and their upcoming World of Darkness MMO more realistic. They even gave a talk on using NVidia's APEX cloth simulation at the 2010 Game Developer's Conference. Until now, all we've seen are technical details and the occasional screenshot, which makes it hard to work out how the end product will look. NVidia have released a new video this week of CCP's cloth simulation in action, giving those of us that are interested a sneak peak at the incredibly impressive results. Although APEX cloth simulation will be introduced to EVE when Incarna is released, the video looks much more like something out of World of Darkness. As an added bonus, the system seems to simulate realistic hair and not just clothes. Hair in most MMOs has always been limited to shorter styles which would look alright without animation. The ability to simulate complex clothes and long hair styles make character customisation in World of Darkness and EVE's Incarna expansion look very promising. Skip past the cut to watch the video in HD. [Thanks for the tip, Patrick!]
JoWooD to 'increasingly focus' on Nintendo platforms
Austria's JoWood Productions has a growing affection for Nintendo. The Gothic publisher announced today that it plans to "increasingly focus" on both the DS and Wii, with ports of its PC medieval RTS The Guild and 2D puzzler Neighbors From Hell (PC version pictured) already in the works for Nintendo's popular console duo.The effort is all part of an effort by the company to broaden its game portfolio. In particular, JoWood expects Neighbors From Hell to "benefit hugely" from the unique control styles afforded by both the DS and Wii when it reaches for store shelves in the second quarter. Just don't pull a muscle, JoWood, especially after bringing Yoga Wii to market around the same time.
GOG in the Machine: Stronghold Legends, Gothic 2
After two weeks of Good Old Games' teasing, the day has finally arrived: Stronghold Legends is arriving on the download service. Are you ready for the visceral thrill of building castles and knocking other castles down?! We're not sure you could be. OK, we're giving it a hard time but we know there are people who go in for this kind of stuff. Look for the game at GoG.com tomorrow for $9.99.Counterbalancing the more cerebral Stronghold Legends, we've got the slightly more action-oriented Gothic 2 Gold. The fantasy RPG will also be available tomorrow for $9.99.
Dusktreaders MMO is not put on hold afterall
Yesterday, we reported on an interview with Dusktreaders lead developer Erik Hyrkas and the VirginWorlds MMO news site regarding the upcoming MMO being put on hold for a "lighter" version on the iPhone. After being contacted by Mr. Hyrkas, we've learned that there may have been some misunderstandings, and the Dusktreaders MMO is actually alive and kicking. "The main Dusktreaders MMO is not on hold, and in terms of art generation, it's actually at full steam." Hyrkas said in a follow-up email. "Most of the art for the mobile edition either existed and was just slimmed down or if it was created, it was created at a level of quality that was useful for the MMO and then stripped down for the mobile edition. It is probably fair to say that the coding aspects of the MMO have slowed down, since I'm one of the principle developers -- however, much of the code is already in place and we've just been world building recently. The development side isn't the bottleneck for the moment on the MMO -- though it could be before we're done and has been a few times in the past."We thank Mr. Hyrkas for the clarification and look forward to more news on the game in the future.
The Digital Continuum: Fantasy's upcoming vacation
Is the MMO fantasy genre finally ready to relax and take its long overdue vacation? It does seem to be the case, as nearly all of the highly anticipated titles in the coming years are exceptionally not high fantasy or even really general fantasy. So while the sun is setting on the age of fantasy, a new dawn appears to be rising elsewhere. With it comes a tidal wave of new genres into the industry, some new and others a bit more familiar. Don't believe or agree with me? Keep reading and maybe you'll change your mind.
JoWooD seeking developer to make action RPG
Gothic publisher JoWood wants to make a new action RPG. There's just one problem: Who's going to make it? The Austria-based company is currently seeking an indie developer to grind out code for a new action RPG based on one of its existing brands for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.Next to nothing has been revealed about the project-to-be save for the publisher's belief that the franchise is "renowned for an epic background story as well as exceptional graphics and polish." JoWood says that it will continue to look for dev until May 16, and in taking a look over the company's back catalog of established brands we can't help but hope that this means we'll soon be hunting killers and solving mysteries in an action RPG based on an Agatha Christie page turner.
GDC08 Highlights: Age of Conan, Requiem: Bloodymare and All Points Bulletin
Age of Conan Conan gets mountedOne of the hottest tickets for MMO enthusiasts at GDC08 was the Funcom session showing off new features in their upcoming Age of Conan. Mounted combat was the eye candy of the day. Game Director Gaute Godager walked our team through the basics of head to head battles astride War Horses, War Mammoths and War Rhinos. For the reading-averse, you can also listen to an audio recording of the presentation. %Gallery-16341%
New class for Warrior Epic unveiled
Warrior Epic, covered here and here, is something I'm looking forward to. The art style is positively quasi-Baroque, something that's a nice change from the Gothic overtones we're so used to in most MMOs. The character designs are varied and colorful, and don't shrink from detail. This is seen very clearly in the newly-released shots of the character class called the Zambrano. The class appears on the website to be restricted to women, though that might be premature to conclude. If it is, though, not since Paine from Final Fantasy X-2 have we seen a gunslinger with such intricate attire. The site has more information on this intriguing character class, with screenshots, so go check her out![Thanks, Brice!]
Gothic 4 announced for PS3, sans developer Pluto 13
The long-running action-RPG series has recently undergone some serious negotiations with new developers, says Australian publisher JoWood. The series used to be handled by Pluto 13 (or Pirahna Bytes), but they've gone bye-bye. The new developer hasn't been named yet, so we don't know much about if the gameplay will change at all, graphical direction, quality, whatever.Usually, this wouldn't matter to console owners at all since the Gothic franchise has historically been a PC exclusive. However, this latest iteration is scheduled for consoles as well as PC. Since most console owners probably haven't played it, the game is fairly nonlinear. Free-roam, do what you want, make allies with whoever and kill whatever. It's sort of like Fable, we guess. Or Elder Scrolls. Gothic titles generally have a lot of bugs that simply don't get fixed -- we hope they take better care of the game when they put it on consoles. Anyone played the other games? Think this'll translate well onto consoles?
