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MP admits he was Candy Crushing it during a parliamentary meeting
We're sure there are many ways a politician can pass the time during a dull parliamentary meeting, but clearing a few levels in Candy Crush Saga probably wouldn't rank high on that list. Nigel Mills, a Conservative MP for Amber Valley, was caught doing exactly that last week, after he was filmed scooping up candies with his iPad in a Work and Pensions Committee debate. In a statement to The Sun he fessed up to the political faux-pass, but said he was always "fully engaged" with the discussion and "shall try not to do it [again] in future." The House of Commons has already jumped into action, but not in the way you might expect; it's now reportedly investigating the "breach of the filming rules" which caught the minister bang to rights. While the incident will certainly leave Mills a little red-faced, it's probably a nice bit of publicity for a UK game developer that's been struggling since its high profile IPO.
Fallen Earth devs answer radioactive questions in Stratics chat
It's always nice when developers let their hair down, shaking out their majestic manes in slow-motion glory while their eyes sparkle with a thousand points of... I'm sorry, where was I? Anyway, part of the powerhouse Fallen Earth team recently sat down with Stratics' House of Commons to answer community questions about the game in a free-form chat, which was recorded and posted on Globaltech ATLAS. Icarus devs present were Tiggs (Community Director), Chris Deavellar (Art Director), Cory Farris (Senior Environment Artist) and Wes Platt (Director of Content Development). Topics included new Blood Sports maps, the day/night cycle, supercross, pop culture references and questions about the art and graphics of the game. One of the questions wondered why they couldn't add more body types into the game, which earned a revealing answer: "If we do implement new chracter [sic] types, it will require new rigging, new animation (about 1000 of them), and new boltons just for one new toon. You'll notice that games like Gears of War and Halo only have men? That's because they couldn't even afford to spend time doing a female toon. It's a LOT, LOT, LOT of work." Globaltech ATLAS has the full transcript, so feel free to pour over the entire conversation, including a few "after hours" questions!
Fallen Earth dev chat answers barrage of player questions
We don't know about you, but we can feel the era of post-apocalyptic and sci-fi MMOs fast approaching. Definitely on our 'ones to watch' list is Fallen Earth, currently in development at Fallen Earth LLC (formerly known as Icarus Studios). We mentioned the other day that the Fallen Earth devs would participate in a live Stratics 'House of Commons' dev chat, and among the five Fallen Earth team members on-hand was lead game designer Lee Hammock. The Fallen Earth devs responded to a blitz of questions from the game's future players in the Stratics dev chat, ranging from the benefits of capturing 'conflict towns' in PvP to mounted combat on horses and vehicles. In addition, Lee Hammock stated that game play videos should be released at some point in the next few weeks, and more info about the game will be coming out in tandem with this month's Game Developers Conference.Be sure to check out the Stratics House of Commons chat transcript for more on the kind of game Fallen Earth is shaping up to be.
Join Fallen Earth creators during their monthly "Day with the Devs"
Today marks yet another "Day with the Devs" for Fallen Earth, where players have an opportunity to interact with the upcoming post-apocalytic MMO's creators. The first one of these was last month during a Stractics House of Commons chat, but today's will double the effort. At 9pm EST tonight, you can head over to the Stratics HoC chat to talk with the devs about Crafting and PvP. All questions will need to be submitted on the Fallen Earth forums ahead of time.Plus, at 4pm EST this afternoon, all registered Alpha participants will have the chance to fight alongside the devs for control of New Gallows, one of the conflict towns in Sector Two. Not in the Alpha testing program? No problem! The team is currently accepting clans, while individuals will soon be able to sign up through forum membership. You can check out the main website for the individual Alpha sign-up info coming soon. If you're not in Alpha now, you certainly won't make it for this afternoon's event, but the Fallen Earth folks promise to have these "Day with the Devs" on the second Thursday of each month. Check out this post by Community Director Tiggs for more information on today's happenings.
Turbine dev chat transcript gives more info on Moria
It's been quite a long time since we've reported on a House of Commons dev chat with Lord of the Rings Online's Turbine and Codemasters devs, so this latest one should come as a special treat. In it, we get word of a few new features for the first expansion, Mines of Moria, which was just announced today to have a release date of November 18th! In order to paraphrase this long dev chat, we've bullet-pointed what we feel is the most interesting answers to player questions: No pre-Moria equipment will be part of the Legendary Items system. After Mines of Moria, they'll "most likely" be heading south with future expansions. Although there's word of fleshing out Eriador as well. Capstone skills are used in conjunction with Legendary Traits and Trait sets to make mega powerful skills. These capstones come in three different types: solo gameplay, small fellowship and 6-man instance gameplay. You will get access to another Legendary Trait slot at level 60 Renown and Infamy will be changed to increase the amount gained in a full group and reduce the amount gained in raids. The Elves of Lothlorien will not have accessible reputation until the first book update after launch Suggested improvements to the kinship system include kinbank, plus stablemasters and crafting areas in the kinship house. The entire Book 1 of Volume 2 will act as an introduction to Legendary Items, so you will get them early on. Following the helpful dev diaries on the Hunter, Burglar and Lore-master, Turbine plans to release guides for the remaining classes from 50-60 as well. Inventory problems will be alleviated with quest tokens and key rings. Quest items will be stored in a quest journal, instead of the player's inventory. Key rings will hold important keys for certain doors. You will not need to finish Volume 1 to access Volume 2. No new hobbies releasing with Moria, but there are others in the works for future book patches.
And the epilepsy debate continues, this time in Parliament
Although some companies (like Ubisoft) have volunteered to do extra epilepsy-related tests for their games, the existing standard isn't enough for some people. Take, for example, famous and loathed mom Gaye Herford, who's responsible for bringing this fight to Parliament after her son suffered a fit while playing Rayman Raving Rabbids DS.Sprong reports that the House of Commons debate was held yesterday, with members supporting different solution. Margaret Hodge, the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, pushed for a voluntary testing system, which could be changed to mandatory in the future if the issue remained problematic. John Penrose on the other hand led a more paranoid debate, stating, "The point is that some games manufacturers may decide to do that, but there is a huge number of games-makers and manufacturers throughout the world. Some are large and responsible, such as Ubisoft, but as in any industry, there is a large number of manufacturers who are relatively tiny, and although some may be responsible, we cannot be sure."It doesn't seem as if a final decision was reached, but you know politics -- things take a while to get done.[Via Game Politics]
LotRO dev chat reveals a bit more on Book 14 and Mines of Moria
The latest House of Commons dev chat has finished for Lord of the Rings Online, and in this one we get a few more small glimpses into what we can expect with Book 14. The usual suspects -- Keth, Scenario, Patience and Avon -- were on-hand to answer player questions live at Stratics.Most of the questions delivered by players concerned seasonal events, as this seems to be extremely popular lately. The devs say there will be another event this summer, and a "scary" event in the fall, presumably for Halloween. They go on to explain some details of Book 14, citing the fact that it will mainly be compiled of small changes and bug fixes in anticipation of the first paid expansion for LotRO: Mines of Moria. This expansion's two new classes -- the Warden and the Runekeeper -- are also explained in relation to their class roles.
Be heard this week with EQII and PotBS IRC chats
Stratics is going to play host to some more "House of Commons" IRC chats later in the week, for both EverQuest II and Pirates of the Burning Sea, giving fans a chance to pose some questions to the teams behind these two games. On Wednesday the 18th at 5PM PDT/8PM EDT, the PotBS chat will take place, and will feature producer Joe Ludwig, lead game designer Kevin Maginn, lead world designer Cory Herndon, community relations director Troy Hewitt and community specialist Tom Atkinson-Edwards. Full details on how to join in on this chat can be found here.The EQII chat will take place a day later, on Thursday the 19th at the same time slot of 5PM PDT/8PM EDT. Representing the game in the chat will be Josh Kriegshauser and Greg Spence from EQII Engineering; Kyle Vallee, designer of "Runneye: The Gathering"; Nathan McCall, designer of the Void Storm quest series; and Tiffany Spence and Aaron Bisnett from the community relations team. You can find out how to join this chat at this page, and don't forget that we here at Massively will be speaking to the EQII team this week as well, so you can also drop any questions you might have in today's Daily Grind for us to bring to them.
Jumpgate Evolution dev chat to commence June 9th
At 5:00 PM EST on Monday, June 9th, Stratics will host a live chat with several members of the Jumpgate Evolution team -- including producer Hermann Peterscheck, concept artist Kirk Lunsford, community manager Nicole Hamlett, and UI programmer Josh Stefanski. Stratics will also be giving away a beta key and a limited edition print to two lucky participants.The chat will take place in the #straticshoc channel on Stratics IRC. You can use your own IRC client or the Java one provided by the site. A list of servers and ports is included along with further instructions in the announcement, in case you're not a regular.
LotRO dev chat log gives more insight into Book 14 and Mines of Moria
The Stratics team is at it once again bringing us the most recent House of Commons dev chat log with the LotRO developers. In this one, we get some treats in regards to Book 14 information, and the highly-anticipated first true expansion to the game: Mines of Moria.So we're all busy people right? How about a quick summary of the topics in this log? An improved Monster Play login screen is in the works, with no definite timeframe yet. Since Book 13 focused so much on solo play, expect Book 14 to refocus on group play. Three new 6-man instances will be be introduced, as well as new deeds for the Urugarth, Carn Dum, Barad Gularan and Annuminas instances. Two new session instances will be introduced. These will not be at the level of the chicken play, but they do have plans for several more with MoM. One of the core focuses with MoM is character customization and improvements as far as traits and new features. The next Hobby is almost ready, with many more to come. Poison will not be introduced for the good guys, as it is restricted in Tolkien lore to evil use only. Check out the rest of this dev chat log for more information on each of these topics!
Jumpgate devs to chat in Stratics HOC tomorrow night
A big chunk of the Jumpgate Evolution team will be participating in a Stratics Central House of Commons chat this Wednesday, January 30th (that's tomorrow) at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. In attendance will be Steve "Istvan" Hartmeyer, Hermann "Drakerr" Peterscheck, Michael "Zzeno" Rowland (from Codemasters), Nicole "Awen" Hamlett, and Grace "Binkies" Wong. The team will be answering questions about the game as well as the recently announced partnership with Codemasters Online. The chat will take place in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC. If you've never IRCed before, check out Stratics download page to start the fun.
