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State of Decay developer hires MMO veteran Patrick Wyatt
En Masse Entertainment and NCsoft West alumnus Patrick Wyatt has joined up with State of Decay developer Undead Labs to assist the team with upcoming projects. Previously, Wyatt oversaw design and development of TERA's game publishing platform, helping to launch En Masse's MMORPG in 2012. Wyatt additionally developed core server and network platform technology for Guild Wars during his time with ArenaNet, a studio he co-founded before it was purchased by NCsoft West in 2002. Wyatt's role within Undead Labs has not been disclosed, but he may assist in developing Class4, an MMO project that stalled last year during the studio's negotiations with Microsoft. Undead Labs later signed a multi-year contract with Microsoft Studios, suggesting the project may be back on track.
ArenaNet co-founder heads to Undead Labs
Undead Labs announced today that it has hired Patrick Wyatt, co-founder of ArenaNet and co-creator of the original Guild Wars. Wyatt, who left ArenaNet in 2008, joins fellow Guild Wars co-creator Jeff Strain at the State of Decay studio, which has not been shy about its intention to build a zombie-themed MMO. State of Decay, codenamed Class3, launched in 2013 and was confirmed by the studio as a test run for an eventual MMO release, codenamed Class4. Here's Strain on the announcement: Today, I'm very happy to announce that Patrick has joined Undead Labs, and will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with Team Zed as we dive into the development of...well, what's next, and beyond. Undead Labs recently struck a multi-game agreement with Microsoft, paving the way for the studio to continue work on the Class4 project.
The inside story of the making of Warcraft on Kotaku
Ever wondered about the beginning of Warcraft? Not World of Warcraft, the game you're playing right now -- no, I'm talking about the Warcraft franchise. It all started with a game called Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, released way back in November of 1994. Warcraft was originally developed as a real-time strategy game, nothing at all like the MMO monstrosity it has evolved to today. But the story of WoW has its roots firmly entrenched in Warcraft's history, and WoW would not exist if we never had Orcs and Humans. Kotaku has begun posting a series of fascinating interviews with Patrick Wyatt, game developer, former Blizzard executive, and producer as well as lead programmer on the original Warcraft game. Part one talks about the sources and inspiration for Warcraft along with the early development of features that are standard with games these days, and it explores the unique formation of a team of developers that would eventually leave an indelible mark on gaming history as we know it. Part one is good enough on its own, but the next in the series promises to shed even more light on the development of game. Head over to Kotaku and check out the full interview. It's definitely worth the read, and keep an eye out for the next installment.
TERA podcast highlights convention news
Episode five of the official TERA podcast is in the can, and it's also available for your listening pleasure on the TERA website. The show finds En Masse community manager Evan "Scapes" Berman talking with producer Chris Hager and COO Patrick Wyatt for approximately 20 minutes. The subject? Convention season, of course, and the gang talks about everything from the TERA Gamescom demo to the preparation necessary to convey a certain message to members of the gaming media. The trio also mentions the challenges inherent in answering difficult questions on stage at a major convention, and Wyatt even chats briefly about his experiences working on Blizzard's seminal StarCraft RTS.
TERA implementing chronoscrolls to combat gold farming
TERA isn't releasing in North America for several months yet, but the folks at En Masse are already taking steps to curb the inevitable tide of gold farmers sure to be washing up on Arborea's beaches in 2012. A new dev blog released over the weekend outlines the introduction of chronoscrolls, and those of you who are familiar with EVE Online's PLEX system will probably see several parallels between the two mechanics. "If you've never purchased gold, and you're wondering why this new chronoscrolls system is a good addition to the game, consider this: Whether chronoscrolls exist or not, other players are buying gold from real-money traders. By creating the opportunity for players who already buy gold to purchase it legitimately, we help eliminate the incentive for real-money traders to target TERA," says producer Patrick Wyatt.
En Masse offers open house, hands-on with TERA at PAX Prime
En Masse Entertainment is throwing open its doors to the public during this year's Pax Prime, and if that doesn't excite you, maybe the chance to get your hands on TERA's latest build will. If you're going to be in the Seattle area on Saturday, August 27th from 6-10 p.m. EDT (3-7 p.m. PDT) and you'd like to attend, send an email to community@enmasse.com with your full name, TERA website user name, and birthdate. Fans will have the chance to share feedback with the production team after the hands-on period as well as attend a Q&A session with En Masse COO Patrick Wyatt. Full details are available at the official TERA website.
TERA's Patrick Wyatt talks lag, security, and an M-rating
TERA is shaping up to be a huge hit with international audiences, and nowhere is this more evident than in En Masse Entertainment's willingness to reach out to fan communities outside the U.S. The latest example comes courtesy of TERAHispano, as they recently sat down with En Masse COO Patrick Wyatt for a round of questions regarding everything from microtransactions, to account security, to lag. Wyatt has lots to say in the lengthy interview, and among the more interesting nuggets is the fact that En Masse expects TERA to ship with an M-rating. He also touches on performance issues, pointing to the Focus Group Tests as evidence that lag won't be an issue for the game's action combat system. "When we built the first Western servers for TERA, we selected a QA datacenter just a few miles from our offices in Seattle, which meant that European players who joined our Focus Group Tests were playing on servers over 5000 miles away. Based on the forum posts, polls, and informal surveys from those events, we didn't see lag problems," Wyatt says. Finally, he reiterates that TERA will not be a microtransaction-based title, and also discusses GameGuard and alternatives to the intrusive anti-cheat software.
En Masse publishes first TERA weekly newsletter
En Masse Entertainment Senior Community Manager Scapes brings word of the first issue of The Velika Guardian, a weekly newsletter designed to keep readers abreast of all that's new and happening in the world of TERA. The newsletter, basically an ongoing forum thread that features a collection of relevant updates (as selected by the dev team) from the previous week, can be found on the game's official boards. For the debut issue, Scapes highlights Patrick Wyatt's TERAHispano.com interview, the recently released Focus Group Test 2 Postmortem, and Sam Kim's interview with TERAGamers.de. Check out Issue One of The Velika Guardian over at the official TERA website.
TERA's Patrick Wyatt talks security, RMT
The guys over at TERAHispano have scored an interesting interview with En Masse Entertainment COO Patrick Wyatt. The former NCsoft executive talks at length about everything from possible RMT options, to account security, to private servers and potential in-game griefing in TERA. In light of the much-publicized problems with bots, gold-selling, and account theft in Aion, these issues are clearly on the minds of TERA fans as En Masse works to localize Bluehole Studio's open world fantasy MMORPG for the western markets. "Ultimately, if users want to purchase gold, they'll find a way to do it. The U.S. "drug war" hasn't stopped people from buying drugs, it merely causes fluctuations in the price of those drugs and the amount of crime and violence that people are willing to commit to buy and sell drugs. If we only try to attack the problem of gold farming by detecting and blocking the gold farmers we will not be effective in stopping that behavior and all of the problems that go with it, like chat-spamming to advertise gold-buying sites, purchase fraud, phishing, and account theft," Wyatt says. He goes on to list EVE Online's PLEX system and Everquest's Vox and Bazaar secondary market experiments as potential "interesting solutions." Check out TERAHispano for the full interview as well a companion gameplay-centric interview with Producer Sam Kim.
ArenaNet's Design Director looks at past and future of Guild Wars
As the citizens of Tyria celebrate the fifth anniversary of Guild Wars, we at Massively have been looking both at the future of Guild Wars as well as the past. The things in store for Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 are of great interest to fans, but what came before set the stage for this long-running game. We had the opportunity to spend some time with ArenaNet's Design Director James Phinney and talk about how far Guild Wars has come in five years. Follow along after the jump to see what he had to say.
GDC10: En Masse's Patrick Wyatt talks MMO security
Security concerns in MMOs are nothing new. We all know the drill -- Don't share your account, avoid suspicious emails and sites, change your password regularly and so on. We go through all of that to keep our personal accounts safe, but what about the bigger picture? Patrick Wyatt from En Masse looked over this very thing at GDC this year, explaining how issues like gold farming, account theft and even plain old griefing affects the MMO community at large. He began looking at the other side of the equation: the people causing these problems in the first place and what motivates them. Money is the main motivator, of course, but there is no shortage of attackers who are just doing it for kicks. So as long as you protect your own account, it doesn't affect you, right? Wyatt addressed that false assumption as well, outlining the affect of each type of attack on the general gaming community and the game in question itself. Any event that affects the game and the community at large will of course affect every member of the community. So what's to be done? Game developers never stop working to stay ahead of "the enemy", and Wyatt illustrates quite a few possible solutions. This slideshow certainly isn't only for those in the industry. It's very informative for any MMO player, so head over to playnoevil.com and take a look at the slideshow for yourself!
NCsoft 'very encouraged' by Guild Wars 2
Massively recently got to talk to David Reid, the newly appointed President of Publishing for NC West, about several key NCsoft matters. We took the opportunity to ask David about ArenaNet and Guild Wars, and in particular, what was happening with Guild Wars 2. Massively: Something we know the Guild Wars players are very interested in, is with Jeff Strain now moving into his new position within the company, what does that say for ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2, which is obviously a product that ArenaNet's been working on for some time? Guild Wars players are... well, they're dying for you to let them know what's going on with that game. Is this a good sign or a bad sign for the company, and what should this say to Guild Wars players who are looking forward to the sequel with more than bated breath? David Reid: First thing: I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we, too, have an enormous amount of enthusiasm for Guild Wars 2! And we're very encouraged by what we're seeing.
