GDC08 Highlights: Eve Online, FusionFall and Lego Universe

By Dan O'Halloran

EVE Online

Eve Online talks new ships and avatarsCCP's Senior Technical Producer Torfi Frans Olafsson had a lot to say about EVE Online's upcoming space station environments. At present, EVE's player characters are little more than still portraits — in the playable portion of the game you are primarily represented as your ship, which you can use to navigate and explore the game world. Players will one day have the ability to exit their ship and interact with other characters as a human avatar. We still don't have an exact release date, but we scored the details on the proposed gameplay and development process. %Gallery-16525%

FusionFall

Cartoon Network throws its animated hat into the MMO ring

The team was invited to check out Cartoon Network's upcoming kid-focused MMO FusionFall, and while clearly still in development, it shows a lot of potential. Developed in part by Korea's Grigon Entertainment, makers of Seal Online, QRing, and Gambledon, this is a title with a great deal of pedigree under the hood. Among the notable names on this project are Sam Lewis, former systems and content designer for Star Wars Galaxies; Robert Knopf, recently of Ultima Online; and Richard Weil, the community relations manager for many MMOs, including City of Heroes/Villains, Lineage I and II, Tabula Rasa, and Auto Assault.

With so many experienced and creative people behind it, FusionFall definitely stands to make a splash in the 8 – 14 year old demographic that Cartoon Network is shooting for. This isn't to say they don't have a few challenges ahead of them, however. %Gallery-16922%

LEGO Universe

Get your virtual LEGO on

Though anyone who has played the existing LEGO games would understand their charm, from an outside perspective you might be wondering why LEGO needed to go to the massively multiplayer scale. Mark Hansen, Director of Business Development for LEGO, explained the ideas behind their MMO to be, LEGO Universe. It's all about playing with LEGOS, of course! Playing and building with LEGOs is a creative experience, an imaginative experience — and LEGO wanted a version of their product that would relevant for children of the 21st century who had grown up (and are growing up) around computers and technology.
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