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MMO Family: Why games are good for family
A couple of years ago, Massively readers engaged in a great discussion that doesn't get covered nearly as much as it should. Thanks to former Massively columnist Lisa Poisso, the column MMO Family was born, and she and the readers looked at how MMOs affect the family, both the positives and the potential dangers. I'm excited to have the opportunity to start the column up again because I think a lot has changed in the short time since the column went on hiatus. We'll revisit a few issues that Lisa brought up and some of the more recently released MMO titles to see which ones are the best for family-centered gaming. To kick things off, I'd like to explore why MMOs are good for kids and for the family unit as a whole. When it comes to talk about kids and gaming, the discussion tends to revolve around the negatives, like violence, antisocial behavior, or lack of physical activity. No one will argue that MMOs, as with most anything, can have detrimental effects when played to excess. But to focus on the negatives is to ignore the vast amount of benefits that gaming can provide. Read on for a few examples.
Penny Arcade Expo planning on branching out to third city
Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik -- the pair of minds behind Penny Arcade, which is the comic behind the major gaming convention that's happening right now -- have confirmed that PAX will soon find a home in a third location somewhere on the planet. "Yeah, there's going to be a third PAX," Krahulik explained in an interview with us earlier today. "Believe it," Holkins added. We do! The duo said they have a city in mind, but didn't divulge which one it is -- a shame, because there are a lot of cities to guess from. During last year's PAX Press Q&A, they hinted that a third PAX might come together, perhaps in an overseas locale they'd like to visit. Any international readers have a hometown they'd like to see wholly and completely overrun by gamingkind?
Watch the Joystiq Podcast live from PAX East 2011
So you couldn't join us for the live Joystiq Podcast at PAX East 2011. We get it, these things happen. Who knows, in time, we may even come to forgive you (though we're certain you'll never forgive yourself). The good news is you can start to heal the wound by watching the whole podcast for yourself in high definition video from our friends Raymond, William, and Zach from Media Cows. Cough drops, a man in a dinosaur costume and hit voice-over artists, they're all waiting for you after the break. Enjoy.
Star Wars: The Old Republic highlights the PAX East experience
The number of people who stood in line for hours just for the chance to play Star Wars: The Old Republic at PAX East is incredible. We have heard reports of people going through the hours-long wait two and three times just because they enjoyed the game so much, which just goes to show the dedication these fans have not only for the game but for the Star Wars brand. To commemorate that experience, the community team for SWTOR has put together a video of the drama that was this year's PAX East. The crowds, the lines, and the fans really brought the experience together. The video runs just over three minutes, and it takes you through the crowds rushing to the booth, fans experiencing the game, and exhibitors showing off one of the most anticipated MMOs of the year. Pop past the break to see the video and taste the a little bit of the SWTOR PAX experience for yourself.
Warp preview: Little creature, big choices
I've been closely following the development of Fez for a long time now, and was especially excited for a chance to finally play it at this year's PAX East. While I really enjoyed what I played of Fez, its boothmate was what stood out as the hidden gem of the show for me: Warp, a downloadable title from Trapdoor Inc. The developer takes a Happy Tree Friends approach to violence -- adorable, cartoony, and ultra-bloody -- which plays out in the game via the main character's interaction with human beings. I warped the little creature you see above into a variety of different folks throughout my brief playthrough of the build on display. Occasionally stunning those I deemed innocent enough to live, or rocking the Xbox 360 analog stick back and forth to "explode" the person or object from the inside, my little creature quickly figured out how to skirt a room full of scientists and armed guards without so much as alerting another living thing. And if I was spotted by a living thing, it was just as quickly exploded into bits. Such is Warp.%Gallery-119755%
Flameseeker Chronicles: The best souvenir from PAX East
When Massively staffer Larry Everett was writing about a PAX East panel he attended, he asked me to help him find a picture of Colin Johanson. I begged him to use the one above, created by GuildWars2Guru member Rolin, but my pleas were unheeded. Since today's Flameseeker Chronicles is in part about Colin, I finally got my way -- albeit indirectly. Since I didn't get the pleasure of attending PAX East, Larry sent me a wonderful souvenir: recordings of a couple of casual chats he had with Colin and Mike Zadorojny all about the MMO industry and Guild Wars 2's place in it. They were such fun to listen to that I decided to share some of them with you guys in today's column. Follow along after the jump for the best bits of Larry's discussion with these two!
Official video available for the Guild Wars 2 PAX East panel
If you were attending PAX East a couple of weeks ago, the odds are you wanted a chance to get in on ArenaNet's panel. Unfortunately, Guild Wars 2 fans were lined up outside the panel long before it started, filling the room to capacity and dashing the dreams of several hopeful attendees. Luckily, the fine team behind the games took the time time to record the panel in its entirety and has just made the full video available on the official blog. Posted in two parts and comprising just under an hour of total footage, the panel covers a variety of topics related to the development of Guild Wars 2 and includes a lengthy question-and-answer session from the audience. While it's not quite a substitute for being at the convention itself, the full video should prove interesting whether you weren't able to make it to Boston or just couldn't get inside the jam-packed panel session.
The Guild Counsel: An interview with author Adam "Ferrel" Trzonkowski
At PAX East a week or so ago, I had the opportunity to talk with Adam "Ferrel" Trzonkowski, who is a guild leader, blogger, and newly crowned author. After managing his guild Iniquity for the better part of a decade, he decided to write a book about the lesson's he's learned regarding guild management. It's titled The Guild Leader's Companion and is available both in print and as an ebook through Amazon. In this week's Guild Counsel, we'll hear a bit about his background as a guild leader, his motivation to write a book, and his thoughts on why guild management offers important lessons even to those who don't run a guild. Massively: First off, can you give the readers a little background on your gaming experience and how you got into leading a guild? Adam Trzonkowski: I started playing MMORPGs when they weren't even graphical. That means I played in the old chat rooms and MUDs! Those were dark times, but we had guilds back then, and I actually was an officer in one for a few years. That role didn't entail nearly the work that it does these days, but that is how I got into leading people and learning how they interact with each other.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Linger
So I was originally going to dive into the matter of the next archetype on the list when it hit me that there were two big issues I didn't talk about in my last column, issues that were brought up on or around the PAX panel but weren't directly addressed. And if there's one thing that I'd like to think I'm known for in the City of Heroes community, it's darting off like a hyperactive badger whenever something catches my eye, regardless of what that means for the overall flow or pacing of a column. Being known as a good writer would be nice, too, but I like to keep a broader perspective. So we're going to take a second to talk about two matters that have stuck with us as an overall community -- the low-level game revamp and the mysterious Issue 20 NDA. The latter is especially mysterious because we now know what's in Issue 20, and it's certainly nothing that will rock City of Heroes to its foundations. Far from it -- the issue, while shaping up nicely, is pretty much standard stuff. Why the obfuscation?
Shoot Many Robots preview: What it says on the tin
Shoot Many Robots reminds me of classic 2D shooter Metal Slug, but with the addition of leveling and upgrade systems. Or it could be like a linear, 2D version of Borderlands -- beyond exhibiting a similar color palette, SMR's constantly popping out XP numbers and loot notices. Or maybe it's more like Contra, given the steady flood of enemies and enormous mini-bosses. Okay, let's just call it a mixture of all those things, melded with its own southern-baked main character -- the gaming equivalent of Zombieland's Tallahassee character. That all makes SMR sound pretty derivative -- which it certainly is, to an extent -- but the game's developers show a ton of heart going into the project. Also, tutus.%Gallery-117003%
Hyperspace Beacon: Community news round-up
As I mentioned in the last edition of the Hyperspace Beacon, the Star Wars: The Old Republic community played a large part in what made PAX East so great this time around. It would also be silly of me to believe that I could catch every single tidbit at PAX personally or even that Massively could nab every granular morsel of the SWTOR pie. However, unlike some MMORPG communities, our TOR community isn't limited to just one site for all of its information. In fact, PAX East 2011 was probably the biggest showing of SWTOR fansites of any convention. This week, I'm going to take a break from reporting news myself and instead give you a taste of some of the news that was released this week from other sites. As I've said before, I don't expect you to have read or to follow every site that is reporting on The Old Republic. In fact, I think that would burn most people out. However, there are great reporters on other sites, and I think it would be a mistake if I didn't let the Massively audience in on some of their great work.
Indies react: PAX East as a showcase for small studios
Like so many PAX shows before it, this year's PAX East showcased a ton of indie games -- the gaming equivalent of a Williamsburg dubstep show, if you will. In our experience at this year's event, larger industry players like EA and Bethesda showed off their titles with hired hands and private theater viewings, choosing to exhibit older demos rather than new content. The indies and smaller studios, on the other hand, were out in force. Beyond bringing playable versions of their games to the show -- even Fez was playable, for the first time in several years of development -- the indie studios brought themselves. They continued the tradition of directly engaging with attendees and, often, solicited game-testing feedback on the fly. "I approached PAX East as a three-day playtest session. I learned so much about what works and what doesn't just from standing in the back and observing how people played the game," Fez co-developer Phil Fish told Joystiq. "It's also an amazing morale boost to be told by so many people that your game is great."
Outland preview: Grace anatomy
Not to besmirch the pleasures of mowing down aliens with the aid of a lumbering, gun-toting calzone of muscle and gruff one-liners, but I usually gravitate toward avatars that exhibit speed and panache. Games like Prince of Persia and N+ make quite a show of even basic movement, conveying an easily perceptible sense of momentum in their acrobatic lead characters. You can generally tell whether these games work within just a few minutes of motion -- and Outland, like those games, is love at first flight. Housemarque's previous efforts are just as quickly decipherable, with both Super Stardust HD and Dead Nation built on solid twin-stick shooting, but Outland captures attention at mere sight. The graphics are "traditional" in the sense that they elicit a tribal reverence of nature, with gigantic tree silhouettes softly obscuring the vibrant blues, yellows and greens of the background sky. Outland's bold art seems to draw inspiration from Japanese shadow plays (before Nin2-Jump did it) and even Tron, with a dash of Incan history and mystery mixed in. There's an interesting, cyclical element to the story, which sees your warrior-in-training slipping into slumber to experience the life of a previous hero, who counts defeating a pair of evil gods (and climbing the best ladder since Metal Gear Solid 3) among his accomplishments. You're much less powerful when the dream ends, of course, but you wake up with a taste of the abilities you'll unlock in further Metroid-esque exploration of the world. At its most basic level, Outland is about bounding, sliding and falling through the jungle in the quest for coins, switches and the next power-up.%Gallery-103848%
WRUP: Memories of a PAX East 2011 long gone by ...
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game -- and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! This weekend feels weird. You see, I had spent the weekend prior caring for WoW Insider's own Mat McCurley, who was in town for PAX East. He crashed on my couch, along with my good friend Chester. We spent the whole weekend together at PAX East 2011. We caught up with Mike Sacco, played some Rock Band 3, got pancakes at 3am, and even danced with the brave WoW Insider readers who showed up at our impromptu meetup on Saturday night. In short, we had an absolute blast. This weekend, though, there's no convention. There's no Mat McCurley sleeping on my couch, showing me pictures of his cats. It fills me with sadness, because PAX East 2012 is a long way away. In this week's edition of WRUP, we asked our intrepid bloggers whether they saw anything they liked at PAX East last weekend. It's a pretty loaded question, because there's a lot to like. Case in point: The amazing sound of Video Game Orchestra (as seen in the video above).
PAX East 2011: One Massive roundup
PAX East has already begun fading into memory, but there was a lot to see and do over the three days of the convention. Even if we disregard the numerous fan gatherings and community events taking place, there were an awful lot of games on the floor, with showings from MMOs that dwarfed last year's offerings. If you were lucky enough to be there, we can only hope that you had fun and got to see all of the impressive displays. Of course, you may very well have missed one or two things, what with all of the sound and lines and people walking around with a pixel costume. Even if you were sitting at home, you might have missed some of our coverage of this event. Just jump on past the break for a full recap of Massively's coverage of the con, covering everything from the venerable City of Heroes to the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Video: Xbox Live Enforcement at work
Sometimes you just gotta know how that sausage is made and, lucky for us, the Xbox Live Enforcement Team understands this. These banhammer-wielding champions of justice produced a video for PAX East showing exactly how their Vulcan toolset works, which you can see past the break.
PAX East 2011: The future of MMOs from the mouths of the developers
The PAX East panel that almost made me late for the Star Wars: The Old Republic Meet 'n' Greet was a panel hosted by MMORPG.com and featuring some of the heavy hitters in MMO development for this year. I am certainly glad I did not skip this one. This was the chance for the fans to hear what the future of MMOs will bring from the people who are making them. Let me give you a rundown of the panel members -- and tell me you don't just stand in awe of these guys: (from left to right) Curt Schilling, the founder of 38 Studios; Craig Alexander, the VP of Product Development for Turbine; Jeremy Gaffney, Executive Producer at Carbine Studios; Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer for Trion Worlds; Brian Knox, Senior Producer for En Masse Entertainment; James Ohlen, Creative Director for BioWare; and Colin Johanson, Lead Content Designer for ArenaNet. The opening question really set the stage for the panel. It let us know where the minds of these producers and executives are. The question was simple: Where do you see online games going in the next 10 years? Follow after the cut to find out their thought provoking answers.
The Guild Counsel: PAX East panel explores online communities
There were two things that really stood out for me at PAX East: the ridiculously long lines and the throngs of fans who happily sat down together to play games face to face. On the surface, PAX East might seem to be about who has the best card deck or who has the quickest twitch reflexes, but it's actually much more than that. We've looked at the growing importance of online communities and the relationships that have been created by them, so it's little surprise that PAX was full of players who were there to meet and play with friends they met through gaming. And among the many panels this weekend, there was one that explored this very issue. The speakers were all experienced managers of online communities, and they shared their stories of how they got started and why these communities are so important. Read on to hear their stories.
PAX East 2011: Firefall, the non-MMO MMO
Last weekend, one of the biggest booths to dominate the PAX East showroom floor was a game called Firefall by Red 5 Studios. This shooter game has gained a lot of attention in the past because it pulls elements from different games such as Borderlands, Team Fortress 2, and even Halo. However, none of the comparable games is an MMO. Thus, Firefall really stands out among its peers. There are mechanics of this game that really scream "MMO" to the average observer, yet there are very non-MMO designs as well. At PAX, I had a chance to sit down with Red 5's CEO, Mark Kern, to discuss many of the design philosophies behind Firefall -- in particular, I wanted to know why Red 5 doesn't label the game an MMO when it clearly features many of the hallmarks of the genre. "The potential of MMOs is so much broader than the tag would indicate. We are broadening that definition and taking a crowbar to it. If people want to call us an MMO, that's great. We aren't going to call ourselves an MMO, because we want you to think fresh thoughts along with us," Kern explained. I also had a chance to play this unique game, so follow me after the cut as I give my impressions of the game along with some key quotes from my talk with Mark Kern.
LA Noire preview: Perceptive policeman
I've had murder on my mind for the last couple of days. A woman, seemingly cut down in the prime of her life, laid dead and naked on a bluff on the outskirts of LA. She died of blunt trama to the head, her murderer striking her head in the dead of night with what looked like a pipe. The only witness was an ominous full moon. I know this because I watched her murder, only briefly, before LA homicide's newest member, detective Cole Phelps, was assigned the case: The Red Lipstick Murder. Phelps may be new to the murder beat, but his skills of detection are unparalleled, both at the crime scene and when interrogating persons of interest. Sure, it was odd to see him put his hands all over the body, twisting it and analyzing it for clues: a bruise here; a missing wedding ring there; a nearby size 8 man's boot print. Modern detective shows have taught us that touching any evidence is a big no-no, but in 1947, it was the norm -- at least, LA Noire says as much. After stomping around the scene of this gruesome murder, Phelps walks away with a lighter from the Bamba Club and a cause of murder. Odd, since I could've just told him how she died, if only he asked me. %Gallery-119196%
