behind the scenes
Latest
Plants vs. Zombies started as Insaniquarium sequel, PopCap is human
If you, like us, were laboring under the impression that the entity known as "PopCap Games" was some sort of supernatural anti-free time daemon that simply willed release after release of perfectly polished and addictive gameplay into an increasingly submissive world, then you'll probably find this little writeup over at Ars Technica intriguing. Apparently PopCap is just a video game developer, made up of real people who draw ideas out on notepads and tweak them as they see fit. Who knew? For example, its latest runaway hit, Plants vs. Zombies, started out as a sequel to Insaniquarium, but as the gameplay was tuned more towards a tower defense-like setup and the idea arose of regenerating sunlight as a resource for the fight against the undead, the title morphed into the time-killer we know it as today. Of course, there's no doubt that a game that featured locust aliens and "jolly-moustache-potato-men" would have been just as fun, but it's good to know that the minds behind PopCap are, in fact, human. We'd like to use that knowledge to find a weakness and attempt to reclaim our long-missing boredom, but we're too busy playing its games.
Game Informer introduces the minds behind Portal 2
Here's the thing about Portal: we love it so much, we want to know everything about it. Like, the dude that came up with that Test Chamber 14 setup? Yeah, tell us all about him and whether he was upset or proud that somebody figured out how to get through it in five seconds. That's why this Game Informer video is so fascinating. It's a brief documentary on both the DigiPen students and Valve veterans that created Portal -- and are subsequently now working on Portal 2. It's like a video diary of completely attractive and charismatic people you may have a slight unprofessional obsession with. Frankly, they're our heroes ... even if Garrett admitted to LARPing at one point in his life.
Turbine offers up a dev diary and screens for Oath of the Rangers
We got the first details on the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online book, titled Oath of the Rangers, earlier this week. Now, to add to the excitement, Turbine has followed up on the initial information by releasing a handful of screens and an excellent developer's diary. Flowing mightily from the keyboard of Jeff 'MadeOfLions' Libby, the diary gives Lord of the Rings Online fans much to discuss. Aside from the talk of storylines and a new skirmish, there's a really great behind-the-scenes portion about how precisely the LotRO team sets up something called "drama sequences." Essentially, these scripted sequences tailor NPC dialogue to you based on your own personal quest history -- bringing you info the story. There's also some information on ways the team is seeking to make travel a bit easier for the casual players, or more rewarding for those who take the long path. If Middle-earth is the place you call home, then you'll definitely want to check out the new screens we've gathered up for you as well as the enlightening developer diary over on the LotRO site. %Gallery-84675%
Designing the apocalypse: behind the scenes of Fallen Earth
We know that the development teams at our favorite MMOs work hard at game creation, but we're equally aware of how much they love their jobs. It's a dream job, and while development of a new game can be tough and stressful, more often than not it's lots of fun. Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in the studio? What mishaps do the developers run across during the process, and what great ideas never make it to launch day? We talked to the team at Fallen Earth, and they generously shared some of their greatest bloopers and favorite ideas. Read along after the cut, and enjoy!
The making of the Gunship Battle encounter
Last night, Blizzard unveiled a new behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the Gunship Battle encounter in Icecrown Citadel. Although it's light on technical details, it's an interesting look at how they reasoned through both the mechanics and lore of the fight. They wanted something epic that allowed for some of the ship-to-ship combat that players have asked for, and it was a great opportunity to integrate the ICC raid with one of Icecrown's most important quest hubs. I've gone on record before saying that this is one of Blizzard's best and most unique fights, and it's particularly fun if you're part of the "away team" making the jumps to and from the enemy ship. That really nails the "controlled chaos" angle they were aiming for. If you're part of the "home team" defending your own ship, I'll grant that the fight feels a little more by-the-numbers. Oddly enough, this is one of the few encounters where the achievement version (I'm On A Boat) actually makes it less engaging, as most raids assign static teams to the ships and either kite Saurfang/Bronzebeard or swap taunts. However, if you've already got the achievement or just aren't worrying about it for the moment, all the joys of a personal explosives pack are yours for the taking. If you're not part of a raiding guild but get a shot at doing ICC, go for it; the first two bosses aren't too tough, and the gunship battle is an absolute hoot.
Spock!
We recently showed you a video of Zachary Quinto -- Spock Reloaded, if you will -- doing voice work for Star Trek Online. Quinto won't be reprising his role as the famous Vulcan though, and will instead guide new players through the tutorial as an Emergency Medical Hologram. Now we've come across footage of Leonard Nimoy lending his voice as well for Cryptic's massively multiplayer take on the Star Trek IP. He'll be providing the narration that brings players up to date with events in Star Trek Online's setting. Stick with us past the jump for footage of Leonard Nimoy (and clips from the game) in a behind-the-scenes video for Star Trek Online.
ArenaNet gives us a sneak peek at the voices of Guild Wars 2
Just when you thought we'd already gotten our excellent holiday treat from ArenaNet in the form of that amazingly gorgeous Guild Wars 2 trailer, they decided to add in a behind-the-scenes video for us to enjoy! This new video titled "Giving Tyria a Voice" offers a look at the people making the characters of Guild Wars 2 come alive. Additionally, we're treated to their thoughts on what their characters are all about -- shedding a bit more light on what we can look forward to in terms of story and atmosphere. When coupled with the art from the recently released races trailer, this is a must-watch video for anyone curious about how the game is progressing.The voice talent tagged for Guild Wars 2 is an amazing lineup of well-known, veteran voice actors. The people we meet in this trailer are Steve Blum, Troy Baker, Kari Wahlgren and geektastic favorite, Felicia Day, one of the stars of The Guild. With a rich pool of talent like this, coupled with award-winning artists and a studio dedicated to creating top-notch content for their fans, Guild Wars 2 is definitely shaping up to be an incredible game. But don't take our word for it -- check out the behind-the-scenes video from ArenaNet we've conveniently included after the break!
Watch the making of Halo 3: ODST live-action short
Like us, you've probably been wondering what sort of work (apart from directing people in costumes and laying on the special effects) went into Microsoft's now-legendary Halo 3: ODST live-action short, "The Life." Its creators must have anticipated our curiosity because they've put together a short-but-sweet behind the scenes video, which includes a rough cut of a scene that didn't make it into the final production. The micro-documentary also reveals some surprising trivia about the shoot, including the fact that the opening funeral scene was shot inside the cooling tower of an operating nuclear power plant. Oh, and the battle sequence? They filmed it at the bottom of a coal strip-mine. Really? We could have swarn it was New Mombasa.
Christian Bale would get pissed off at this Borderlands video
Looks like someone at Gearbox Software watched a bit too many YouTube videos this summer. This "behind the scenes" video of the upcoming Borderlands reveals almost nothing of the game's development process. Instead, we get to see the game's robotic mascot, Claptrap, live up to his namesake by going on a rant that would make the Terminator Salvation star proud. Or really pissed off. That guy is crazy.
Behind the scenes of the Dragon Queen costume
It's totally fun to browse through the costume gallery or the pictures of the costume contest we took last weekend and marvel at the different costumes that showed up at BlizzCon, but what you don't see in those shots is all of the hard work that went into making each outfit. Sure, there are probably some store-bought purchases in there, but for the most part, each costume was assembled with lots of hard work and care, most of the time by the person actually wearing it.Mariecannabis is the woman wearing this Alexstrasza costume that we saw at the costume contest, and she has posted a gallery over on Flickr showing some of the behind-the-scenes work of making the molds and putting the costume together. The end costume looks great, but the process is all shapes and molds and paint and construction -- fascinating to see how it all comes together. And while this costume is terrific, it does make you wonder about the stories behind some of the even more complex costumes up there.Stay tuned for more -- we'll be seeking out a few of the best costumes we saw at BlizzCon, and we'll show you some more of their stories in the future here on WoW.com. It's fun to see all of those on the show floor, but you sometimes don't realize just how much work and time is actually put into them.%Gallery-70720%%Gallery-70668%
The next APB behind the scenes video podcast is online
The APB developers over at Realtime Worlds are continuing their behind the scenes video podcast series in episode 8, "Spoiler Alert." No, no, they're not talking about storyline spoilers or people who scream "Ozymandias did it!" when they come out of Watchmen. (Yes, I'm that evil.) They're talking about car spoilers.This week the crew goes out to the Scottish Modified Car Show, all in order to point out how much customization is available for cars in the game. From decals, to new parts, to color, all of the cars in APB will have some extreme customization options that will allow players to really express themselves. Well, express themselves more past shooting one another over and over while slinging taunts.The full video is available for your viewing pleasure at MMORPG.com.
The birth of a Blu-ray: inside the manufacturing plant
Were you ever curious as to how a Blu-ray disc is manufactured? NEWS.com.au took a rare look into one of Sony's DADC factories and took some snapshots detailing the disc's journey from plastic crystal pieces all the way to the finished product. As you can see here, the factory is hard at work on the PAIN Blu-ray game, which is available exclusively in Europe.To see the entire gallery, click here.[Via Blu-ray.com]
The Guild shooting season 3, fires director (not really)
Our friends over at The Guild are hard at work on season 3 -- if you've been following their Twitter feeds, you'll have seen that shooting is underway en masse, and while we haven't yet heard when they'll be done, it sounds like they're already keeping some long hours over there. Such long hours, in fact, that tempers are apparently flaring on the set -- as you can see above, director and editor Sean Becker has become a victim of Felicia Day's (substantial?) wrath, and been fired from the show.Ok, not really -- they're just joking around. But even if he's kidding about what's in that "guild 3 master" box, we at least know there is a season 3 master, and that sooner than ever, we'll be able to see just what happened when Codex took that out-of-body sprint at the end of season 2. Can't wait to see it.
Waiting on StarCraft II? Blame WoW
Like many other Blizzard fans, you're probably super excited about the upcoming release of StarCraft II -- it was "about time" when we first heard about the game, and now, this close to actually having the game out, anticipation is higher than ever. So why have you been waiting so long? According to Eurogamer's latest interview with Rob Pardo, you can blame none other than World of Warcraft for the delay. He and StarCraft II's lead designer both confirm that quite a bit of the RTS team were called back in to working on Blizzard's MMO. Artists and class and map balance guys alike were put back on WoW, resulting in the StarCraft title's delay for more than a year. Taken at face value, they're saying you could have started playing the new RTS last November if it wasn't for the whole Azeroth thing.It's worth noting, though, that when they say "working on WoW," they don't mean developing the Crusaders' Coliseum or even Outland -- they're talking about the original design of World of Warcraft for the release way back in 2004. Even though Blizzard didn't announce the next StarCraft until a few years ago in 2007, production actually started seriously (with multiplayer first, strangely enough) right after the launch of WoW, in 2005. Which makes the choice all the more intriguing: they decided to delay the RTS even before they knew WoW would be the runaway success that it is today.Guess the choice paid off. The beta of StarCraft II should be kicking off any day now (you all got keys at last year's BlizzCon, remember?), so even though that year delay was caused by WoW way back at launch, we'll see if they've had the time since to make a game that'll meet players' expectations.
Behind the scenes with "that SWTOR cinematic trailer"
Sure, the Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer from E3 may have been lacking in the gameplay department, but that didn't stop it absolutely rocking the socks off anyone that saw it. The people that made that possible are from Blur Studio, specialists in CG animation for games, films, and commercials. The IGN video above features an interview with Derron Ross, an animation supervisor for the company. He explains that although you might not realize it in the final products, a ton of the highest quality game videos are from Blur -- as an example, one of the early Warhammer Online trailers that a lot of you will have seen is from them. Ross goes on to describe what it takes to create something with such dangerously high levels of awesomeness.If this little behind-the-scenes look at the SWTOR trailer has you craving more CG goodness, Blur's website has links to a ton of their other works for your viewing pleasure.
More inFamous comic pages available to read now
The inFamous comic continues today with another seven pages, which we've added to our gallery below. You can either start reading the comic from the beginning or start directly from the new pages. We've put them in the correct order in our gallery, so just click through and enjoy. If the comic's story and gorgeous art style -- which mirrors inFamous' in-game cutscenes -- hasn't persuaded you to grab this game when it comes out next week, be sure to check out our review. There's also a behind-the-scenes video to watch after the break. %Gallery-63066%
Behind the scenes with Guitar Hero: Metallica
On March 29, Metallica thrashes into Guitar Hero ... axes blazing behind more than two decades of rock. Or for the less dramatic, Guitar Hero: Metallica is totally coming out soon. Ever wonder what goes into developing a game, starring one of the world's most famous bands? Three new "Behind the Scenes" trailers with interviews and capture session footage with James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo cover that very topic.Watch as the band rocks in mo-cap gear (video above), discuss the opportunity to introduce a new generation to their music and finally becoming rock stars after all these years (videos after the break).
Killzone 2 behind the scenes episode 2 released
"You're not welcome here." That's the message Guerilla Games is trying to send to you all throughout Killzone 2, according to the various members of the team who speak in this second episode of the behind-the-scenes documentary. They discuss the world of Helghan, the ideology of its people and how that's reflected in the architecture. Check out the video after the break to hear it and to see some more in-game footage. It won't tide you over until the game's release this Friday, but it's a start.
RuneScape introduces new phoenix combat pet and more
Mod Mark, the Lead Designer for Jagex's RuneScape, has written a new Behind the Scenes article for January in which he describes the changes coming down the pipe for RuneScape. There's mention of a new phoenix combat pet that will have the ability to fire ashes at your enemies. The Achievement Diaries are also releasing this month; this time set in the peaceful Seer's Village and the surrounding areas. As with previous Achievement Diaries, this one was created to show the hidden or non-quest activities in the area. In addition to these large additions, some minor changes will be made to the game. Check out the complete article for more information on all changes that have arrived or will be arriving in the month of January.
Massively interviews Clear Skies creator Ian Chisholm
One of the most significant works of machinima created in recent years is Clear Skies, an unconventional amalgam of the gritty, far future setting of EVE Online tempered with a more human touch, imbued with life through clever writing and exacting manipulation of Half-Life 2 character models. Fans and critics alike have praised Clear Skies since its release. Indeed, the film recently took top honors at Machinima Filmfest 2008, garnering a Mackie award for Best Long Format Film. This success at the festival was met with astonishment from Clear Skies creator Ian Chisholm as well as from his collaborators, John Guthrie and Richie Powles. But it was decidedly less of a surprise to the many fans of the film, a seemingly ever-growing number judging by the number of times Clear Skies has been downloaded from EVE-Files. Massively recently caught up with Clear Skies creator Ian Chisholm, who was gracious enough to provide us with a sequence of production stills from Clear Skies 2, explaining how he brings a scene to life in stages from voice recording, to choreography, to the culmination of this work in the final footage. While we had his attention, Ian also discussed what drives a man to dedicate years of his life to a project of this caliber, and what he has in store for us with Clear Skies 2.%Gallery-36336%
