BigWorld
Latest
John De Margheriti leaves BigWorld
BigWorld, the Australian middleware platform developer that was recently acquired by Wargaming.net, will have a new man at the helm as CEO and co-founder John De Margheriti steps down. Taking over the job as director will be the company's other co-founder, Steve Wang. Passing along BigWorld's leadership reins will not, however, end De Margheriti's involvement in the gaming industry. He plans to remain active by providing consulting services to Wargaming.net and the non-profit Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE), an Australian 3-D animation, game design, and visual FX educator. Of the recent purchase of BigWorld, De Margheriti said, "I believe that BigWorld is a great fit for Wargaming, and the acquisition is a very smart move by this growing global giant. They now have secured the best online games platform on the market." [Source: BigWorld press release]
Wargaming acquires BigWorld for $45 million
In what Chief Executive Victor Kislyi explained as a means to remain in control of the studio's own destiny, Wargaming.net has acquired BigWorld, an Australian online-game software maker, for $45 million. The move was to bring one of the publisher's critical tools in-house; previously, BigWorld supplied Wargaming with with its technology platform. Kislyi states, "This [is] very crucial for us, as we want to control the technology provider we are using. Now we can integrate them to make internal development more efficient." Wargaming, which publishes the popular free-to-play World of Tanks along with the upcoming World of Warplanes and World of Warships (previously known as World of Battleships), has been using BigWorld nearly five years. The move will lower the production costs of the two new titles and adds new employees to the company. Kislyi assures that Wargaming will continue to support Bigworld's current customers and indicates that in the future, the studio may be in the position to offer technology of the combined companies to others wanting to develop an MMO.
Origins of Malu shows off combat and house-building in video interview
Seeing is believing, and folks want to see more of Origins of Malu, a promising upcoming sandbox MMORPG. In answer to this, Burning Dog Media has released an E3 video interview with Lead Developer Jason Mitchell interspersed with alpha footage highlighting a bit of combat as well as the house-building feature. Although some of the footage will look familiar from our exclusive E3 interview, there are added combat scenes and a brief demonstration of housing construction. Jason adds a few details about the twitch-based combat such as the ability to dodge and the charging feature for skills. At 3:28, viewers get their first glimpse of the beginnings of creating unique personal structures in game; creative types are going to have fun with the open functionality of construction by which you build literally from the ground up. Sounds promising, no? Go ahead and take a gander at the new footage after the break, and be sure to read our interview for more details. [Source: Burning Dog Media press release]
One Shots: Heavy Metal
While there are more than enough fun types of MMOs out there, there are precious few in which you can rampage around the country in several tons of virtual steel and blow up other people in heavy machinery. Add in the historical aspects of different tanks from wars past, and World of Tanks is definitely a refreshing change from the everyday hack-and-slash MMO fare out there! That's why we're so glad to see today's One Shots sent in to us from Makikou, who tells us a bit more about this image: "What we are seeing is a German Tier 10 Super-Heavy Tank in the middle of about 11 wrecks, kind of a 'Last Tank Standing' situation. [It] also features a neat custom skin." If you're playing a game we don't get to see often then why not send in some screenshots for us! We're always on the lookout for locales we haven't seen recently. Email those images in to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing in the picture. We'll post it out here on Massively and give you the credit! %Gallery-112285%
Grandia Online coming this summer
BigWorld have formally announced the latest game build on their BigWorld Technology Suite, Grandia Online. Grandia Online is the latest in the Grandia series of games that started with the Grandia RPG on the Sega Saturn and has continued with two sequels and several spin off games on a range of consoles and the PC. Grandia Online is set before the story in the first game, but in the same game world. This release comes after a long development during which it wasn't always clear that the game would actually be released. The game was first announced in 2004 with beta testing announced for September 2006 with development by GameArts, but development transferred to GungHo Online Entertainment in early 2007. Development has since reverted back to GameArts, with GungHo Online Entertainment remaining as publisher.The title is expected to enter open beta this month, with a full release for the later in the summer on PC.
38 Studios to use NaturalMotion's Morpheme engine
38 Studios, the star-studded development studio working on a mysterious MMO codenamed Copernicus, has announced that it will use an animation engine called Morpheme. Morpheme has also been used in EVE Online and Heavenly Sword. Its creator is a company called NaturalMotion, which also created the related and acclaimed Euphoria engine used in Grand Theft Auto IV and the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.Jon Laff, 38 Studios' chief technology officer, was quoted in the press release saying, "Morpheme allows us to create very high-quality character animations quickly, cutting down on a lot of intensive animation design and implementation time." Uh, good! Wouldn't want you to pick middleware that slows you down instead!So for those who are keeping track: Copernicus now uses BigWorld, Unreal Engine 3, and Morpheme. It's got the trifecta!
Sneak peak at 38 Studios and Curt Schilling's "Copernicus" this Thursday
From Crackle: Next Time on The Jace Hall Show! The code behind 38 Studios' "Copernicus" will start to unravel this Thursday on the Jace Hall Show. Red Sox Ace, Curt Schilling will be making an appearance and a glimpse from the top-secret fantasy MMOG "Copernicus." is due for a debut. For those that don't know Curt Schilling is a passionate MMOG player, casting his first roots in EverQuest over five years ago. Schilling started 38 Studios to focus on a main passion and create MMOGs with amazing talent as his baseball career winds down. The eclectic and veteran talented crew over at 38 Studios have been hard at work for over a year now on the super-secret title which utilizes the BigWorld and Unreal technologies.If you are a fan of MMOG discussion, Curt Schilling is an active poster on the FohGuild forums. Be sure to check out Schilling's post history for thoughts relating to his philosophy on MMOG design.[Via Kotaku]
38 Studios welcomes Thom Ang as Director of Art
Noted industry artist Thom Ang has started work at 38 Studios as Director of Art, according to a press release from the company. He has joined company founder and pro baseball player Curt Schilling, comic book artist Todd McFarlane, and fantasy author R.A. Salvatore to work on Copernicus, a secretive MMO project.Ang has previously been employed by THQ, where he worked on several titles including Disney adaptations, and Electronic Arts, where he worked on the Medal of Honor series. He's just another of many samples of veteran blood the studio has attracted.Details about Copernicus are hush-hush. We know 38 Studios is using the BigWorld and Unreal engine technologies. There have been hints in interviews about the direction the project is taking. That's about it, though.
ION 08: MMOs and the television content model (SGW)
Joseph Ybarra, SVP of strategic operations at Firesky, the publishing subsidiary of Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, presented a session today at ION 08 about the Stargate Worlds production model that borrows heavily from Hollywood and TV models. The goal for SGW is to approach content updates for the game more like a production cycle for television, in which an episode takes a predictable amount of time to complete (14-16 weeks in the case of Stargate Atlantis). After some background on Firesky and CME, Ybarra showed the Stargate Worlds trailer and launched into a discussion of the strategy with SGW. The idea is to adopt a movie model for the development phase and a TV model for the post-launch "live" phase. They chose to use the BigWorld middleware platform and Unreal Engine technologies in an effort to use proven tools: "don't reinvent the wheel." This allows them to both minimize risk and focus on the content.
38 Studios using BigWorld to make its big world
What do you get when you get when you combine a major league baseball player (Curt Schilling), a famed fantasy author (R.A. Salvatore), and a great comic book guru (Todd McFarlane)? You get 38 Studios, and 38 Studios is working on a new MMO codenamed "Copernicus."Now the studio has licensed the BigWorld engine for Copernicus. Since the game is at a very early stage of development, we know very little about it at this point, except that its prestigious managers are optimistic about its future. Reps from both 38 Studios and BigWorld made nondescript statements saying things like, "BigWorld provides the most proven, robust, and technically solid game engine available," and "we are thrilled to be working with such a professional and talented group of game developers." Good for them!Brett Close described the rationale behind the choice in greater detail in an interview with Ten Ton Hammer. Excellent server-side tech and tools that will help the team get the game to market as fast as possible were the given reasons.
Sierra making "mass-market" online game with BigWorld suite
It seems like every time we hear about a new title, the first thing we hear is an announcement about what engine or dev tools its developers will use. This time, Sierra has licensed the BigWorld Suite, parts of which are also used in Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's Stargate Worlds and John Romero's forthcoming MMO project.The announcement was made by BigWorld Technologies, not Sierra, and it didn't reveal much about the nature of the game, except that it it will be (according to Gamasutra) "targeting a mass-market audience." King's Quest Online? Probably not, but if only! If you want to know more about BigWorld, Ten Ton Hammer did a great interview with one of the guys behind it earlier this year. Oh, and just so you know; Sierra is/was owned by Vivendi Games, and so is (like Blizzard) now part of the epic corporate monstrosity known as Activision Blizzard. All your studio are belong to us.
Citizen Zero canceled, Micro Fort working on spy MMO
Citizen Zero has been canceled. After nearly seven crippled years in development, Micro Forté has dragged the gimpy MMO out back and put a bullet in the poor thing -- for the better. We haven't heard a peep outta Citizen Zero since 2004, when Micro Forté revised the storyline from the initial framework proposed in 2000. Citizen Zero was to be a showcase for the company's middleware BigWorld Technology, which is now being used in upcoming MMO Stargate Worlds.Micro Forté has apparently shifted focused to a spy MMO. It's unclear if this is the same project that was revealed by Sony executive Yair Landau during his D.I.C.E. keynote. According to Landau, SOE's Seattle studio is the primary developer, but perhaps SOE has licensed BigWorld for the game. We'll keep you posted.
House of Flying Daggers MMO in development
An online game based on Zhang Yimou's colorful martial arts film, House of Flying Daggers, is expected to be released in China early next year by T2CN. The game is being produced by Woncore Communications using MMO middleware from BigWorld (Dark & Light, Stargate Worlds), and there are no current plans to make it available outside the Chinese market. However, given the popularity of international star Zhang Ziyi and Japanese-Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro (not to mention Andy Lau), Flying Daggers could make its way to other Asian countries. Gameplay details are non-existent at this point, but those familiar with the film might remember that the conflict between the story's two factions was never resolved. Which side would you choose?House of Flying Daggers is one of 21 online games that were selected for the Made in China Online Game Project, which was established by China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) to promote domestic game development. GAPP is reportedly investing RMB 2 billion (app. US$250 million) in this initiative, which also involves setting up four national online gaming bases in Shanghai, Beijing, and the provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan.See also: China online gaming trends
