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S'all about style, baby: Carbine Studios' Matt Mocarski on art and design
Nothing seems to stem the tide of dev diaries flowing out of NCSoft's Carbine Studios, and that's just fine by us. Today we have a new post from Carbine's art director Matt Mocarski regarding the visual style of their upcoming title, and which just so happens to include a sneak peek at a screenshot from the title's upcoming debut trailer (which you can see as the header to this post). According to Mocarski, the team began work on the project with a simple goal for the art: It had to be unique and iconic; something that would be instantly recognizable as belonging to Carbine's MMO. With that in mind, the artists began drawing on the collective influences of the team, specifically American and European comics and American and Japanese animation, and came together with an art style that would be unique and memorable for their future fantasy game. It took a few iterations, but eventually the team settled on what Mocarski describes as an illustrated and hand-crafted style. Judging by the still provided, we think it's going to be quite interesting to see the team's work in motion when the game premieres at Gamescom next week.
NCsoft shares its Gamescom schedule with the public
Gamescom is barreling right at us, and NCsoft is prepared to ride that train for all it's worth. The game publisher, along with ArenaNet and Carbine Studios, has announced its schedule of events for the European trade show later this month. Guild Wars 2 will, of course, feature heavily in the company's presentations. Along with several big-screen live demos, ArenaNet plans to host several Q&A panels covering design, art, PvP, and more. There's even a costume competition planned and several chances to score sweet loot from the dev team. The NCsoft booth will be located in Hall 9 at A11, and the company has provided several ways that travelers can keep track of the weekend's events via social media. Visitors will have the opportunity to check out these new games in addition to chatting up the many developers who will be on hand for the event.
Carbine Studios dev blog details usability testing
Though we still have absolutely no idea what exactly Carbine Studios' next project is, that's not going to stop the studio from talking to us about it. Carbine's Senior Producer, Eric DeMilt, has released a dev diary regarding the ongoing development of the studio's super-secret project. In particular, the diary details usability testing. Players are able to test the game in a testing lab on-site, where the devs are able to watch players as they play in order to gauge their reactions to certain content. Players also are asked to complete a short survey afterward, which provides Carbine with a wealth of valuable information regarding difficulty, user-friendliness, and the overall quality of the game. Mr. DeMilt's full blog post can be read over at Carbine Studios' official site.
Looking for the hit formula: NCsoft's Jeremy Gaffney on creating successful MMOs
Jeremy Gaffney knows MMOs, having spent a great portion of his life working at Turbine and NCsoft, so when he speaks about building successful games, he's not just spitballing -- he's got experience in his back pocket and forward-thinking in the palm of his hand. Speaking with Develop, Gaffney gave clear, practical advice about how MMO studios can pull ahead and succeed in this cutthroat market. Like many gamers, Gaffney is concerned with the growing aversion to risk-taking that studios exhibit as MMO gaming's gone more mainstream. "I worry, for example, that mass market equals mass budget equals risk aversion equals conservative design. The great thing about the early MMOs – games like Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, EverQuest and Lineage – was the fact they experimented; they weren't afraid to take different directions," he says. Even so, Gaffney is excited for the possibilities in the industry, simply because there are so many of them. Whether studios choose to develop for the mainstream or niche, console or mobile markets, using free-to-play or subscription business models, he sees avenues for success in all of them: "The common denominator will always be the gamer. And with gamers comes diversity, especially now." Gaffney's Carbine Studios is hard at work on an as-of-yet unnamed MMO which will be revealed at Gamescom later this month.
NCsoft's Carbine Studios to reveal new MMO at Gamescom
NCSoft announced today that Jeremy Gaffney, Executive Producer of NCSoft's Carbine Studios has confirmed that the studio's latest project is to be revealed next month at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. Gaffney has many titles to his name, having worked on Asheron's Call, City of Heroes/Villains, and a number of other online titles. What is this super-secret mystery project? Well, we don't know, otherwise we'd have already told you now, wouldn't we? However, the press release assures us that the reveal "promises to be different from the standard game project announcement," and will take place as doors open at Gamescom. Can't make it to Gamescom? Don't worry, the studio will also be strutting its stuff at PAX Prime this August where Massively will have its own presence to take a look at whatever this new project happens to be. Stay tuned and we'll be sure to let you know exactly what it is the second we know. In the meantime, you can check out Mr. Gaffney's inaugural blog post to get a taste of what the team is aiming for.
NCsoft's Gaffney: Subscriptions more profitable than microtransactions
Jeremy Gaffney may not be a household name to MMO fans, but the Carbine Studios head honcho has been involved in some of the industry's biggest titles as both a developer and an executive. Gaffney helped found Turbine in the Asheron's Call days and also worked on both City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa at NCsoft. In a new interview at GamesIndustry.biz, Gaffney talks at length about his industry experiences as well as several hot-button issues including mobile MMOs, mega-launches, and the free-to-play vs. subscription debate. "There's still a lot of money being made in subscriptions right now. Worldwide there's a lot of money being made in [micro]transactions, but there's probably a bit more money really being made in subscriptions worldwide," he explains. Gaffney also weighs in on the market segmentation brought about by F2P models and whether MMO mega-launches can still be profitable in a post-World of Warcraft world. Read all about it at GamesIndustry.biz.
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.
Ask Massively: It's beginning to look a lot like I'm not getting a new keyboard just yet edition
I'm going to blame my guildmate Sindharin from World of Warcraft for this. She was the one who first gave me the push I needed to buy a Naga, and now I want the darn Anansi already, but I can't seem to order the bloody thing just yet. I just look at the pictures and it sits there, taunting me. Daring me with what I could do. And since I have to blame someone, I blame her. The other option involves personal responsibility. Leaving aside what I'm definitely not getting as a present on Saturday, it's time for Ask Massively, and that means questions are being asked, because what is coming with the holidays is the chance to sit down with friends and family, or even just the time to start thinking about what you want to see from the gaming world next year. So hop on past the break, and you can feel free to leave your own questions in the comment field or send them along to ask@massively.com.
Carbine Studio's Victoria Moran discusses the MMO industry from a female perspective
Zomg! A reel grrrl! How many times have we heard that in team chat or Vent? The stale joke that girls don't exist in online games (at least real ones) is becoming a thing of the past as the ESA reports that in 2009, 40% of all gamers are female. That percentage is considerably lower for women working in the gaming industry, yet the road has been paved and the stage is set for more women to break into the industry. So how does a person actually "break" into the industry, anyway?Over at Killer Betties, they caught up with Victoria Moran, Associate Systems Designer at NCsoft's Carbine Studios. In this interview, Victoria discusses her history as a gamer and how she landed her job at Carbine. She also talks quite candidly about misconceptions she may face, as well as advantages or disadvantages of being a female game designer. There are even some little tidbits of info in there about Carbine's new MMO project!
A nearly complete list of MMO companies on Twitter
Not surprisingly, when a complete list of videogame companies and developers on Twitter is compiled, MMO devs and companies take up a large chunk of the list. We would expect nothing less from such online socially-orientated companies.The list -- created by Sam "QforQ" Houston, community manager GamerDNA -- is a great resource for anyone looking to keep up to date with companies like SOE, BioWare, NCsoft, 38 Studios, ArenaNet, Blizzard, Carbine Studios, FunCom, CCP Games, Flying Lab Software, Mythic Entertainment and many more. It's an impressive list, although being Massively meant we had to double-check it for missing links. As such, we found that there was no Cryptic Studios love in there. So, for the sake of completion, we've gone ahead and provided the link for any fans of Champions Online or Star Trek Online.
Original Fallout designer expresses concern for Fallout MMO
What could possibly be a bad idea about an impending MMO based in the Fallout universe? We've heard the rumors, and we're very excited about the possibilities. So why would it be a bad idea? Well, according to original Fallout designer and newly-promoted Carbine Studios Design Director Tim Cain, "It's not necessarily the direction I would've gone."Cain's main concern with a Fallout MMO is that the original game was designed to make you feel like you were living in a post-apocalyptic world. In other words, there's not going to be 100+ other players running around you killing (Oh God, please no!) the same 10 boars as you in the same area. Although Cain doesn't really offer any alternatives to this, would a Guild Wars-style instanced world be the solution? We'll have to wait and see what Interplay has up their sleeves.
Fallout's Tim Cain promoted for unnamed Carbine MMO
NCsoft's Carbine Studios has just announced the promotion of Tim Cain from programming director to design director for an unannounced project that is in the works. Tim Cain, for anyone keeping score at home, is the former producer and designer for Fallout and Fallout 2, and has been with Carbine Studios since its inception in 2005. Before you get too excited about Carbine's MMO project being a Fallout-themed MMO, that has already been claimed by Interplay.So what does this promotion really mean for Cain? Our friends at Joystiq pondered this very question and asked Cain to clarify: "As the programming director, I was responsible for trying to realize the ideas of the design director. I would take his requests for features and system specifications and coordinate my team of programmers to create those features and systems. If game development was a train, I was shoveling the coal into the engine to keep it chugging along. Now as the design director, I am the conductor of the train. I get to decide where we go and where we stop."We wish Cain the best of luck in his new position as we anxiously await more information on this new project.
Tim Cain becomes design director for unannounced NCsoft title
NCsoft's Carbine Studios announced today that Fallout and Fallout 2 producer and designer Tim Cain has been named design director for the company's unannounced project. Carbine has pretty much been off the radar since last year when the studio was first announced and Tim Cain had the title of programmer director.We're not that well versed in nit-picky game designer titles, so we actually asked Tim Cain what his new title means. Cain writes us: "As the programming director, I was responsible for trying to realize the ideas of the design director. I would take his requests for features and system specifications and coordinate my team of programmers to create those features and systems. If game development was a train, I was shoveling the coal into the engine to keep it chugging along. Now as the design director, I am the conductor of the train. I get to decide where we go and where we stop."Now we patiently wait on a name for this secret project that's apparently been in development since the studio's inception in 2005.
Massively's chat with Jess Lebow of Carbine Studios
You may not be familiar with Carbine Studios, the new home of games industry veteran Jess Lebow. That's not too surprising as Carbine is still in stealth mode, working furiously on a project that we couldn't touch on at all in a recent discussion with the company's Lead Quest Designer. Mr. Lebow has had a storied past in the industry, just the same, and our discussion touched on a number of different issues.Join us as we quiz Jess Lebow on his work with Dungeons and Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast, reflect on his time sailing with Flying Lab, and look ahead to what the future of the industry might hold. Plus, for Guild Wars fans, a few insights into what the granddaddy of the setting thinks about how his offspring is doing nowadays.
Will Carbine Studios produce another WoW?
We have often speculated about who will step up to dethrone World of Warcraft in the MMO gaming market, and it appears that we finally may have a contender: Carbine Studios. What makes this particular Aliso Viejo-based development studio so unique isn't what they are working on -- another MMORPG with what appear to be sword-wielding aliens-- but who they are. The dev team is made up of some of the best and brightest in the industry, including Kevin Beardslee, a lead designer on WoW. In fact, there are now 17 former Blizzard employees working under the Carbine label, and this bodes well for the creation of a game strong enough to rival the WoW powerhouse. NCSoft is very proud to have these guys working for them, and if the concept work is any indication, this might finally be the game that could become the next king of the MMO mountain.
Carbine Studios and their super secret MMORPG
NCSoft announced on Thursday that there is a new kid in town in the MMO biz: Carbine Studios. Located in lovely Aliso Viejo, CA, Carbine is rumored to be working on an MMO, but won't release my else in the way of info on the project. What makes Carbine so fascinating is who they have on their staff. 17 former Blizzard employees are now working under the Carbine name, including lead World of Warcraft designer Kevin Beardslee. If you listen to the music track available on their downloads page --a track intriguingly entitled "The Awakening"--then you will definitely feel a Blizzard vibe from their work. I snooped a bit around their website, and managed to dig up that they are looking for a Lead Level Designer who maintains "a passion for playing / creating quality video games particularly MMO and RPGs." It would seem that the former Blizzard boys are trying to give the WoW giant a run for their money. The concept art definitely reminds me of Azuremist Isle, at least the two pieces they have released so far.Does this mean there will finally be a contender in the battle to dethrone WoW? Only time will tell. Check back with us here at Massively for the latest on this tantalizing company.
NCSoft unveils Carbine, armed with former WoW, Fallout devs
MMO factory NCSoft today took the wrapping paper off of Carbine Studios, its latest developer. According to the press release, Carbine has some very apt cogs in its machinery deriving from 17 former Blizzard employees, "including lead and senior developers from the World of Warcraft team," including lead designer Kevin Beardslee, who is now the vice president of design.Additionally, former Fallout designer Tim Cain has been tapped to be the programmer director. Carbine is currently working on an unannounced MMO, according to their website. No other details have been revealed, but the team definitely has a powerhouse of employees. [Via Gamasutra]
