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Leading a life of crime in Earthrise
Today's post-holiday Question of the Week for Earthrise concerns the game mechanics of being (and killing) criminals in the post-apocalyptic MMO. Players who opt to become felons will build up "Criminal Karma", what seems to be a sort of quantified notoriety. From what the developers are saying, it seems that going outlaw won't be a trivial choice, given such characters will be kill-on-sight in the more secure regions of Enterra island. Also, it may be difficult to wipe the slate clean if a character has a shady past. According to Moll, the Earthrise Community Manager: "Criminals cannot clear their records, nor do they generate additional Karma by killing other criminals in safe zones." She adds that criminals who hunt down other criminals won't do so to repair their faction standings, rather there may be a good chance of obtaining loot by taking out a fellow wrongdoer. However, beyond such scenarios where 'evil fights evil', Earthrise's law-abiding citizens will have incentives for killing the criminals of Enterra; successfully knocking off criminal players will garner them extra Contribution rewards (faction standing).
Masthead Studios CEO explains reputation system in Earthrise
One of the upcoming sci-fi and post-apocalyptic MMOs that Massively is keeping an eye on is Earthrise, the first title from Masthead Studios.They've been very good with communicating with the media about the directions they're taking the game, with interviews each month painting a clearer picture of the upcoming title. The latest such interview we've come across is a brief one at German fan site Earthrise HQ, which spoke with Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov about a few aspects of the game. If you've been reading up on Earthrise, the interview hits some of the topics you'd expect -- the basic concepts of the game, for instance -- but also but heads into some new areas. Atanasov mentions faction capital cities that are expanded upon over time, "using meaningful events that progress not only their visual representation but their story and functionality as well." The interview also hits on the fact that Earthrise will have two reputation systems: Contribution and Reputation. Contribution, Atanasov says, is "the policy of Continoma to discern friend from foe by measuring each citizen's contribution to their system. The second system is Reputation. Numerous smaller organizations exist in Earthrise, each with its own agenda and plans. Players can do tasks for these organizations and grow in Reputation towards them. Organizations provide players with rare resources, monopolized designs that create new, different item combinations, as well as other rewards." For more from the Masthead Studios CEO on Earthrise, head on over to his interview with Earthrise HQ.%Gallery-48760%
Mythic owns up to Warhammer Online contribution problem
In a bid to make us all feel slightly uncomfortable while at the same time explaining the source of the Warhammer Online RvR contribution issue that players recently uncovered, Paul Barnett has posted a new video. The reason we say that the video makes a person slightly uncomfortable is because, well, we've just never seen a developer being wrist-slapped in person before. It's one of those wild things that we all assume happens, but are never privy too. Although really, you can feel the video's mix of "funny ha-ha" and "you're a twit" as you watch it.So it's all mostly on the humorous side with Barnett starting off by explaining that a tiny piece of crazy code originally intended for Public Quests was supposedly removed from the game prior to ship. It turns out that wasn't true, and the code found its way into the RvR influence system only to muck up the whole game from it's cozy new home. Unfortunately, Mythic is only able to say that the patch fix is coming "soon" and leave us hanging until then -- hopefully "then" and "soon" end up being sometime this month.Still, good on Mythic for owning up to the mistake It would've been easy enough for them to just fix the code quietly and move on, but they decided to be honest and upfront with the community instead. You can find Paul's video after the break, or catch Lum's lengthier breakdown of the video on Broken Toys. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Warhammer Online community claims contribution system a sham
One of the first and often touted systems being developed by Mythic for Warhammer Online was contribution. Anyone who's played a through a few Public Quests or Keep captures knows the contribution system is supposed to monitor how everyone plays and then dole out a proper score before a dice roll is applied to give it all a twinge of randomness. Well, a post over at Wizards & Wenches claims that they've discovered the secret formula to contribution: it doesn't exist.The claim -- which has discussions threads at forums, along with screenshots -- is that when a player enters a zone, they are given a dice roll that applies to them until they leave the zone or log out. This means that a player who gets first will continue to do so, no matter what, until another player with a higher roll comes along.
Yuji Naka confirmed to be leaving Sega to form Prope
Back in March, we heard rumblings that Sega stalwart Yuji Naka was planning to leave Sega to start his own studio. Today, that rumor's been confirmed. According to Next Generation, Naka's new company is called Prope, which means "'beside' and 'near' future." Prope's web site (not linked on Next Gen) apparently explains that the name was chosen "in the hopes of bringing game entertainment much closer to users, establishing closer ties between users and us, and creating near future entertainment." We're just happy that Naka is retaining some ties to his old corporate home thanks to a 10% contribution on Sega's part to prop up the emerging new independent studio (a concept which Sega seems to support with its developers). Unfortunately, as the firm "will commit to new IP," you shouldn't expect updates of Sega classic franchises from the old hand anytime soon. It will also be interesting to see who's guiding the new Sonic games as well. Prope will open for business on June 1st. [Thanks, Sense; via 8-bit Ninja] See also: Rumor: Yuji Naka set to leave Sega NiGHTS Into Dreams, onto Revolution? Next-gen Sonic to be "re-invented" for PS3 and Xbox 360
