dev-q-and-a
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Developer Q&A with Wowjuju
Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym emailed WoW Insider yesterday to give us a heads up about a lengthy developer Q&A which was published over at Wowjuju. This is a hugely in-depth interview, so let's dive right in with our synopsis. Classes A couple of questions came up regarding the Monk ability, Zen Pilgrimage. This ability allows monks to travel to the Peak of Serenity in Pandaria, and on re-use, returns the player to their previous location. Death Knights, understandably, were asking for the same to apply to their Death Gate, which takes them to the Ebon Hold, and unceremoniously abandons them there. Monks, conversely, were bemoaning the confusing effect of the ability if they don't use it a second time, and hearthstone back instead. The devs said that both concerns were reasonable, and that they would look into rectifying the issues. WoW Insider thinks that Monks are missing a trick with what could essentially be a second hearthstone! Hunters queried whether the increase in available pets might lead to more stable space, which, to the consternation of sentimental beast masters everywhere, was met with a resounding "No." There was also some discussion of the hunter ability Scatter Shot being dodgeable, while a rogue Blind wasn't. Rogues and hunters work very differently, rogues are reliant on expertise and positioning to avoid being dodged or parried on a plethora of other abilities, so the devs didn't really feel this was a valid comparison.
MechWarrior Online devs field 'Mech customization queries
If you had four developers of a hot upcoming title trapped in a room and could ask them any question you wanted, what would it be? (Please note that if you actually are in this situation, Massively advises releasing the hostages and surrendering to the police.) While there might not be a filthy underground lair involved in MechWarrior Online's latest community Q&A session, the principle is the same. A good bulk of the 27 questions thrown to the four members of Piranha Games' team revolve around 'Mech customization. MechWarrior Online will be pretty flexible in this regard, although not as flexible as pen-and-paper fans might hope. For example, custom decals won't be in the game at launch, as their inclusion would require too much monitoring. Still, if you're trying to get a sense of the scope of MWO's 'Mech customization, this Q&A might impress you. Just because the community could ask doesn't mean that Piranha had to answer, however. When queried about the in-game economy, Creative Director Bryan Ekman put the answer off until later: "We're not ready to go into details on the economics of the game. We plan to cover this in greater detail in the next couple of months via our dev blogs."
MechWarrior Online Q&A gives you six devs for the price of none
MechWarrior Online continues to unleash a steady barrage of new information with today's newly released developer Q&A. Piranha Games has outdone itself with the latest post, which brings you answers from not one, not two, but six MWO developers. The devs begin by giving fans some insight into how BattleMech modules will work to augment pilot abilities; for example players can sacrifice night-vision distance for higher visual detail. The remainder of the Q&A covers a great wealth of different topics, such as intelligence-gathering, the BattleGrid, and -- most importantly -- hula girls. For the full Q&A, just click on through the link below to the MechWarrior Online official forums.
LotRO's Devs of the Roundtable sally forth on Update 5's instance cluster
What's better than one developer sharing the thought process behind a major update to a game? Six. Cut out the middleman and go right to "six," we say. Ergo, it's lightning development caught in a bottle to see a half-dozen Lord of the Rings Online designers and worldbuilders gather together to talk about the instance cluster of the upcoming Update 5. Update 5's five instances -- including an epic raid confrontation with Saruman -- presented unique challenges and exciting opportunities for the team. Worldbuilder Dan Ouellette says that Turbine didn't want to limit itself to merely Orthanc: "After looking at all our ideas we knew we didn't want to have them all in the tower, because that would be a very boring cluster. It's a very small space and in general... just really long." Instead, the team branched out to focus on the surroundings, inner workings, and underneath of Orthanc for the five instances. The different types of instances -- three-, six-, and 12-person -- allowed the team to try out different tricks as well. "It's an exciting and difficult demand when working on a three-man," Content Designer Bob Hess says. "The types of challenges you present to people have to be a little more outside-the-box." It's a smörgåsbord of delectable information, so if you're craving good group content in LotRO, you'll definitely want to scoop this up.
The panel is true: The Secret World preps a NYCC appearance
MMO fans traveling out to the Big Apple for the New York Comic Con next weekend have another potential "must see" on their event list: an exclusive panel of The Secret World with the devs. The panel will take place on Friday, October 14th at 4:00 p.m. EDT in room 1A24. It's here that Funcom devs Ragnar Tørnquist and Dag Scheve will not only present an all-new live demo of the upcoming conspiracy MMO but field questions from the audience in as candid a manner as possible. Of course, considering the game in question, we note that this could be a trap by the Old Gods to swallow the souls of all those attending and turn them into husks to do the Old Gods' bidding, but that's just the chance you'll have to take.
Exclusive community Q&A with the Elsword crew
The makers of the hyper-kinetic Elsword Online have made it their mission to sit down with the community and tackle the pressing questions of the day. In the first of an exclusive series here on Massively, Kill3rCombo devs respond to player questions about the fresh-faced title. Q: How do the developers come up with new content? Do you guys sit around and throw out ideas? Or do you have certain developers come up with their own designs then present them to one another until everyone can agree on one thing? A: There's a game design team within the development team that's responsible for planning and proposing game content. Often, one of the game designers will present his or her ideas to the team and get feedback to help refine the feature. They'll also freely discuss their ideas on our internal message board, a very similar tool to the forum. Every member of the development team has a chance to voice their ideas about new content they'd like to see or how to improve existing content. We also have a team specially dedicated to developing Elsword for North America. The team updates the Korean Elsword content so it's tailored for North American gamers. Everyone on the team has a chance to offer ideas to create a more fun experience for players in North America.
Glamour shots: Rift's visuals crew rock the IRC
Like it or not, a good first impression is often heavily influenced by looks. You could be the most intelligent, gentle, funny person in the world, but no date is going to give you a second chance if you show up to dinner wearing a [NAME OF POP CULTURE ICON YOU LIKE TO RAG ON] t-shirt. Likewise, the dev team at Rift: Planes of Telara is working hard not only to make the game as fun to play as possible, but to make it look fashionably awesome while doing so. Trion World's Scott White (technical art director) and Russ Cahalan (lead animator) fielded questions about Rift's visuals, animations and style in a recent IRC dev chat. The Q&A is chock-full of useful tidbits, such as info about the existence of a weather system, the wide range of emotes, weapon effects (think glowy and drippy!), particle effects, and stances. The duo also discussed the process of creating the animations and world visuals, including the enormous effort that went into making rifts some of the best eyecandy you'll see in an MMO. Cahalan cracked open the door to give players a peek into the range of weapon animations in Rift that will be present: "We don't have any animation sets that will have flexible weapons like chain swords, whips, or flails currently. The player animation sets are currently pushing close to 500 each, and those include 10 different sets per race/gender to cover the weapon categories we have in game. Those cover a pretty wide variety of weapons, and give a good amount of visual variety between players of different races. We do, however, have some weapons that contain motion. But those are generally VERY special weapons, and are highly desirable." You can read the full transcript at Telara Central.
