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Official Champions DevBlog: Jack Emmert on "Why do another superhero game?"
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Jack_Emmert_Explains_Why_make_a_new_superhero_MMO'; Welcome, faithful readers, to the first of a series of developer blogs that will be hosted on Massively.com. In conjunction with the good people at Cryptic Studios, Massively will be playing host to insights directly from the developers themselves! We should be seeing a developer post about twice a month between now and the launch of Champions Online. If you're interested in following the insights straight from the team make sure to follow our very own Champions Developer blogger, who will be doing the honors of posting these interesting screeds.This morning we present the first in our Champions DevBlog series, written by Mr. Jack Emmert. Mr. Emmert is head of Cryptic, the force behind not only Champions but the much-anticipated Star Trek Online as well. Our first DevBlog offers up insights into why the company has taken on 'yet another' superhero game. Mr. Emmert explains why they've chosen to don the tights again, and looks back to their work on City of Heroes for inspiration. Read on below the cut for our first official Champions Online DevBlog!%Gallery-17946%
Mythic addresses Waaagh, naked dwarf issue
In the wake of Warhammer Online's launch, Mythic have kept up a stream of information. Today we have Destin Bales, the Live Producer, giving us a rundown of that quintessential WAR ejaculation, Waaagh! 'It's an enthusiastic battle cry, challenging both our enemies on the battlefield and ourselves in the office. It's a howl of frustration when at the last moment some piece of code unexpectedly breaks. It's the sound of a rampaging horde of developers rushing to get to the pizza on a night we have to burn the midnight oil to make sure an update to the game is fully tested and ready to go. It's a sort of unofficial slogan we proudly wear on green t-shirts. Oh, and yeah, apparently some Orcs said it once.'Destin also drops some intriguing hints about easter eggs, and stuff in game that may as yet remain undiscovered. WAR is notable for being especially rewarding to the 'explorer' kind of player, those who like to roam around for themselves and uncover little oddments of lore. We were drawn to the comment about altars in the Lair of Xaphan, which itself is apparently elusive. 'It might seem odd at first that they don't do anything when you interact with them. Well, that's probably because you haven't found them all yet.' If any of our readers have found them all and can tell us what Destin's hinting at, then please do let us know!Along with the Dev blog, there have been the anticipated hotfix notes, summarized under the cut. 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!
EVE Evolved: EVE Online's server model
Almost any time a discussion about EVE Online comes up, one way or another we end up talking about the server. EVE Online is unique among today's most popular MMOs for its single-server approach. While most MMOs deal with large number of users by starting up large numbers of separate servers with identical game universes, EVE maintains only a single copy of its game universe on a massive cluster of servers. CCP's decision to go with a server model that doesn't use any sharding or instancing whatsoever has had a major impact on in-game activities and how the game has developed.Server woes:Unfortunately for CCP, maintaining their vision of a single game universe has proven a lot more difficult and costly than anyone anticipated. Working with IBM, the EVE server cluster is maintained in London and is currently the largest supercomputer employed in the gaming industry. Even with this massive power behind the EVE universe, there are still problems as CCP tries to keep the server upgraded ahead of its ever-expanding playerbase.In this article, I discuss the unique gameplay that is possible thanks to EVE's server model, the problems the server currently faces and what CCP is planning to do about it.
EVE Evolved: Speed rebalanced
In a previous article, I examined the nano craze and how speed-fit setups were taking over EVE Online's PvP landscape. In a recent devblog on the issue, CCP developer Nozh makes it clear that the nano craze will soon be coming to an abrupt end. In his blog post, Nozh outlined the current problems with speed setups and laid out his plans to address those issues. The proposed changes cover everything from stasis webs and microwarpdrives to warp scramblers and nanofibres.The nano solution?:The essence of the nano problem is that speed fittings allow some larger ships to perform the roles of smaller, more specialised ships. Heavy assault cruisers are routinely spotted using their speed as a complete defence, something ordinarily reserved for fragile interceptors. One of the core design goals of the change is to eliminate this ability entirely, forcing pilots that want high speed to use ships that were designed to have it. As was the case before the nano craze took hold of EVE, the new kings of speed will be interceptors and frigates rather than expensive heavy assault cruisers and recon ships.With this potential solution to the nano problem on the horizon, PvP in EVE is facing some major changes. In this speculative article, I analyse how the upcoming changes will affect PvP if implemented.
Better, faster, prettier: Dofus 2.0
Have you played or do you currently play Dofus? If so, Ankama games has something they'd like you to see. They've been in the process of completely upgrading the entire game with the Dofus 2.0 update, as you know. However, now they can finally show you what they've been working on with a video and information page! The game code is being rewritten for improved performance all around and the visuals are -- as you can see -- getting a very nice overhaul as well. Our only complaint is that characters in-game are still incredibly small, which is something of a bother for players who love to customize and stare at their avatars for hours on end.Ankama is promising more information soon, but they did make it clear that no characters will be reset and no servers will be shut down. This is only a visual and internal upgrade, it's like an MMO version of a face-lift only not as painful and probably more effective overall. If you're really jonesing for more information you can check out the Dofus 2.0 devblog.
AO designer says adieu, moves on to The Secret World
Anarchy Online content designer Nina "Aythem" Sund has been writing developer journal entries over at Ten Ton Hammer for several months, sharing game design wisdom and insider anecdotes with players. Her latest entry had a different tone, though. She used the medium to bid farewell to AO players as she moves on to work on Funcom's next MMO, The Secret World.As a parting gift, she spent the rest of her entry telling fans how they too can become game designers. Hers is good advice if that's an aspiration for you. Unfortunately, she didn't slip out any news or information on The Secret World, which as so far been very, well ... secret. Ten Ton Hammer attached two bits of concept art, though, so savor that!We hope Funcom will continue to support AO even though it now has Age of Conan and The Secret World to worry about, too. Sund was a popular quest designer at AO; we're glad she'll be adding her touch to TSW, but poor AO!
AoC dev blog update looks at the polishing process
The latest entry in Age of Conan lead designer Ole Herbjornsen's 1UP Blog discusses, in quite some detail, the process of optimizing and polishing the game using the "tools of the trade". His emphasis is on the fact that this cleaning up is done on both the code and data, not just one or the other, and often both at once.Along the way to arriving at this point, Herbjornsen lists off a number of scary sounding developer tools, like "showmeshid" and "occluder monsters". The reassuring explanation of the especially frightening occluder monsters is that they are flat rectangles with a very low polygon count, that can be spawned in the game world, and are used to test (among other things) how a system's frame rate is affected when they block out certain parts of a picture. Check out the blog for more of Herbjornsen's interesting developer antics.
