GDC 2010
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Wacom Cintiq 21UX hands-on
It's almost too much to take in all at once. Sure, the $1,999 Cintiq 21UX pen display is priced out of reach for most of us mere mortals who "don't draw good," but the pure lustworthiness of this unit sure makes us try to forget that inconvenient fact. The expanded movability of Wacom's latest is commendable, the pen input is naturally great, the screen is beautiful, and even those new rear-mounted touchpads seem helpful. It would take someone much more familiar with professional draw-ist-ing to really speak to the more specific merits of the 21UX, but from a mere standpoint of inspiring irrational desire in our hearts, Wacom seems to have done a pretty good job this time out. Check out a video of the screen in action after the break. %Gallery-88114%
GDC10: Vivox's Monty Sharma interviewed
While often overlooked among gamers due to the prevalence of Ventrilo and Teamspeak, integrated MMORPG voice chat is a service that is steadily gathering steam, and leading the charge is Vivox, Inc. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, Vivox has pioneered integrated voice technology in games as diverse as EVE Online, EverQuest II, and Second Life. We sat down with Monty Sharma, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at this week's Game Developer's Conference to talk about the company's past, present and future. Hit the jump for the full interview.
GDC10: Nexon's Vindictus revealed
I'll admit to being somewhat of a Nexon fanboy, and someone that considers them to be in the toy business rather than in the MMO business. They manufacture joy in my eyes. Bright, shiny joy. But the recent announcement of their new title "Vindictus" shows us a game that we are not used to seeing from Nexon. While it will follow the same business model that other Nexon games do, it promises to be a "sexy" game: a game that will make players feel like a hero. It promises to be more of an action game, or as Nexon America's Vice President Min Kim put it when he sat down with us for an interview, "an mmoACTIONrpg, epic, fierce and intense." Want to know more? Want to see the killer trailer? Join us after the jump. %Gallery-88064%
GDC: 'Among Friends: An Uncharted 2 Post-mortem'
There is one drawback to seeing Uncharted 2's co-lead designer, Richard Lemarchand, unfurl the development process behind the most successful and most ambitious game in the studio's history. A post-mortem panel, held on Thursday afternoon at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, delved into developer Naughty Dog's pre-production process, its production pipeline and the climactic rush to a spectacular end. It also highlighted some of the studio's misjudgments, which resulted in a difficult crunch time toward the end of development. And now, every time I play that incredible train level -- "an evil monster of a level," Lemarchand said -- for my personal enjoyment, I'll pull back the curtain and see programmers hunching over keyboards and nodding off into icy cups of coffee. Thankfully, Lemarchand painted a warmer picture, firm in his belief that the development team's intrinsic motivation to produce a character-driven blockbuster helped it overcome the final hurdles. An important pre-production phase dominated the first six months of Uncharted 2's 22-month creation. "Messing it up often means messing up the whole project," Lemarchand noted. There were no deadlines or deliverables during this period, and the team was free to seek inspiration and consider the individual moments they wanted to explore in Drake's second outing. A single image would portend much of the game's direction: A photograph of the Tiger's Nest Monastery in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
GDC10: An in-depth look at Black Prophecy
Space: the final frontier. Space: in it, no one can hear you scream. Space: it's been looking at us the wrong way lately, so let's take a laser cannon to it and readjust its attitude. If you haven't been feeling a ball of growing excitement in your tummy over Black Prophecy's development (over four years at this point), then we feel pity for you. It might be another spaceship MMO, but while EVE Online has a heavy focus on the economy and political intrigue, and Star Trek Online boasts a slower, tactical approach to combat, Black Prophecy is all about fast, sweaty, double-fisted fighter action in the depths of the cosmos. And it doesn't look half bad while doing it, either. At GDC, Massively got under the hood of this title with Black Prophecy's Falko Böcker to find out all we could about this promising free-to-play MMO. Check your oxygen levels and then hit the jump to hyperspace for more!
GDC10: Massively's interview with Dungeons and Dragons Online, part 1
Nine short months ago, Dungeons and Dragons Online was "the forgotten MMO": "a game that really doesn't jump to the forefront of the MMO market, but stays quietly in the background, chugging away with a loyal fanbase and consistent content updates." The timing of that story on Massively was uncanny, because ten days later Turbine dropped the news on the gaming community that Dungeons and Dragons Online was going free-to-play. Opinion on the decision was sharply divided, with many players saying they'd take a look at the game and a small but vocal minority declaring this to be the death knell of DDO. Today, the numbers speak for themselves. Their revenue is up 500%, they've had over one million new players, and you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who would refer to the game as "forgotten." Turbine has arguably set the standard for a hybrid free-to-play business model, and it's paid off very well. However, it wasn't always a sure thing and it certainly wasn't a snap decision. Follow along after the jump for our interview with Executive Producer Fernando Paiz at GDC as he explores the thoughts behind the business model and where it's taken Turbine.
GDC10: Massively's day 3 roundup
We're back with the latest edition of our GDC10 roundup. Yesterday was another big day in the world of MMORPG news, and Massively staffers were working overtime to bring you fresh scoops on the latest projects from your favorite developers. As always, there's a lot more to come as the Game Developer's Conference rolls on, but take a moment to check out these stories you may have missed. Land of Chaos Online interview New playable faction coming to Star Trek Online A chat with Cryptic's Bill Roper and Craig Zinkievich Massively's interview with Virtual Fairground Runes of Magic releases Chapter 3 information Stick around as we're gearing up to bring you interviews with Bioware, En Masse, Gamigo, and The Secret World's Ragnar Tornquist later in the week.
John Cleese is your butler in Fable 3
Peter Molyneux lives a fearful life. Ever since he promised the moon and failed to deliver with the original Fable, he has been relentlessly trailed by PR ninjas. We were expecting a special Fable 3 reveal during GDC, and Molyneux obliged, but not before checking with PR. During the Fable 3 panel at GDC, Molyneux said that people have referred to Fable as a "Monty Python-esque" game, and so Lionhead decided to recruit John Cleese himself to play your butler in Fable 3. He noted that Lionhead has record a "vast amount of AI dialogue" for Cleese, whose job as the butler is to "big you up, in a slightly sarcastic way." Unfortunately, Molyneux stated that the rights for Cleese's voice hadn't been secured "just yet," so we didn't get to see Cleese implemented in the demo. He's definitely a perfect fit for Fable though, and we can only be thankful that he hasn't run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
GDC: Akira Yamaoka on the disturbing power of audio
The title of Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka's GDC panel was "As long as the audio is fun, the game will be too." Kind of a perplexing title, especially if you've enjoyed Yamaoka's work in the horror genre. Don't get us wrong, it's good, we're just not sure fun is the word for it. Yamaoka used the panel to explain precisely why his music and sound effects are so disturbing, and it's more technical than you might think. "Sound is very close to stimulating emotions in your brain," said Yamaoka via an interpreter. "What do humans fear?" He asked. In the case of audio, he noted that gaps between visual cues and accompanying audio. Specifically, if a sound precedes a visual cue, it can cause anxiety, while a sound that arrives too late is comforting. As an example, he noted the sounds of footsteps being made slightly before the onscreen action in a game. He noted that this effect can be felt even if the sync between sound and visual is off by a few frames of animation. Yamaoka said later in the panel that he used this technique in Silent Hill 3. Another technique mentioned was the use of silence."When there's no sound, the brain fills in the gap," said Yamaoka. He then played a special version of Beethoven's "Für Elise" which had been injected with tiny, periodic gaps of silence. He then played the same piece, only this time injecting harsh noise instead of silence. Even packed in a fully lit lecture hall with hundreds of GDC attendees, it was unsettling. Unfortunately, Yamaoka wasn't able to give us the sound samples used during the panel, so we've done our best to recreate them:
GDC10: Massively set to appear on live Internet TV
Massively's own Editor-in-Chief Shawn Schuster will be appearing on Internet television today at 12pm PST live from GDC 2010. That's right, Gamebreakr with Gary Gannon is going to do a live streaming web show and this particular blogger thinks it'll be worth catching -- even if only so Shawn knows that countless people are staring at him while he's on air. Actually, the show's had plenty of interesting people from the gaming realm on already including CCP's Nathan Richardsson, President of SOE John Smedley and Christina Norman of BioWare. And, as our leader extraordinaire, Shawn will most definitely make for an interesting guest. We can't wait to see it! [Edit: see the recorded video after the jump]
GDC10: The future of Champions Online
We had the opportunity to sit down with Bill Roper at GDC 2010 and discuss the general future of Champions Online. There are two themes to Bill's answers during our talk: just about everything is free and listening to community feedback. First of all, melee powers like Might are getting reworked based directly from player feedback. The goal is to make players feel as though they're on par with ranged powersets in PvP situations. Generally, people have been saying they felt "gimped" and the goal is to fix that. There's a complete reworking of the supernatural set coming as well, which will separate the previously single powerset into two new ones.
Unreal Engine 3 adds extra dimension with NVIDIA 3D Vision
Epic Games has announced that its wildly popular Unreal Engine 3 has now added NVIDIA's 3D Vision to its list of supported technologies. We've already come across Batman: Arkham Asylum being played with NVIDIA's signature shutter glasses so this isn't a huge surprise per se, but it does put a stamp of compatibility on the vast catalog of games -- both current and future -- built upon Epic's graphics engine. Those include Borderlands, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Bioshock 1 and 2, and that all-time classic 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. The Unreal Development Kit -- a freeware version of the Engine for non-commercial uses -- is also being upgraded to make the addition of stereoscopic 3D effects "easier than ever," while other small improvements (covered by Gamespot) show that the Epic crew isn't standing still on its core product. Good news for all you mobile mavens wanting a taste of Unreality on your iPhones or Pres.
Peter Molyneux would 'love' to see Fable 3 on PC
There was an interesting moment during the Q&A session of Peter Molyneux's Fable 3 panel at GDC this year. When asked if Fable 3 will be released on PC, Molyneux was cagey though he did say that he would 'love' to see the game appear on the platform. He was careful not to raise the ire of Microsoft's "PR police people ... with sniper rifles," but went on to state, "I can say, mystically, that I love the PC." He continued, "I love what's happening to the PC, and I would love to see the Fable franchise on the PC." He concluded that he would want to make sure it was "a truly amazing experience on the PC and that, you know, it's brilliant." Hardly a confirmation of any actual plans for a PC version of Fable 3 -- and it should be noted that Fable 2 has remained exclusive to the Xbox 360 since 2008 -- but it's clear that Lionhead would jump at the opportunity if given the chance.
InstantAction streams full games to any web browser, gives indie developers a business model (video)
Look out, OnLive -- you've got company. InstantAction is having their coming out party at GDC, and we stopped by for a lengthy chat about the technology, its future and the hopes / dreams of the company. Put simply (or as simply as possible), IA has developed a browser-based plug-in that allows full games to be played on any web browser so long as said browser is on a machine capable of handling the game. In other words, you'll still need a beast of a machine to play games like Crysis, but the fact that you can play them on a web browser opens up a new world of possibilities for casual gamers and independent developers. You'll also be notified before your download starts if your machine and / or OS can handle things, with recommendations given on what it would take to make your system capable. Oh, and speaking of operating systems -- games will only be played back if they're supported on a given OS, so you won't be able to play a Windows only title within a browser on OS X or Linux. Rather than taking the typical streaming approach, these guys are highlighting "chunking." In essence, a fraction of the game's total file size has to be downloaded locally onto your machine, and once that occurs, you can begin playing. As an example, we were playing The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition -- which is the sole title announced for the platform so far, though Assassin's Creed was demoed -- within minutes, and since you're curious, that's a 2.5GB game, and we were on a connection that wasn't much faster than a typical broadband line. More after the break... %Gallery-88068%
GDC: R.A. Salvatore wants you to die
Fantasy author R.A. Salvatore took the stage at GDC 2010 today and, while he made it clear that his talk about how to create believable fantasy worlds wasn't specifically about his work with 38 Studios' Copernicus project, he did talk a little bit about what he wants from an MMO game and gave the first mention of what the world of Curt Schilling's game is like. Salvatore talked for quite a while in his thick Massachusetts accent about his time in Everquest, which he said was "the best world in a game I've ever seen." He also lauded the idea of a death penalty in an MMO, and said that during his formative MMO experiences the threat of death (he once lost a hard-earned level when he was killed by an NPC that he accidentally clicked to attack) made living that much better. "If you take the pain out of the world," he said, "you lose the accomplishment of winning." And while he admitted that the Copernicus designers were fighting with him on whether or not to include a death penalty in the game, the company would at least make sure that a return from death was explained. His team has written over 10,000 years of history for the game's world (all compiled on "a wiki with over hundreds of pages in it"), and one of the major features of the setting's lore is a "device that's perfected" called the "Well of Souls." The Well, "when you die, will bring you back -- if you meet the conditions." He didn't elaborate about what those conditions were, but he asked the audience what a worldwide death-prevention device would do to institutions like kings and religions. "What happens when you take power away from powerful people?" he asked rhetorically. "How would it play out?" And, he suggested, if there were people who "turned the Well on," what if they threatened the rest of the world with turning it off? Vague, but intriguing. Copernicus still seems like it has a long way to go (Salvatore didn't show any slides or screenshots during his talk), but fans of the old EQ might find the game a return to the old ways if R.A. has his say.
Seen@GDC: The spherical future of video game interactivity
We don't just go to GDC in search of hot scoops. We're also constantly scanning our periphery for the next big movement in video game technology. This year, it came in the form of the VirtuSphere – a device we've heard about since 2006 but haven't seen in person until today. No, it's not a magical orb which infuses its user with moral excellence; it's a virtual reality peripheral controlled by its enveloped user's strut. The technology was demoed on the show floor at GDC with a rudimentary first-person shooter. The player wears a visor (which changes the camera's view as the player looks around in real time) and holds a light gun peripheral. They can walk around the rolling sphere, which moves the player's in-game avatar around the level. Sounds too awesome to be true, doesn't it? Hey, we'd never lie to you. Check out a video demonstration of the device after the jump. What? Did we try it out? No, unfortunately, we've got a thing about dizzy-puking in public.
GDC: Gaming gets framed for Into The Pixel exhibit
Click to Super Mario-size We like a pretty picture just as much as the next Tom, Dick or Monet, but the art featured in the Into The Pixel exhibit – which opened to the public last night at GDC – is some of our favorite. You can experience the aesthetic splendor second-hand by checking out the gallery posted below. See if you can identify the games each painting is based on! (Spoiler alert: You'll never, ever guess some of them. Not in a billion, trillion years.) %Gallery-88075%
Valve's viral plot thickens with Portal blue screen of death
Even though Portal 2 has been officially announced, it seems the clever Alternate Reality Game which gave it impetus hasn't yet come to a complete stop. Shortly after accepting a Pioneer Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco on Thursday evening, Valve boss Gabe Newell launched into a slideshow detailing the company's expectations of future trends, only to have it "crash" to a blue error screen. The final slide was meant to answer several infamous Valve mysteries -- Who is the G-Man? Why doesn't Valve support the PlayStation 3? -- and perhaps it did in some obfuscated way. According to seasoned ARG sleuths (posting on the Penny Arcade forums), the error code above can be read as: "S U S : P E N D ... U N T ( I ) L ... E E E." Suspend until E3? It wouldn't be surprising to see Portal 2 at this year's E3 expo, which will run in Los Angeles from June 15 to 17, but if the above decryption is accurate Valve may have additional plans to unfurl (possibly including the long-awaited Half-Life 2: Episode 3). [Thanks, Wince]
Darkworks shows off TriOviz for Games 2D-to-3D SDK, we get a good look
Darkworks introduced its TriOviz for Games SDK yesterday during GDC, and while TriOviz technology has been around for years in Hollywood, it wasn't until today that this same technology debuted for console and PC titles. Essentially, this software wrapper enables standard 2D video games to be viewed in 3D on a traditional 2D display, and we were able to sneak an exclusive look at the technology today at the company's meeting room. We were shown a European version of Batman: Arkham Asylum on Microsoft's Xbox 360, and we were given a set of specialized glasses (which were passive, unlike NVIDIA's active-shutter 3D Vision specs) in order to enjoy the effect. So, how was it? In a word or two, not bad. It obviously wasn't perfect, but you have to realize just how cheap of a solution this is for the consumer to implement. All that's required is a set of special glasses, but given that these can be distributed in paper-frames form, you could easily find a set for a couple of bucks (at most), if not bundled in for free with future games. Users won't need to purchase any additional hardware whatsoever, and what they'll get is a deeper, more immersive image in return. We could very clearly see the 3D effect, and even though it was subtle, it definitely enhanced our experience. We noticed a minor bit of blurring and ghosting during just a few scenes, but when you consider that this doesn't actually change the underlying code in existing 2D games (that's the cue for developers to breathe a sigh of relief), we didn't feel that these minor quirks were unreasonable. The other interesting aspect is just how clear the image remained for onlookers that didn't have 3D glasses on; we noticed slight image doubling at specific points, but it's not something we simply couldn't look at without acquiring a headache. More after the break...
GDC10: Runes of Magic releases Chapter 3 information
This May, Frogster will introduce the third chapter of Runes of Magic which will include a new continent, regions, dungeons to conquer, a new skill system, a level cap increase to 60 and an expansion to guild wars: siege weapons! An ancient kingdom called Dalanis lies in chaos as adventurers attempt to help the child-king Callaway regain the former glory that once was. The citizens cry out for it and long to return to the older days when their ancient heroes walked the lands. Adventurers will first walk into Thunderhoof Hills as they venture into the Elder Kingdoms, and will experience varied and surprising landscapes, none like they have seen before. First they will travel through a forest and then pass the waterfalls, only to choose one of three new cities to meet friends, trade and to relax in. Without leaving the zone, players will be able to investigate a graveyard populated by kings from the ancient past. Be sure to grab a reliable group of friends to explore the new dungeon that runs underneath Thunderhoof Hills, the dreadful Dungeon of Dalanis. Join me after the jump for more details as well as a look at new screens, art and a trailer for the expansion!
