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Stargate Worlds studio faces cash flow issues
Get ready for some dubious corporate drama. We were contacted by a tipster claiming to be a Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment employee. He or she alleged, among other things, that CME/Firesky is in critical financial condition -- that it has accrued a large debt, that massive layoffs are planned, and that the future of Stargate Worlds might be in jeopardy. Knowing full well that potentially-scorned anonymous employees are rarely a wholly reliable source, we contacted the company and provided them an opportunity to comment.We were told that the tip was full of inaccuracies and overstatements. The official comment was this: "Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is a start up, and like many start ups, we face the typical cash flow issues that all pre-revenue companies face. CME continues to fund its operations in the same way it has done for three years and the viability of the Stargate Worlds project is not in question. We fully expect to complete and ship Stargate Worlds in 2009."
Stargate Worlds will be on display at Leipzig train station
European Stargate fans take note: Stargate Worlds will be making an appearance at the Leipzig Games Convention in -- you guessed it -- Leipzig, Germany. As was the case earlier in the summer at Comic Con, Firesky/Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment have some special stuff planned.The team will be "taking over" the Leipzig Train Station, where they'll be showing "the latest" gameplay trailer (we don't know if it'll be new or not, but presumably, right?) and giving away various stuff, including t-shirts and dog tags. Apparently the prizes will be given out by "Stargate commandos." People in uniform, perhaps? Also, Studio Head Dan Elggren and marketing guy Kevin Balentine will be on site to promote the game and talk to the press.The Stargate franchise has always been popular in Europe -- especially in Germany, so we know there are a few of you out there who'll want in on this. And with that subsidized airfare, getting there might be almost affordable, right?
Massively visits Stargate Worlds: The interview, part 3
In part three of our interview with Cheyenne Mountain's studio head Dan Elggren, creative director Chris Klug, art director Howard Lyon, VP of technology Demetrius Comes, and senior marketing manager Kevin Balentine, we discuss endgame content and go into great detail about the graphics and combat.
Massively visits Stargate Worlds: The interview
During our visit to Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment's Arizona studio, we got to sit down with five of the top minds on the Stargate Worlds team -- studio head Dan Elggren, creative director Chris Klug, art director Howard Lyon, VP of technology Demetrius Comes, and senior marketing manager Kevin Balentine. This exclusive, in-depth, and conversational interview is overflowing with information about everything in the game, including TV series tie-ins and cameos, episodic content, combat, graphics, mini-games, and much, much more. This meaty interview is an essential read for any Stargate or MMO fan. We've split it up into four parts for easy reading. Enjoy!%Gallery-27249%
Massively visits Stargate Worlds: The interview, part 4
In part four of our interview with Cheyenne Mountain's studio head Dan Elggren, creative director Chris Klug, art director Howard Lyon, VP of technology Demetrius Comes, and senior marketing manager Kevin Balentine, Lyon describes the philosophy behind the game's artistic style, and we learn more about the company's plan for launch and post-live content.
Massively visits Stargate Worlds: The interview, part 2
Our part two of our interview with Cheyenne Mountain's studio head Dan Elggren, creative director Chris Klug, art director Howard Lyon, VP of technology Demetrius Comes, and senior marketing manager Kevin Balentine, we talk about the team's plans to reach out to Stargate fans with little gaming experience and we learn about the classic Stargate characters and lore we'll see in the game.
Massively visits Stargate Worlds
In the intense heat of North America's Sonoran Desert you'll find Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the company producing the upcoming MMO Stargate Worlds. The location seems appropriate, as the climate conjures up images of ancient Egypt, where the Stargate franchise's mythology began. Braving the Arizona summer, we visited CME's development studio and spoke with several leaders of the Stargate Worlds team. We also observed live gameplay. Now we're happy to share our impressions of both the studio and the game with our readers.The story of our visit and our eyes-on experience with the game is after the break. Additionally, we have an exclusive, in-depth interview with studio head Dan Elggren, creative director Chris Klug, art director Howard Lyon, VP of technology Demetrius Comes, and senior marketing manager Kevin Balentine. Finally, there's a gallery of exclusive artwork, screenshots, and photographs for your examination.%Gallery-27249%
Massively visits Stargate Worlds, part 2: Gameplay
We saw gameplay in two contexts. First, we saw canned footage of a firefight on the planet Lucia. Second, we visited the Quality Assurance department and watched testers play the game. The scenario they were playing appeared to be a prison break. From this we acquired a relatively good understanding of the basics of Stargate Worlds' combat. We didn't see any of the other modes of gameplay, but we talked about them a bit in our interview with the directors.
Massively visits Stargate Worlds, part 3: Impressions
We found a lot to like in Stargate Worlds. Its cover-based, ranged combat should prove tactically interesting for groups of friends playing together. We were impressed by the attention to detail in the recreation of Stargate lore and places. We were especially excited by the mini-game concept and its integration with more traditional hardcore-friendly modes of play. CME is trying to reach and please a very broad audience, and we believe this product could potentially accomplish that goal. CME's promise to support the game with regular episodic content updates makes the package that much more attractive.
April Fools' in Stargate Worlds
view original : close The dev team for Stargate Worlds has decided to change the direction of the in-game armor. Apparently, this decision was based on how much everyone loved the human body armor seen in the SGW trailer. Due to that overwhelming love fest... all races will now have the same exact armor. SGW Creative Director Chris Klug is ecstatic about the decision: "We'll have a lot more time to work on other ideas, such as Asgard golf." Oh fun... golf. Technical Director Demetrius Comes said, "It's going to so be much easier to code now that we will have only one kind of armor for all player characters." Senior Marketing Manager Kevin Balentine chimed in with: "I don't think it's necessary to distinguish the different races by different armor sets." It seems there are other ways to distinguish species on the battlefield. In fact, they're painting the bad guys red and the good guys blue (see the above pic). Balentine, obviously stuck far too long with only his marketing companion cube as company, doesn't think that's ever been tried before. Nope... not ever.
A Stargate Worlds progress report
MPOGD.com recently interviewed CME's Senior Marketing Manager Kevin Balentine and asked him for a progress report on the highly anticipated Stargate Worlds. Here' a few brief highlights from their interview: SGW won't offer player-controlled vehicles - at launch. While the sci-fi MMO will be solo-able, it's designed for community play. The enemy AI will react like first-person shooter opponents, flanking and using cover to engage the player. During a new video trailer showed to them (which did not show any in-game combat or PvE involvement) , the MPOGD guys said the graphics sported by the Unreal 3 graphics engine looked good. When asked how SGW would exist along side the MMO King, World of Warcraft, Balentine responded with: "We co-exist nicely with WoW...because sometimes, you know, you just want to take your P90 and shoot things up." Nice! Head over to MPOGD to read the full interview and see some exclusive screenshots.
Yet another Stargate Worlds interview, this time with actual details
There have been a couple talks with Stargate Worlds devs or reps this past week. There was the live chat last Friday, and then there was the Kevin Balentine interview at WarCry that we wrote about yesterday. Some vague revelations were made, but both instances were light on details.Well, there was another interview this week, this time at MMOsite.com, and we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of information contained within. Kevin Balentine listed several of the races and classes and explained character advancement and combat a little bit. For example, Goa'uld characters include "the classic Goa'uld with minions, the stealth-oriented Ashrak and a combat-oriented Goa'uld." The floodgates of information still aren't completely open, though; the rest of the interview was the same fluff we've been seeing time and again.Oh, and Balentine assures us that beta time is "rapidly approaching." So that's kind of exciting.
Stratics interviews Stargate Worlds' Kevin Balentine
When Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment revealed back in March that it would be outsourcing some of its game design jobs for Stargate Worlds, a lot of people took that as a bad sign. Outsourcing game design? That's kind of like the Conan O'Brien sketch in which Conan absurdly outsourced the show's writing to India (though, if the WGA strike keeps going for too long, you never know what might happen).Stratics interviewed Kevin Balentine this week, and he defended the decision to outsource design by saying that it cuts back on a lot of the detail-oriented busywork that consumes lead designers' time, so that time can be spent designing more unique, story-based missions or quests. Maybe that will alleviate some people's fears. The interview is fairly short, but Balentine also talks about instancing, squad-based combat, and a couple of other things.
