live events
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Emergent behavior to be produced in Trion's Heroes of Telara
Trion World Network is trying a very different approach with their fantasy based MMO, Heroes of Telara, by pushing into an area currently untouched by most MMOs -- emergence.Emergence is one of the aspects that many MMOs aspired to, only to drop in favor of static storytelling. The problem with emergence is that simple decisions would have a compounding impact on the world. Heroes would solve problems, only to perhaps create further problems with their implemented solutions. Most game architecture can't handle decision making of that nature, as it would need developers to constantly code in the new events that would occur.However, Heroes of Telara seems to be aspiring to that using server-side gaming. Their proposed method, as it appears in an interview between Trion's CEO, Lars Buttler, and GamesIndustry.biz, is to run the game entirely server side, letting developers change and alter the game on the fly. As Buttler puts it, "There are small events, there are big events, there is even emergent behaviour in the game that changes the game world. A lot of it is not even known to us, it's like the ghost in the machine. The game is almost alive, and that allows you to create heroes."
The Land of the Dead is open for business
Hot sun. Sandy beaches. Exotic creatures. It almost sounds like a great vacation spot until you realize the heat is unbearable, the beaches run alongside a poisonous river, and the creatures are determined to kill you and then mutilate your corpse. The Land of the Dead may not be for your average snowbird but courageous adventurers will find treasures and excitement in great abundance - and it all starts today.Game Update 1.3 launched exactly one week ago and introduced a special Live Event called Rise of the Tomb Kings. The event pitted the realms of Order and Destruction against each other in a massive resource-race to determine who would gain first access to the Nehekharan desert via airship. That race ended this morning and Mythic just released a patch that grants the winners 24-hours of uninterrupted dungeon access.The Land of the Dead was a massive undertaking by Mythic that began shortly after launch in September 2008 and it will change the way Warhammer Online fans play the game from now on. How will it affect open field RvR, city siege, scenarios and other raid instances? Only time will tell (and we'll keep our eyes on it for you).
E3 2009: APB gets the Paul Barnett hype treatment
At E3 this entire week, EA is promoting their biggest and brightest new titles at their enormous booth in the LA Convention Center's South Hall. This includes two titles we're excited about: SWTOR and APB. To help promote APB yesterday, EA's Paul Barnett got the crowd hyped up for the game with some free t-shirts and a couple Suicide Girls to help toss them out to the audience. On top of this, APB's Dave Jones was interviewed by Paul on the stage, and two short trailers were shown. The first one was basically what we saw last year, showcasing the amazing character customization options available in the MMO. Yet, we were also shown some in-game footage with characters created by the APB testing community basically, the new trailer we showed you earlier in the week). You can check out our shaky-cam footage of the event right after the jump below.
Anti-Aliased: So long, and thanks for all the woah
It's a depressing news day for me today. As we've reported earlier, Sony Online Entertainment has finally made the decision to pull the plug on The Matrix Online, a decision that makes absolutely perfect sense given the dire straights the game has been in for the past few years.MxO was always "the little game that could" in regards to the community outlook. Even with horribly broken systems, a grind worthy of an Asian MMO, and periods where I literally sat around doing nothing, there was some odd charm about the game. Perhaps it was the setting, or maybe it was the really cool combat system (yes, it too was broken, but those animations were sweet), but I think it was the storyline.Let's have a look back the history of Matrix Online and some of the stories no one ever heard about.
Anti-Aliased: So long, and thanks for all the woah pt. 2
My personal favorite moment? Past attending a few of the Merovingian's parties (being a faction leader in the organization certainly qualifies you for the guest list), it had to have been investigating into the street magician, Cryptos. Cryptos appeared in the Mega City with a bang, placing "Cryptos coffins" all over the city as he popped out of them at certain intervals to speak riddles to players. As I attended one of the coffins for its speech, the clacking of heels turned my attention over my shoulder, my camera falling onto Niobe walking down the street towards me.She commented that she was surprised that I actually found my way down a street without falling over in a drunken stupor, while I smirked and laughed. Soon afterwards, a whole vanguard of Zionist players showed up, backing up Niobe with guns -- lots of guns."Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you right here, *Lady* Return." She mocked. That would be when I pulled out the three best words in the Merovingian organization arsenal."You owe me. I helped you in the church at the funeral. You cannot neglect your debt, Niobe," I replied with a strong smile. She acted taken aback and motioned to the others behind her. The players all lowered their guns and shot me angry looks, to which I shrugged happily and laughed.In no other game could social combat be as effective as physical combat. You didn't always have to shoot your way out of a situation if you knew the right people... or just paid enough of them.An MMO not all about combat? Lies!Certainly the combat of MxO was awesome. You had great martial arts combat, you had insane wire-fu moves, and you even had bullet time. (It would basically slow down on your screen just long enough to show you some great action, then it would speed up again to match up with the action that had gone on while you were slowed down.)But some of the real charm of the game came in the fact that puzzles were hidden inside of it. Billboards, the newspaper, and even specially constructed events started by a simple forum post or a simple tell from a character lead into stories told in live action.The game had elements of collaborative puzzle solving, social tension started by organizational warfare, and a driving sense of community that no other game that I've played since has come close to having. People were there to really interact with the world, not just hit level 50 and grind their faces on endgame.Hopes for the futureIt's sad to see this game go, but I have the strong personal opinion that this game did not die because it embraced different styles of gameplay. It died because it stopped embracing them.What MxO was offering players no other game offered. If there had been more polish to the static content and the developers would have stayed on their path of dynamic storytelling, I think this game would certainly would have continued on with a loyal fanbase because it would have offered gameplay that no other mainstream MMO to date has embraced.And, with any luck, perhaps we'll see another attempt at this universe in the future. Look at what we have with two Star Wars MMOs coming out. The potential is still there for a great Matrix Online game.With all of this though, thank you developers for all of your work, and thank you Sony Online Entertainment for keeping it up as long as you did. While I may not agree with all of the decisions surrounding the game, the effort was still there to keep the game alive for as long as it was.Everything that has a beginning has an end. Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who hates aimless hate. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's rambling on his personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow him on Twitter through Massively, or through his personal feed.
Games Day '09: All about Warhammer Online's live events with Mark Davis pt. 2
How long does it take to put together your average live event? We usually take about three to six weeks for brainstorming and conception. Then there's the approval process, where I send the ideas to my boss, who sends them to "The Hickman," who sends them upstairs, who sends that to Games Workshop to make sure we're staying true to their concepts. Plus we have to coordinate with all of the other departments, like RvR, the items team, and Combat and Careers. Then the production side takes another three weeks to maybe seven weeks on top of that. We'll be planning and producing the event usually the version before the live event is scheduled to take place, otherwise it would never be done in time. Then after that we'll have the playtesting and the QA sessions to make sure the bugs are worked out, and that takes another week to two weeks. So, in short, you're looking at three months of work from inception to the final event. And these aren't available on the test server, right? Well... they're not suppose to be available on the test server. They're suppose to be hidden.. *smiles* But we have little breaks where the live events show up on the test server for a couple seconds. "Just the sheer joy these events provide players should be reason enough for another developer [to make them.]" It amazes me because in that short period of time when the live event is available, somebody will screenshot all of the objectives for all of the quests and then have that up on the internet before we can get the live event down. We try our best, but it always seems to slip out for a matter of seconds. We want to be secretive and we want players to have a sense of discovery with our live events, plus they really can't be tested publically in such a short window. Live events focus on the whole world, and getting testing and feedback done is not all that useful to us. What's your favorite part about the most recent live event? From a developer's perspective, it was the opening cinematic to the RvR public quests. We did a custom cinematic with an airship flying in and exploding which results in the start of the RvR PQs. That was surely my favorite part, it was glorious! From a player's perspective, it was the RvR that occured because of the live event. We created a center point for RvR in the event in Thunder Mountain. There were a number of different tasks that centered on this one area and that area was a hot spot for RvR the whole week. From the warcamp landing to the hot spot, the travel time was only about 3 minutes, but people in my warband would be killing others the entire way there. Thunder Mountain was locked most of the time when I was fighting in this event, but the RvR was just hot all the time. Whenever I was looking for a fight, I just went to Thunder Mountain because I knew it would be there. We had warbands coming in and attempting to camp the area, but they could only hold it for a small amount of time before another warband came in to unseat them. It was a lot of fun. Many other developers don't bother with live events. Plus when they give out exclusive items, they always seem to show up later and become unexclusive. So what would you say to another developer who was thinking of doing these exclusive live events? Just look at the metrics. For our game we get more gameplay, more people in the game, and a lot of positive feedback. These events are only a limited time, so players come in and play and the realize all of the possiblities our game has to offer in that limited time. Just the sheer joy these events provide players should be reason enough for another developer. "Live events gets to take all of that great stuff and put it all together into this nice package of fun." We even see all of this in the cold metrics. Look server population the day of the event and the day after the event, and the event population will be higher. Every game has its niche. For Warhammer, it's the RvR, the public quests, the living guilds, the city sieges. You hear us harp on this stuff over and over, because it's what we do. Live events gets to take all of that great stuff and put it all together into this nice package of fun. We bring to the front what we do the best through our live events. We've got events planned for the rest of the year. We just put up the Northern Watch weekend event, and it was immensely successful. There was only a title offered as the reward, and it was easily one of the most successful events we've done. Any sneak peeks you can give us as to what's coming? Ah... well I can't really say anything because we need to go through all of that long approval process first, but the live event in the summer is going to be doing something that I don't think any MMO has done before. Ever. It's that level of magnitude for that event. We're going to challenge what people have come to expect out of our live events, I will say that much. Ha ha, sweet! Ok then, let's end it out. Order or Destruction? Order all the way. Engineer, baby! I feel like the combat and careers guys made that class for me. You blow stuff up, you shoot people, you have explosions! What could be better? The sands of the Tomb Kings are coming as the final release in the Call to Arms live expansion, the Land of the Dead approaches! Massively has your back with coverage from Mythic Entertainment at Games Day '09, so get your WAAGGGHHH ready for RvR mayhem as Massively re-arms for WAR!
Games Day '09: All about Warhammer Online's live events with Mark Davis
Mark Davis knows Warhammer Online's live events well. He should, because he's the man behind them! During Games Day '09, we had the chance to catch up with the live events lead and discuss some shop talk with him -- including a look at the newest live event, "Rise of the Tomb Kings," and a little about what goes on behind the scenes.How long does it take for a live event to be produced? What are some of Mark's favorite moments? What can we expect in the live events to come? And, most importantly, what are we going to find in the Rise of the Tomb Kings? All of these questions, and more, are answered within!
Final Fantasy XI's community team goes on a podcast tour
The Final Fantasy XI community team members are going on a virtual tour, stopping by each of the major podcasts to answer some questions and get in-depth with what they do on the long running fantasy MMO.Pet Food Alpha, Limit Break Radio, and He Says She Says will each be playing host to various members of the community team, with Pet Food Alpha leading the way on the first show. PFA will be covering topics on global support, as well as the premier and community websites with special guest Robert Peeler. He Says She Says will be all about the many in-game seasonal events with special guest Matt Hilton, and Limit Break Radio will be covering the topic of live events with both Matt Hilton and Robert Peeler.Pet Food Alpha has already posted the first show, with the He Says She Says show coming only two days away from now on May 6th. Lastly, Limit Break Radio will be posting their podcast on May 13th, next Wednesday.
An interview with Mythic's Live Events Lead, Mark Davis
If you were a fan of Witching Night, Heavy Metal, Keg's End, Night of Murder, and Bitter Rivals, you will probably enjoy this interrogation of, er, interview with Mark Davis, Live Events Lead for Warhammer Online. Syp of the WAAAGH! Blog had a chance to ask Mark some interesting questions about these events, which surprisingly weren't even a planned feature until shortly after the game's release.According to Mark, Mythic received the most positive feedback for the Night of Murder event, which focused primarily on RvR. They received the worst feedback for the PvE-heavy Keg's End event. The dedicated team is always trying to improve Live Events based on player feedback and finding new ways to incorporate them into the Warhammer IP. If you enjoy re-occurring seasonal/holiday themed events, you will not be disappointed as they plan to bring them back bigger and better each time around. Check out the WAAAGH! Blog for the full interview, including an interesting list of lessons learned since unleashing their first Live Event.Do you have a favorite event? If so, why?
EVE Community Spotlight: LaVista Vista part 2
The first CSM seemed to have a very difficult job, given that they had to structure their operating guidelines as they went, and of course deal with skepticism from the playerbase. Do you think the situation is different for the CSM now? Vastly different. A lot of time during CSM1 was spent on administrative stuff which was often inefficient. We now have a structure which works fairly well, even if it leaves some things to be desired. We are yet to reach our max potential, which won't happen for another few CSMs I'm afraid. But CCP has certainly realized that the CSM is a useful concept and is useful for them. I think in the future we will see more tools for the CSM being implemented as Xhagen manages to tie up enough people at the office so that they will commit to doing these things which will benefit the CSM and community. Once we have streamlined ways of doing things, while leaving us room for being creative, there's immense potential for a CSM which will not only work great while people who have experience with being on it, but once an ENTIRELY new set of people take office and start working with this foundation that is built. Continuity is EXTREMELY important. The idea that an entirely new set of people will take office and there's no real guidelines or continuity gives me nightmares. That's why I think it's important that CCP in the future is even more helpful towards the CSM and that there is more communication. We have build a solid foundation for now. However it's not hard to tear down if people aren't taking responsibility.
The Matrix Online says goodbye to a developer
The Matrix Online is saying goodbye to one of their main developers as Ben Chamberlain, aka "Rarebit," leaves the MxO staff on February 13th. Rarebit was largely responsible in the last months for continuing the Matrix Online's main story via many live events each week -- the events that have kept the spirits of the dwindling community interested in the game.According to his leaving note, Rarebit is also concluding his work in the games industry after 10 years of work.His departure from the staff will begin shortly after Update 66 launches on live servers on February 12th. Update 66 will include the very critical patch that will clear up the many visual corruptions that occur when a user runs Matrix Online on Windows Vista, as well as provide secrets that Rarebit is holding to his chest. Rarebit has also announced that he will be releasing the outlines for the rest of the MxO storyline, providing all the wrap-ups to the game's main plot that have occurred since chapter 5.2.
Going down the rabbit hole with Warhammer Online's live events
With just a few months of live service under their belts, the team behind Warhammer Online has already distinguished itself with quality and innovative live events. Heavy Metal, the Reikland Factory preview, Keg End, Witching Night ... all new looks at old holidays, highlighted by the game's unique Tome of Knowledge system. Crispy Gamer has a look at the creation of these events with Mark Davis, Mythic associate producer and live events designer. Davis talks a bit about Mythic's philosophy behind creating these events, and notes their high level of popularity with the playerbase.Their popularity isn't hard to figure out. Offered Davis, "[WAR is] all about the bragging rights. Players like to show off how powerful they are or what accomplishments they've unlocked, and this is one way that they can show how cool they are." We at Massively have definitely enjoyed the events they've offered up so far. What about you? Which Warhammer live event has been your favorite? Any holidays you're particularly looking forward to the team tackling?
Warhammer developers explain their expansion/new content philosophy
A few days ago Mark Jacobs offered up the heartening news that the Mythic Entertainment developers are focused solely on supporting the Warhammer Online live game. While the devs have had some discussions about expansion content, for the foreseeable future the company is going whole-hog on supporting and advancing the existing game. We spoke with Adam Gershowitz and Associate Producer Josh Drescher about Mark's statement, and got some deep insights into their philosophy on new content.Offered Josh Drescher, "We want to reward player loyalty, we want to show we're dedicated to the ongoing quality of the product we already have on the market, and we want to leverage all the resources we've got. We have an entire team here that's already worked their fingers to the bone on this game. Adam has no fingers left, he just has two stumps he uses to beat on the keyboard."Read on below the cut for full details on everything from patching philosophies to the Warhammer team's plans for future live events.
Anti-Aliased: What are we doing?
Click. 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 1, 1, 3, 4, 1. /cheerSitting next to my friend in his room littered with Diet Mountain Dew cans, reports past due, and his girlfriend passed out on the bed, I slowly came to a very scary realization. Some of our best loved MMOs can be boiled down to not just pressing different buttons, but pressing the same button repeatedly. What really drove this home was me and a bunch of his friends were in the other room adjacent to his room, yet he was neglecting to join our roleplaying session and hang out. He'd rather sit in his small, cluttered room and farm a raid he's done at least 20 times, somehow finding enjoyment from pressing the button "1" repeatedly.So... what are we doing? Are we drinking the proverbial Windex because someone said it was a good idea?
SOE's Fan Faire heads back to Vegas for 2008
Imperial-paid bounty hunters, elves, cat-men, sci-fi soldiers, elves, secret agents, and yet more elves are already donning their garb and readying their fake ears; Sony Online Entertainment has announced that this year's Fan Faire event will be held from August 14th to August 17th at the Las Vegas Hilton. It took some time to establish this date, obviously, but it sounds like it's going to be a good time. The usual live events, costume contests, receptions, banquets, and developer roundtables are already in the works. This year's event will feature more looks ahead to in-development Sony Online titles, which we assume means The Agency and Free Realms. There will also be a community address, the second in as many years, from SOE President John Smedley.Every year the community team tops themselves with game-specific events. This year the in-development title out at SOE-Seattle, The Agency, is listed as one of the games on tap for live events. Interestingly, Free Realms is not. While there aren't any details on the site yet, the team already has their work cut out for them. We've been eying up this summer with trepidation: July has Comic-Con and E3, while August has Leipzig, Dragon*Con, PAX, and Gen Con, with Gen Con running opposite Fan Faire itself. Convention attending gamers, we salute you; you've got some hard choices to make.
New trial program for Dungeons & Dragons Online
For anyone looking to maybe try out a new MMO or just wanting to kill some time, DDO has a brand spanking new 10 day trial page up and running with some nice screenshots for those of us who enjoy looking at shiny things. Of course, the trial itself is a "limited time" offer according to the website. It's been a couple of years since the game launched, so now may be the perfect time for some people to check back in and see what's happening. In fact, with the upcoming sixth module and live events happening here and there it seems like a great time to investigate the game. It's really always nice to see a game doing well with the community it has. Hopefully this trial will give players who have been giving thought to buying the game a chance to try it out first. Don't forget that the two-year anniversary is coming up in February and it's likely that players can expect some fun and surprising events.
Under The Hood: Going Live
Live events. Where developer interacts with players. Traditionally, this has been a pretty contested battlefield, ranging from forums, to chat rooms, to game masters. Where it really comes together, however, is in the classic legacy of live events, where developers and game masters interact with the players in-game. But not only that, they assist in furthering the story, or fleshing out the game world. But where did live events come from?
Tchurvul and Derneal battling openly in DDO
I don't even play the game, but I am digging the work of the live events team over at Dungeons and Dragons Online. Last time we heard that Emerald Claw smuggler Derneal was seen carrying some suspicious cargo around Sorrowdusk Isle, and it appears players did their job well there, because the Emerald Claw has been scattered to the wind. Unfortunately, desperation has driven Derneal and his former partner, Tchurvul, into open battle on the streets of Stormreach, and the live events team is warning players to watch out for their fighting. Reader Schad, who tipped us off to both of these events, says that this means an even bigger live event is probably coming soon.At a time when quality live MMO events are few and far between, it's awesome to see the game that's based on good ol' pen and paper roleplaying pulling off fun stuff like this. It's too bad there's not a wiki around anywhere tracking the entire campaign for players just getting started...
Live events in DDO tomorrow night
Reader Schad dropped us a note about some live events going down in Dungeons and Dragons Online this weekend. If you haven't heard yet, be sure to bring a full party of level 7 or higher to Sorrowdusk Isle tomorrow night (times for each server are listed there), and expect to have some fun and "keep any items you find in your explorations." You know what that means-- phat lootz inc!I haven't played DDO all that much myself, but I do love a good live event, and I especially love not only the fact that this is set in the Eberron setting (I DM'd a pen and paper game in Eberron, and I know it well), but the way they've implemented these live events-- as chapters in a roleplaying story. Fun! If you do head out to this event (or any others, be sure to report back here with screenshots-- either email them to our One Shots feature or just drop us a line at the contact form. If you do head out to Sorrowdusk Isle tomorrow night, have fun and be careful!
