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This Week In MMO: Night at the movies edition
This Week In MMO is all about movies: how some games compare to movies and which movies will be made into games. The BioWare doctors hinted at a Mass Effect MMO once again, but what does our panel of hosts think? Mike B, aka Fony of ZAM, believes that the Mass Effect intellectual property is very similar to the movie industry, such that Mass Effect can take a few years of downtime, then just like some movie remakes, bounce back even stronger as an MMO. What about movies becoming MMOs? Jasmine Hruschak, of Gamebreaker's The Sanctum, is scared of any movie becoming a game. Traditionally, these platform conversions are disastrous, according to IRLJasmine. However, Gary Gannon agrees with Avatar director James Cameron's sentiments and believes that the world of the Nav'i could one day be comparable to the world of World of Warcraft. Catch all this and more movie-to-MMO comparisons after the break on Gamebreaker.TV's This Week In MMO!
Firefall dev says new MMO shooter will transcend the 'circle of suck'
Red 5 Studios CEO Mark Kern has been around the game development block a time or two. With a resume that includes StarCraft, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft, he's no stranger to successful multiplayer titles. So why is he heading up the development of Firefall, a free-to-play MMO/shooter hybrid that aims to stand genre convention on its head? Well, precisely because it aims to stand genre convention on its head. "If I see another action MMO combat game with exclamation points over quest givers, I'm going to commit seppuku! We're pouring so much money [into] a very stale formula," he recently told PC Gamer. Previous attempts at blending MMO and shooter gameplay have resulted in what Kern colorfully terms the "circle of suck," but Firefall will break that mold due to its unique mind meld of both genres. "Let's get the shooting right, and selectively add in the MMO elements. Let's take the idea of open world sandbox play and feature hundreds of players instead of four- or eight-player co-op. Let's take towns, crafting, and resources and combine it all together. And that group would be a much more fun game when we started playing it than anything we'd tried before," Kern says.
Firefall brings on Frag Dolls founder as head of e-sports division
Firefall has made no bones about its desire to fill the niche of a competitive e-sports game, but the team's most recent update certifies its sincerity on the matter. Red 5 Studios announced in a press release today that Morgan "Rhoulette" Romine, founder of the all-female gaming clan the Frag Dolls, has joined the team to head up Firefall's e-sports division. Red 5 CEO Mark Kern said of the decision, "We're thrilled to have Morgan join the Red 5 'Tribe' and know that with her caliber of experience and deep community roots, Firefall is poised to take the world of e-sports to the next level." Morgan herself has high hopes for the game's e-sport potential, claiming, "I believe this game has awesome e-sports potential because Red 5 is committed to creating a competitive experience that is as fun to watch as it is to play." So if you're the competitive type, keep your eye on Firefall as it gears up for launch. [Source: Red 5 Studios press release]
Firefall players can have (and kill) in-game pets
The developers of the upcoming free-to-play FPS MMO Firefall have announced a new feature that's sure to make a couple of you squee: There will be in-game pets. Red 5 stopped by Shacknews last week to reveal that players will be able to summon little creatures that follow their avatars around in-game, and they'll also be able to kill the pets of enemies. How that will work isn't quite laid out yet, but CEO Mark Kern suggests that players will be able to buy special ammo that lets them fire on their enemies' little friends. The shooter types among you may laugh, but part of the appeal of big MMOs like World of Warcraft is the cute little bits of customization that come along with building a big, colorful persistent avatar. And while pet combat doesn't sound like anything more than a little extra fun, we won't ever turn down a little extra fun. Pile it on, please.
Firefall adds pets for you to cuddle... and kill
Just in case you thought Firefall was going to be nothing but guns, ammo, and models toting guns and ammo, Red 5 wants us to know that there's a softer side to the game for those who love fluff. Talking with Shacknews, Mark Kern revealed that the shooter MMO will include a pet system for grizzled combat veterans who can't bear to leave the base without the security of Rygel and Princess Pebbles. Of course, this being a red-blooded shooter, Firefall's pet system can't stop with extended grooming and cuddles. "We had had to do little things to actually make it interesting," Kern explained. "Not only can you get a pet, but we're thinking that there's actually an item you can buy in the store to load your gun with special ammunition so you actually shoot the other guy's pet." Red 5 will be hosting an upcoming promotion starting on Wednesday called Crystite Challenge that will give fans a chance to get into the beta and unlock a Penny Arcade "The Merch" pet. "The Merch is awesome because he's all about merchandising and he fits with our item-based theme," Kern said. Firefall is currently in beta and gearing up for a December launch. Curious onlookers would do well to check out Massively's hands-on impressions of the title from PAX.
Firefall announces beta, details launch
Mark Kern, CEO of Red 5 Studios, dropped by the Firefall forums today to write an open letter to The Escapist regarding Firefall's beta testing and launch. In the post, Mr. Kern states that the game is currently in friends and family beta testing. But there's good news for those of you who aren't friends or family of the folks at Red 5: The expanded beta program will begin later this month after PAX Prime. As far as the game's launch is concerned, Mr. Kern goes on to explain that the team already considers the game to be launched, as Red 5 seems to feel that the traditional closed beta to open beta to launch process is outdated "in a modern, online, service oriented business, especially a free2playgame." Instead, they will be modeling the game's launch after Gmail's invite system, wherein certain players will be invited by the team, and those players will receive invitations that they can pass on to friends, thereby allowing the game to gradually grow as layers of invitations are passed around. Stick around for more, because you can bet we'll have the first news on the beta this month after PAX.
Firefall launching in December
The end of the year release schedule just got a bit more crowded, and while debate as to whether Firefall is or is not an MMO is sure to continue, one thing's for certain. The game is launching in December. Red 5 Studios' Mark "Grummz" Kern confirmed as much in a thread on the official Firefall boards over the weekend, and also issued a clarification as to the title's beta timeframe. "They asked me when the game was launching and I said December," he wrote. "For some reason, they interpreted that as beta." The "they" in this case refers to some interviewers at the recent ChinaJoy gaming expo, and Grummz apologizes for the confusion in the thread as well. So, if you're keeping score at home, Firefall is officially blasting onto your PC this December. The beta will be... sometime prior to that. Stay tuned to Massively for more as it happens.
Firefall blows up bugs in the new gameplay trailer
Gamers have asked for an FPS that they can play with friends in a persistent world, and Red 5 Studios is delivering. Firefall, the free-to-play brainchild of Mark Kern, showcases a world with hundreds of players contesting for resources in the virtual space of Fortaleza, Brazil 222 years in the future. IGN granted us a glimpse into this world of kill-or-be-killed with the Firefall gameplay trailer. The two minutes of pure action starts with dynamic squad missions, continues past player gear and abilities, and then launches you into epic world events. Blast past the break to experience the trailer for yourself, and don't forget to sign up for the beta on the official FireFall website. [Thanks, Dylan, for the tip]
Firefall's Mark Kern changes the perception of free-to-play
The third-person shooter Firefall has questioned nearly everything about what it means to be an MMO. In fact, CEO Mark Kern has mentioned to us at PAX East 2011 that the term MMO is not in the development vocabulary of his game: "If people want to call us an MMO, that's great. We aren't going to call ourselves an MMO, because we want you to think fresh thoughts along with us." These "fresh thoughts" extend not only to the game design, but they also extend to the game's subscription model. As a former team lead from Blizzard, one would think that Kern would totally support the monthly subscription model shared by Blizzard's flagship MMO, World of Warcraft. In the beginning, Kern admits that he was. He tells to the Escapist, "We felt that with a AAA quality game, a subscription was still the way to go. I was pretty skeptical of free-to-play five years ago." However, with the change in US economy and watching the success of F2P MMOs in other countries like China, the CEO changed his tune. "What I found surprised me; free-to-play wasn't just a successful model, it was an incredibly profitable one," Kern explains in the Escapist article. As the perception of F2P is changing in western culture, perhaps we will see more and more triple-A games beginning their life as free-to-play. The full interview with Firefall's Mark Kern can be found on the Escapist website. Let us know what you think of F2P for triple-A games in the comments below.
Firefall dev diary features Orson Scott Card, reveals planned free manga comic
Here's the latest developer diary for Red 5 Studios' Firefall, which outlines the general backstory for the upcoming free-to-play co-op multiplayer shooter. Red 5's CEO Mark Kern, who served as team lead on a little indie title you may have heard of called World of Warcraft, walks us through the tale of Crystite and a dying future Earth, beset by an alien race called the Chosen. He also introduces writer Orson Scott Card, who talks about how he put the story together for what's "essentially ... a post-double apocalyptic world." Card's also working on a manga with his daughter Emily Card, to be published free on Red 5's website in conjunction with Udon Comics. The manga is supposed to be available sometime before the game is due out later this year.
New Firefall dev blog introduces super-secret surprise mystery writer!
Mark Kern, CEO of Red 5 Studios, sits down with players today for a nice fireside chat in the not-quite-June Firefall developer diary. The focus of the dev diary is on the story Red 5's upcoming MMOTPS. Mr. Kern explains that the Firefall team really wants players to be invested in the game's story, and he goes on to discuss how the folks at Red 5 intend to make them give a darn. So how exactly are they going to do that? Well, as Mr. Kern points out, a large part of a good story is a good writer. And contributing to Firefall's story will be none other than the esteemed Orson Scott Card. That's right, the creator of the legendary Ender's Game series -- alongside his daughter, Emily Janice Card -- will be contributing to a free upcoming Firefall manga that will help to set up the story prior to the game. Udon Entertainment (of Street Fighter comic fame) will be providing the artwork for the manga, so it's sure to be a must-read for any Firefall fans. To see the whole dev diary, which includes some words from Mr. Card himself, head on past the cut.
Redefining MMOs: More developers weigh in
In 2009, the staffers of Massively were more than aware of the changes happening in the MMO industry. The game was changing; technology was allowing the MMO to step out of its turn-based comfort zone and take on new challenges. We began to see the MMO-shooter, the MMO-RTS, and the MMO-does-that-even-fit-in-a-genre. The staff penned a series of articles called Redefining MMOs. Have things changed in two years? On the surface, I'd say no. We still can't figure out exactly what an MMO is. If you ask six different people the same question, you'll get six different answers (if not more). In fact, while I was at PAX East, I did just that. I spoke to six different designers: three from the most anticipated games of this year, two from studios that have been doing this MMO thing for a long time, and one from a studio that refuses to label its game as an MMO. After the break, find out what developers of Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, City of Heroes, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Firefall have to say about the new definition of MMOs.
PAX East 2011: Firefall, the non-MMO MMO
Last weekend, one of the biggest booths to dominate the PAX East showroom floor was a game called Firefall by Red 5 Studios. This shooter game has gained a lot of attention in the past because it pulls elements from different games such as Borderlands, Team Fortress 2, and even Halo. However, none of the comparable games is an MMO. Thus, Firefall really stands out among its peers. There are mechanics of this game that really scream "MMO" to the average observer, yet there are very non-MMO designs as well. At PAX, I had a chance to sit down with Red 5's CEO, Mark Kern, to discuss many of the design philosophies behind Firefall -- in particular, I wanted to know why Red 5 doesn't label the game an MMO when it clearly features many of the hallmarks of the genre. "The potential of MMOs is so much broader than the tag would indicate. We are broadening that definition and taking a crowbar to it. If people want to call us an MMO, that's great. We aren't going to call ourselves an MMO, because we want you to think fresh thoughts along with us," Kern explained. I also had a chance to play this unique game, so follow me after the cut as I give my impressions of the game along with some key quotes from my talk with Mark Kern.
Former Blizzard devs at Red 5 Studios plan their own MMO
Gamasutra has an excellent interview up with a company called Red 5 Studios. Their CEO, Mark Kern, served as a former team lead on World of Warcraft (though it's been a while -- since a little less than a year after the game's launch), so WoW fans (and Blizzard themselves) are curious about what the studio is up to. Unfortunately, they're staying vague at this point -- while they are definitely working on some kind of fantasy MMO, they're not exactly forthcoming about what it'll be.They do say what they're not -- "we're not trying to be a sequel to WoW," Kern says. And they don't consider themselves in the same areas as Warhammer Online and Tabula Rasa, two games that showed promise earlier this year but never broke out as their developers expected. Instead, they want to do something different with the MMO idea, but as for specifics, don't hold your breath. They don't have a business model planned out quite yet, and even the game's announcement is "months" off.So for now, we'll have to wait. It should be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out of the studio -- many people have said that WoW can only be topped by Blizzard themselves, and while having a history at Blizzard doesn't necessarily prepare you for making brilliant games every time (see Hellgate: London, created by former Diablo devs), it would be interesting to see if Kern (who has made his mark on WoW) can help Red 5 get another success together.
Red 5's upcoming MMO to be announced soon
With a recent shuffle in management and the promise of a truly ground-breaking MMO in the works, Red 5 Studios continues their trek through our anticipated games list in stealth mode. In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Red 5's Chairman and Chief Creative Officer Mark Kern joins the company's CEO, Michael Weingartner, to discuss the studio's current status and the news that their top-secret MMO will finally be announced "in a few months".We've been following Red 5 and their upcoming game's development for a while now, and they never cease to crank up the anticipation level with what they tell us. This interview gives us a better look into their plans to not only go in a different direction than Kern's former employer and their behemoth World of Warcraft, but we get to hear a little bit about how they hope to achieve success in this fragile market.
Red 5 Studios interview: How to fail-proof your MMO
During a recent interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Red 5 Studios' Mark Kern described his views on why games like Tabula Rasa and Hellgate: London had recently failed, and how his colleagues at Red 5 are making sure an early game closure isn't in their future."I think the key is that you need to marry whatever your theme is to the nature of the gameplay," Kern advised. "I think that the issue comes in when you take a theme or a genre that doesn't fit with the style of gameplay that you're making. I think that's some of what you've seen with these failed games. If you just go out and try to make a WoW-type of game with a few tweaks, then try to place the sci-fi genre on top of it, I think you've got some big issues there." Ouch! We can only speculate as to which game he's referring, but we tend to agree with his point here. Shoot us your opinions on a topic that's probably not going to go away any time soon.
Original World of Warcraft team lead takes helm of Red 5 Studios
An MMO nerd logs into a bar and tells his online buddies, "Hey, did you hear Mark Kern was just appointed as the chairman and chief creative officer at Red 5 Studios?" To which they replied, "Who?" Mouth agape, the MMO nerd shoots his arms into the air and explodes with, "The dude who totally helped create World of Warcraft!" The friends look between each other, searching for a response to their fellows' immense piece of news. "Well, if he's so great, why isn't he still in charge of World of Warcraft?" they replied, satisfied with their obviously unbeatable intellectual retort.The nerd replied, "Well that's simple, he wanted a creative challenge and working on the world's most successful MMO simply wasn't enough for him." Smug with a sense of victory, the nerd logged out and prepared a post.But seriously, Mark Kern is taking lead point on development of Red 5 Studio's big secret MMO project. That means whatever game he's helping to create could be considered, in a way, as the spiritual successor to World of Warcraft.
Industry panel says MMOs are just getting started
At a recent panel discussion at the prestigious Harvard Business School, six influential members of the MMO developer community came together to debate the future of the burgeoning business of massively multiplayer online games. The panel included such dignitaries as former Blizzard team lead Mark Kern, Second Life creator Philip Rosedale, Red Sox ace and 38 Studios funder Curt Schilling.And what, I hear you ask, did this illustrious group have to say about the the MMO industry? The focus, as you might assume given the venue, was on the financial viability and growth potential within the MMO sphere. The panel seemed to agree that with only 15 percent of self-identified "gamers" currently playing MMOs (saying nothing of the casual market) the industry has a lot of growth potential if they can manage to deliver products that are attractive to people beyond first and second generation adopters. They also talked at some length about how MMOs could be more ably integrated into a browser experience, as the visual experience of a game like Second Life grows organically into a sort of graphical Web 3.0.It's an interesting discussion to listen to, especially with the credentials that the panelists brought to the table. I'm still not completely sold on the concept of MMOs transcending the "game" label and becoming the focus of the next generation of web development, but I've been wrong about this sort of thing before. I guess we'll just have to see then, won't we?
