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Two senior staff members depart from ArenaNet
ArenaNet is going to be down two staff members in the very near future. Community Team Leader Martin Kerstein and UI Lead Kate Welch are both leaving the company; Welch's final day with the developer is September 4th, while Kerstein has apparently already departed. Both of their farewell letters speak highly of the team and give no cause for the departures, and neither yet has any announcements of future plans. Both Welch and Kerstein have been working on Guild Wars 2 since before its launch. These departures come directly on the heels of the conclusion of the game's second season of living story updates. [Thanks to Sharvis for the tip!]
Make My MMO: August 17 - August 23, 2014
This week was a busy one in MMO crowdfunding circles. We heard from frequent newsmakers like Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen, Shroud of the Avatar, Camelot Unchained, and even Pantheon. We also learned of a new Asimov-inspired sandbox called Seldon Crisis that's gearing up for a Kickstarter campaign next month. Finally, Stash launched a Kickstarter drive for a game it claims will "re-imagine the MMO genre." Click past the cut for our weekly crowdfunding roundup.
Make My MMO: August 10 - August 16, 2014
It's all quiet on the MMO crowdfunding front, at least for the week ending August 16th, 2014. The only changes from last week's edition are a couple of Star Citizen-related news items. They took the form of a new 10 for the Chairman episode and a quartet of spiffy new videos direct from Gamescom. The rest of our MMO crowdfunding roundup is just past the break.
Make My MMO: August 3 - August 9, 2014
Well, Games of Glory didn't last long on our crowdfunding list. Soon after I added it last week, Lightbulb Crew sent out a PR blast saying that it was canceling its Kickstarter drive on account of additional funding that it managed to secure from its existing investors. We also say goodbye to Bone Gulch for now, as the indie wild west sandbox failed to reach its Kickstarter goal. The Stomping Land and Ever, Jane also made headlines this week. The former is moving engines from Unreal 3 to 4, while the latter surfaced with a new build that includes endgame sleuthing and gossip systems. Finally, Star Citizen continued to roll around in piles of money, and oh yeah, it also squashed those troublesome rubberbanding bugs, opened up Arena Commander to all of the game's backers, and added a new CTF mode. More MMO crowdfunding news is just past the break.
Make My MMO: July 27 - August 2, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding news, we said hello to new Kickstarter projects for Avalon Lords and Games of Glory. The first is an attempt to redefine the MMORTS, while the second seeks to add persistent world features to the MOBA genre. We also heard from the creator of Project Gorgon, who describes his title as "Asheron's Call crossed with EverQuest with the emergent gameplay of NetHack." Finally, don't forget about Elite: Dangerous and its newly minted Beta 1! Click past the cut for our complete MMO crowdfunding roundup.
Make My MMO: July 20 - July 26, 2014
MMO crowdfunding news was fairly sparse this week, but a couple of genre heavyweights did capture a headline or two. Frontier reminded us that Elite: Dangerous will feature planetary landings and station/ship interiors post-launch, while Portalarium kicked off its latest backer-only weekend alpha test for Shroud of the Avatar. Release 8 is up and running through 11:00 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 28th, and it features a focus on PvP. As such, the dev team released an extensive tutorial video and a forum post dedicated to kitting out your PvP decks. The rest of our weekly MMO crowdfunding recap is just past the cut.
Massively interviews EVE executive producer Andie Nordgren
If you've been following the development of EVE Online lately, chances are you've heard of Andie 'CCP Seagull' Nordgren and her mission to make deep space colonisation and player-built stargates a reality. Andie has spearheaded the direction of EVE's development over the past few expansions and has gathered a considerable following in the EVE community. At EVE Fanfest 2014, we heard her plans to overhaul EVE's outdated sovereignty and corporation management systems, and to eventually introduce new deep space colonisation gameplay. Today CCP announced that Andie Nordgren has been promoted to the position of Executive Producer on EVE Online. I caught up with her for a chat about development on EVE and to find out what this promotion means for the future the game. I've pulled together the important details from the interview in this article, and if you still have burning questions for Andie Nordgren, she's doing an AMA thread on Reddit right now!
Make My MMO: July 13 - July 19, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding news, Camelot Unchained dominated the headlines. Oh sure, Star Citizen made its money and the Elite: Dangerous devs said a couple more interesting things, but by and large we were all oohing and ahhing over City State's week-long batshit-crazy reveal schedule. Whether or not the finished game actually incorporates all of these awesome ideas is anyone's guess, but for now it sure makes for fascinating reading! Click past the cut for the rundown on the rest of this week's crowdsourcing news.
Yogscast's TUG partnership comes alongside a cancelled game
If you're a fan of Yogscast and TUG, you're probably happy to learn that Yogscast is going to be working closely with Nerd Kingdom to promote the game. Of course, you might not be such a fan if you were originally a backer of Yogventures!, the Yogscast-inspired game that very recently announced it was cancelled despite reaching double its Kickstarter goal in 2012. All of the Yogventures! assets and code are being transferred over as well, allowing TUG to reap the benefits of what had been done on the cancelled game. According to the Yogscast crew, the partnership with TUG and the distribution of serial codes are meant as an effort to make things right, although the official communication makes it clear that they are not on the hook for the game's cancellation (which might be legally debatable). Many of the Yogventures! backers are still very unhappy with the situation, though, as TUG is not the game they backed in the first place. Time will tell how this shakes out in the long run, as very few Kickstarter backers are likely to be fully mollified by receiving a copy of a game they never wanted.
Richard Bartle predicts that free-to-play will decline
Free-to-play as a business model stirs a lot of passionate opinions in both gamers and developers. According to Richard Bartle, well-known gaming researcher and co-creator of the first MUD, free-to-play as a business model has a certain half-life and is going to hit a point when it's just not viable any longer. Bartle spoke on the topic at the Develop conference in Brighton, explaining that the lack of standardization across the industry is part of what will hamper the model, with different games placing different cash gates at varying levels of restrictiveness. Bartle went on to state that the model also relies upon a fixed number of people willing to pay a large amount of money to make up for the users who pay nothing, and designers themselves will be unhappy with developing content for free-to-play titles. It's undeniable that the free-to-play model has had a massive impact on MMOs; whether it's a temporary thing or a consistent feature of this particular genre is still up for debate.
Make My MMO: June 29 - July 5, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding... not a whole lot happened, to tell you the truth. Oh sure, the usual space sim suspects made additional bank, and despite a failed Kickstarter drive, indie sandbox MMORPG Shards Online soldiered ahead with its development roadmap and a plan to release a playable alpha by the end of the year. Other than that, though, it was fairly quiet. Indie firm Universe Projects did alert us about its Voidspace Kickstarter, which looks to fund a sci-fi sandbox MMO that has already been Greenlit on Steam. Further details are available past the cut.
Rob Pardo leaves Blizzard
In a rather surprising move, Blizzard's Executive Producer Rob Pardo announced today that he is leaving the company. At this time he has announced no immediate career plans or subsequent goals, although he mentions a desire to spend the summer with his family and consider his next move. Pardo's forum announcement thanks the design teams for all of their hard work and notes that he has immensely enjoyed his time with the company; he expresses great satisfaction at the growth of the company and all of the changes that have come about during his tenure there. Pardo mentions that he began working with the studio during development of the original StarCraft, having since worked on titles including Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of the Storm. He has promised fans that he will attempt to be communicative about his next move via Twitter. [Thanks to Dystopiq for the tip!]
Make My MMO: June 22 - June 28, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding news, Star Citizen made more money. At this point I should probably go ahead and add that as a permanent part of Make My MMO's opening paragraph. Elsewhere, Pathfinder Online formally flung open its doors and invited backers into its alpha. If you supported the fantasy sandbox on Kickstarter or purchased access through the GoblinWorks store, you should be getting an email invite. Finally, indie outfit Nesoi Tech revealed Bone Gulch, which is some sort of online multiplayer Old West thing built with the Unity engine. Though its Kickstarter page labels it an MMO, I'm not sure how MMO it really is, but I'm desperate enough for a Red Dead Redemption-style persistent world to be cautiously optimistic. As always, the rest of our crowdfunded MMO roundup is just past the break.
TERA's Chinese publisher has a deal for VR headsets
Good news for the VR enthusiasts today, or at least the VR enthusiasts who live in China and have a deep-seated desire to hack at some monsters in TERA. The game's Chinese publisher, Kunlun, revealed an agreement being made between the company and Sony to bring the game to the latter's virtual reality headset. The idea is that the headset will allow players to step into the game with what amounts to a full IMAX experience, only with significantly more giant monsters. Nothing has been said on whether or not this option will be available for players in North America. The Chinese version of the game is planning on its first large-scale open test in August, and there will be unique content for the region, but hopefully that won't include the ability to play the game with a headset strapped over your eyes.
Make My MMO: June 15 - June 21, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding news, golden oldie World War II Online assured itself of a new client update thanks to a successful Indiegogo campaign. The genre's first and arguably best MMOFPS raised over $10,000, which it will spend on a new test server as well as PC and Mac client updates. Elite: Dangerous developer Frontier made headlines based on the size of its (expanding) dev team, and fellow space sim Star Citizen stirred up some controversy thanks to its hyper-realistic flight model manifesto. Oh, and don't forget to watch that crowdfunded EVE Online documentary when it premieres next month! The rest of our weekly crowdfunding roundup is hiding on the other side of that hypergate.
Riot seeks 'culturally aligned' devs, offers cash payouts for quitting
League of Legends developer Riot has unveiled an initiative called Queue Dodge which is designed to strengthen the gamemaker's workforce and "reinforce" its internal culture. "We operate on a foundation of shared mission, values, passion, trust, and mutual respect," says the company's announcement post. "If someone gags on the unique flavor of our culture, they'd be doing themselves and the company a disservice to hang on just for the paycheck. Culturally aligned people and teams are more effective, and alignment around mission and values allows us to better serve players. We've designed Queue Dodge to help self-identified mismatches move on in an open, positive, and constructive way." Riot new-hires can opt in to the program during their first 60 days on the job. They will be paid 10 percent of their annual salary -- up to $25,000 -- to leave.
Make My MMO: June 9 - June 14, 2014
It was a rough week for crowdsourced hopefuls, as Shards Online, Origins of Malu, and The Black Watchmen failed to meet their funding goals. That last one is an ARG inspired by The Secret World, in case you're wondering. Despite the lack of Kickstarter success, rest assured that we haven't heard the last of indie sandboxes Shards and Malu. On a more positive note, Trials of Ascension revealed its plans for playable dragons, while Massively danced with crowdfund darlings Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen at this week's E3 convention in Los Angeles.
Make My MMO: June 2 - June 8, 2014
Cloud Imperium released Star Citizen's dogfighting module this week, and you'd think that Chris Roberts slept with someone's mother or kicked someone's dog. Heck, maybe he did both at once, judging by the amount of shameless boohooing on the game's official forums, on Massively, and generally everywhere the words star and citizen appeared in the same sentence. Outside of cluelesstrollbubbleland, the publish marked a fairly major milestone for CIG and gave the firm's backers something tangible to tool around with while they wait for the space sim sandbox's next module release. Click past the cut for the rest of this week's crowdfunding roundup.
Tracing the history of the MOBA
You hear the kids talking about League of Legends and Infinite Crisis and Heroes of Newerth and you don't understand. You aren't clear on what stuff like jungling and lanes are all about. Are you getting old? Well, yes, if you're referring to a group of people as "the kids" you almost certainly are. But you also might just not understand the history of MOBAs as a genre, a history helpfully outlined in an article on the genre from inception to the present. The article traces the genre's genesis back to the earliest form of gameplay found in StarCraft's Aeon of Strife map, which paved the way for a Warcraft III map that expanded the same basic concept. The genre's core conceits -- two bases on either side of the map, players working to push to the other side -- have remained fairly fixed through the various permutations, but there's still room for expansion. So if you want to find out more about what this new-fangled genre is all about, sit down for some reading.
Make My MMO: May 25 - June 1
This week in MMO crowdfunding news, we heard from Pathfinder devs on crafting as well as Guns of Icarus devs on how they managed to pull off two successful Kickstarter campaigns. EVE Online fans paid nearly $100k to Kickstart an internet spaceship history book, and Elite: Dangerous began its premium beta phase while fellow space sim sandbox Star Citizen delayed its dogfighting module release. Finally, indie sandbox Trials of Ascension, fresh off its successful $40k crowdfunding campaign, announced a raffle that includes a demo pass, a Skype convo with the devs, and a free item from the ToA store.
