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Wicked partners with Alienware for Bounty Hounds Online North American launch
Wicked Interactive has partnered with Alienware Arena for the North American launch of Bounty Hounds Online. Players may recognize the game as a sequel to the 2006 PSP title Bounty Hounds. BHO is a free-to-play MMORPG that allows players to delve deeper into the Bounty Hounds universe, which is set centuries in the future after a devastating third World War. Players choose from five different mercenary classes (Trooper, Agent, Bioengineer, Artillery, or Scientist) and select a Mercenary Company to align themselves with. Each mercenary is also given a CTU, or Combat Tactical Unit, which is a robotic pet that assists players in combat. Players are able to build their CTU to their liking in order to further increase its combat acuity. And to round it all out, we have some lovely screenshots in the gallery below and a trailer after the cut. For more information on this sci-fi MMORPG, such as how to get in on the beta test which begins July 29, head on over to the game's official site. %Gallery-128873%
15 Minutes of Fame: (Almost) 15 authors of fame
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. 15 Minutes of Fame tries to feature as wide a variety of WoW players as possible. It's not only about being famous in the real world, or being a somebody in the WoW community, or playing WoW despite some remarkable circumstance. 15 Minutes covers all those things, yes ... But we also try to talk with players who are representative of the typical player experience -- ambassadors of the Folks Next Door, if you will. But no matter how we try to balance things, we always seem to end up back at another interview with an author. Writers who game are a particular bunch. They always have a lot to say about the fantasy genre and the game lore and way the world of Azeroth is unfolding; it makes for a pretty interesting interview. So when we realized that we'd pretty much overshot the bottom of our dance card despite the line of authors winding past the punch bowl and out the door ... Well, we decided it was time to give everyone a full helping of nothing but WoW-playing writers. With our common enjoyment of WoW and the fantasy genre, we figure most readers will find something from these authors they'll want to curl up with on the couch. Welcome, then, to 15 Minutes of Fame's list of (Almost) 15 WoW-Playing Authors of Fame.
The Daily Grind: What is your favorite internet spaceship?
When we talk about intergalactic transportation, there is no end to the variety of shapes and sizes of starships. Even within specific genres of science fiction, the starships are consistently inconsistent. In Star Wars, the Imperial ships are very angular, whereas the Mon Calamari ships are kind of puffy. If you look at Star Trek, you see a multitude of cultural differences between the spacecraft. Federation ships are very pristine, clean, and diplomatic. On the other had, Klingon ships carry the mark of the aggressive species that created them. Many MMOs have introduced us to ships we can pilot in a virtual world. Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online were mentioned above, but there is also EVE Online and Taikodom -- not to mention games still in development like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Jumpgate Evolution. So in the spirit of EVE fanfest, we are asking today: What is your favorite internet spaceship? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Game Archaeologist goes to Earth & Beyond: Final memories
The question that lurks deep in the recesses of most MMO gamers' minds -- the question that they never really want to ask -- is what will happen when the lights go out? When your favorite game is finally sent to its resting place in that server farm in the sky, will we still care about it, and if so, what will we be able to take away? While most of us have yet to face this, considering the longevity of most launched MMOs, it does happen, and it will certainly happen to us sooner or later. And while you won't be able to take your max-leveled, uber-geared character out of the game and into another one, you hopefully have the memories, the friendships, the screenshots, and the bragging rights. With many canceled MMOs, the shutdown is fairly abrupt following the official announcement, although some games, like Earth & Beyond, give players enough time to say their goodbyes and get in those final experiences before everything goes dark. Like many of the games we've been exploring in The Game Archaeologist, Earth & Beyond may not have enjoyed stellar popularity, but it certainly did have a remnant of dedicated fans who have yet to let the flames of their adoration die down. Today we've got a buffet of E&B goodness: the background story from the manual, final memories from a few fans, and a photo album full of concept art and nostalgic screenshots. Sound good? Let's go!
The Game Archaeologist goes to Earth & Beyond: The vet
Space: the final frontier... except for 4chan, which is a lot scarier to explore. These are the voyages of the Starship Massively. Its five-year mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and blow it out of the sky; to boldly exploit trade routes like no one has done before! Erp, better stop there before I begin infringing on the Captain's Log's territory! In any event, we at The Game Archaeologist Institute for Fuzzy Nostalgia continue to forge ahead with the Earth & Beyond dig, carefully dusting off memories and screenshots to preserve in a blog-shaped museum. It's one thing to talk of a game, but another to speak with one who was there at the time, so I went on a hunt through the dark recesses of the internet to find seasoned Earth & Beyonders. This search took me about two minutes before one of my associates practically opened the floodgates of fanboy gushing to drown me in his enthusiasm for this title. One interview, hundreds of screenshots and an Electronic Arts dev bible later, and we at the institute knew that we hit the motherlode. Join us for a civilized discussion with an Earth & Beyond vet as he shares with us crumpets and recollections.
GDC 2011: Bungie's MMO won't be WoW in space
The top secret MMO project from Bungie continues to raise fan and industry eyebrows despite the absence of any real information about the title. The game, rumored to carry the code name Destiny, will be massively multiplayer, and it will be set against a space/sci-fi backdrop. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess as to what will actually emerge from the Halo-maker's secret laboratory. Joystiq has unearthed a blurb about the project from this week's GDC, wherein Bungie lead network engineer David Aldridge was overheard referring to the game as "massively multiplayer" as well as the fact that it won't be "WoW in space."
The Game Archaeologist goes to Earth & Beyond: The highlights
For this month's Game Archaeologist expedition, I deliberately wanted to look at an older MMO that was -- for whatever reason -- no longer with us. After voting on a handful of these titles, Massively readers selected Earth & Beyond for March's focus, and I have to say that I'm intrigued. Personally, I prefer science fiction over fantasy nine times out of ten, even though most of the MMOs that grace my desktop (with the exception of Star Trek Online) are fantasy games. Sci-fi has had an awfully difficult time making headway into the field of MMOs, with plenty of underperforming or canceled titles littering the way. I've heard it explained that the fantasy genre is easier for the common person to grasp because it uses elements of our past -- primarily the medieval period -- to provide a familiar baseline, whereas sci-fi's futuristic setting requires world-building from scratch. Whatever the case may be, Earth & Beyond never really caught on the way that EVE Online did, and its miniscule population (GameSpot reported 20-25K subscribers six months before its shutdown) was not enough for Electronic Arts to keep it running. But between 2002 and 2004, Earth & Beyond reached for the stars and gave its own spin on how a sci-fi MMO could work. Let's take a look today at what made Earth & Beyond unique, what it gave the industry, and how it may help upcoming space MMOs avoid a similar fate.
Timescape Sci-Fi watch makes you work for the time of day, looks good doing it (video)
If you're like us, you don't mind working that grey matter to tell the time, especially if the watch your wearing looks and acts like something ripped from the U.S.S. Enterprise. The Timescape Sci-Fi watch, thus named for its cryptic time telling interface, sports a chrome exterior and uses a series of blue LEDs to illuminate a rectangular grid, giving you unique temporal readouts. Each line contains a series of dots representing minutes or hours, with the vertical lines displaying hours, the first three horizontal lines showing five-minute increments, and the last row offering exact minutes. Sound complicated? Well it is, but sometimes looking good takes a little work -- you think Uhura rolls out of bed looking like that? The Timescape Sci-Fi watch is now on sale exclusively from Gadgets and Gear for $70, but if you just like staring at shiny flashy things, we've got a video of the timepiece after the jump.
15 Minutes of Fame: Sci-fi and fantasy copyeditor Deanna Hoak
From Hollywood celebrities to the guy next door, millions of people have made World of Warcraft a part of their lives. How do you play WoW? We're giving each approach its own 15 Minutes of Fame. Deanna Hoak and I have bonded over the Viscous Hammer. Yes, I realize that some of you will find it somewhat predictably amusing that WoW Insider's resident copyeditor should be geeking out over interviewing sci-fi/fantasy copyeditor and WoW player Deanna Hoak -- but there's more to this editor than a mere passion for punctuation. Hoak brings a virtually unique set of experience and sensitivities to the fantastical demands of the novels she edits. In the world of science fiction and fantasy, Hoak edits the big dogs: China Miéville, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, Alan Dean Foster, Cherie Priest, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, R.A. Salvatore ... In fact, Hoak's the only copyeditor ever nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her work. So yeah, someone who appreciates all the wrongness of WoW's awkwardly named Viscous Hammer (and who knows how to spice up an email exchange with some pretty hot photos of China Miéville at a recent con -- but that's another story) ... To top it all off, along with her two children (her husband's the lone holdout of the family), Hoak's an avid WoW player. Join us after the break for a conversation on World of Warcraft from a SF/F insider's point of view, her recommended reading list for fellow WoW players, and more.
The Game Archaeologist goes PlanetSide: The highlights
Unlike fantasy, the sci-fi genre has had a rocky relationship with MMORPGs. While studios have tried just as hard to make and promote them, there seems to be a curse that hovers over most of these games. From the canceled (Earth & Beyond, The Matrix Online, Tabula Rasa) to the radically retinkered (Star Wars Galaxies) to the relatively niche (Anarchy Online, Star Trek Online), sci-fi struggles to be seen as relevant and embraced as its bigger brother. That isn't to say that these games or the genre is worthless, just that it's a harder sell to both investors and players to throw players into the future than the mythical past. Fortunately, the industry hasn't given up on these games, and some of these titles -- such as EVE Online -- have proven that they're worth pursuing. And if science fiction is a difficult sell, first-person shooters are doubly difficult in the MMO space. After all, it's not as though the world is suffering a shortage of FPS titles that can be played without a monthly subscription. To convince players to part with a monthly payment, the studio has to make a powerful, compelling case as to why its MMOFPS is worthy of that premium price. Enter PlanetSide, circa 2003. While sci-fi MMOs, multi-faction PvP and online shooters had been done separately at that point, PlanetSide stepped up to the plate to combine all three into a persistent war on an alien planet. Due to popular demand, this month we'll be setting our sights to the far reaches of the galaxy and beyond as we explore one of the more unique MMOs in existence. Today let's take a look at what made PlanetSide a unique twinkle in SOE's eyes by counting down the highlights of this futuristic war.
One Shots: Linked to the future
With the NDA down on Earthrise's beta and the game set to launch on February 4th, we're somewhat surprised that we haven't gotten a great flood of Earthrise screenshots for One Shots yet. Thankfully, Cavadus has stepped up and decided to give those of us who didn't make it into beta a little sample of what we can expect to see in-game. He writes in: "[This screenshot is part of] a virtual tour of Sal Vitas, capital of Enterra and the Continoma faction. It's really quite beautiful. I hope you enjoy the picture!" He also enclosed a link to a gallery of the other tour images, if you'd like to check those out. Are you in the mood to show off something cool you've seen recently? Perhaps you're also in a beta whose NDA is down? If you'd like to share, then email your screenshot to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We'll post it out here for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit for sending it in. Couldn't be easier! %Gallery-112285%
Rise and Shiny recap: Anarchy Online
Older MMOs are interesting creatures. If they are subscription-based, they tend to lose players until they get down to a hardcore number, and then they are eventually shut down. World of Warcraft will eventually lose most of its numbers, too. In 20 years or so I fully expect to see players still playing it, though, talking about how the controls and game mechanics are still a lot of fun. If the game is from SOE, it might go on for ever and ever, albeit without much of a development team. Anarchy Online is a great example of how a game can age very, very gracefully. Perhaps newer games should look at AO to see how to keep both their dignity and their core players as the games approach their golden years. I tried to put my finger on exactly why AO seems to have held up so well, how it can still suck in "new" players like yours truly, and how it can still thrill with its lore and setting. How do you even get away with graphics like that in an age of players who literally think that upgrading their PCs every two years is a mark of pride? Click past the cut and I'll tell you.
Flow my tears, the newly-built robotic head of Philip K. Dick said
Yes, this is definitely a post (and video!) about a hand-built, robotic head of author Philip K. Dick, who died in 1982, leaving the world a trove of literature which could be turned into films like Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly. Sadly, he did not leave a robotic head of himself. It may surprise you to find out that this is actually not even the first robotic head of Philip K. Dick, it's apparently the second. This newly-built robo-PKD is meant to replace one that was famously lost in 2006, and was built by Hanson Robotics and Dutch public broadcasters VPRO. The video after the break is creepy and amazing, but it's nothing compared to the VALIS Trilogy.
Rise and Shiny recap: Star Trek Online
I'm not a tough guy, but the first thing I want to do when someone wishes ill on one of my first impressions is to reach through the screen and punch his lights out. There were at least a few people who did this to me when I said I would be visiting Star Trek Online. It was as though they were warning me to stay away from that scary old house on the hill. "Don't go up there, see? That's Old Man Cryptic's house! If you do, don't say I didn't warn ya!" Duly noted, oddball. I long ago made a rule to revisit games, even if I hated them when I first played them. MMORPGs change -- they have to. They have to adjust to a growing (or shrinking) playerbase, adapt to a questioning (or screaming) audience, or react to market influences (or games that do it better). Despite understanding all of this, I was worried that the five bucks I spent on the STO special edition from Amazon would be wasted. I found something I did not expect, that's for sure. Join me after the cut to find out more.
Details on event zones in Jumpgate Evolution
There's something about the massive span of space that lends itself to large-scale PvP, and Jumpgate Evolution is certainly heading down the road to having big and meaningful faction battles. This is the core of the game's Event Sectors, hotspots of activity between both players and NPCs in which everyone takes part in a truly epic struggle. In a recent diary on MMORPG.com, Joe Grubb explains the design philosophy behind the sectors and how they're shaping up as the game continues in development. Grubb explains that one of the first goals the team had with these sectors was that they had to feel meaningful in context -- rather than just featuring good gameplay, it had to make sense why the battle was taking place from a lore standpoint. He goes on to explain how the team began testing and then revising the way content was set up to improve the feel of immersion and realism in each given sector. Take a look at the full diary for a preview of what promises to be one of the most interesting features in Jumpgate Evolution -- and really, who doesn't like epic space battles?
Rise and Shiny recap: Global Agenda
PvP is a funny thing. Essentially, it is a glorified game of tag. There are variations on the theme, of course: freeze tag, Marco Polo, or Hide-and-Seek. Most of us have had the pleasure of spending a summer evening playing it with our friends. I know that when we played it, we added the dimension of The Woods (as they were known) and all that hiding in those woods on a dark summer evening implies. It was intense, I remember. Once, I hid under a pile of leaves for 40 minutes, scared out of my mind, while my buddy tried to find me. Good PvP can be like that, but bad PvP can ruin your evening. Bad PvP, like a rainstorm during a campout, usually ends with one or more participants taking the event way too seriously. But when you spend a few hours in good PvP, running around shooting at strangers, throwing mines at each other and getting shot down by automated turrets, your heart will race and you will realize that you have had a smile on your face most of the time. Global Agenda has that effect on me, like a good game of tag.
Metropolis gets twenty-five minutes of lost footage, please don't tell Giorgio Moroder
Metropolis, Fritz Lang's 1927 epic, predated many of our own cinematic obsessions by decades. At over two and a half hours this heady mix of dystopian science fiction and German Expressionism divided critics upon its initial release, even as it is now universally praised. Indeed, as a result of its length (not to mention the squeamishness of American distributors) the thing has been variously edited (cannibalized) over the years, to the point where it was doubtful that we would ever get to see it the way that the director intended. That's why we were psyched when we came across this clip from BBC's Newsnight detailing the discovery of what is presumed to be a copy of the original director's print, which was taken to Argentina by a private collector in 1928, where it sat until discovered in an archive of the Museum of Cinema in Buenos Aires in June, 2008. Wild, huh? Hit the source link to watch the clip.
Black Prophecy networking physics explained
Reakktor Media Technical Director Cyrus Preuss is back with his fourth and final dev diary regarding Black Prophecy's game physics. This time around, the focus is on the networking side of the equation, and the article does a good job of presenting the Reakktor team's networking challenges to the lay person. "It must be noted that we are talking about a real first-person, respectively third-person MMO. So no server-sided dice play but real physical hit detection," Preuss says. "All of these mechanisms serve to determine what actually happens as precisely as possible. Every parameter adjustment has "logical" consequences as well as side effects that you can only track down with precise analysis." Whether you're a physics major, or your eyes gloss over at the thought of balancing your checkbook, it's clear that Black Prophecy is a labor of love for Reakktor. Hit this link to jump to the original article, as well as the first, second, and third parts of the Game Physics dev blog. Also be sure and stick with Massively all week as we will be interviewing the Reakktor team at GDC 2010.
100 sci-fi stories in your pocket
If you're an unabashed science fiction fan it's probably worth taking a look at 100 SciFi Stories for your iPhone or iPod touch. The app is US$0.99. All the stories are in the public domain, and many are true classics. Other selections are less well-known, but worth a read. You can adjust the text size, and when you relaunch the app, it picks up where you left off. Books you've already started are also marked on the contents page. The developer claims future updates will include more books at no additional cost. You can scroll the pages continuously, or page by page. The app includes authors like H.G. Wells (of course) and S.P. Meek, George Griffith, Ray Cummings, Edgar Rice Burroughs and many others. Are there any downsides? A few. When the app first came up I thought it had frozen at the splash screen, but I had to touch on the word 'stories' to actually get to the contents. I think the app should just go directly to the contents page. I'd like to get the text size even bigger, and I'd like to see a landscape mode for reading. I couldn't find a complete list of all the titles included, which I think is a rather big omission. If you want to give the app a try there is a free 'lite' version with 7 stories. It will give you an idea how the app behaves. I think 100 SciFi Stories is reasonably priced and could be nice on an overnight or even a long trip. All these books can be found online and downloaded for free, but it's nice to have them grouped together in one app. %Gallery-87387%
Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Newspad finally arrives, nine years late
One of my all-time favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. At several points during the film, we see ill-fated astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole using a flat, iPad-like device. In one of the posters for the movie, astronauts at a base on the Moon are seen using this device (see image at right). Those who read Arthur C. Clarke's companion novel will remember that he described this device as the "Newspad," something that was used by people of the future (as envisioned in 1968) to watch TV and read newspapers. You can read the full description of the device after the break -- it's described as a newsreader, with two-digit codes for each article online, and a constant stream of information from the hourly updates on "electronic papers." Of course, we don't have two-digit references to articles; we simply need to tap on them to bring them up. We do need to know the "codes" for the world's major electronic papers; we refer to them as URLs or specific apps. But like many things Clarke foresaw in his lifetime of writing science fiction, the Newspad has finally become reality in the form of Apple's iPad. I think Arthur would be proud.
