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Richard Garriott addresses 'Third Grand Era of Games' at the 2011 LOGIN Conference
Richard Garriott: game developer, private astronaut, beard aficionado -- and now keynote speaker. The former developer of the Ultima series, Ultima Online, and Tabula Rasa will provide the main speech at the 2011 LOGIN Conference. Garriott will be talking about the Third Grand Era of Games that he sees us moving into, following the single-player titles of the '80s and '90s and the MMORPGs of the 2000s. It's his belief that the market for online gaming is poised to expand tenfold with the rise of casual-led, virally spread, free-to-play titles. Garriott gave a teaser for his upcoming message: "The gaming industry is dawning on - at long last - a truly global audience of both genders and all ages. What lessons of history are useful? What truly new challenges await us? What will casual online games look like in five years?" The LOGIN Conference is a convention of game and software developers who discuss advances in technology, business, design and community. It will take place from May 16-18th in Bellevue, Washington, and Garriott will deliver his keynote speech on the 17th.
The Game Archaeologist goes to Earth & Beyond: A talk with Rade Stojsavljevic
I have to admit, it's bizarrely fascinating to cover a deceased MMO. The effort produces a bag of mixed emotions: fond memories, bitter resentment, wistful longing, and casual disinterest by those who weren't there. These games truly matter to some players, even though they're already in danger of being covered by the sands of history. In these events, our monthly expeditions into these games becomes a rescue operation of sorts as we try to preserve the past by digging it up. I found it a welcome challenge to hunt down former Earth & Beyond developers who were willing to talk about their time with the game (and who hadn't forgotten it entirely -- 2004 is, like, sooo long ago!). Fortunately, I got a few nibbles for my efforts, and this week I reeled in Jet Set Games President Rade Stojsavljevic, who took time out of his schedule to hand us a long-lost piece of the Earth & Beyond treasure map. Hit the jump to hear Stojsavljevic reminisce about the best -- and, yes, the worst -- that Earth & Beyond had to offer!
Ultima Online revisits dynamic content with Magincia reconstruction
Long before RIFT barreled on to the MMO scene and made a buzz-phrase out of "dynamic content," Ultima Online developers were busily pumping out some dynamic content of their own. In the fall of 2007, the influential fantasy sandbox title saw a horde of nasty demons descend upon the hapless town of Magincia and raze it to the ground despite (or in some cases, because of) the efforts of players on each of the game's shards. The invasion was part of a larger story cycle called Warriors of Destiny, and a new event is now brewing that will bring players back to the site of the ruined town. As part of the New Magincia rebuilding process, the provisional government of Britannia is holding a lottery for 22 land plots atop the city ruins. Said plots may be used for residences or shops at the winning player's discretion. The city is also playing host to a new public gardening mechanic, and you can find all the details at the official Ultima Online website.
Ultima Online video dev diary highlights new player experience
The original PvP-centric version of Ultima Online may be dead, but the heart and soul of the sandbox MMORPG lives on thanks to a dedicated playerbase and the Mythic dev team that is continually pumping out the updates. In a new video diary, producer Calvin Crowner talks about a return to Ultima's roots in 2011 and says that doing so necessitates moving away from the checklist mentality that often permeates development cycles. "If we go through a checklist, there's no way we're going to appeal to everyone, so instead of doing that we'd rather really get back to that feel and that flavor that brought players to Britannia every day." Associate producer Bonnie Armstrong agrees and points out that Ultima is moving away from MMO-standard kill quests and focusing more on stories (which are often helped along by the dedicated event GMs on each shard). Lead engineer Derek Brinkman says this will work well with the newly optimized client and the new high-resolution environment assets. Finally, the dev team talks about the redesigned new player experience and how it is expressly intended to get players into the world quickly while the meat of the client download happens behind the scenes. Hit the jump for the full video.
BioWare's Rich Vogel talks gaming history, Ultima, and the first MMO
Quick, what was the first MMO? No, this isn't the global chat of your favorite game, and no the answer doesn't start with World and end with Warcraft. According to veteran designer (and current Star Wars: The Old Republic producer) Rich Vogel, Meridian 59 was the first MMO, as there were "a lot of firsts with that game, for sure. It was really the first 3D visual of a virtual world, if you want to say that." In a new interview at Gamasutra, Vogel talks about everything from M59, to Star Wars Galaxies, to Ultima Online (and how the PvP minority managed to ruin it for virtual world enthusiasts everywhere). "Frankly when you give people a simulator and the ability to do anything in the world you have to have limits, you have to have constraints that they understand," Vogel explains. UO's free-form PvP, coupled with the thieving mechanic and the ability to manipulate the game world to your advantage, was a recipe for griefing that caught the game's developers completely off guard. "It went through eight or nine iterations before we kind of found a balance of what really worked and what didn't. But it was certainly an experience and many people talk about their experiences in UO. The experience there, no one's ever been able to duplicate today," Vogel says.
The Daily Grind: How long have you been playing MMOs?
Here on Massively, we've got a staff with a widely varying set of tastes. Some of us prefer open-ended sandboxes, some prefer straightforward themeparks, and some like a mix of both. But if there's one point of commonality that's come up when the question has been asked of late, it's the fact that most of us have been playing in our virtual worlds for a while now. In fact, the most recent game on our "first game played" list was Guild Wars, a game swiftly approaching its six-year anniversary. As much as we'd like to pretend that age is nothing but a number, we all know that there's a certain added weight to saying that you've been playing since Ultima Online was launched. So today, we'd like to know just how long our readers have been playing MMOs. Have you been around since the launch of Ultima Online? EverQuest? World of Warcraft? Or are you even more recent, having just started in the near-past -- or planning on starting when an upcoming game is released? 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: 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.
The Daily Grind: Do you like classed or classless systems?
Class-based systems have dominated MMOs for years, but it wasn't always the case. Ultima Online, the granddaddy of the graphical MMO, had an open system wherein players could advance in whatever field they chose. It was EverQuest that first introduced a rigid class system, and arguably World of Warcraft that made it the golden standard. And it's a kind of silly standard, resulting in class-based games like RIFT trying to be as freeform as possible while freeform games like Champions Online offer class-like archetypes. It's as if one side always wants to be like the other without sacrificing its identity. A classless system gives characters far more freedom of progression, but it also creates degenerate environments where everyone takes the few useful skills and the rest go unattended. Class systems, on the other hand, promote a strong sense of homogenization wherein everyone of the same level has the same abilities, often with only tiny variations. So what game has the best implementation of this back-and-forth? Do you like a class-based game that has a very open skill tree, or a classless system with a wide variety of useful skills, or a game which hews closer to the core of either concept? 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!
Ultima Online celebrates player's 83rd birthday in game
Think Ultima Online is all about ganking, Lord of the Flies, and survival of the fittest? Think again, as the feel good story of the week comes courtesy of the long-lived granddaddy of sandbox MMOs. Speaking of long lives, UO player Hollie Macrall recently celebrated her 83rd birthday, and while we don't know for sure whether that's some sort of MMO record, we do know that the Ultima devs were duly impressed enough to reward her with an in-game flower marking the occasion. As you can see in the accompanying screenshot, Hollie was surrounded by friends and family for her virtual celebration and is also the proud owner of the one-of-a-kind item bearing the inscription "In appreciation of age and wisdom. Happy 83rd birthday Hollie from the UO Team."
The Daily Grind: Would you play on a progression server?
EverQuest fans have been abuzz ever since SOE announced that a new progression server will come to the game this March. A progression server is kind of like a "way back" machine, resetting an MMO to the core game with expansions rolled out at a steady pace thereafter. It basically allows one to experience a sped-up version of how the MMO initially developed while forcing the players to stay together within certain boundaries. Even if your memory is long and clear enough to know that the good old days weren't always good, nostalgia has a way of sucking you in, prompting cries for a "classic shard" to try to duplicate that original experience. And that doesn't always necessitate some shadowy underground emulator (which we can't talk about on Massively anyway, so don't do it!). Sometimes the companies themselves try to cash in on the nostalgia. Gamers coming to a long-established MMO years after launch often feel behind the curve as the bulk of the playerbase is already at max level, yet progression servers put everyone on equal footing -- at least initially. So would you play on a progression server if your MMO offered one? What would it be like to go back to old vanilla World of Warcraft or Ultima Online's era of a free-for-all frontier? Or would it be an unnecessary nostalgia trip that would fail to recapture that unique initial experience? 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 Daily Grind: Why don't you like PvP?
When Ultima Online first launched, OSI understood that if you really want to give players a fully featured world, you have to give them the option to fight one another. Of course, that also resulted in players having (and exercising) the option to sneak up on defenseless players and introduce them to the world of recreational amputation. The past decade has seen almost every subsequent game try to find some balance between the dynamic world of PvP and the need to keep Lord New Player away from Geoffrey, Slayer of All and Bane of People Just Trying to Finish a Quest in Peace. But whether you're a dedicated duelist or a life-long carebear, there's got to be something you don't like about PvP. So what does it happen to be? Is it the chance for dramatically unbalanced matches? Is it the pressure of competing with another player without any sort of scripted AI to rely on? Or is it the simple fact that you can't solve all of your problems in Warhammer Online by slaughtering new characters on your Choppa? 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 and the NeverEnding Quest: The highlights
To many veteran MMO players, the opening horns of EverQuest's score are enough to trigger vivid memories, violent hallucinations, and an unstoppable desire to leap through the computer screen to return to Norrath. It all depends, of course, on which MMO you first cut your teeth, and while many gamers would claim titles like World of Warcraft as their first, there is a large contingent who will confess that EQ was their first MMO lover. In fact, before WoW came on the scene in 2004, EverQuest was the gold standard of MMOs for a half-decade -- it was insanely popular, perfectly addictive, and absolutely revolutionary. It was a giant that roamed the virtual lands of those days, a giant that continues to forge new grounds well over a decade from its inception. It was 1995 when John Smedley realized the potential for online gaming and roped in Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover to start putting together an online RPG for SOE. What began as a small project ballooned into a crazy endeavor as the growing team created a monster RPG the likes the world had never seen before -- a game that would forever shape the MMO genre. This month, the Game Archaeologist is going after one of the biggest treasures of recorded history as we unearth the secrets to EverQuest's popularity, legacy, and longevity. The first step on our journey is to look at some of the highlights that made EQ what it is today.
The Soapbox: Sandboxes and the cop-out of FFA PvP
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Last week, our own Jef Reahard mounted the Massively Soapbox with an article titled Sandboxes and the fear of FFA PvP. In it, he argued that open PvP was a natural and necessary part of any solid sandbox MMO. He also made waves by suggesting that FFA PvP is crucial to the roleplaying experience and that roleplayers should really face their "fears" and give it a try. I'm a sandbox gamer and a PvPer at heart. I played the early years of Ultima Online and lived the adrenaline rush of full and brutal PvP and thievery. Dark Age of Camelot's RvR sucked up another year of my life. Star Wars Galaxies remains my sandbox of choice, and I've braved a World of Warcraft PvP server since launch. I know this territory very well. I'll knock it, because I have more than tried it -- in several tasty flavors. And even though I'm an unabashed Jef-fangirl, I think there are a few debatable issues with his article. Hit the jump for some good old-fashioned counterpoints!
The Daily Grind: Would you roll back a portion of your favorite MMO?
Jagex is making headlines lately with its trailblazing Wilderness vote. Whether you're a fan of the long-running Runescape MMO or not, you have to admit that it's pretty cool that developers would leave an enormous and game-altering decision up to the players. Aside from that novelty, the potential rollback got us to thinking about sweeping changes to our favorite MMOs, and whether or not we'd reverse them given a Jagex-style choice. Whether it's earthquakes like Ultima Online's Trammel or Star Wars Galaxies' NGE, or subtler and more recent tweaks like Age of Conan's removal of Tortage PvP, the MMO landscape is littered with changes both large and small. Are there any features of your favorite MMO that you'd revert or roll back if you could? Which ones and why? 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 and the year that was 2010
Earlier in the year when I started this column, I realized two things. First, I'd be giving myself as much as any of you a crash-course education in older MMOs, particularly with some of the more fringe titles that I'd never really explored up to this point. And second, it would be a challenge to find the right mix of elements to do these MMOs justice. So before we look back at all the games this column covered in 2010, I'd like to ask each and every one of you to take a minute and drop a comment about what you'd like to see The Game Archaeologist do next. What titles would you love to see honored in 2011? What features are the most interesting to you -- dev interviews, player interviews, history overviews, photo galleries, first impression playthroughs, or links to community fansites and blogs? What could I add to make The Game Archaeologist even better? I also want to take a minute to thank the readers, players and developers who have contributed to this column so far. While there are MMOs that get a lion's share of the press these days, we at Massively are committed to spotlighting as many of these games as possible, particularly if there's a passionate community and dev team behind them. I've loved hearing your stories and hope that in passing them along, perhaps we've opened a door or two to games that you might've never considered before. So let's hop in our hot air balloon and soar over the year that was 2010!
The Soapbox: You don't know what you're hungry for
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. If there's one thing that binds almost every player together, regardless of game or anything else, it's the fact that we're a bunch of demanding little snots. Seriously, we want pretty much everything in place at the moment a game launches, to the point that we begin hollering bloody murder if even a scrap of a game is considered missing. And it doesn't matter what sort of player we are, either. Whether you're a hardcore endgame enthusiast or an altoholic in love with low-level PvP, you want the game tuned, and you want everything in its right place. The funny thing is that in our demands for what we want, sometimes we never stop to ask why we want something in the first place. And it cuts both ways. Sometimes we think that something is an absolute necessity when it isn't really needed... and sometimes something that never even pops into our heads is an important element to what makes a game fun.
The Daily Grind: What was your first time like?
Having just become a Contributing Editor this month, I found out there are a lot of things I didn't know about MMOs, not to mention some things I didn't know about reporting for an MMO website. This experience has been exciting for me because I like to learn new things. You have to admit, there is a bit of a thrill each time you run into something new for the first time, right? One of the first MMOs for many of the old-school gamers was Ultima Online. Thirteen years ago, Richard Garriott busted this innovation in gaming onto the scene. The idea of being online while mutually experiencing game content was an extremely invigorating prospect for many players, especially in a graphical world. Soon after, we saw hits like EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars, and, of course, World of Warcraft. With each of the MMOs that followed, there was always that sense of trying to capture that feeling of stepping into a virtual world for the first time. What was it like the first time you stepped into an MMO? Do you remember that feeling? What was it about that experience that made you want to come back for more? And with the slew of MMOs coming out soon, do you have hopes for any of those games to capture that feeling again? Or is that even possible? 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!
Ask Massively: Solve all your problems with chainsaws edition
We don't really want to solve all our problems with violence. It's just that violence solves problems so quickly and efficiently that it's kind of silly. With a sufficiently large lever, Aristotle believed he could move the world, but I say with a sufficiently large chainsaw you could probably solve all of your problems in such a way that they would never need to be solved again. Although most state and local authorities might take some issue with this approach. And it's hard to feel a sense of fulfillment just by chainsawing everything in your path. So maybe we can't solve everything with violence after all. This week's questions both speak to problems that don't allow the option -- the persistent bugbears of gear grinds and slow connections. Click past the break for this week's answers, and if you have your own questions, you can leave them in the comments or send them to ask@massively.com. Or chainsaw them into a tree and send us a picture. Chainsaws are pretty awesome.
The Game Archaeologist and the Asheron Recall: Player sagas
It's an odd thing to realize how far MMOs have come right in front of our eyes in a relatively short span of time. After all, 1999 wasn't that long ago, despite what Prince and Y2K would have you believe. One day we'll be telling our children -- if we aren't already -- about the primitive MMOs that didn't feature RealGore™, motion sensor-linked emotes, and mostly nude elves dancing for tips on mailboxes. They may gasp and sputter in disbelief, but you'll assert that it is true: You experienced an era when polygons were blockier than LEGO pieces, people logged in over dial-up connections, and the community was small enough for GMs to host personal live events. There's been a lot of love flowing into my email inbox and Twitter since posting the first Game Archaeologist on Asheron's Call, enough to tell me that this title is a dear old friend to many a seasoned gamer out there (including a few on the Massively staff who won't stop writing epic haikus about AC in its honor this month). As a result, I got in touch with two die-hard fans of the game, and they agreed to scribe their memories of this MMO for future generations to discover, generations who will undoubtedly marvel at the hardship and perserverence that such scrappy gamers showed in being part of the first wave of MMO players. Without further ado, please give a warm round of applause to Amanda and Jon. No, nobody can hear you clap over the internet, but it's the thought that counts.
GDCO 2010: Rich Vogel and Calvin Crowner on 13 years of Ultima Online
At this year's GDC Online in Austin, Ultima Online was the first game inducted into the Game Developer's Choice Hall of Fame. Massively had a chance to look back at UO's thirteen years of history with its original senior producer, Richard Vogel, and its current one, Calvin Crowner. Follow along after the jump to read more on their impressions of those 13 years.
