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World of Speed creative director stresses the game will be completely free
Perhaps you're looking forward to playing World of Speed but your enthusiasm is tempered slightly by ambiguity regarding the game's business model. Well, the good news is that it's going to be free. No, we didn't say "free-to-play," we said free. According to creative director Andy Tudor, players should be able to reach the highest tiers of the game without ever having to spend any money whatsoever, and there are no plans to sell boost packs or the like. What the game actually will sell is somewhat more ambiguous, since one assumes that at some point the studio would like to make some money from the game. Only time will tell if the game is embracing a very unique business model or if it's simply trying to shake perceptions of free-to-play games selling power. There are more details about the game's design ethos and overall scope in a recent interview with Tudor. [Thanks to dengar for the tip!]
Ask Massively: It's my birthday and I'll devote a column title to it if I want to edition
Yes, 28 years ago, something very special (to me, anyway) happened. That means that while I'm going to spend the day on my usual cocktail of whatever the heck I do, I get the opportunity to make Ask Massively's opening even more of a non sequitor than it normally is. Here, have a screenshot from one of the worst-animated episodes in all of the original Transformers cartoon. I swear that looks bad even in a still frame. It was either this shot or the one of Blaster and Ultra Magnus getting married. (That's what it looks like, anyway.) Now that I've gotten that out of my system for another 10 minutes or so, we can move on to this week's column, which is sadly devoid of giant robots. It does have questions about DC Universe Online and the sad story of World of Starcraft's rise and subsequent fall, so I still get to indulge in things that I like. And birthday or not, questions can be left in the comment field or mailed along to ask@massively.com.
StarCraft II turned into World of StarCraft by enterprising fan
World of StarCraft is, by all indications, high on the list of desirable games that have never been announced or even hinted at. It's certainly a universe ripe for development, and it's not as if Blizzard doesn't know anything about running an MMO. But why wait for an official release when you can put the game together yourself? That's what's behind the rather intuitively named project making the rounds today -- an effort to use the powerful map editor in StarCraft II to create a full MMO within the existing game's framework. While development is still in the very early stages, and of course the project is wholly unofficial, it's a fascinating use of player-edited gameplay as well as a display of just how much people want to play in the world as an MMO. Take a look at the trailer past the cut to see the surprising amount of work that's been done on converting the RTS into a more familiar genre -- although bear in mind that the official forums have been getting rather hammered before you go nuts.
