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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!
Hyperspace Beacon: Star Wars Galaxies 2
It happens all the time: When a new game is coming out we attempt to compare it to something familiar. "Jumpgate Evolution is like EVE combined with Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed." "Guild Wars 2's battles are scalable like Warhammer's." Even Rich Vogel, the Executive Producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, couldn't get away from comparing his crafting system to an existing MMO when we interviewed him at E3. "It will be very similar to what WoW has," is what he said. Granted, Blaine Christine later set our minds at ease at PAX: "I think it's a different take on crafting than what people will be expecting. It's not the standard implementation." Unfortunately, the stigma of comparison was already there. One of my favorite features of MMO creation is the fact that there are no real rules regarding gameplay style. Granted, in the early days of MMO design, a creator had to consider the heavy latency of dial-up connections, so most games were designed to be turn-based. However, now there really is no limit to gameplay style, so there are no rules regarding what makes a game an MMO besides its having a persistent online world. There are no rules that say a game must have similar gameplay to other games that came before, even a prequel. Guild Wars 2 is a great example of this, yet people, inevitably, are going to attempt to compare Guild Wars and its sequel -- sometimes to the point of being unfair about it. Current Star Wars fans cannot help but compare SWTOR to Star Wars Galaxies. Follow me after the break as I make an attempt to debunk this stigma.
The Old Republic's space combat detailed in PC Gamer
Ever since we heard that Star Wars: The Old Republic was going to include space combat as one of its features, we've felt a bit like Red Squadron in A New Hope -- "standing by." It almost seemed too good to be true, especially since the rumor came out that the space portion of the game would be an on-rails shooter. It's with great glee, then, that we have received more news on TOR's space combat in the upcoming October issue of PC Gamer. The seven-page spread confirms that the space combat won't be a free-form flight simulator like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but instead will be a "tunnel shooter" designed to create highly cinematic battle sequences for players to experience. Space combat hotspots will be unlocked as players progress through the game, and while they'll initially be solo instances only, eventually BioWare hopes to implement PvP and team combat in the future. In a tunnel shooter, players will be able to move ships up, down, left and right, although their overall course is locked in by the scenario in question. Ship collision, rotating quest objectives, customizable ship cosmetics, achievements, various difficulty levels and incentives to repeat missions also seem to be a go for this portion of the game. While a lot of the details are still hidden from our prying eyes, we're sure that BioWare will have a lot more to say on this in the near future.
