MTV Multiplayer

The Surprising Reason Asian MMOs Are Mouse-Based

Posted 8/13/08 8:58 am EST by Patrick Klepek in mmo

Give up? It turns out Asian gamers want to smoke and game at the same time.

There are big design differences between American and Asian-based MMOs, Perfect World product manager Jon Belliss told me yesterday, while showing off Chinese-born MMO,"Perfect World International."

One difference is grinding. Asian gamers love grinding far more than the rest of the world. Additionally, they also play almost exclusively with the mouse. Western MMOs are typically controlled with a mouse and keyboard. For the longest time, Belliss couldn't figure out why this dichotomy existed.

Then, he observed the answer himself -- cigarettes. A large portion of the MMO audience in Asia spend their time in crowded net cafes, where they chain smoke in one hand and grind to the next level, mouse-in hand, with the other.

Does that explain why "StarCraft" is so popular over there, too?

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Sony: 'DC Universe Online' Is An MMO For The Console Crowd Too

Posted 7/22/08 3:57 pm EST by Tracey John in e3, mmo, PC, PS3, sony

When I briefly spoke with John Blakely, VP of development for Sony Online Entertainment – Austin, at E3 last week, he promised that "DC Universe Online" has something for everybody.

For anyone who's a fan of DC Comics, they can, of course, expect nods to various aspects of the DC Universe. "The DC fan is going to be like 'I want to see Superman, I want to see Batman.' There's Bizarro, Big Belly Burger and those kind of things," Blakely said, without revealing too many details before a playable version of the game hits Comic Con later this week.

And for the MMO gamers, they can expect the familiar features they've grown accustomed to. "We are an MMO company and we know what our players like," he said, matter-of-factly. "You can look at the feature sets that we have in our existing products, and we're going to draw a lot of those pieces in... People are used to it."

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Should Male Characters In MMOs Be Stronger Than Females?

Posted 7/3/08 4:10 pm EST by Tracey John in Age of Conan, Gender, mmo, PC

Last month, some "Age of Conan" forum members discovered that female characters in the MMO swing their weapons slower than males, causing them to do significantly less damage over time.

Developers at Funcom stated earlier this week that they "never intended for any character to be stronger/weaker than another based on its gender." They said the fix will be coming in the next several weeks.

Reading about this topic on a few other gaming blogs, I noticed a few comments from people who thought there should be differences between male and female avatars in terms of physical abilities. Here's what I found: Read More...

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BioWare On MMOs: 'Conan,' Their Own And Maybe A Console One

Posted 7/1/08 5:47 pm EST by Patrick Klepek in bioware, mmo

Unless you're "World of Warcraft," most massively multiplayer online games have proven passing fads. Eventually, most people move back to Blizzard's addictive game.

The term "WoW" killer has been banded about quite a bit. So far, no one has stepped up to the plate. Funcom's "Age of Conan," however, has done far better than most expected. To date, "Age of Conan" already has more than 700,000 registered players.

Considering BioWare has an MMO coming, it makes sense they've been checking out their competition -- "Age of Conan" included.

Yesterday, we spoke with BioWare co-CEOs Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about their thoughts on "Funcom"'s latest, and whether BioWare could finally be the company that figures out why we still don't have a console MMO.

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EA Mythic Tells Me Why 'Warhammer Online' Should Be My First MMO

Posted 5/13/08 6:00 pm EST by Patrick Klepek in mmo

Warhammer Online "Phantasy Star Online" remains one of my most treasured online experience. I haven't found a game that's since stacked up.

Naturally, you might think I've tried "World of Warcraft." I haven't. I've avoided all MMOs after having a less-than-stellar experience with "EverQuest II." Too much aimless wandering around, too much forced group work. I didn't play for very long.

That's my impression of most MMOs. I've yet to see one that acts much differently. So when presented with a chance to check out "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning" from EA Mythic, I told content director Destin Bales about my genre apprehension.

Bales responded with some very interesting ideas that just might convince me.

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A Horse Covered in Ping Pong Balls -- The 'Age of Conan' Mo-Cap Shoot

Posted 4/29/08 10:00 am EST by Tracey John in Age of Conan, Animals, Funcom, mmo, PC, Top Entries, Xbox 360

I'm not sure what the animal cruelty laws are in Norway, but I guess they don't include covering a horse in ping pong balls.

A few weeks ago, I saw a demo of "Age of Conan," the new MMORPG from Funcom.

With the game due out next month, we've heard lots of things about it already: how difficult it is to adapt the controls for the Xbox 360 controller, and whether or not the game features nipples.

But there was one fact during the demo that caught my attention: in order to capture realistic movement for the in-game horse mounts, they motion-captured real horses.

I had to see it to believe it.

So I asked for proof, and Funcom gladly sent it to me. From Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen:

"In order to make [the horse movement] believable, we looked for someone who could help us to make it look as you would expect in a real-life situation, and we found this in a team of crazy British guys who lined up an entire stable and even a stadium for motion capture. As a thank you to the Brits, we naturally had to put the jolly old lance in the game when fighting mounted! I'm not sure if we are the first or only ones to do this, and it really doesn't matter. What I do know is that riding a horse in 'Conan' looks mighty cool, and even realistic, so as far as we are concerned we reached our goals."

Click onward to see more photos of the horse and rider in action, as well as the screenshots of the final results.

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Developer: Games Need To Stop Telling Stories, Start Including 'Digital Directors'

Posted 4/9/08 1:46 pm EST by Stephen Totilo in Innovation, mmo, mtv news, Really Really Smart Person Quoted Here

Eski Steenberg and his game (The following is part of my GameFile column, filed at MTVNews.com.)

What ["Love" MMO designer Eskil] Steenberg envisions — and, of course, is making — is a game that is smart enough to react to anything a player does.

..."I believe that games need directors," he said, "digital directors that can figure out in real-time what's going on in the game, analyze what the players are feeling and doing and adjust to that and make the game do what it should do ... to make a dramatic balance."

How about a "Star Wars" reference to explain? "A digital director could do very small things. Like, it could say, 'Well, at this point [the player is] 2 feet away from destroying the Death Star. Maybe we should not fire the big gun at him right now. Just keep up with the player. Let him do that, because he's got a tiny bit of health. Let him be the hero."

Steenberg gets the irony that he wanted to be a designer, got hired to be a programmer, and is now figuring out how to program a designer into virtual existence. His digital director could be responsible for, in his words, "the most awesome game ever." The Death Star example is really just a small thing. A game like "Love" powered by a digital director "has to be able to generate stuff and add stuff and remove stuff and shift not just on the small level — the health and things like that, which is kind of easy — but you want that engine to be able to say: 'We need a powerful nemesis right now. That's a missing character. We need to generate that character. Give him a castle. Give him weapons.'"

(Steenberg is young, smart, and you will hear from him again. Read the rest of this story is at MTVNews.com)

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Take-Two: 'BioShock' MMO And Movie Are 'Potential Opportunities'

Posted 3/26/08 3:09 pm EST by Stephen Totilo in bioshock, Civilization, EA-Take2 Purchase, mmo

BioShock Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, speaking at the 2008 Smid Cap Conference today, is explaining why his company is rejecting EA's offer to purchase the company for $26/share. In the process, he is detailing Take-Two developers' past successes, current projects and future opportunities.

Gamers, let me direct you to slide 24 of Zelnick's presentation, "Potential Untapped Opportunities."

Next to "MMOG/Online Gaming" we've got "Civilization" and "BioShock" listed under the column "Potential Take-Two Opportunities.

Next to "Traditional Media (Film/DVD)" we've got "BioShock" as a "Potential Take-Two Opportunity."

So... should those opportunities remain untapped, "BioShock" and "Civ" fans? Or do you want Take-Two to tap away?

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Sony Online's 'Agency' Women Talk In-Game Bras, Educating Male Co-Workers

Posted 3/5/08 8:00 am EST by Tracey John in Gender, mmo, PC, sony, Women Working in Games

San Francisco -- Girls want to make games, too. It's just that they're intimidated.

At least that's what a survey conducted by Sony Online Entertainment has revealed. Conducted among female students currently enrolled in game design, programming and visual effects at The Art Institutes schools, the survey showed that 61% "believe male dominance in the industry is a deterrent to women pursuing a career in gaming" and 42% "would like to see women portrayed as leaders in video games."

As a result, this inspired SOE to form G.I.R.L. (Gamers In Real Life), a scholarship program to educate and recruit women in the video game industry. The announcement of the scholarship program was made during the Game Developers Conference last month at an event for SOE's upcoming spy-themed MMO "The Agency."

Representives of G.I.R.L. included some of SOE's executive staff as well as women working directly on "The Agency" from SOE Seattle, like producers Sherry Floyd and Heather Sowards.

Being that women working in games is a topic I'm quite interested in, I sat down with both Floyd and Sowards the day after the event to talk about what it's like to be women working in a male-dominated field.

One reason why it's good to have women in games? They know how female video game characters should dress. During my conversation with Floyd, who works on the art content of "The Agency," she told me:

"We have to do a lot of women's clothing; half of the characters in the game are women. ... I think it's really good to have a female perspective there. I know more than once I've talked to an artist and said, 'Um, you can't cut the sleeves like that because her bra would show.' You've got full-figured women in the game, and they would have to wear a bra! [laughs] Actually, everybody's really respectful about it, and we do laugh a lot when we have these conversations. And I would say the men in our creative group definitely know a lot more about shoes, the cuts of blazers, A-line skirts versus pencil skirts and everything else than they ever cared to know. But they're definitely educated now, and they've educated me as well, so it's been really good."

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'Crackdown' Creator's New MMO Lacks Grind, Has Surprises And Virtual Shigeru Miyamoto Gangster (GDC 2008)

Posted 2/22/08 2:00 pm EST by Stephen Totilo in GDC, mmo, PC, world of warcraft

San Francisco -- Dave Jones, head of Scottish game development studio Real Time Worlds, had a new MMO -- his first MMO -- to show off at one of the most packed sessions of all of this year's Game Developers Conference. He was showing "APB" a cops and robbers MMO in the works for, I assume for PC (Jones didn't confirm for sure; and, after the session, Phil Harrison told me he was only in attendance out of curiosity).

So who needs an MMO from the makers of "Crackdown"?

Anyone who is interested in an MMO without a grind and who wants to play one set in something like the real world. Those are two of the priorities Jones highlighted at the beginning of his 45-minute presentation.

"I want to replace geek with chic," he said, though later admitting he had multiple level-70 "World of Warcraft" characters. In his MMO, experience points, do not belong. In his game, there is no leveling up. There's just a lot of character customization and lots of shooting.

Jones' talk really was about eye candy, though. The designer's voice became background sound to a series of impressive videos that left the crowd awed. Several of the videos features "APB"'s character-creation tool, which is designed to ensure that every player can create a unique character. The proofs of that concept were a scarred Asian gangster and then a geek squad of star game designers Richard Garriott, Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, and Warren Spector.

The famous designers were just samples. "We will not create any of the characters in the game," Jones said. "The players will create the characters."