Friday, December 15, 2006
DDO expands with Evil Resurgent
The Dungeon Masters over at Turbine today have released the latest update for its massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. Titled Evil Resurgent, the update adds six new dungeons to the PC game: Parthilcar Tower Crypt, From Beyond the Grave, Spire of Validus, Whisperdoom, Haywire's Grotto, and Gate of Nightmares. For more details on the update, which is free to all paid subscribers, head over to the DDO Web site.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Interplay planning Fallout MMO game
While Fallout fans are looking toward Bethesda Softworks' upcoming Fallout 3 as the future of the franchise, original publisher Interplay has resurfaced from a lengthy hibernation with plans for a massively multiplayer online game based on the property.
Late last month, Interplay made a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and noted that it would be spending the first half of December meeting with European investors and giving them a slide-show presentation of its current activities. In the slide show, which Interplay labeled "confidential," is a plan for a Fallout MMO game to start production as early as next month.
To get the game through its proposed July 2010 launch, Interplay is projecting that it will need a total of $75 million. Few details were given, but the publisher did note that it would be a subscription-based game and that it was expected to provide a return on investment within three years. Interplay projects that the game would be profitable in its second year with revenues of $160 million, assuming it could garner 1 million subscribers in its first year.
Late last month, Interplay made a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and noted that it would be spending the first half of December meeting with European investors and giving them a slide-show presentation of its current activities. In the slide show, which Interplay labeled "confidential," is a plan for a Fallout MMO game to start production as early as next month.
To get the game through its proposed July 2010 launch, Interplay is projecting that it will need a total of $75 million. Few details were given, but the publisher did note that it would be a subscription-based game and that it was expected to provide a return on investment within three years. Interplay projects that the game would be profitable in its second year with revenues of $160 million, assuming it could garner 1 million subscribers in its first year.
Flagship establishes Seattle satellite studio
A flagship technically isn't much of a flagship without a fleet to back it up, so it's fitting that San Francisco-based Flagship Studios today announced the formation of its first offshoot studio, Flagship Seattle.
The new studio's first project will be Mythos, a casual online role-playing game designed to try out the networking technology that will be used in Flagship's previously announced Hellgate: London. Heading up development at Flagship Seattle will be Travis Baldree, formerly of WildTangent, where he was lead designer on the PC action-RPG Fate.
Mythos creative director and Flagship Studios founding member Phil Shenk said in a statement that the Flagship team was "very impressed" with Baldree's work after seeing the Diablo-esque Fate at E3 2005. Shenk was the lead character artist on Diablo II, and Flagship Studios was formed by a number of employees from Diablo developer Blizzard North.
Mythos should be released in 2007, while Flagship has yet to specify a release window for Hellgate: London
The new studio's first project will be Mythos, a casual online role-playing game designed to try out the networking technology that will be used in Flagship's previously announced Hellgate: London. Heading up development at Flagship Seattle will be Travis Baldree, formerly of WildTangent, where he was lead designer on the PC action-RPG Fate.
Mythos creative director and Flagship Studios founding member Phil Shenk said in a statement that the Flagship team was "very impressed" with Baldree's work after seeing the Diablo-esque Fate at E3 2005. Shenk was the lead character artist on Diablo II, and Flagship Studios was formed by a number of employees from Diablo developer Blizzard North.
Mythos should be released in 2007, while Flagship has yet to specify a release window for Hellgate: London
Q&A: Microsoft's Chris Satchell on XNA Express
This week, Microsoft released XNA Game Studio Express, a free-to-use set of game-design tools for Windows, aimed at getting students and hobbyists fired up about making games.
Chris Satchell, the general manager of Microsoft's game-development group, was one of the speakers at an XNA event at the UK's University of Warwick held to publicise the toolset to academics and students. GameSpot sat down with Satchell to find out more about XNA.
GameSpot UK: You say that there's a lack of people going into computer science--why do you think that is, and what do you think can be done about it?
Chris Satchell: To a lot of people it might be that they're not sure how relevant it really is. They look at perhaps the topics and perhaps they're like, AMI, graphics, what do these things mean to me? And I think that's why gaming's really important, because it might be relevant. They get gaming--a lot of people love to play console games. So then they see why all that stuff would be useful. And I think that can help really attract people to universities, and, anecdotally, that's what we hear--as soon as universities add a heavy gaming component to a course, they will normally sell out the course, and people get really excited about it. And then when they start it, they think, "Oh! This other computer science stuff is cool, and this maths stuff, well that's pretty cool, too."
I think it's really important to get people interested because the numbers of people coming into this industry is going down and it's important to find ways to get new people in. And of course, that goal is really important long-term. If we can use gaming and XNA Express as a way of getting people excited, and help get people in to the industry, then that's a really important thing to do.
GSUK: Why do you think the passion has gone out of the industry?
CS: The big productions are cool, and they can produce things like Gears of War, which is just amazing. But--and this is almost one of my biggest peeves--the passion has been lost when it comes to one individual thinking they've got a great idea and that they can use that idea to go out and be successful, and I don't need a 200-person team and I don't need three years and $25 million to do it. If I've got a good idea, then that's enough.
And while I was growing up, me and my friends felt that passion. It's like people when they play guitar, when they first start playing they think, "Hey! I can make it big! All I've got to do is keep practising, and get good, and get a band together, and we can make it!" I think now, all that kind of enthusiasm has gone because it is just so difficult to get games out now. You do see some of it at the IGF and places like that, but how can you get more people to feel the passion?
GSUK: Do you think that programming used to be cool but now it isn't?
CS: Computer science, cool?! Well, I don't know that I'd ever have described it as cool per se, but I think what [being a hobbyist] did was get me really passionate about it--I'd already got how much fun it was to build something on a computer and have it work and be able to edit it, so it felt very natural...
And now I think because you can't build games for your console, whereas you could before for your Commodore 64, people don't do that anymore. What they do instead is go to university and they don't want to do computer science, they go and they do something else because it's more relevant to their life. So before when people were doing it at home, then they would look at courses in computer science and think it was a really kind of cool thing to do. It's like the joke--apart from the cars, the money, and the fame, we're exactly like rock stars.
GSUK: How did the idea for XNA come about?
CS: In early 2004, as we were getting ready for GDC, a lot of us had been working in professional games for a long time, and as we were talking about this theme we really started to crystallise this idea that the industry was growing and there were heaps of things happening but there were also some problems at the core of it--how hard it was to make games, how hard it was to make them for cross-platforms, and the amount of people we need in the industry to do it.
We saw that creativity was getting stifled, but that doesn't mean that there aren't brilliant people like Peter Molyneux making amazing games, but it means that it feels a bit like there are a lot of sequels. And how would we get to a point where it was easier, you could do it with less people, you could do it across platforms, and spur that creativity again.
That was really the impetus that started us and then, as we moved on, we realised that there's a lot of creativity out there and sort of developer segments that we don't really deal with a lot. We'd always dealt with the professional developers and tried to give them the very best technologies, but then we hadn't really done a lot to enable hobbyists, independent developers, emerging markets, students, and academia. Why don't we do something for them, because there's a ton of creativity there and a ton of drive to do it, how do we enable them?
And that's really where we started on this track of making Game Studio Express--to make it easier, to open up the console and let people develop. And that really started about a year ago, when we'd already been working on these technologies and we realised that we could really do something different here.
GSUK: Tell us about your personal hobbyist days.
CS: Before I owned my own computer we had Commodore PETs at my school computer club, as well as BBC Micros, and then my first computer was an Atari 800, and I just started to try and do really simple games like you know, a classic apple-catcher game, you know, a guy moving across the bottom of the screen catching falling apples, I saw one in a magazine and got really inspired by it, so I'd just try different games like that.
Then I moved up to the Commodore 64, and the ZX Spectrum, and I think it's really like music, you tend to build games that you're influenced by, so I started trying to do a scrolling shoot-'em-up game, puzzle games, and then on to the Amiga--by then I was getting into more complex games, some 3D shooter-type games, and lots of strategy and tactics games for some reason. I was always trying to make computer versions of the tactical board games. Then it was on from there to university and then I started working for professional developer studios.
GSUK: Sony has gone the opposite way to Microsoft on homebrew. It seems to actively try to block people from doing it. Why do you think it does that?
CS: With Net Yaroze, I think it was a great idea, and I think the problem with it was that people already had the game console, and then they had to go buy another, more expensive one, and it was a difficult environment. With Linux on PS2, again, you've sort of opened it up, but now it's way too difficult to do anything. You have to give people great tools to make it easy for them.
GSUK: What's your opinion on that kind of mentality?
CS: The [PlayStation Portable] homebrew is interesting, because the most excitement I ever see about the PSP is with the homebrew, and for some unknown reason Sony keep[s] trying to stop it. It's this sort of fear of the community and really what we think is you have to embrace the community, give them a way to be creative, instead of always trying to fight them.
GSUK: What are the limitations of XNA? What can't you do with it?
CS: In the initial version one of the things you can't do is networking on the 360. On the Xbox 360 we haven't got the network infrastructure done yet, but it's definitely coming. We just didn't manage to get it in version one. One limitation at the moment is that it's all managed code, not native code. Personally, I actually think that's an improvement to the development environment. You can do high-end games and you can do simple, easy games.
GSUK: What do you think's the best way to jump in with XNA?
CS: Take a starter kit and modify it. That's a really great way of getting your first thing done. That way, you'll very quickly get your first experience: It's a great way to just get started.
GSUK: What kind of stuff are you expecting to see from XNA?
CS: I think what people will do this year and early on in 2007, is very much focus more on the smaller, more casual games. The kind of things you can get on XBL arcade. But I think over time we will see people doing bigger projects with it.
GSUK: Can you make a game with XNA and sell it? Or is it all about exposure?
CS: With the Windows games, absolutely. If you wanted to sell [something you've made with XNA], go for your life.
GSUK: Finally, can you tell us what the letters "XNA" stand for?
CS: It started off standing for Cross Platform Next Generation Architecture. But really it's taken on a life of its own. Cross Platform Next Generation Architecture actually does a reasonable job, but actually we never use an expanded name, it's just XNA now, it's not an acronym.
Chris Satchell, the general manager of Microsoft's game-development group, was one of the speakers at an XNA event at the UK's University of Warwick held to publicise the toolset to academics and students. GameSpot sat down with Satchell to find out more about XNA.
GameSpot UK: You say that there's a lack of people going into computer science--why do you think that is, and what do you think can be done about it?
Chris Satchell: To a lot of people it might be that they're not sure how relevant it really is. They look at perhaps the topics and perhaps they're like, AMI, graphics, what do these things mean to me? And I think that's why gaming's really important, because it might be relevant. They get gaming--a lot of people love to play console games. So then they see why all that stuff would be useful. And I think that can help really attract people to universities, and, anecdotally, that's what we hear--as soon as universities add a heavy gaming component to a course, they will normally sell out the course, and people get really excited about it. And then when they start it, they think, "Oh! This other computer science stuff is cool, and this maths stuff, well that's pretty cool, too."
I think it's really important to get people interested because the numbers of people coming into this industry is going down and it's important to find ways to get new people in. And of course, that goal is really important long-term. If we can use gaming and XNA Express as a way of getting people excited, and help get people in to the industry, then that's a really important thing to do.
GSUK: Why do you think the passion has gone out of the industry?
CS: The big productions are cool, and they can produce things like Gears of War, which is just amazing. But--and this is almost one of my biggest peeves--the passion has been lost when it comes to one individual thinking they've got a great idea and that they can use that idea to go out and be successful, and I don't need a 200-person team and I don't need three years and $25 million to do it. If I've got a good idea, then that's enough.
And while I was growing up, me and my friends felt that passion. It's like people when they play guitar, when they first start playing they think, "Hey! I can make it big! All I've got to do is keep practising, and get good, and get a band together, and we can make it!" I think now, all that kind of enthusiasm has gone because it is just so difficult to get games out now. You do see some of it at the IGF and places like that, but how can you get more people to feel the passion?
GSUK: Do you think that programming used to be cool but now it isn't?
CS: Computer science, cool?! Well, I don't know that I'd ever have described it as cool per se, but I think what [being a hobbyist] did was get me really passionate about it--I'd already got how much fun it was to build something on a computer and have it work and be able to edit it, so it felt very natural...
And now I think because you can't build games for your console, whereas you could before for your Commodore 64, people don't do that anymore. What they do instead is go to university and they don't want to do computer science, they go and they do something else because it's more relevant to their life. So before when people were doing it at home, then they would look at courses in computer science and think it was a really kind of cool thing to do. It's like the joke--apart from the cars, the money, and the fame, we're exactly like rock stars.
GSUK: How did the idea for XNA come about?
CS: In early 2004, as we were getting ready for GDC, a lot of us had been working in professional games for a long time, and as we were talking about this theme we really started to crystallise this idea that the industry was growing and there were heaps of things happening but there were also some problems at the core of it--how hard it was to make games, how hard it was to make them for cross-platforms, and the amount of people we need in the industry to do it.
We saw that creativity was getting stifled, but that doesn't mean that there aren't brilliant people like Peter Molyneux making amazing games, but it means that it feels a bit like there are a lot of sequels. And how would we get to a point where it was easier, you could do it with less people, you could do it across platforms, and spur that creativity again.
That was really the impetus that started us and then, as we moved on, we realised that there's a lot of creativity out there and sort of developer segments that we don't really deal with a lot. We'd always dealt with the professional developers and tried to give them the very best technologies, but then we hadn't really done a lot to enable hobbyists, independent developers, emerging markets, students, and academia. Why don't we do something for them, because there's a ton of creativity there and a ton of drive to do it, how do we enable them?
And that's really where we started on this track of making Game Studio Express--to make it easier, to open up the console and let people develop. And that really started about a year ago, when we'd already been working on these technologies and we realised that we could really do something different here.
GSUK: Tell us about your personal hobbyist days.
CS: Before I owned my own computer we had Commodore PETs at my school computer club, as well as BBC Micros, and then my first computer was an Atari 800, and I just started to try and do really simple games like you know, a classic apple-catcher game, you know, a guy moving across the bottom of the screen catching falling apples, I saw one in a magazine and got really inspired by it, so I'd just try different games like that.
Then I moved up to the Commodore 64, and the ZX Spectrum, and I think it's really like music, you tend to build games that you're influenced by, so I started trying to do a scrolling shoot-'em-up game, puzzle games, and then on to the Amiga--by then I was getting into more complex games, some 3D shooter-type games, and lots of strategy and tactics games for some reason. I was always trying to make computer versions of the tactical board games. Then it was on from there to university and then I started working for professional developer studios.
GSUK: Sony has gone the opposite way to Microsoft on homebrew. It seems to actively try to block people from doing it. Why do you think it does that?
CS: With Net Yaroze, I think it was a great idea, and I think the problem with it was that people already had the game console, and then they had to go buy another, more expensive one, and it was a difficult environment. With Linux on PS2, again, you've sort of opened it up, but now it's way too difficult to do anything. You have to give people great tools to make it easy for them.
GSUK: What's your opinion on that kind of mentality?
CS: The [PlayStation Portable] homebrew is interesting, because the most excitement I ever see about the PSP is with the homebrew, and for some unknown reason Sony keep[s] trying to stop it. It's this sort of fear of the community and really what we think is you have to embrace the community, give them a way to be creative, instead of always trying to fight them.
GSUK: What are the limitations of XNA? What can't you do with it?
CS: In the initial version one of the things you can't do is networking on the 360. On the Xbox 360 we haven't got the network infrastructure done yet, but it's definitely coming. We just didn't manage to get it in version one. One limitation at the moment is that it's all managed code, not native code. Personally, I actually think that's an improvement to the development environment. You can do high-end games and you can do simple, easy games.
GSUK: What do you think's the best way to jump in with XNA?
CS: Take a starter kit and modify it. That's a really great way of getting your first thing done. That way, you'll very quickly get your first experience: It's a great way to just get started.
GSUK: What kind of stuff are you expecting to see from XNA?
CS: I think what people will do this year and early on in 2007, is very much focus more on the smaller, more casual games. The kind of things you can get on XBL arcade. But I think over time we will see people doing bigger projects with it.
GSUK: Can you make a game with XNA and sell it? Or is it all about exposure?
CS: With the Windows games, absolutely. If you wanted to sell [something you've made with XNA], go for your life.
GSUK: Finally, can you tell us what the letters "XNA" stand for?
CS: It started off standing for Cross Platform Next Generation Architecture. But really it's taken on a life of its own. Cross Platform Next Generation Architecture actually does a reasonable job, but actually we never use an expanded name, it's just XNA now, it's not an acronym.
Denmark faces dev skills shortage
COPENHAGEN--The future of games development in Denmark, and the national IT industry as a whole, could be under threat within five years because not enough high school students are opting for an appropriate level of high-level mathematics courses. This year only 10,000 students will study the subject at a sufficiently high enough level to allow them to pursue IT-related degrees at the university level. It is estimated that the figure required to maintain current levels of growth in the game industry should be nearer 35,000.
These concerns were raised by Soren Hebsgaard, manager of developer and platform strategy at Microsoft Denmark who spoke at a conference organised by CCP Games, the creators of EVE Online. The event, attended by journalists from around Europe, looked at the subject of narrative worlds and how different types of massively multiplayer online games approach the topic.
Hebsgaard went on to describe his notion of "gaming 2.0," which aligns the game industry with current ideas around "Web 2.0" and the trend that sees more user-generated content springing up not just across the Internet, but also within multiplayer online worlds. Linking the possibility of the "democratisation" of games development with the recent launch of Microsoft's XNA platform, Hebsgaard is hopeful that where the industry is failing to attract high school students, XNA might enthuse a new generation of bedroom programmers to spring up.
Also speaking at the event was Mark Wallace, journalist and 3pointD.com blogger. He compared how gamers relate to avatars in MMOGs as opposed to the way they do in more linear games, and listed four ingredients in a "primordial soup that gives way to these beings."
These were: complexity and the resulting breadth of choice for a player, agency and a significance to a player's actions, a sense of conflict, and critical mass of population. He went on to compare the social dynamics of small and large virtual worlds to those found in villages and cities in real life, and made the point that different-size worlds will tend to operate in significantly different ways.
Finally, the conference heard from EVE Online's senior producer, Nathan Richardsson, who explained some of the reasoning behind the game's development choices. He pointed out the differences between two approaches--the theme park approach, which is easy to access and has mass appeal, and the playground approach, which is nonlinear and has realism and depth.
His belief was that EVE Online contained around 80 percent playground and 20 percent theme park environments, and stated that while the game's player-versus-player content probably lost the game subscribers, it was crucial to the concept of risk in the game. In EVE Online there are high penalties for player "death," ranging from the loss of ships and equipment to the loss of skill points that have built up over time, although there are ways to insure yourself against such a loss.
The event ended with a new trailer showing more details from the Revelations expansion, and some indication of the graphical upgrades that players might expect from it.
These concerns were raised by Soren Hebsgaard, manager of developer and platform strategy at Microsoft Denmark who spoke at a conference organised by CCP Games, the creators of EVE Online. The event, attended by journalists from around Europe, looked at the subject of narrative worlds and how different types of massively multiplayer online games approach the topic.
Hebsgaard went on to describe his notion of "gaming 2.0," which aligns the game industry with current ideas around "Web 2.0" and the trend that sees more user-generated content springing up not just across the Internet, but also within multiplayer online worlds. Linking the possibility of the "democratisation" of games development with the recent launch of Microsoft's XNA platform, Hebsgaard is hopeful that where the industry is failing to attract high school students, XNA might enthuse a new generation of bedroom programmers to spring up.
Also speaking at the event was Mark Wallace, journalist and 3pointD.com blogger. He compared how gamers relate to avatars in MMOGs as opposed to the way they do in more linear games, and listed four ingredients in a "primordial soup that gives way to these beings."
These were: complexity and the resulting breadth of choice for a player, agency and a significance to a player's actions, a sense of conflict, and critical mass of population. He went on to compare the social dynamics of small and large virtual worlds to those found in villages and cities in real life, and made the point that different-size worlds will tend to operate in significantly different ways.
Finally, the conference heard from EVE Online's senior producer, Nathan Richardsson, who explained some of the reasoning behind the game's development choices. He pointed out the differences between two approaches--the theme park approach, which is easy to access and has mass appeal, and the playground approach, which is nonlinear and has realism and depth.
His belief was that EVE Online contained around 80 percent playground and 20 percent theme park environments, and stated that while the game's player-versus-player content probably lost the game subscribers, it was crucial to the concept of risk in the game. In EVE Online there are high penalties for player "death," ranging from the loss of ships and equipment to the loss of skill points that have built up over time, although there are ways to insure yourself against such a loss.
The event ended with a new trailer showing more details from the Revelations expansion, and some indication of the graphical upgrades that players might expect from it.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
PC game charts: November 26-December 2
There's big money to be had in fake lives. Electronic Arts claimed a full half of the top 10 PC games charts for the week of November 26 to December 2--including the top spot--thanks primarily to its lighthearted life-simulating franchise, The Sims.
According to the industry-tracking NPD Group, EA's The Sims 2: Pets expansion pack sold more copies than any other PC game for the week and led a quartet of Sims 2 products into the top 10 chart. The original Sims 2 came in seventh, while the Glamour Life Stuff and Happy Holiday Stuff add-ons landed in fifth and eighth, respectively. EA's fifth and final game in the top 10, the futuristic first-person shooter Battlefield 2142, was the ninth best-selling title for the week.
With Black Friday behind the industry, game retailers saw the average selling prices for a number of its titles return to their previous ranges. Microsoft's deluxe package for Flight Simulator X flew off shelves enough to warrant a fourth place standing in the charts, but the game sold for an average of $66 a pop, compared to the $29 it garnered the week before. Consumers also found Desperate Housewives not as cheap as last week, as the Buena Vista Games offering slid six spots to 10th place as its average selling price jumped from $9 to $16.
According to the industry-tracking NPD Group, EA's The Sims 2: Pets expansion pack sold more copies than any other PC game for the week and led a quartet of Sims 2 products into the top 10 chart. The original Sims 2 came in seventh, while the Glamour Life Stuff and Happy Holiday Stuff add-ons landed in fifth and eighth, respectively. EA's fifth and final game in the top 10, the futuristic first-person shooter Battlefield 2142, was the ninth best-selling title for the week.
With Black Friday behind the industry, game retailers saw the average selling prices for a number of its titles return to their previous ranges. Microsoft's deluxe package for Flight Simulator X flew off shelves enough to warrant a fourth place standing in the charts, but the game sold for an average of $66 a pop, compared to the $29 it garnered the week before. Consumers also found Desperate Housewives not as cheap as last week, as the Buena Vista Games offering slid six spots to 10th place as its average selling price jumped from $9 to $16.
Obsidian developing Sega's Alien RPG
Some acclaimed creative minds have been involved in the Alien franchise, including directors Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher, who crafted the sterile, spooky sci-fi movies, and Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger, who created the looks for the titular creatures.
Gamers can add one more name to that list, as Sega today announced that role-playing game specialist Obsidian Entertainment is developing the upcoming RPG set in the Alien universe.
The game, which as of now remains untitled, is coming to PCs and "next-generation systems." Sega has not dated the project but on Monday said that the first Alien-licensed game wouldn't arrive before 2009. No further details of the game were mentioned.
With Monday's announcement, Sega also revealed that a first-person shooter based on the movies was also in development but did not reveal the game's developer. However, Internet reports, including one from Gaming Target, noticed a few company names in the copyrights on Sega's Alien teaser page.
Along with mention of Obsidian, which was confirmed today, was Gearbox Software, the team behind the Brothers in Arms franchise. The two names were quickly removed, according to Gaming Target, and as of press time and following today's news, Obsidian's name was back on the page.
Sega did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.
Gamers can add one more name to that list, as Sega today announced that role-playing game specialist Obsidian Entertainment is developing the upcoming RPG set in the Alien universe.
The game, which as of now remains untitled, is coming to PCs and "next-generation systems." Sega has not dated the project but on Monday said that the first Alien-licensed game wouldn't arrive before 2009. No further details of the game were mentioned.
With Monday's announcement, Sega also revealed that a first-person shooter based on the movies was also in development but did not reveal the game's developer. However, Internet reports, including one from Gaming Target, noticed a few company names in the copyrights on Sega's Alien teaser page.
Along with mention of Obsidian, which was confirmed today, was Gearbox Software, the team behind the Brothers in Arms franchise. The two names were quickly removed, according to Gaming Target, and as of press time and following today's news, Obsidian's name was back on the page.
Sega did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.
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