The May 2008 Boston Post Mortem is tonight (Wednesday, May 14) at The Skellig in Waltham. This month Kurt Reiner of Demiurge Studios will talk about developing “Brothers in Arms: Double Time” for the Wii in conjunction with Gearbox Software. Haven’t decided yet if I’m going, but I’ll have a 38 shirt on if I do. More info on the Boston Post Mortem website.

Where is the great Player-versus-Player MMORPG? It doesn’t exist… yet. There have been a few attempts at integrating PvP into a massively multiplayer game from the ground-up, and it hasn’t quite worked out just yet, at least not for an avatar-based fantasy or sci-fi game. No true PvP game has gone mainstream since MMOs hit the big time. Continue Reading »

The discussions about massively multiplayer games continue on the Nerfbat Forums. We’ve built ourselves a solid little community here. We are now up to 307 members, 265 topics, and 4244 posts. Here are some of the recent discussions that didn’t have to do with MafiaMatrix: Continue Reading »

You might think that, as a game developer, I’m all for anything that can help against piracy. Piracy is bad, and can even cause companies to shut down when it runs rampant. But, how far is too far? Well, I think we’ve found out how far is too far. Now when I go purchase a game at the local video game store, I don’t even own it. Continue Reading »

Some of the artists here at 38 completed their entries for the Dominance War art competition. Here they are in all their glory: Josh Singh’s Kong Lao, Minoh Kim’s Aphotic Invoker, Billy Ahlswede’s Magnuz, and Joe Mirabello’s Elemental Knight. Great job guys, and good luck in the competition! If you don’t know what Dominance War is, check out this post.

The second episode of “Massive Guys on Massive Games” has arrived! During this below-10-minute podcast, we go green! That’s right, we’ve decided to save the environment by going green. We hope you enjoy this second installment of the greatest MMO podcast ever. Continue Reading »

With all the absurd controversy about GTA IV and video games being responsible for destroying the world, there’s a whole lot of inanity out there right now. But, Wil Wheaton is my hero of the month. “Yeah, it’s always about protecting The Children, which leads me to wonder where The Parents are, and if these people are so serious about making the world better for The Children, why they don’t invest the same amount of energy and resources into securing quality healthcare and world-class education for them as they spend wringing their hands over video games that aren’t even supposed to be played by The Children in the first place.”

Truthfully, these things probably go unnoticed. But, it doesn’t hurt to try. If you believe in video games as free speech, and you don’t want to see time and money wasted on trying to impose national regulations on them, let the presidential candidates know (I believe that parents are responsible for parenting their children, not the government). How? With a pre-written letter for all of us who are lazy! I added “Video Games: ” to the beginning of the subject when I sent mine for the sake of clarity.

The Harsher the penalties for incivility, the more civil the community will be. That’s a little observation I’ve made while playing MafiaMatrix (a free multiplayer web game), and it’s probably the most civil online game I’ve ever played (though, admittedly, it can also be the most frightening). Why? You are punished for incivility. Harshly. Continue Reading »

We have a new mechanics lead! Travis McGeathy, former lead designer of EverQuest, has replaced Jason Roberts as our systems design lead. Roberts, former lead designer of EverQuest II, is now our overall design director, and Steve Danuser will remain our lead content designer. The press release has more information after the break. Continue Reading »