If you’re a big PvP MMO fan, I’d be interested to hear what you’re looking for. Balanced PvP combat? Compelling PvE combat? Safe cities and/or zones? Territorial control (like in EVE)? Player-built cities (like in Shadowbane)? Ship-to-ship combat (like in Darkfall)? What is it you are after when you are interested in a PvP MMO? What’s most important? Personally, I’d probably just say “yes” to all of them. But, for me, the most important things are territorial control in a compelling environment. Balanced combat is something I like, but mostly I’m looking for not-outrageously-imbalanced combat. There should also be some designated safe cities so you can hang out, but I feel like everything (apart from, say, a newbie island) should be open outside of there.

I was linked to an article with the following tagline: “Doubts raised on the value of public betas.” It’s essentially a commentary on open betas not being useful to the development process. It’s interesting, because I thought we’d figured this whole thing out back in about 2004. I’m not a panel, but I can say fairly definitively that open betas are very useful, in roughly these statistically-irrelevant percentages: Continue Reading »

The game industry is a soap opera sometimes. It can be fun to watch, it can be depressing to watch, it can be a lot of other things. Whatever it is, it’s emotional. The latest controversy is with Quest Online and Alganon–David Allen was fired (you might remember a similar episode with Artifact Entertainment and Horizons) and Derek Smart (controversial himself) has replaced him. It’s rather crazy. I’d just go ahead and read Smart’s post if you want to know what’s going on there. The far more depressing controversy recently was with Activision. Rather than comment on it, I’ll just lead you to Broken Toys. Wow, on both counts.

Update: The Saga Continues…

Via 38Studios.com: “Project Mercury is the codename for the epic RPG currently being developed by Big Huge Games under the leadership of Ken Rolston, the mastermind behind the development of numerous critically-acclaimed RPG titles. Best-selling fantasy author R. A. Salvatore and renowned artist and creator of Spawn, Todd McFarlane, have joined forces to create a vast and entertaining universe codenamed Copernicus. Big Huge Games is a wholly-owned subsidiary of 38 Studios, LLC, founded by Major League All-Star, World Series MVP and avid gamer Curt Schilling, Project Mercury will be the studios’ first video game to be published.” Press Release.