Archived News:
Eurogamer has a report from the Sony Fain Faire, the annual convention
that's now underway in Las Vegas. At the show SOE has announced new expansions
for both EverQuest, and EverQuest II, their fantasy-themed MMORPGs.
The sixth EverQuest II expansion is called Sentinel's Fate, which will increase
the level cap to 90 when it is released in February 2010. They say: "Sentinel's
Fate will allow you to play older, low-level content with a high-level character
and still gain experience. SOE is also integrating various achievements into the
game, such as killing 10,000 orcs or reaching level 80 with multiple
characters." Also announced is Underfoot, the 16th(!!!) expansion for the first
EverQuest, though the only word on this for now is it is planned for release
this November, and it will include a new underground zone.
The Obsidian
Community Forums finally drop the other shoe on Obsidian's on,
off, on again, off again Aliens RPG
(thanks
Giant Bomb/ Shacknews).
The latest (for the moment) is that the game is officially cancelled: Hi
guys, The Guildmaster here. Rumors have circled around a bit regarding the fate
of the Aliens role playing game that Obsidian and SEGA had been working on.
Unfortunately, it is true that we are no longer working on the game, and we
wanted to finally announce that officially to everyone who has been following
its development. We’re going to keep this forum up for another week for archival
purposes and to allow you guys to finish up any open threads, and then we will
shut it down since it is no longer a product that is in development.
All of us here at Obsidian would like to thank you for your interest and support
during its development, and we encourage you to check out the recent news about
Alpha Protocol, which is coming to the PC, Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 very
soon!
The
Los Angeles Times has this month's regularly scheduled story about Warner
Bros. attempting to buy up the assets of bankrupt Midway Games ( here's May's and here's April's). The new story indicates
Warner is the sole suitor at this point, so plans for an auction
are now off the boards. The story also acknowledges the complications from
pending legal actions like the lawsuit filed over Mortal Kombat
rights, but say: "Assuming the deal goes through, the studio will take
control of most of Midway's assets, including Mortal Kombat and well-known but
dormant game series such as Joust and Spy Hunter. It will also get two
production houses in Chicago and Seattle."
Raven’s Eric
Beissman talks about the highly anticipated Wolfenstein game on GameZone
shares thoughts from Raven's creative director on the upcoming return of
super-soldier William "B.J." Blazkowicz in a new Wolfenstein game. Topics
include how this first-person shooter franchise has evolved since being revived
in 2001, stealthy elements, how the "Veil" differs from effects like "bullet
time," coordinating with the outside studio creating the game's multiplayer
component, and a bit about the Wolfenstein movie.
Muzyka On
EA's New BioWare/Mythic RPG Team-Up on Gamasutra converses with the BioWare
co-founder about the news of their shotgun wedding with Mythic
Studios. They probe for more clarity than the vague announcement about this
provided, you can judge for yourself whether they succeeded:
Structurally, each of the organizations remains intact. They're working
on the same projects they were working on before, I just have another studio
that reports into me. It's not that BioWare or Mythic is changing; they're
retaining their brands, their unique cultural identities, their projects they
are working on. I'm really excited about what we're doing; we have great people
at each location.
Rather, a new group is being formed that is more of a reporting structure of Rob
Denton, the GM of Mythic; Richard [Vogel] and Gordon [Walton], who already
report to me from [BioWare] Austin; Yannick [Roy], our studio director at
BioWare Montreal, who already reports into me; and then BioWare Edmonton, and I
already manage that studio myself.
It's a collaboration opportunity. Each of the groups continues to make the same
thing in their [own locations]. But it's fuelling and enabling more
communication, collaboration, best practice sharing, encouraging each other to
play each others' games -- but no formal change per se in what anybody's doing.
It's a recognition that there's a lot of synergy between them already. I'm going
to make sure everyone at each location knows who the others are, and their
comparable roles, and to make sure they talk.
38 Studios CEO on Big Huge Games acquisition on Joystiq gets close to Brett
Close to ask the CEO of 38 Studios about the reasons they acquired
Big Huge Games. Along the way he explains why they are expanding while other
studios are contracting during this economic recession: "It makes sense in terms
of going back to the points that I brought up earlier: the veteran talent there.
It sounds cliched at this point but it can't be over-emphasized that this talent
is what builds these amazing products and there is absolutely nothing we will
hedge on to build the quality of products and the type of products that we're
building. Given the economic climate and the circumstances under which the deal
happened and things like that -- you know we're a privately held company and I
can't disclose those points -- but obviously it says what our vision is and what
our business strategy is. So all the way around it just solidifies the vision of
how we're going to see the market with our flagship products, with the
Copernicus MMO RPG and with a broad diversity of products we can release based
on Big Huge's capabilities."
The City
of Heroes Interview on Boomtown chats with City of Heroes Senior Lead
Designer Matt Miller, discussing the upcoming Issue 15 for NCsoft's superhero
MMORPG. The conversation also touches on the upcoming Going Rogue
expansion for the game, with Matt saying: "I can’t release much information yet.
Hopefully the name alone, Going Rogue, provides a good foreshadowing to what the
game will encompass. But among other things there will be new zones, the ability
to switch a hero to a villain and vice versa, and difficult tasks for level 50
characters to do that make them more powerful."
Be gentle. I'm a Mets fan.
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