I have a strong reason to suspect that David Reid, CCP's recently appointed Chief Marketing Officer, is the human incarnation of the energizer bunny. A week and a half ago - at EVE Fanfest - I had the opportunity to speak with David on CCP's big plans for 2012 and, even after eight straight hours of interacting with fans and press, he was still the most enthusiastic and energetic man at the venue. This also means that within a 15 minute interview, we managed to have an in-depth discussion on blending the DUST 514 and EVE Online communities, CCP's vision for cloud gaming, and a little bit of World of Darkness thrown in at the end. It's all fascinating, so let's get right into it!
Last week marked the end of EVE Fanfest 2012, and while much of my focus was on EVE's Spring Expansion, "Inferno," and everything DUST 514, I was also looking forward to one unique event slated for Saturday afternoon: the World of Darkness Presentation. I'll admit here: despite the plain title, simply seeing that World of Darkness had not been forgotten for Fanfest 2012 was enough to get me excited.
Rift has been out for more than a year now, and continues to be one of the most successful subscription-based MMOs on the market. Their designers claim this to be because the game offers a true multiplayer environment, rather than just a “single player game with other people around.” As the first part of a frequent discussion with the game’s designers, ZAM had a chance to chat this week with Design Producer Hal Hanlin.
Lord of the Rings Online released its sixth update this week, and we got to interview their designers about the newest goodies! Our interview focused on the newest content update, the Great River, with content designers Ryan Penk and Jared Saramago. “We have an update to the instance finder, really making it a full feature with full flexibility; we added two new class updates, Runekeeper and Warden; two new monster player updates for the Weaver and Warg classes, a new currency system for PvP, an entirely new region of the game, and to top it all off, a new capstone instance in a new group-based area.” Wow! Sounds like a lot to cover, so let’s dig into the newest LOTRO update!
This afternoon, I had the opportunity to sit in on a roundtable interview with DC Universe Online Creative Director Jens Andersen, SOE Executive Director of Development Lorin Jameson, and the most recent addition to the DCUO team, Executive Producer Lawrence Liberty. The topic? DCUO's biggest downloadable content (DLC) update yet: The Battle for Earth (DLC 3). With the update launching on Tuesday, March 13th, have an advanced peek at what's to come!
It's no secret that I've been a huge proponent of competitive PvP in MMORPGs from the very beginning, and even though many attempts have been made to generate a robust tournament-friendly MMO (Fury, World of Warcraft 3v3 arena, the original Guild Wars), the results have been less than stellar. That being said, Guild Wars 2 probably has the highest chance of any MMORPG to break into the mainstream competitive light and I, for one, could not be more excited. Throughout my experiences in the press beta two weeks ago, I spent much of it testing out all sorts of PvP builds. Near the end of the testing window, I also got the opportunity to grill ArenaNet Game Designer Jon Peters about the various design choices made to help GW2 succeed as a competitive MMORPG.
Of course, I didn't record any of it.
Regardless, I did manage to catch up with Jon once again to get his thoughts in a more formal manner, so without further ado, check out our interview with Game Designer Jon Peters on Guild Wars 2's combat, PvP, and eSports aspirations!
Come Monday the 27th, Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO) will release its newest content update. Titled “Web of Chaos,” the free update will set the stage for the expansion pack that is to be released later this year. We had the chance to chat with Fernando Paiz, the Executive Producer of DDO, who gave us the inside scoop not only of what to expect this week… but also what will be unveiled in the expansion pack! That information is under embargo until later this week so, for now, we’ll focus on update 13.
Be sure to check out ZAM's hands-on preview with The Secret World from last week!
Two weeks ago, I went up to Montreal for a second exclusive hands-on preview of Funcom's The Secret World. In comparison to my first visit, this event was more about getting more in-depth with the game to see its inner mechanics at work. Of course, this also meant that I needed to step up the depth of my interview questions, so when I sat down with Lead Designer Martin Bruusgaard, I knew this was my opportunity to get as many discussions going as humanly possible. What follows is an extensive in-depth interview on some of The Secret World's inner mechanics, including a run-down on crafting, TSW's international server architecture, persistent warzone PvP, and PvP rewards. It's a bit of a lengthy read, but trust me when I say it's packed full of information! Onward!
In this five-part miniseries, we sat down with the developers behind the highly anticipated MechWarrior Online to talk about everything you want to know about this upcoming action title. Be sure to check out our previous interviews in the series:
- Brian Ekman, Creative Director
- Russ Bullock, President
- Paul Inouye, Lead Designer
- Matthew Craig, Technical Director
- Dennis de Koning, Art Director
If there's one thing that's consistently impressed me about MechWarrior Online so far, it's just how much information Piranha Games has been throwing out in their developer blogs and community Q&As. That said, there's just nothing quite like getting one key member of the Piranha Games team to sit down for an interview, and we've done just that, but with five different members of the Piranha Games crew! This marks the second interview of our MechWarrior Online Interview miniseries, and up today is... the President of Piranha Games himself, Russ Bullock!
In this five-part miniseries, we sat down with the developers behind the highly anticipated MechWarrior Online to talk about everything you want to know about this upcoming action title. Be sure to check out our previous interviews in the series:
- Brian Ekman, Creative Director
- Russ Bullock, President
- Paul Inouye, Lead Designer
- Matthew Craig, Technical Director
- Dennis de Koning, Art Director
If, like me, you're ancient enough to remember the BattleTech cartoon, the recent news of the Centurion's inclusion in the forthcoming MechWarrior Online (MWO) will have your old man suspenders in a knot. Valten Ryder fans can rejoice because everyone's favorite medium-class Mech is getting some love. Responsible for "some of the most reckless displays of Mech-jockeying ever seen," Valten Ryder and his father's beat up Centurion made the series what it was; so this piece of news has the twelve-year-old boy inside me jumping for joy (and I just realized how bad that sounded).
Anyway, to add to the excitement, we recently had the opportunity to speak with Bryan Ekman, Creative Director at Piranha Games, to talk about all things MechWarrior. Ekman clued us in on what to expect from MWO when it is finally released in 2012, and we also got to talking about the state of the series, inspirations, in-game currency and how the game will play. So buckle up, prepare your mind grapes and get ready to see the same three MWO pictures you've been looking at for the last few months (we'll work ong getting you some new art assets) because, without further ado, here is part one of ZAM's exclusive five part interview with the team behind MechWarrior Online.
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