Icarus Studios, who is behind-but-set-Fallen-Earth-LLC-as-a-separate-entity-to-develop-Fallen-Earth, has announced a dramatic restructuring of its internal personnel. If you take Icarus’ LinkedIn as accurate, they used to have about 110 employees, which is now down to 28 core staff members plus customer service / GM staff. (Comments that “80% of staff have been laid off” often depend on … Continue reading
Filed under Video Games …
The Mythic Store Is Closed; Please Shop Elsewhere
Due to a business decision, the Mythic Store is now closed. For those who never went (and I didn’t), the Mythic Store sold shirts, hats and other apparel labelled with their games – Warhammer Online, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot. It’s just another piece of evidence that Mythic is slowly being wound back … Continue reading
Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, Even If It Is Second Life
One frequent request in MMO circles is to not railroad the player into linear tasks, but to let them have greater freedom. “I’m tired of the level grind and an environment where nothing changes – let me shape the very face of the world!” is asked for at various times. In the file marked “Never … Continue reading
Warner Brothers Buys Turbine; Probably Not Releasing The Matrix Online 2
It’s all over the place, but Warner Brothers has bought Turbine studios for up to $160 million (including performance payments). Following declines in other areas, WB appears to be looking at gaming to generate some big money for it, no doubt leveraging the wide range of intellectual property WB has, including DC Comics, what came … Continue reading
Someone Tries To Explain the Champion Online Gear and Stats System
Someone tries to explain the way stats and gear interacts in Champions Online. Good on them. I’ve been playing ChampO since alpha (before gear and stats!) and I have never understood it. Casual games can certainly benefit from a “easy to pick up, hard to master” mentality, but ChampO seems to have an “easy to … Continue reading
Champions Online and the Second System Effect
Having played Champions Online to a middish-level point and based off my 6 odd years of experience in playing City of Heroes / Villains, I’m starting to get a very clear idea of how much the second systems effect burdens ChampO. It’s obvious that when Cryptic tried to improve on CoH/V and add in numerous … Continue reading
Warhammer Online Does The Worst Possible Thing
Something goes horribly, horribly wrong with Warhammer Online’s payment system and both existing and ex-players see multiple charges appear on their bank balances. Worse than that, multiple, multiple payments. Payment times ten, times twenty, or even more. You can release a bad patch, filled with bugs and game changes that everyone hates, but in the … Continue reading
Catching Up: Employment Moves and Console Non-Moves
Two interesting things I saw recently: 1) Cryptic bows out of trying to get either Champions Online or Star Trek Online onto consoles. There are some out there who saw these moves as vindication that Cryptic is a horrible company who deserves to fail, but it is probably more a case of Microsoft being incredibly … Continue reading
CoH/V, Going Rogue and Trial Accounts
It appears fairly clear that Praetoria – being released in the City of Heroes / Villains’ Going Rogue expansion – is going to serve as the ‘new and improved’ starter area for CoH/V. (Older zones won’t be revamped until it is “an event for the game as a whole” according to the same interview). Going … Continue reading
No SWOR-ing on the Xbox 360
After a GAME memo listed Star Wars: The Old Republic as an Xbox 360 title, BioWare stepped up to say, “No, we are just doing this for the PC.” Which sees EA’s biggest production of all time limited to one platform and requiring to grab at least 20% of the existing NA / EU MMO … Continue reading
World Class Villains 