A lot of hopes and dreams rest on Star Wars: The Old Republic being a major hit. It is the largest ever production for EA and the rumours I’ve heard indicate this means the development budget is over US$200m, maybe even US$300m. (As Lum points out, some back of the envelope calculations put the break-even … Continue reading
‘Tis the Season For Replacement, Apparently
Bill Roper moves on from being the Executive Producer on Champions Online to other projects within Cryptic. He is replaced by long-term Cryptic man Shannon Posniewski, also known as Poz. It’s an interesting move and one I take as a strong indicator that Cryptic either 1) has another MMO in development that they want an … Continue reading
No Flowers Here
Dave Allen, formerly known in MMO-terms for Horizons (which later became Istaria), is fired from Alganon Online and replaced by Derek Smart, known for Battlecruiser and for fighting a one-man war on forums everywhere. Then they let Derek Smart post. It’s a helluva world, folks. A helluva world.
Reasons to Love Faith No More, #358 & #359
#358: Wide variety in music styles – Faith No More can easily switch from a Bee Gees cover to a speed metal song. #359: Large, angry-looking tattooed men are just as happy to sing along to the Bee Gees cover as the speed metal songs at a FNM gig.
The Video Games of History: Beyond the Ice Palace (C64)
I’ve spoken about nostalgia before – ultimately, the passing of time and all the things tied up with that time (as well as how the brain works) makes recall of experiences less reliable that people might like. This was driven home to me in watching the YouTube playthough of a Commodore 64 title I used … Continue reading
Rise from Your Grave, Gods and Heroes
In a curious bit of news, Heatwave Interactive have bought the MMO properties (including game and middleware tools) of the defunct Perpetual Studios and are planning to bring Gods and Heroes back. This makes sense – Perpetuals MMO toolset exists and was good enough for Bioware to option it on the MMO they were working … Continue reading
Three Isn’t The Magic Number – Warhammer Online
One bit of common criticism I’ve seen about Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR) is that its PvP failed because it had only two sides, not three. Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot had three realms and reputedly had some of the best PvP experiences of the MMO genre; meanwhile, Mythic’s WAR only had two opposing sides … Continue reading
The (Near) Future for Paragon Studios
Given the current state of CoH/V, what does the future hold for Paragon Studios? A few things, but some haven’t been as discussed as others. Not The Sarah Palin Book Or Gay Slang The obvious ones to mention are Issue 17: Dark Mirror and Going Rogue. The Dual Pistols powerset is going through an open … Continue reading
How Many Players Does Aion Have Anyway?
As a point of comparison to CoH/V the other day, Aion earned 89 846 million Won in Q4 2009. Doing the same kind of calculation – converting Won to $US ($76.9m) using an end-of-period exchange rate, dividing that number by $15 a month x 3 for the quarter (so $45) – you end up with … Continue reading
How Many Players Does CoH/V Have Anyway?
The core metric for assessing the size of a MMO is the number of active players. It’s a simple metric that is easy to understand and compare, even if it isn’t perfect (after all, revenue and profitability are probably more important regardless of player base size). It’s power is such that good numbers are trumpeted … Continue reading
World Class Villains 