Massively Speaking Episode 161

Massively Speaking Episode 161 is back this week to bring you all the latest MMO news with your hosts Shawn and Rubi. This time around, the focus is Gamescom 2011, which exploded with new game announcements, video trailers, screenshots, and "World of" games. OK, maybe just one of those, but Shawn and Rubi sure had fun making up new ones.

If you're interested in learning more about the Game Programming Instructor position Shawn has mentioned on previous episodes, check out the job listing or contact Shawn for more info.

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to shawn@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air!

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Read below the cut for the full show notes.

Massively Speaking is the official podcast of Massively.com. Hosted by Editor-in-Chief Shawn Schuster and Community Manager Rubi Bayer, Massively Speaking takes on the week's biggest news and dev interviews with plenty of opinion, rants, and laughs thrown in for good measure. Join us every Wednesday afternoon to listen in and see what we'll say next!

Show Notes For Massively Speaking Episode 161

Hosts:

Topics:

Theme Music:

"Vanguard Forward" by Michael Gordon Shapiro. Used with permission.

Reader Comments (10)

Great episode! As normal, I had like 10 things I was going to comment on, and just forgot by the end of the episode. I do have to say Asheron's Call sounded awesome, I'm sad I missed it.

It sounds like there were alot of mechanics, and players had many options at any one point. Compared to a WoW-like (Rift was the worst offender I've seen) where your options are: Do damage, Do damage with lightning type, Do damage slowly over time, Do damage after a block, etc. It's different, but arbitrarily so. Things like deciding to pull out a shield to block as a caster but lose most class functionality is a great decision-point, and I hope games add some more of those types of game mechanics that are hallmarks of Tabletop gaming.

@Vazzaroth
Thanks! There are usually at least 10 things I forget to mention on the show, so we're even ;)

I was very interested by Otherland, and am now interested in the books, which I'd never heard of before. You mentioned people rather playing TOR, Tera, and TSW, but out of those 3, the only one I care about is TSW, and only then if it'll be free-to-play or with an unlimited trial like Age of Conan. :)

@sjheiss

Pretty sure TSW is going to have a sub, though I don't think any concrete details have been given yet. Probably standard rates.

@sjheiss they are excellent books, arguably the best Tad Williams has written to date, total page turners full of unique and imaginative concepts.

I'm mostly interested in SW:TOR, and Wildstar. GW2 looks alright so far but..meh lol

Just wanted to mention - I can remember reading the Otherland books back in the 1990s. They pre-date LotRO by probably ten years.

A game based on that story has the potential to be sandbox like we've never seen before - infinite worlds instead of just one. User worlds instead of user cities, etc.

@StampyIRL

Well, they may've been thinking about Sierra-Online's effort that never got off the ground for Lord of the Rings.

And I do see Rubi's/Shawn's point; even I was a bit confused by the trailer and what is it we are going to really do. Are we going to "steal" the appearances of NPCs solely or what? So many unanswered questions.

Even if you never read the books (I didn't), there may be potential. I remember getting involved in a specific AOL chat room (RDI/Red Dragon Inn) that had a few cross-themed characters and events that players just enhanced. Space Pilots and Medeival Barbarians, Vampires and more kept coming into the room and interacting just fine in a nice, generally mature, roleplaying area.

Generally speaking, it is up to the designers to make this a fun/easy game to learn/enjoy. If they can do that, people will come running, no matter the theme.

@Space Cobra

Nah, you're right. I mostly just wanted to point out some of Tad Williams' spot-on predictions. So far, he's not too far off with where the world is headed.

Anyway, I'm just a huge sci-fi nerd who is into all of this stuff. These weren't my favourite books, but they're definitely worth a read.

First, I thought the Wildstar trailer had a great sense of humor, and I'm looking forward to seeing more on the game... (I was a huge Firefly fan and I guess I can see the comparison a little bit... it's a bit of a stretch tho.)

Second, I popped over and checked out the Gamebreaker.tv TWIMMO episode... loved the comment on "Hot Joinable" *chuckle* and it must also be said, way to bring the beard of awesomeness dude!

Excellent job of sharing opinions and MMO information in general Shawn, and I agree with you about the Warhammer stuff... seeing the same writing on the wall...

Massively Speaking Episode 161

Reader Comments (10)

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 7:05PM Vazzaroth said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 7:58PM ShawnSchuster said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 8:27PM sjheiss said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 10:12PM Apakal said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 10:04PM startruck said

Posted: Aug 17th 2011 11:54PM Valentina said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 12:20AM StampyIRL said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 1:44AM Space Cobra said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 8:27AM StampyIRL said

Posted: Aug 18th 2011 1:20PM ArcherAvatar said

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