Community Q&A

Massively went gaga for quirky Flash-based sandbox MMO Glitch when it launched last fall, so we were dismayed when it unlaunched just a few short months later. Who unlaunches a game? Tiny Speck, that's who. The company sent the game back into beta for systems overhauls, including more robust housing, as Tiny Speck's Stewart Butterfield told us back in December.

This week, in a question-and-answer session on the official forums, Butterfield explains just how the new housing system will work. For starters, everyone will now begin the game as a homeowner. Existing players will be transitioned from their current, static homes into new base models, which can be upgraded (horizontally, vertically, and thematically) as players invest Imagination and undertake crafting projects. Players will even decide which types of gardens and animal pens will surround their abodes.

There's a whole lot more to the Q&A, including bits about economy overhauls, player-generated content, and the end of Lord of the Rings Online-style neighborhoods, so sandbox aficionados should review it or the summary in person.

[Thanks to Saucelah for the tip!]

Do you have questions about the Illuminati? Of course you do -- that's sort of their whole method of operation. But when it comes to The Secret World, some of those questions got answered via yesterday's community question-and-answer session on Facebook. While you'll have to Like the page in order to view all of the answers, you're rewarded for doing so with a breadth of facts about the secretive power-mongers and hoarders of secrets.

Among the first questions was the simple one of how the Illuminati aren't in control of everything in the game world if their operatives have infiltrated the highest level of government; as it happens, with the world exploding and lighting up with the supernatural, the Illuminati are too concerned with working overtime to keep things under wraps to try to take total control. The answers also reinforce the idea that the Illuminati crave power and competence above all, up to the organization's willingness to discard lesser members for valuable information. You can take a peek at the full set of answer on Facebook, but keep in mind that you're going to need to Like the page first.

What would an MMO be without its community? Development is only a fraction of what makes an MMO successful; the passion of its players is what really makes or breaks any massively online game. So we're excited to spotlight those members of the MMO community who we think are particularly passionate about our favorite hobby.

If you don't know the name Gary Gannon, you will soon enough. Gary has created or helped create everything from a successful MMO podcast to a social media site for gamers, but he's now looking to boost his Gamebreaker media network into the "CNN or ESPN of gaming" in the near future.

Sound like a pipe dream from yet another in the sea of overly enthusiastic game-journalist wannabes? Not if that person has spent his entire adult career actually working for some of the largest news organizations in the U.S.

We caught up with Gary to talk about his gaming roots, his passion for the community, and the future of his Gamebreaker network.

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Wargaming.net has published some new World of Warplanes info in part three of its ongoing community question-and-answer series.

The free-to-play World War II aviation title is shaping up to be an action-heavy game with a casual playstyle that is similar to World of Tanks. Over the course of 30 questions, Wargaming.net covers a lot ground including joystick controls (available but not required), cockpit views (not available), and airborne vs. ground spawn points.

"Aircraft will be spawned in the air at the beginning of the battle. As an option, you will be able to land the aircraft at the end of the battle and a successful landing will give you additional experience. An unsuccessful landing will break the plane and will [incur repair costs]," according to a post on the official WoWP forums.

"Ask me anything." That's a dangerous command for anyone to issue, nevermind the community manager of the hottest new MMO on the block. Yet that's just what Stephen Reid said today to the Star Wars: The Old Republic community on Reddit, and the length of questions and answers would make for a mini-novel if packaged as such.

While Reid certainly hedges on issues that BioWare is not quite ready to address, he doesn't shy away from direct answers when applicable. The compiled Reddit thread lists dozens and dozens of Q&As, including the much-asked-for guild housing ("on the list for future development"), the ability delay issue ("we'll talk about it publicly soon"), and an upgraded Galactic Trade Network ("improvements will come to the GTN in time, definitely").

In response to the request for non-mechanical (read: animal) mounts, Reid said, "Maybe -- it's a technical challenge, I've been told." He's most excited about the upcoming legacy system reveals, but he's not allowed to talk on it just yet.

Amidst the probing questions of the newly launched title is a personal query about what it's like for him to be at the helm of SWTOR community management. "What's it like?" Reid responded. "Bewildering and overwhelming and exciting and demanding, all at once, all day long (and often into the night). I had some idea what I was getting into, but it was bigger than expected. I'll stay as long as I'm wanted."

With the cold war in PlanetSide 2 quickly turning hot, potential players have to ask themselves: Which side will they join? Today SOE is making a bid on behalf of the New Conglomerate, painting them as the scrappy underdogs of the war with plenty of attitude to go around. We sat down with Creative Director Matt Higby to see if we could figure out what makes this faction tick.

Massively: As an introduction for new players, what's the philosophy behind the New Conglomerate?

Matt Higby: The New Conglomerate are an insurgent guerrilla force fighting against pretty stacked odds: an enormous military machine in the TR on one side and the vast technological superiority of the VS on the other. This forces the New Conglomerate to be adaptive, use creative tactics and take advantage of every possible opportunity they can to accomplish their goals. Their weapons run the gamut from conventional to experimental, and they're not willing to say no to anything that might give them an edge.

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After the past few days' Week of the Dragon, The Secret World invites you to get all those burning questions off your chest in a fun Q&A setting. Using Facebook as a platform for this back-and-forth exchange, Funcom wants its fans to ask any and all Dragon-related queries on its social media page.

If so interested, you can head over to The Secret World on Facebook, click the Questions & Answers tab, and let 'er rip! Funcom will be compiling the best of these questions and will answer them on Sunday, October 23rd at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Of course, due to time and other restraints, Funcom will not be able to answer every query posed.

The Secret World's Week of the Dragon has covered many aspects of this Asian-themed faction, including a video, interview, backstory, and concept art. The developer promised similar-themed weeks for the Templar and Illuminati factions in the upcoming future.

Lights... camera... internet connection... aaand action!

To celebrate Final Fantasy XIV's first anniversary, Square-Enix's Naoki Yoshida will be taking the stage for a live edition of the Producer's Letter. This event will happen on October 4th at 8:00 p.m. a.m. EDT on YouTube Live. Yoshida will use the time to field player questions from around the world and will also talk about the future of the title as it heads into its second year of operation.

Final Fantasy XIV will celebrate its first anniversary on September 30th. For Massively's musings on where the game's been and where it's going, make sure to check out this past week's Mog Log for the full skinny!

Sometimes it makes a world of difference to put a name to a face, especially when it comes to the often-mythologized field of MMO development. The Gods & Heroes team recently sat down in front of a camera to not only answer community questions but give you a sense of who the team members are, how they function together, and what they look like.

Topics on hand for the discussion included Heatwave Interactive's favorite memories from Gamescom, fixing problems with the latest patch, the combat range changes, the ongoing production blog that one of the devs is writing, promotions for Steam and other distributors of the game, a "targeted marketing campaign" that's going to launch in the next couple of weeks, and a future update tenatively scheduled for mid-October.

You can watch the full USTREAM recording of the dev chat after the jump!

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The makers of the hyper-kinetic Elsword Online have made it their mission to sit down with the community and tackle the pressing questions of the day. In the first of an exclusive series here on Massively, Kill3rCombo devs respond to player questions about the fresh-faced title.

Q: How do the developers come up with new content? Do you guys sit around and throw out ideas? Or do you have certain developers come up with their own designs then present them to one another until everyone can agree on one thing?

A: There's a game design team within the development team that's responsible for planning and proposing game content. Often, one of the game designers will present his or her ideas to the team and get feedback to help refine the feature. They'll also freely discuss their ideas on our internal message board, a very similar tool to the forum. Every member of the development team has a chance to voice their ideas about new content they'd like to see or how to improve existing content.

We also have a team specially dedicated to developing Elsword for North America. The team updates the Korean Elsword content so it's tailored for North American gamers. Everyone on the team has a chance to offer ideas to create a more fun experience for players in North America.

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With that newfangled Twitter that's all the rage these days, TERA proves that developer chats can be even more accessible -- and within a 140-character limit! Recently, Senior Producer Brian Knox fielded a grab bag of questions about this upcoming action MMO, although he put a kibosh on queries related to the release date and events.

PvP, obviously, was a huge topic of discussion, with questions ranging from death penalties (same as PvE) to open world conflict (starts at level 12 and requires the purchase of special items) to guild vs. guild battles (still in the works).

TERA's famed political system was another subject for inquiry -- would it be in the game at the start or will we have to wait for it? "Day 1. It is up and working now and will be available at launch," Knox assured fans.

Raids are something else that future players has been asking for, and apparently the TERA team is at least exploring the possibility of implementing them: "We know how badly the community wants raids! We are looking very hard at this and is one of the reasons we have focused on five-man content."

You can read the full dev diary over at TERA's official site.

Cryptic's future may be in flux, but the show, as they say, must go on. And part of the great Cryptic show is the monthly Ask Cryptic feature, the latest of which has landed at Champions Online.

Champions Producer Rob Overmeyer tackles the smorgasbord of player-submitted queries, which range from vehicle transformation to shrinkage to shared banks. Overmeyer confirms that the team is working on revamping several additional lairs, including Dr. D's Robot Factory. The upcoming comic series, available for all types of players, looks to be promising:

"Our first Comic Series is called Aftershock. The first issue is scheduled to release Wednesday June 1, 2011 and each subsequent issue in the series will be released each Wednesday of the following weeks. Each issue will be available to play following its debut along with any previous issues. You will need to complete any previous issue in the series before you can play the latest in the series. Aftershock will wrap up the first week of July and once the entire series is out it will be playable as a complete adventure. Each issue targets about 30 minutes of gameplay, however, that time can be affected by a number of factors."

Overmeyer also said that while there are no set dates for porting Star Trek Online's Foundry system over to Champions Online, it's only a matter of time. "Getting The Foundry working in Champs is actually easier than getting Champs ready for The Foundry," he writes.

You can read the full Q&A over at Champions Online.

Maintenance breaks may typically be frustrating, boring patches of non-activity for MMO gamers, but next Tuesday promises to be different for Fallen Earth. According to the official site, the team has a "major" announcement scheduled during the May 31st downtime -- one you won't want to miss.

The announcement will take place during two live podcasts with Senior Game Designer Marie Croall. During the podcasts, Croall will discuss the game's present and future to the dedicated wastelanders out there.

You can catch the podcast and announcement on Fallen Earth's Ustream channel on May 31st at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EDT. Alternatively, players may use Ventrilo to catch the action and even submit their own questions.

What will this announcement be? We're not sure, but it looks to be a long weekend wait until we find out!

At last month's WonderCon in San Francisco, three MMO industry experts sat down to do a panel on many of the pressing questions and issues that players have these days. The lively panel, moderated by PC Gamer's Josh Augustine, consisted of Dirk Metzger (Zentia), Scott Hartsman (RIFT) and Nick Huggett (Runes of Magic), each taking turns to address some of the questions that are commonly asked about these games and the industry at large.

These topics included player retention, free-to-play vs. subscription business models, the endless comparisons to World of Warcraft, why MMOs tend to be fantasy-based, some of the biggest mistakes in the genre, how to appeal to both hardcore and casual players, the differences between the Asian and North American market, and the struggle to provide player-created content.

The rise of social media also has a significant effect on MMO development, according to Hartsman. "What that kind of forces us to do, bluntly, is make better games right off the bat, because people will tell you if your game sucks."

You can watch the video highlights of the panel after the jump.

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Few MMOs make it to seven years, and fewer still retain a sizable, fanatical playerbase the way City of Heroes has. From its humble origins as a different type of online RPG through its growth in fame, power and two expansion packs, City of Heroes has mimicked the superhero archetype in more ways than one.

The devs at Paragon Studios want to celebrate this seven-year milestone with the coolest crowd on the block: namely, CoH players! While there will be no in-game events this year due to content coming in May, the devs will be available for a meet and greet this Thursday, April 28th on the EU and NA servers. Check out the schedule to see when and where you can hang out with your favorite dev and perhaps unload a burning question or two. The team will also appear later that day in a special UStream live chat event.

Stay tuned to Massively, as tomorrow our Mild-Mannered Reporter column will be throwing the confetti and blowing kazoos to mark this auspicious occasion!