MMO Industry

We'll never see Project Copernicus come to light, and for some people that's the last that needs to be said about 38 Studios. For the state of Rhode Island, however, there's quite a bit more at stake, with the state alleging that 38 Studios tried to hide its financial condition and essentially defrauded the taxpayers of Rhode Island. Opening arguments have been heard today for the case, with the 14 individual defendants seeking to have the case dismissed as completely spurious.

When 38 Studios folded, that left Rhode Island in the hole for a $75 million loan. The lawsuit is seeking restitution from Curt Schilling and 13 other individuals, including former members of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp that originally supported the loan. According to the EDC's lawyers, substantial evidence exists that this loan was based upon intentional misdirection on the part of upper management, although the defense claims these allegations are ridiculous. At this point, it's up to the courts who's in the right.

A few days ago we reported on RIFT's impending free-to-play conversion, followed by the news that Trion was undergoing a second set of apparently unrelated layoffs. Former Trion studio GM and CCO Scott Hartsman responded to the layoffs on Twitter, intimating that aspects of the gaming industry are "fundamentally broken."

After we invited your thoughts on that same subject in a Daily Grind earlier this week, we contacted Hartsman in the hopes of getting him to elaborate. Join us after the cut for the resulting interview.

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In Nerd Kingdom's The Untitled Game (TUG), the focus is on complete freedom. One of those freedoms is the ability for anyone to make his or her own server in the form of a floating island with any rules.

Official servers are broken into two categories: Survival, where your items are not safe, and Adventure, which follows more of a traditional RPG/MMO ruleset. But in the private servers, your floating islands will be yours to do with as you please.

TUG is currently still in its Kickstarter campaign with 9 days and around $75,000 to go before the project is funded. Head on over to its Kickstarter update page to learn more about private islands and the other features found in this sandbox game.

Diablo III is a year old, and Blizzard's celebratory anniversary gesture is one of those mile-long infographic things featuring selected statistics designed to make you ooh and ahh.

Said statistics include 67.1 million characters created world-wide, 3.3 trillion monsters killed world-wide, and 22.4 million characters that have killed Diablo. Interestingly, Blizzard left off the number of hours lost to launch server login issues, nor is there any mention of D3's much-maligned real-money auction house. You can see the full graphic after the break.

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I don't have many fond memories from Runes of Magic. I didn't play it long, and the thing I recall most vividly is being forced to hunt around Runewaker's cash shop for an item that would let me talk in global chat.

Fortunately, negative vibes like that didn't affect my recent hands-on with Dragon's Prophet's beta, which, in case you're wondering, is Runewaker's followup to Runes of Magic. Unfortunately, I don't think the new game in its present state is quite ready for prime time.

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When a subscription MMO goes free-to-play, there's always a circus atmosphere surrounding it. The studios use it as an excuse to enjoy a "second launch," players pour out opinions on all sides, and new folks wander into the danger zone out of sheer curiosity.

It's not just about F2P on this week's Massively Speaking; we have game launches, layoffs, previews, and tons of reader mail to cover. Will we have the words to do it? Or will we just end the podcast humming informatively? Jef's on it today, so there definitely will be a song and dance number at some point!

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

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Read below the cut for the full show notes.

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So Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic Studios figure that Neverwinter players may not exactly be happy about the list of game-breaking bugs and exploits found in the game's open beta over the last few weeks. To help alleviate that player frustration, the developers are offering up an olive branch of sorts in the form of the Caturday Survivor's Pack full of in-game goodies.

For all characters created before 8 a.m. EDT (5 a.m. PDT) on Sunday, May 19th, this pack is waiting in their in-game mailbox. In it, each character will find a Stone of Health, a Dwarven Facemask, five teleport scrolls to the Protector's Enclave, two Adventurer's XP boosters, and a Cape of Catastrophe. Hey, at least they have a sense of humor about it.

After his departure from the Diablo III development team, Game Director Jay Wilson released a statement that the introduction of an auction house "really hurt the game." While players predicted doom the moment the Real Money Auction House was announced, Jay argued that the gold auction house was equally to blame for the game's fall from grace following an absolutely stellar launch sales. I don't normally agree with what Jay has to say on Diablo III, but in this case he does have a very valid point.

Diablo II was consistently popular for over a decade thanks to its immense replayability. At its core, D2 was a game about building new characters and gearing them up by any means necessary. Every enemy in the game was a loot pinata just waiting to be popped, and players farmed endlessly for a few sought-after unique items. You almost never found an item that was ideal for your particular class and build, but you could usually trade for what you needed via trade channels and forums.

Blizzard claimed that the auction house was intended just to streamline this process, but when Diablo III launched, it was clear that the entire game had been designed to make the auction house almost necessary for progress. The fault here lies not just with the concept of an auction house but with the game designers.

That's right: I'm here to argue not only that Jay Wilson was right about the auction house ruining Diablo III but also that it was his own damn fault.

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If you've been waiting for your chance to capture and tame your very own dragons to ride, then grab your saddle and get ready to mount up because Dragon's Prophet flies into open beta next week. On May 30th, beta doors open to all dragon aficionados who want to enter the world of Auratia and tame, train, and fight alongside -- as well as against -- a variety of dragon-kind. As part of their bonus, founders will have access one day earlier on the 29th. Formal launch is expected later this year.

Players can also expect to hear more about the game; as of today, SOE has lifted the closed beta NDA. Current testers can now begin sharing tales of their adventures with family, friends, and random strangers in line at the supermarket. You can also watch some of those adventures this week on Massively TV, with a two-hour show today at 10 a.m. EDT and one featuring a special dev guest on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. EDT. And check out the video after the cut!

[Source: SOE press release]

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Last week's kind-of announced MOBA from EA entitled Dawngate is now ready to be a thing that people can clamor over.

A new video exclusive at Machinima (also embedded below) shows off a bit of a behind-the-scenes explanation of what Dawngate offers to MOBA fans. Members of the Waystone Games team explain the game's rich lore, unique mechanics such as regenerating towers, resource gathering, RTS-style strategies, and more.

Beta testing starts this Friday, and you can head on over to the game's official site to sign up.

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Buried in the brouhaha that is the latest round of Trion layoffs was the opinion of former RIFT producer Scott Hartsman. The MMO industry veteran offered his sympathies on Twitter and also offered to help affected former employees with job intros and the like.

Hartsman also hinted at his views on current industry trends, saying that "this model of gamemaking is so fundamentally broken." Given the limitations of Twitter and fact that Hartsman didn't elaborate, it's hard to know exactly what he meant, though we can extrapolate based on his prior positions on F2P and the context surrounding the Trion situation.

What about you, Massively readers? Do you agree with Hartsman? Is this model of MMO gamemaking fundamentally broken?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Cloud Imperium has taken the wraps off Star Citizen's hangar module, a standalone app that's scheduled to be released to early adopters later this summer. Pledgers will get a chance to walk through their hangars and ogle their pledge ships, as well as climb inside them and invite their friends over for a spaceship-themed soiree.

The hangar module is "about 50 percent fleshed out right now," according to the spiffy Cloud Imperium video tour that you can watch after the cut.

[Thanks Eric!]

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Black Eye Games updated its Gloria Victis Facebook page over the weekend. The occasion was a pre-alpha feature push that saw plenty of new stuff make its way into the fledgling sandbox.

"The forest is now filled with life," the post says, including boars, foxes, wolves, and plenty of raw gatherables like bark, timber, hops, flax, and sunflowers. Black Eye has also enlarged the game world proper and added humanoid mobs. There are screens of all this stuff and more behind the links below. You'll also find some Massively-exclusive screens behind the break.

[Thanks to everyone who tipped us!]

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Since last week's Leaderboard went over so well, I figured, why not put up another semi-controversial poll in the hopes that fans of the choices I inadvertently leave off will pepper my inbox with hate mail? Snarkiness aside, I am curious to see the results of today's vote, which pits the big three fantasy MMOs releasing over the next year against one another in a grueling duel to the death.

The prize? The coveted title of Most Anticipated 2013/14 Fantasy MMO in the Massively Comments Section, which is going to be really hard to cram onto the trophy. In any case, vote for your favorite after the break.

Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!

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