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EVE Online press conference answers vital questions, transcript inside

Brendan Drain — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Culture, Economy, Events, real-world, Expansions, Game mechanics, Interviews, MMO industry, News items

After what should have been the celebrated release of the long-awaited Incarna expansion last week, the EVE Online community erupted into flames. The controversy began when players realised that the vanity clothing items in the game's new cash shop were ridiculously overpriced. The $68 monocle became a centerpiece that the media latched onto, in the same way that World of Warcraft made the headlines when Blizzard had the audacity to sell a $25 mount.

The story should have ended there as a piece about a crazy Icelandic game company selling virtual clothing for more than real clothing. Unfortunately, some conveniently timed leaks from inside CCP caused this simple issue to escalate to the point of panic, causing in-game riots and a significant number of subscription cancellations. The company's silence on the simple question of whether non-vanity microtransactions would be introduced was seen as an admission that gameplay-affecting items would end up in the cash shop.

CCP flew the Council of Stellar Management, EVE's democratically-elected player representative body, out to Iceland for an emergency meeting last week. The result of the meeting was a joint statement between CCP and the CSM addressing all of the major concerns players had. Last night, CCP ran two press conferences over Skype to give EVE fansites and the gaming media a chance to ask additional questions that weren't covered in the official statement. Skip past the cut for our in-depth three-page transcript from the gaming media press conference, including answers to several pressing questions sent in by Massively readers and some great issues raised by other participating members of the press. Comments can be posted on page 3.

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EVE Online press conference answers vital questions, transcript inside originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warhammer Online devs bare their souls in a recent public Q&A session

Justin Olivetti — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Interviews, Patches, Warhammer Online

It's a rare treat when MMO developers take the time to sit down with fans and allow them to pose questions in a public setting, so it's great to see Warhammer Online's dev team doing just that. On July 30th, the devs opened the doors to BioWare Mythic's Ventrilo server for players to come in and submit one question to be answered, which resulted in dozens upon dozens of responses.

Burglir's Blog recorded the Q&A session, which was subsequently transcribed by Gaarawarr Gabs for all to enjoy. While some of the questions covered the same ground as the recent Producer's Letter (including a new 6v6 scenario and additional Live Events), most of them got into specific inquiries regarding classes, balancing and RvR. Some of the topics included magus/engineer pets, group heals, Linux support (spoiler: not going to happen), crowd control, cross-server scenarios, new races and something called "lolsquig speak."

One of the players even admitted to naughty exploiting when he asked about the Kraken Sea zone (of which he got a peek). Nate Levy shot back an interesting response: "The very, very short answer is we build out a lot more of the game than we ever end up using and sometimes there are things like that."

You can read the beefy transcript over at Gaarawarr Gabs.

Warhammer Online devs bare their souls in a recent public Q&A session originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Your Battle of the Immortals questions answered: Our developer chat with Clifton Chu

Seraphina Brennan — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, real-world, Interviews, Free-to-play, Community Q&A, Battle of the Immortals

Didn't get to come to our developer chat last night with Clifton "Kantorek" Chu from Battle of the Immortals? Don't worry, as we've got you covered with this transcript of last night's question and answer session!

Clifton fielded many, many questions in one hour and 30 minutes, covering everything from BoI's player-killing system to future updates and new skills. We even got a behind-the-scenes sneak peak at the game's Westernization, covering some of the many changes Perfect World Entertainment made to the game in order to make it "fit" better for Western audiences.

So, without anymore time wasted, let's take a time warp back to last night, and see what questions you had to ask Clifton!

Continue reading Your Battle of the Immortals questions answered: Our developer chat with Clifton Chu

Your Battle of the Immortals questions answered: Our developer chat with Clifton Chu originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fallen Earth devs answer radioactive questions in Stratics chat

Justin Olivetti — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fallen Earth, Interviews, Post-Apocalyptic

It's always nice when developers let their hair down, shaking out their majestic manes in slow-motion glory while their eyes sparkle with a thousand points of... I'm sorry, where was I? Anyway, part of the powerhouse Fallen Earth team recently sat down with Stratics' House of Commons to answer community questions about the game in a free-form chat, which was recorded and posted on Globaltech ATLAS. Icarus devs present were Tiggs (Community Director), Chris Deavellar (Art Director), Cory Farris (Senior Environment Artist) and Wes Platt (Director of Content Development).

Topics included new Blood Sports maps, the day/night cycle, supercross, pop culture references and questions about the art and graphics of the game. One of the questions wondered why they couldn't add more body types into the game, which earned a revealing answer: "If we do implement new chracter [sic] types, it will require new rigging, new animation (about 1000 of them), and new boltons just for one new toon. You'll notice that games like Gears of War and Halo only have men? That's because they couldn't even afford to spend time doing a female toon. It's a LOT, LOT, LOT of work."

Globaltech ATLAS has the full transcript, so feel free to pour over the entire conversation, including a few "after hours" questions!

Fallen Earth devs answer radioactive questions in Stratics chat originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 21 May 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New developer chat transcript for Lord of the Rings Online

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Expansions, Game mechanics, Interviews

There's only a little time left until Lord of the Rings Online launches its next expansion, Siege of Mirkwood, but the players still have questions and the developers are thankfully quite happy to answer them. Not so long ago, WarCry had their first developer chat transcript up for fans of the game to digest. A fair bit of new information has come out since then, and so a new chat transcript is available with more information for the playerbase to mull over for the next week. Unfortunately, it's rather negative, since there are an awful lot of questions whose answers just so happen to be "no."

In no particular order: there are no current plans for expanding the housing system, there are no plans to convert Lorien tokens to Mirkwood, no player-created content systems in the works, no way to send mail with more than one attachment. On the other hand, there's more discussion of the Skirmish mechanics and their comparison with Dungeons and Dragons Online's difficulty-tunable instances, talk about how levels and items will be affected, and the expansive amount of content promised within Mirkwood itself. The full transcript is going to be a bit of a read, but it should tide over anticipation for the fast-approaching launch date.

New developer chat transcript for Lord of the Rings Online originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lord of the Rings Online developer chat transcript available

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Classes, Expansions, Game mechanics

There's a lot of interesting material coming with the Siege of Mirkwood expansion for Lord of the Rings Online, not to mention a large number of player questions and curiosity about where the game is headed. Luckily for the playerbase, WarCry was recently lucky enough to get a chance to chat with the developers, with a full transcript now available for all who missed the live chat. As is par for the course for developer chats, there's the occasional question that seems rather out-of-place or unnecessary, but on the whole it's full of tidbits that should excite the game's fans.

The discussion ranges from the tangible issues with the upcoming expansion such as class upgrades (each class will get one new skill upgrade at level 62), meta-issues (there will be a Skirmish sneak peek coming soon to let players try the new format), and some wholly random bits (the developers will not add your farm on Facebook as a neighbor). It's a weighty and lengthy chat that can't be summarized easily, so it's best to take a look, digest, and start thinking about the first thing you want to do in Lord of the Rings Online when the expansion goes live.

Lord of the Rings Online developer chat transcript available originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Cape envelops in-game advertising

Jonathan Northwood — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: City of Heroes, City of Villains, Interviews

Yesterday, The Cape Radio -- specifically DJs Templar and Shecky -- took the time to interview Brian Clayton, the General Manager of NCsoft NorCal studio, Matt "Positron" Miller, the Senior Lead Designer for City of Heroes, and Lighthouse, City of Heroes' Community Relations Manager. While the podcast is available immediately on The Cape's web site, we'll also have a transcript of the session available for you tomorrow. To whet your interest, however, here are some important takeaways from yesterday's session:

current bandwidth testing -- on dial-up, DSL, and cable modem -- indicate that performance impact with in-game advertisements enabled will range from minimal to none
any data collected to share with the advertiser to determine the viability of the revenue stream will be in the aggregate, and will not include personally-identifying data
the goal is to have player-generate ads included in the lineup at no charge, but that model may change in the future, and it may have some caveats, such as one-off advertisements for anniversaries and such
full details for submitting player-generated material are available on the official forums
players will be able to opt-in and opt-out at will, and at any time
if you opt out, you'll see the current static ads; however, if you opt-in, the current static ads will still be part of the lineup, cycling through along with all other player-generated and revenue-generating ads
100% of ad-generated revenue is currently earmarked for development of future content
NCsoft remains committed to making the advertising a seamless part of the experience, and is looking to enhance the immersive nature of the game rather than negatively impact it

Continue reading The Cape envelops in-game advertising

The Cape envelops in-game advertising originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xfire chats with Hellgate devs, transcript online

Chris Chester — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:14:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Interviews, Hellgate: London

For those too busy trick or treating Wednesday night to make it to the chat with the Flagship Studios folks hosted by Xfire, a transcript has been made available online for your viewing pleasure. Word has it that it was the most popular chat session that Xfire has ever hosted, which is no surprise to us, because excitement for Hellgate: London has been off the charts. Among the things that stood out to us during the chat, which featured at least one developer in nearly every area of production, including art, sound, design, graphics, programming and more, was a heavy focus on future content.

One listener complained about the lack of visual diversity in the game, to which graphics programmer Amir Ebrahimi replied, "HGL's dynamic level technology was built with the idea that we'd be extending well into the future. As with any big-budget game today, building environments are costly in terms of man-hours. We've yet to tap the flexibility of our DRLG technology and you'll see more in the future. As we add more areas and tilesets, our designers will be able to mix and match to create new environments for your enjoyment."

The transcript runs over 8000 words in its entirety, so there's a lot of content in there for you hungry Hellgate fans.

Xfire chats with Hellgate devs, transcript online originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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