The first in what I hope to be a series of interview I’ll feature here on the site is now available … off site. I did an interview with CCP’s CMO Magnus Bergsson over at Slashdot, and I think it turned out really well. Here’s a sample:

Slashdot: Right, okay, so I think one of the things that people were really frustrated by with that, is I guess, the hardcore … EVE has this reputation as a very ‘tough’ game, and obviously there are a lot of people who really enjoy that. Why do you think the hardcore nature of the game appeals to so many people?

Magnus: Uhhh wow, that’s a big question. EVE can be very hardcore, and it can be also a very casual game. It really depends on how you play it. But most of these people who are commenting on the forums and so forth are the hardcore players, they’ve been with the game for many years. If you live in 0.0, it’s very hardcore. It’s a very you know, dog eat dog world, and I for one, I live there, I am one of those hardcore players. You know, it’s just the threat the, big death penalty and the amount of strategy you have to employ and the amount of thinking you have to do, and I think it’s a big big challenge, and I think these people really enjoy the challenge.

The Monk is Good. The Monk is Wise. Thank you for writing again so regularly, Angus.

His comments today on the schism between in-game guilds and the out-of-game requirements for entry rang very true for me. I always wondered why it was that I needed to pay some idiot architect a bunch of money for a house in SWG, when there were a bunch of perfectly good empty buildings in the NPC cities. Seriously, there’s not one apartment for rent in all of Theed?

Angus argues that in games like AO and EVE, it would have made a lot of sense to allow players to join in-game corporations:

You’d have the means to do cool inter-twisted quest stuff like the thing where you get an email from your boss telling you to kill the guy sitting next to you on the airplane ’cause he’s a corporate mole from another company, or more important stuff that everybody else in your guild actually cares about, like stopping somebody from trying to kidnap the princess and poison the king, if you were really high-up in your in-game guild. Of course, on the negative side, you might end up in a corporation with some attention-whore college boy drama queen that never shuts the hell up and drives everyone absolutely batshit. But how is that any different from the shit we’re doing now? 

I wanted to join up with one of the NPC corps about 15 minutes into EVE’s tutorial, and was very disappointed when I learned I couldn’t.

C’mon, just a little RP never hurt anybody.

A few days ago, for Christmas, I talked about what I want to happen in the future of MMOGs. Now I’m going to run down a few things that I think actually will happen in the coming year. I’m going to do this as a series of general statements, with the idea being I’ll score myself around this time next year. I’m just a guy, of course, and I expect a number of them will be very wrong. That’s the fun of this, though, right?

1. Burning Problems – The launch of the expansion to World of Warcraft is going to cause Blizzard bigtime headaches. Their advances over the last six months with server downtime and queues will be temporarily wiped out as everyone who cancelled their account reups to check out the new content. Eventually, this will result in even more impressive subscriptions for the game, as new people get hooked by the hoopla, but in the short term it will cost Blizzard some good will. Update 02/2007: Wrong. Launch went flawlessly.
2. That Not So Fresh Feeling – At least one of the MMOGs slated to launch this year is going to end up being kind of a stinker; reviewers and players who turn away from the game will do so because of ’stale gameplay’. The same-old-same-old of Massive games is already old hat, and just because it has shiny graphics doesn’t mean it’s going to do that well.
3. Less Is Better Than More – The monthly fee-less games will continue to gain in popularity in 2007. With Dungeon Runners and Guild Wars both proving out NCSoft’s wisdom, other companies will begin to consider changing up the usual box-and-a-monthly-sub costs. At least one major U.S. Massive game will offer a substantially different payment setup than the monthly subscription by the end of the year.
4. Raph’s Rabbit – Whatever Raph has planned will prove to be an eyebrow raiser. Even if it’s not the Next Big Thing, Areae’s product announcement will end up sounding like a pretty good deal and will be a constant topic of conversation towards the end of the year. We won’t see whatever it is live in 2007. Update 09/2007: They announced Metaplace. Right on the ‘not live in 2007′, not sure it’s had the splash yet.
5. Later is Worse Than Sooner – One of the big MMOGs slated for release ’soon’ or in 2007 is not going to make it out this year. Whatever game it is, gamers will increasingly think of it as a lost cause, and you’ll see less public interest in the game going forward. MMOG players will have a lot to distract them this year, and anyone who isn’t doing laps is going to be sinking.
6. Bio-Shocking – Whatever Bioware has planned is going to make people really excited. Like “I Want the game to come out now” excited. We’re not going to get so much as a trailer until the end of the year, and interviews with the development team will continue to make jaded MMOG players and designers scornful.
7. Beggar’s Canyon -Â SOE is finally going to get off its ass and do *something* with Star Wars Galaxies. They’ll can it, they’ll announce a new expansion for it, they’ll totally revamp some aspect of the game … something. Whatever it is will either save the game or be the final nail for an already strung out player base.
8. Ever Awesome – 2007 will be the year EverQuest 2 finally gets its due. Good fallout from Faydwer and hype for the next expansion, as well as players looking for an alternative from WoW, will swell the ranks of SOE’s flagship. We’ll start hearing boastful subscription numbers out of them, as they start to get back into the range EQ Live inhabited back in the good old days a few years back.
9. Newbie – A company that has, as of yet, not published a Massive game will announce their intention to do so. They’ll promise the moon, and will have already failed and announced the end of the project by December.
10. Fallout Fallout – The Fallout MMOG will be canceled, with little explanation as to what happened.
11. In Space … – Eve Online will continue to do crazy-awesome well, with their end-of-year numbers at the end of 2007 simply blowing peoples minds. Their cellphone skill/trading app will be very successful, and the company will announce and possibly release another expansion in the next 12 months. CCP will announce the particulars of their White Wolf MMOG by the end of the year.
12. Gutshot – The release of one of the new generation of heavyweights will prove devastating to a member of the old guard. A game we all think of today as stable and healthy will be a shadow of its former self by the end of the year.

2007’s Winners: Warhammer Online, Eve Online, EverQuest 2, Guild Wars
2007’s Losers: Star Wars Galaxies, Gods and Heroes, Vanguard, Dark Age of Camelot Update: 10/2007 Wish I’d been wrong about Gods and Heroes.

Brent, buddy, you know I love what you do. But jeezus … your top ten list suuucked.
The Virgin Worlds podcast is a happy part of my week, every week, and at first I was enthused when a ‘Top 10 MMOGs’ list began back on the 12th. Instead of listening to the first back at the start of the month, I waited until the second half was released to start listening.

My biggest beef was the assertion that the higher numbered MMOGs were somehow ‘better’ than the lower numbered ones. I realize it’s less interesing when a top ten list doesn’t imply ranking, but in this case I think that’s the way I would have gone. Otherwise, it seems somewhat offset to compare almost decade-old work to brand new stuff. Likewise, games built on a shoestring compared to juggernauts like WoW? Blah.

I don’t care that WoW was #7. It’s iteratively better, not evolutionarily. Totally agree. You guys are obviously approaching the games from the POV of MMOG snobs, and I respect that at least. No problem.

But Jeezus. The fucking Warden? You’re complaining about the Warden? You’re complaining about their bad Customer Service? “Hi, this is 2003, I want my complaints back.” You then go on to discuss how Asherons Call is better than WoW, because some of its shitty content was hidden from most of the players. That is the most ass backwards thing I’ve ever heard. It’s a game, guys, not a scavenger hunt or geocaching. The point is to have fun, not spend time searching for content. (Subtle glares at Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest.)

On top of that, you then ranked Everquest 2 above WoW on your list. The hell? I’d love to know what alternate reality you folks are living in where EQ2 is a ‘better’ game than World of Warcraft. EQ2 is just like the majority of SOE’s games: lots of promise, plenty of potential, flawed execution. The traditional SOE recipe for failure has kept the greatness of EverQuest 2 from dominating the MMOG conciousness, and positioning it higher than WoW on the list is not going to change that.

Other crankiness elicited by your list:

• Guild Wars is Multiplayer, and it’s Online, but it ain’t Massive by most definitions.
• You should be ashamed of yourselves, making us Westerners remember that Lineage II exists. You gave children nightmares and made our crops blight!
• Ryzom’s big ticket to fame is it Frenchness. Okay, the Ring is really good. I’d like it more if the game the Ring was built on wasn’t so damn boring.

Since it’s my blog and I’ll second guess if I want to, my list would have looked more like this:

1. Everquest – teh Winner!
2. World of Warcraft – your new lord and master
3. FFXI – the much overlooked asskicker
4. City of Heroes/Villains – tights make everyone happy
5. Dark Age of Camelot – PvP’s home turf
6. Everquest 2 – so much potential
7. Ultima Online – Grandpa
8. Eve Online – funnest screensaver ever
9. Puzzle Pirates – puzzles are the future
10. Star Wars Galaxies – what not to do

All whining aside, I liked the obvious effort you put into the feature. Nice work, gents. Just, less ganja next time you working on the Science.

A long day of writing and such, and I’m not in the mood to be particularly witty … not that I ever am, but you understand what I’m saying.

EVE Online Re-Review at MMORPG.com

Since the last review quite a bit has been added to the EVE universe in the form of three major content expansions called Exodus, Cold War and Red Moon Rising. Exodus added tons of new ships, modules and skills, but also added the capability for groups of Corporations to form Alliances to control their territory and defend it from others with Starbases. These allowed for entirely new level of galactic conquest and many great player empires had risen and fallen in the two years since.

MMORPG.COM – EVE Online : Reviews – Our Exclusive Reviews Of The Game

Pyschochild Explains Why We Need Stories in Games

So, let’s focus on some basics first. It’s obviously hard to put storytelling into games given the notable failures all around us, so why do so many people bother? Well, the main reason I can think of is commercial. Lots of people watch movies, read fiction books, and watch TV dramas. All these media have storytelling in them, and people obviously enjoy it. More people watch just about any TV drama on during prime time than will play any particular game of ours. So, there’s an audience out there that wants to enjoy a good story, and game developers (who like solving puzzles) are trying to figure out ways to draw them in.

Psychochild’s Blog » A spirited defense of storytelling in games

Ralsu of TenTonHammer Talks Nonsense

Is DDO a cool game or not? Does the good outweigh the bad? Just what am I saying?DDO is a cool game. It crams a lot of fun and intense action into its package. Honestly, it feels more like an action game than a MMOG to me—one that could have been a single purchase with a lobby for online gaming.I think the good aspects of the DDO merit giving it a try. Long-term, I have an idea what Turbine really needs to do to fix this game: give up on the D&D concept.

Dungeons and Dragons Online at TenTonHammer.com :: Your DDO Community and Resources!

This last article link was to be accompanied by a long rant about why, while it is a good idea to start thinking of moving away from D&D, DDO needs to stick closer to its roots to be successful.

Instead, I think I’ll go play Dead Rising.

I’ve mentioned once or twice Beckett’s entry into the sphere of ‘reporting’ on Massive games – Massive Online Gamer. I received my first issue of the quarterly magazine just before we left for San Francisco, so I haven’t had the chance to really sit down and take a look at it yet.

Tonight I did, and I regret it. Reading it, picking it up, paying money for it … perhaps even getting interested in Massive games, so terrible is this ‘magazine’. My only consolation is that this thing will probably only ever see one or two more issues before they fold it like an ugly sweater.

Read on for my impressions of this tabloid excuse of a gaming magazine.
Read more

Last friday Lum had a great post looking at why Galactica Online would never work. Psychochild then turned around and scraped out the insides of my brain by talking a little bit about the Cowboy Bebop MMOG I’ve wanted desperately for the last two or three years. These two discussions are wonderful to see; I haven’t said much this month but I’ve definitely done a lot of thinking.

Playing Eve has been fun, but only because I’ve come to realize that it’s purely a novelty element. I’m enjoying spending time with a RL friend of mine, bothering Darniaq, and blowing up pirates, but the actual play I’m experiencing so far has been (to borrow Lum’s term) somewhat Excel-esque. Apparently there’s this thing called ‘0.0′ space, and I’m training up to fly Cruisers so I can see what that’s like.

Eve aside, I want a space MMOG that does more than just let me tool around. Eve’s based entirely in the black, and as awe-inspiring as their space stations are you can’t get out and look around. The less said about Galaxies on this site, the better. The Star Trek and StarGate games sound interesting, but in the end they’re going to be limited by the realizites of modern massive games; a persistent reality means no exploration, little discovery, and no real ‘heroes’.

Mass Effect, really, is the closest thing I think I’m going to get to the game I want any time soon. Even then, I’m put off by Tycho’s words on the combat experience. NASA’s underfunded, no one cares about the Moon, and I’ll never get to fight off Reavers from the comfort of my office. It’s a sad time to be a sci-fi fan.