Where have I seen this before? Oh yes, before Realtime Worlds went bankrupt. 38 Studios may still be alive, but that isn’t going to stop the vultures from coming in and taking dibs on who gets what cut of meat. Back in 2010, we had the combination flock of Sony, Codemasters, and Blitz to drain whatever remained of Realtime Worlds. Now that 38 Studios is facing layoffs, however, it is Turbine’s turn for first picks.
In a press release today, Turbine announced recruiting in Providence, Rhode Island is set to begin on May 22nd, from 5-9pm at Hotel Providence. You can even check out a list of currently available positions. Rhode Island Governor Chafee announced today that Project Copernicus is set for a June 2013 release date.
When reached for comment as to whether or not the two events were related, Turbine’s career center (pictured above) simply responded “Oh gorgh, nope nope nope nope, I’m not gonna do it ma, you can’t make me, nope nope nope nope.”
Age of Empires Online has had something of an identity crisis. Although enjoyed by plenty of players, the team at Gas Powered Games has been on the receiving end of some harsh criticism that the game isn’t so much “free to play” as it is “free to try.” Premium civilizations aren’t so much an optional add-on as they are a necessity to compete, adding a considerable road block at $10 a piece (they used to be $20).
Starting this summer, players will be able to obtain Empire Points either through buying them or by playing the game. Premium civilizations aren’t going anywhere, but by playing Age of Empires Online a player could accrue sufficient Empire Points to purchase the premium packs without paying a dime. According to GPG developers, a regular player might take two to three weeks of playing daily to obtain a premium civilization.
Age of Empires Online becomes more free to play this summer.
We’ve known about 38 Studios’ plan to bring forth an MMO for quite some time, and with the bad news of late (money trouble, not paying loans, meeting with the governor, not paying employees, etc) it may be rather difficult to focus on the fact that 38 Studios is still working on said MMO. While very little is known about the game, 38 Studios released the above fly-through which showcases (at the very least) the art-style that we can expect.
Hopefully we see plenty more from 38 Studios in the future. With an impressive array of names including Todd McFarlane and a story written by none other than the man who owns my very soul, R.A. Salvatore (the monolith crumbling was not my fault, that contract was still fulfilled). Kingdoms of Amalur was a fun game, despite some criticisms, and it would be a grave disappointment to see such an amazing team lose out because of the bean counters.
More on 38 Studios and Project Copernicus as it appears.
MMO Fallout would like to apologize to any members of the Rhode Island legislator who might be offended by the implication that the state makes poor decisions in business loans, and does not recommend the resurrection of Thomas Tew to create a zombie pirate crew.
Ever since 2010, I did not think a developer could rattle my nerves as much as Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment and Gary Whiting, but 38 Studios and Curt Schilling are certainly looking to prove me wrong on all accounts. For the taxpayers of Rhode Island, the investment made by their state government by offering $75 million to 38 Studios to relocate and bring 450 jobs to the state, has turned into a nightmare. At this point in time if 38 Studios goes bankrupt, taxpayers will be on the hook for $112 million over the next eight years. Two days ago I reported that Governor Chafee had met with Curt Schilling to discuss keeping the company solvent.
Now we know that 38 Studios did not make its loan payment on May 1st. The Associated Press is reporting that Curt Schilling is now asking for more money from the state, although the amount has not been disclosed to the public. Governor Chafee, who did not support the loan citing 38 Studios’ lack of a successful release record, has committed to protecting the state’s investment and securing the taxpayer money, but has not responded to the request for additional funding.
While the loan doesn’t come directly from the taxpayer coffers, the agreement set up with 38 Studios means that Rhode Island will pay the lenders in case the studio defaults. So if 38 Studios loses, everyone in Rhode Island is going to pay for it.
Some of you may remember the Ponzi scheme that Stargate Worlds and MMOGuls allegedly turned out to be. I do, and I distinctly apologize to my editor for forgetting that I had duct taped and locked you in the basement, but then again that is what happens when you interrupt my Diablo 3 time to ask me to talk about Stargate Worlds and Gary Whiting, I don’t care how many times you say please. It has been 18 months since I’ve had to talk about Stargate Worlds, and boy does the time fly when your blood isn’t boiling.
First of all, let’s set something straight: Stargate Worlds is never coming back. Last we heard back in 2010, MGM pulled the license and has absolutely no intention on letting it loose again. Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment’s court appointed receive is in the process of dismantling the long-dead development company and selling it off piece by piece.
But it doesn’t end there, and karma has found its mark. Gary Whiting, noted Ponzi Schemer Multi-Level Marketer is on the receiving end of a growing number of lawsuits by investors in the Stargate MMO. Whiting, who owes more than $6.2 million thanks to two other lawsuits, has another on his hands to the tune of $4 million, from 17 plaintiffs under the accusation that Whiting mislead them into investing in the disastrously failed MMO.
According to the plaintiffs, Whiting lied about Stargate Worlds being near finished, stole millions from the company coffers and never repaid loans.
We’ll see how this turns out in court. I won’t, because this is the last I’ll post about Stargate Worlds.
Looking at my calendar, there are approximately 17 days to go until the Storybricks Kickstarter runs out of time. As of today, 347 backers have contributed $21,522 to the fund, which means there is a long way to go before the $250,000 goal can be reached. Here at MMO Fallout, we are supporters of the indie-MMO development scene, so when the opportunity arose to interview the team behind Storybricks, I jumped at it.
First, a little about Storybricks itself. Storybricks is a toolset where players are able to create their own worlds, populating them with NPCs that are programmed to react not just to the player, but to each other. The alpha build, which is still available here, is a small yet very impressive proof of concept. I recommend you check it out if you have an hour or so.
So how did Storybricks come to light? As is the case with many off-the-beaten-path titles, Storybricks has its origins in a group of MMO and MUD players with a dream of one day creating their own world, dissatisfied with the products being offered by other developers. So a team of eight full-time and three part-time developers began work on Storybricks around a year ago, culminating in the recently released alpha-module with the full release next year.
The initial pitch for Storybricks, before most of the team even joined, was to put advanced AI into our own MMO to create more believable NPCs. We kept a lot of that concept but we focused on the Storbricks tool to let people tell their stories within an MMO we develop instead of just having designers make more advanced NPCs.
While the current alpha build only showcases a fantasy theme, the toolset is flexible enough that Storybricks will be able to encompass many more settings. Without going too specific, the themes of dystopian science fiction and Three Musketeers were mentioned briefly.
In the long term, Storybricks is all about customization, allowing people to create their own worlds and characters to match the stories they wish to tell.
For NPCs, we would like a creation system like the character creation system found in many RPGs. We’d like people to be able to customize the characters to a high degree to match the story they want to tell. We have also designed a system for letting people edit a location. Instead of a set location, people can edit the tiles of a location to swap in and out features. Our goal is to allow a lot of customization without making players feel they have to do busywork like placing individual trees.
So Storybricks is on Kickstarter for a very real reason: Funding. So I had to ask, why are investors so hesitant to fund the title?
Considering women in Shakespeare plays were played by men, this is stunningly accurate.
I think the big hesitation from investors and from the audience has been trying to figure out exactly what Storybricks is. People who have played a lot of tabletop RPGs or who have played MMOs for a long time “get” Storybricks more than others do. It’s so different that when people try to compare it to existing games, the comparisons don’t quite work. It’s not a toolset like Neverwinter Nights, it’s not a traditional MMO like World of Warcraft, it’s not a construction setting like Second Life. So we’ve had a hard time coming up with a good way to describe it to people to let them know why Storybricks is so awesome and why we feel it’s the future of MMOs.
Expect more on Storybricks as it develops. I want to thank Brian Green and Kelly Heckman for taking the time to answer my questions.
It’s been almost two years since Bill Roper has had anything to do with Cryptic Studios, but with some of the recent money-related decisions made by the developer, you would never know he’d left. Not long ago, Cryptic introduced lockboxes, cash shop items that have the chance at offering valuable items to the players who buy them. Apparently the lockboxes constitute gambling in some countries, including the Netherlands, and according to several users on the Star Trek Online forums, are being investigated by various government bodies.
And if your laws do prohibit such gambling, Cryptic’s Borticus wants you to know that Cryptic is listening. Not so the company can react, just so they know which country to ban.
I hope you realize that the most likely course of action here, if any is taken, is that the STO becomes unplayable in the Netherlands. IP blocks, proxy blocks, etc.
And I know what you’re thinking, but you have absolutely nothing to worry about for Cryptic’s bottom line. Your money wasn’t really that significant anyway.
Honestly? Probably less revenue than would be lost by not doing any more Lock Boxes.
And sure, some people might point out that Cryptic’s past monetary decisions didn’t prevent the company from posting six to seven figure losses, leading to them being dumped on the streets by Atari, but those people are missing an important point: Cryptic asked for your money, not your opinion.
Check your pulse, we all may be collectively hallucinating. In an almost unexpected move, Trion has announced the impending release of three faction, cross server PvP in the form of Conquest. Not only will players be pledging their allegiance to one of three factions, they will be battling it out for domination of control points in an open world battlefield.
Three faction PvP is an oft-requested feature for fans of player-vs-player conflict, and a very unconventional move for a game like Rift to take. We’ll find out at Rift hits the public test realm.
MMO Fallout 