VirginWorlds MMORPG News Host: Brent VirginWorlds is a weekly news podcast covering Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Eve Online, Vanguard, Lord of the Rings Online and many many more. The VirginWorlds MMORPG Podcast is the flagship podcast of the VirginWorlds MMO Podcast Collective found at http://www.virginworlds.com
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VirginWorlds Podcast #106Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:08:00 GMT [download/play]
Podcast #106 serves up Wednesday's coverage of GDC 2008. Here is the line up in this podcast:
00:01 - Intro 01:06 - Meghan 'Patience' Rodberg, Lord of the Rings Online 06:31 - Kate Paiz, Senior Producer, DDO 12:53 - Brent's Recap of Jeffrey Steefel's Lecture 23:01 - Scott Hartsman loves podcasts 24:15 - Your PlayXpert questions answered by Charles Manning 30:54 - Lee Hammock guides a Fallen Earth tour 38:30 - Brent recaps NetDevil's MMO dev philosophies 51:15 - Trina from GamingAngels says 'Hi'
'Guitar Rising' by Psyik Submitted on 2008-02-25 04:29:17 CST Darren mentioned you played it, so I was hoping to hear your take on Guitar Rising, due to your background. A lot of random speculation has been going around about how "man, you'll need REAL talent to play this" and so on. From what I've seen of the game, I'm not sure if it amounts to much more than a more glorified version Guitar Hero, with a real guitar there to intimidate/entice people.
'SOE' by Meithar Submitted on 2008-02-25 04:33:49 CST Was just wondering if anyone from SOE was at GDC? With so many games and companies increasing social networking aspects and special ways of customizing your characters, I think SOE and Vanguard Dev's in particular could benifit from such a mindset.
I dont know if you have heard yet, but there is a great upset within the Vanguard community with SOE's upcoming GU4. There are alot of good things coming in this update including Flying Mounts. One thing that blindsided people was the total gutting of Character Customization that is being implemented. All that will be left is 4 dorky looking face types to choose from for each race and 0 ways to customize it other than eye color.
I wont spend a long time in a rant over it, but refer you to the official forums about it. It is sad in this time that such limited customization is being forcefed to a playerbase. With all this the explained performance increase as the reason behind this; is a measly 2 - 5 FPS with the majority of people finding it more in the 2 FPS range.
'Vanguard Customization was pretty much worthless from the start' by Shalimar616 Submitted on 2008-02-25 07:08:56 CST SOE was there in a couple different capacities. Brent, myself, Brenden, Darren, and John (the Ancient Gaming Noob) went to dinner with Alan Crosby (Brenlo) on Thursday night -- it was an honor to be with those guys for dinner at Bucca Di Beppo.
As for Vanguard, I was never happy with their customization of the character. I assume they did this to accommodate helmets into the game and to also increase the FPS (however measly it may seem). One must remember that design decisions are not made overnight nor in the vein to thwart player creativity but out of need to hone the game's graphic engine and play experience.
As I stated earlier, the customization of a new character never seemed to change the character much, in any visible way -- snouts could be a bit longer, eyes could be a bit higher, nose a bit broader?? I would rather have them limit the customization if it allowed for better FPS and future integration of new models and equipment.
Troy
'Gah! I forgot Michael' by Shalimar616 Submitted on 2008-02-25 07:12:08 CST Oops! I forgot Michael in the list of the great guys I hung out with at Bucca Di Beppo. I t would not do me well to forget one of the top 50 gaming journalist of the day. We had a great dinner and excellent conversation all around.
Troy
'SOE...' by Beauturkey Submitted on 2008-02-27 00:24:25 CST Of all the gaming companies out there that are working on an "all in one" social networking tool, SOE is the only one...it's called the Station Launcher. Even now I can log into Vanguard and IM someone in another game. I canalso have a universal name for anyone to contact me, thanks to my Station Access. No other major MMO companies have this, as far as I know.
As far as character customizations, that all depends what is important to you. As I have stated on the official boards many times, while I DO care a ton for facial customization, you have to pick your battles.
Many people have posted that they will just leave their helms "off" or invisible (although some are unsure if they WILL be invisible to anyone but the player). In my opinion, if you take a helm that looks cool (if it does indeed to the player) or a helm that is known to be "rare" or "uber", no player will leave it off, or very few. I can say honestly that I DO like to leave helms off in other games, or at least get helms that show most of my face. BUT, most players, seems to me, would rather have bitching armor than a cute fur pattern.
Again I would rather have awesome helms and awesome customization....hell I'd rather be able to customize every single part of my character..but I can't.
Do I think that SOE is trying to do this to piss people off? That's something a teenager might think, or someone that hasnever ever made a decision in their careers that had to be made, regardless of what others might think.
'DDO' by scytale2 Submitted on 2008-02-28 11:53:35 CST The woman spoke very fast - she didn't mention anything about D&D 4th edition and whether they would be updating everything. Would the licence encompass 4th edition?
'LOTRO love = I stopped lurking and became a member' by ArtphulDodger Submitted on 2008-02-28 14:24:22 CST Thanks Brent for the attn to LOTRO in 106. As an avid listener, I have that clean feeling now that you get when you give to your local NPR station (US). Thanks for the great listenable podcasts and the collective.
BTW you seemed generally enthused about geeking out over the potential in the Tolkien lore that LOTRO has (which is why I'm a founder). This site should tickle that fancy further
'Guitar Rising' by Psyik
Submitted on 2008-02-25 04:29:17 CST
Darren mentioned you played it, so I was hoping to hear your take on Guitar Rising, due to your background. A lot of random speculation has been going around about how "man, you'll need REAL talent to play this" and so on. From what I've seen of the game, I'm not sure if it amounts to much more than a more glorified version Guitar Hero, with a real guitar there to intimidate/entice people.
'SOE' by Meithar
Submitted on 2008-02-25 04:33:49 CST
Was just wondering if anyone from SOE was at GDC? With so many games and companies increasing social networking aspects and special ways of customizing your characters, I think SOE and Vanguard Dev's in particular could benifit from such a mindset.
I dont know if you have heard yet, but there is a great upset within the Vanguard community with SOE's upcoming GU4. There are alot of good things coming in this update including Flying Mounts. One thing that blindsided people was the total gutting of Character Customization that is being implemented. All that will be left is 4 dorky looking face types to choose from for each race and 0 ways to customize it other than eye color.
I wont spend a long time in a rant over it, but refer you to the official forums about it. It is sad in this time that such limited customization is being forcefed to a playerbase. With all this the explained performance increase as the reason behind this; is a measly 2 - 5 FPS with the majority of people finding it more in the 2 FPS range.
'Vanguard Customization was pretty much worthless from the start' by Shalimar616
Submitted on 2008-02-25 07:08:56 CST
SOE was there in a couple different capacities. Brent, myself, Brenden, Darren, and John (the Ancient Gaming Noob) went to dinner with Alan Crosby (Brenlo) on Thursday night -- it was an honor to be with those guys for dinner at Bucca Di Beppo.
As for Vanguard, I was never happy with their customization of the character. I assume they did this to accommodate helmets into the game and to also increase the FPS (however measly it may seem). One must remember that design decisions are not made overnight nor in the vein to thwart player creativity but out of need to hone the game's graphic engine and play experience.
As I stated earlier, the customization of a new character never seemed to change the character much, in any visible way -- snouts could be a bit longer, eyes could be a bit higher, nose a bit broader?? I would rather have them limit the customization if it allowed for better FPS and future integration of new models and equipment.
Troy
'Gah! I forgot Michael' by Shalimar616
Submitted on 2008-02-25 07:12:08 CST
Oops! I forgot Michael in the list of the great guys I hung out with at Bucca Di Beppo. I t would not do me well to forget one of the top 50 gaming journalist of the day. We had a great dinner and excellent conversation all around.
Troy
'SOE...' by Beauturkey
Submitted on 2008-02-27 00:24:25 CST
Of all the gaming companies out there that are working on an "all in one" social networking tool, SOE is the only one...it's called the Station Launcher. Even now I can log into Vanguard and IM someone in another game. I canalso have a universal name for anyone to contact me, thanks to my Station Access. No other major MMO companies have this, as far as I know.
As far as character customizations, that all depends what is important to you. As I have stated on the official boards many times, while I DO care a ton for facial customization, you have to pick your battles.
Many people have posted that they will just leave their helms "off" or invisible (although some are unsure if they WILL be invisible to anyone but the player). In my opinion, if you take a helm that looks cool (if it does indeed to the player) or a helm that is known to be "rare" or "uber", no player will leave it off, or very few. I can say honestly that I DO like to leave helms off in other games, or at least get helms that show most of my face. BUT, most players, seems to me, would rather have bitching armor than a cute fur pattern.
Again I would rather have awesome helms and awesome customization....hell I'd rather be able to customize every single part of my character..but I can't.
Do I think that SOE is trying to do this to piss people off? That's something a teenager might think, or someone that hasnever ever made a decision in their careers that had to be made, regardless of what others might think.
'DDO' by scytale2
Submitted on 2008-02-28 11:53:35 CST
The woman spoke very fast - she didn't mention anything about D&D 4th edition and whether they would be updating everything. Would the licence encompass 4th edition?
'LOTRO love = I stopped lurking and became a member' by ArtphulDodger
Submitted on 2008-02-28 14:24:22 CST
Thanks Brent for the attn to LOTRO in 106. As an avid listener, I have that clean feeling now that you get when you give to your local NPR station (US). Thanks for the great listenable podcasts and the collective.
BTW you seemed generally enthused about geeking out over the potential in the Tolkien lore that LOTRO has (which is why I'm a founder). This site should tickle that fancy further
http://www.visionsofthering.com/expac_timeline.shtml
Thanks again