VIE - August Beta

Virtual Island of Entertainment is now accepting beta applications. Per their website: "Like a lot of resorts, the emphasis is on fun and making sure our guests have a good time together. It's not just some giant island chat room where you are left to your own devices in order to make and build friendships. Our planned activities bring people together," said Steve Coallier, Executive Director of Product Development at enVie Interactive. "We are developing a multitude of games to play, an assortment of adventures to puzzle through, a plethora of parties to attend, lots of things to earn and buy, and all sorts of fun miscellaneous activities to facilitate interaction. First off we will have several customization options for your avatar, clothes to buy, and things to decorate your house," adds Coallier. "Then there will be characters to meet, mysteries to dig into and ways to connect to your fellow players that you just don't see anywhere else. "

I'm curious, but cautious, particularly when I see a statement like this: VIE's stunning 3-D realistic virtual world includes episodic adventures with multiple storylines. It provides the only realistic virtual environment where it is safe to take part in a variety of desirable activities for adults. Players can explore, experience and indulge in activities they have only been curious about in the real world. If it's in your face "adult", then it won't be for me.

But I do have to say the screenshots look quite nice and realistic, assuming these are actual in-game shots.

Rift - The Customer is King

MMO Gamer released an interview yesterday with Trion's Russ Brown (VP of Development) and Cindy Bowens (Sr. Community Manager), and this has to be one of my favorite interviews to date. While they're not releasing much as far as game features we didn't already know (except for dwarves!), the article mainly focuses on their views of the customer and community.

Cindy discussed the value of community feedback and that major changes may in fact be made as a result of polls. While I love the community there now and the polls to date have been more representative of my play style, still I hope they use their best judgment on some decisions rather than us fickle forum posters. Rift does have a relatively small forum community compared to other MMO's on the horizon, with a good lot of us seeming to be EQ/Vanguard refugees.

This portion of the interview, however, was what really had me cheering:

Russ Brown: I also think it’s important, as I rant against other companies sometimes, I never understand why companies change things that are popular.

The customer is king. If they like it, encourage it. If your game has something else, oh well, they like it!

So many times I see companies say, “Oh my god! Millions of people are exploiting this! Or doing this in the game!” And yes, they like it, they’re enjoying it, encourage it. They’re the customer. You are a service, that’s what an MMO is.

The MMO Gamer: That’s very similar to the position of Craig Morrison, the game director of Age of Conan.

We had a very long conversation last year, revolving around the question of “Why can’t MMOs just be fun?”

His position was that designers generally spend the bulk of their time trying to keep people playing the way they want them to, as opposed to just letting players find their own fun—even if some might consider it to be “not as designed.”

Can I assume based on that answer that you’re more of the let the players play the game the way they wan—

Russ Brown: Damn straight.

The way I’d like to see it work, the way I want it to work, is that as long as players aren’t griefing, or totally making it terrible for other players, let the players play the way they want to play, as long as they enjoy themselves.

As long as they make it a fun place to be, and a fun place to play.


I love these guys.

Player Housing in FFXIV?

I missed this article from a few weeks ago, particularly this snippet:

Mr. Tanaka mentioned that players would be able to create and join groups called "Companies." Similar to player guilds in other games, Companies can themselves "level up," presumably offering additional benefits to the members therein. When asked if Companies would have shared housing or other group-owned assets, they smiled and said that players would have real-estate to call their own, but "weren't ready to announce anything more at this time" - sounds like a "yes" to me!

Since it was lumped in with a discussion on guilds or "companies" as they call them, not sure if this will be in the form of guild halls, player housing, or maybe both. For an MMO scheduled to release in a couple months, they certainly are tight-lipped. But maybe that's not a bad thing. Sometimes we tend to do so much reading and studying up prior to release that there are no surprises. My past vacations tended to be like that. I spent all year looking up information, seeing pictures, and planning everything out, that by the time I got there, I felt like I'd already seen everything. Here's hoping FFXIV has some amazing surprises.

TERA E3 Video

Just caught a condensed version of a video that was shown behind closed doors during E3. It's looking great in my opinion...except why does that girl have to run all bent over?

Video Games | T.E.R.A. | E3 2010: Exclusive Demo Walkthrough

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Things People Say After A Couple Pints

Overheard at the water cooler in regards to Warhammer Online, "EA is going to shut it down later this year I know that for a fact, the entire team is being retasked and the dead weight is being laid off, GW is quietly taking the license to a new company I have it on good authority that THQ will get that as well as they are working on a yet unannounced WHF RTS similar to Dawn of War. But don't expect it till 2015 way after the fail of WAR has been forgotten. And no links no way to prove any of this I just know folks at GW who like to talk after a couple pints."

Yeah I know...people say all kinds of things on the internet, and this one is a bit hard to believe. But something is definitely going on over at Mythic as I posted before. Still though, shut down completely? While not necessarily a reliable source, MMO Data thinks Warhammer has around 125,000 subs. Definitely not close to the million they were expecting, but other MMO's have been running for years with less than that. But then again, there's word of merging their existing US servers into one, which would indicate a much smaller subscriber number.

The fellow above linked a blog article which seems to be his own regarding what Warhammer was initially intended to be like and eventually ended up as. I thought was a pretty good read which I wanted to share. His final paragraph summed up much of my own thoughts of why I've not been enjoying the latest batch of MMO offerings:

"I also hope that one day they will sit down and look at the train wreck they helped create in a realistic way, and that EA will understand that you can not have a subscription based MMO that is basically Halo with swords, that you need to appeal to a broad base, of players PVPers, Crafters PVE players and socializers, etc. the companies that got it right and are successful (as in will still be here in five years) understand that, the companies that don’t produce harebrained catch phrases, and pour zippo fluid on a game that is already burning…. I think the last nail in the Warhammer Coffin is when at the Febuary Baltimore Gamesday Erik Mogensen more or less apologized for the game, and assured people that would never happen to another Games Workshop License again, he seemed more than a little agitated as he spoke those words..."

Final Fantasy XIV - September 2010

Looks like FFXIV has announced a North American release date of September 22, 2010. There will also be a collector's edition, which along with some fluff items, includes eight-day early access. The subscription start $12.99 per month for one character slot and an additional $3 for each extra character.

With so many in an MMO slump and release of the other big name MMO's not yet announced, I would expect they'd at least have a decent number of box sales for the NA version. But unless they change the awful keyboard controls between now and then, I wouldn't expect it to be widely accepted here. Not sure if anyone caught that painful combat demo at E3, but the player was obviously having trouble moving. But there's still a couple months yet. If I don't have to go out and buy a controller in order to play comfortably, I'll definitely be trying it out.

If Facebook Indicated Subscriber Numbers...

As someone who is anticipating Rift: Planes of Telara, I have it added to my Facebook page to get the latest news. Seeing how many fans they had on Facebook, I was curious to see the fan numbers for some of the other upcoming MMO's. And while I was at it, I then took a look at some of the existing MMO's.

So with no facts whatsoever backing this up and strictly for fun, assuming that Facebook fans represent 10% of the subscribers, here first is a list of current MMO subscriber numbers.

2,465,000 - World of Warcraft
810,000 - Aion
515,000 - Star Trek Online
498,000 - Eve Online
476,000 - Lineage2
420,000 - Guild Wars
317,000 - Lord of the Rings Online
229,000 - Dungeons and Dragons Online
185,000 - EverQuest2
162,000 - City of Heroes
153,000 - Champions Online
146,000 - EverQuest
135,000 - Final Fantasy XI
115,000 - Age of Conan
75,000 - Dark Age of Camelot
63,000 - Warhammer Online
53,000 - Anarchy Online
35,000 - Star Wars Galaxies
17,000 - Fallen Earth
14,000 - Asheron's Call
8,000 - Darkfall
7,000 - Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
2,000 - Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted

Some of these numbers are actually believable, but obviously others aren't. But still was interesting to see how many fans these games have. Looking at the Final Fantasy number, Facebook definitely doesn't represent a world-wide interest, Asia in particular. And in more recent MMO's such as Aion and STO, those numbers make me think members added those games to their profile early on and then left them there. But I was more curious about the hype surrounding some of the upcoming games. If fans would subscribe today using the same 10% figure, here's what we'd have:

1,203,000 - Star Wars: The Old Republic
660,000 - Guild Wars 2
213,000 - DC Universe Online
170,000 - Secret World
94,000 - Final Fantasy XIV
14,000 - Rift: Planes of Telara
7,000 - Tera Online

I would have included The Agency, but they had only a very small fan-generated page. Rift and Tera definitely have some work ahead of them to generate more interest. I truly hope Rift doesn't get lost in the crowd of more recognizable names.