All Posts by Lepidus

At Sigil I do many things, including playing ping pong and being pretty much the ping pong champ of the design team. When it comes to Vanguard though, my main responsibility is that of overland population. This includes, but is not limited to, allocating creature types per regions of the world, planning out level progressions for the overland game world, designing and building overland camps, and meticulously documenting all of the things that I've already mentioned. Some people here at work think that I have a slight case of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), but they're probably just thrown off by my documentation and how I organize the copious amounts of Sobe bottles on my desk by the color of their caps.

April Burba: The thing I like most about my job is that there is no 'typical day' as a community manager. Depending on where your game is at in its life cycle (My games are MMOs) you could be coordinating a beta if the game hasn't launched, or you could be throwing a large in-game event for a holiday.

Community is part networking, part party planning, part emergency response team. It's also about anticipating consumers demands and feedback, one of the most notoriously frustrating and difficult things to do reliably. Community at its core is sifting through a million data points and pulling out what is most important and communicating that to developers and publishers.

In the eight months since DDO was released, there have been two major content additions with Demon Sands being the third and due end October.

There are two modes of play. The Story Mode and the Network Mode, obviously the Network mode allows you to link up with other players. Given this website's focus I did not go through the story mode. I jumped right into the network and started a character online. The beginning tutorial is very helpful in getting you started and showing you where everything is. Also, the NPC who helps you out in the beginning comes along on your early missions to give you a hand.

Jon Selin: Absolutely. One of our major features is that the game is separated into two parts, and that the management parts are easily accessible through a browser, this is not something we are planning to change. In fact we have greatly expanded in this area with the recent updates. The web parts now contain a much more intriguing gaming experience which you can really dig into; You have a map where you can explore, build cities, attack monsters, etc, there's a fairly advanced market where you can place buy and sell orders, the crafting system is coming along nicely, the tech-tree adds long-term strategy, etc. Then we have the community side of things where you can talk to your friend in the game and plot schemes together and work out your combined strategies. A future update that is approaching implementation is a really neat ladder system which will give very detailed information regarding the top players in different areas as well as people who are close to you. It should add a lot more competition and rivalry in the game for those who like it.

Recently here at MMORPG.com we added a new game called "Thrones of Chaos," which according to the new developers is based only on the concepts and engine of the original title known previously by several other names including 'Mourning'. They stated that it was to avoid starting from scratch and building an engine from the ground up. They also promised to give all the people scammed in it's last incarnation a free lifetime account as recompense for the actions of the previous team.

Voyage Century is a unique fully 3D MMORPG which has been in independent development for four years now and allows every player to captain their own battleship which can be sailed around in the game world. Players can be a courageous explorer, a shrewd merchant or even a mysterious pirate. This MMOG features historically accurate geography and NPC cultures and allows players to upgrade their lone battleship any way they wish. MMO Battleship combat in Voyage Century involves firing a bombardment of cannons from a distance or getting up close and personal with grappling, collisions and hand-to-hand crew fighting.

Character creation in Voyage Century involves choosing an occupation and customizing appearance from many options. Real-world changes such as supply and demand of over 130 different items and price fluctuation from port to port dynamically effect trade throughout the MMP game‘s more than 40 cities. More than 1300 wonders and treasures of the 16th century world such as the Egyptian pyramids and the lost Beirut palace wait to be discovered. Pieces of maps can be found and patched together, leading to great, undiscovered buried treasures. Guilds can also be established and guild vs. guild combat is possible on both sea and land.

In development for over three years now, Regnum Online is an ever-evolving 3D fantasy MMORPG featuring next generation graphics and support up to 1280x1024 resolution. During character creation, players must choose one of four races (a wood elf, a dwarf, a dark elf or a human) and one of four combat schools (warrior, archer, spy or spellcaster). In all, hundreds of character combinations are possible in this MMOG and characters can be equipped with gear such as swords, rings, armor and powerful, unique artifacts Weapon abilities and a large variety of skills can be improved through Regnum Online’s hundreds of available quests and PvE combat with the hundreds of creatures roaming the expansive land.

Regnum Online features “Invisible Dynamic Download Technology” which translates to no patches and no server downtime. Also, Regnum Online players can choose to adventure in a PvE setting within their kingdom’s safe borders or join a clan and bravely strike out against enemy kingdoms filled with PvP challenges for glory and honor. Unlike many MMOs, Regnum Online is free to play, it’s developers opting instead to incorporate premium content over time which will only be accessible to players who purchase the game.

Travia Online is a third-person fantasy MMORPG with emphasis on hardcore PvP and action gameplay. A user-friendly interface and a subjective game control system act to make gamplay easier. Players can choose to be a brawny warrior, a conjuring wizard, a nimble bowyer or a healing clerger and will then begin their adventure in one of two hotly contested zones, Britra or Deva. The player’s character can be outfitted with various standard gear, but rare items must be hunted for in a dangerous dungeon.

At its heart, Travia Online is a MMO large-scale combat game which supports "National Dispute Areas", "National War Maps" and guild PvP fighting with up to a hundred players on either side. Guilds are central to Travia Online Guild masters can make unique designs for their guild to distinguish it from the competition and guild members can take active roles in the growth of their guilds This MMOG features high-end visuals while still supporting low-end computers. Content.

With Outland to explore and more leveling quests and raids it seems like there may be some good content added. I have often said that WoW is the dumb down version of a game that everyone can play. Point is it's easy. That is why Blizzard created it that way. The new lands and quests will add flavor to the game. Now that we're all at the end, will that same system for leveling be there to add ten more levels. I think so. It seems from what we have been reading that aside from lots of new stories and graphics, very little will change in the way that Warcraft is presented to the world. It will be easy.

David Perry: I'm just one of these people that want to fire up a game and have fun. If I'm required to know the back history of 5 clans, or watch 20 minutes of cinematics, or read a website before I can have fun, it just bugs me. So I've been toying with the idea of making an MMO that's easy to get into, easy to understand, possibly funny at points, but that makes you feel bad-ass. Not wanting to wait 3 years to find out how it went, I looked for games/engines that could be a match. The closest I could find was a game called Dekaron made by GameHi in Korea. So now I had to convince the creator of that game to let me make any changes (not small ones, big ones, like "Erm... Would you mind if we changed the entire story?") They agreed! So being on a roll I made a list of "difficult requests"