A veteran of the US Army, raging geek, and avid gamer, Red Thomas is that cool uncle all the kids in the family like to spend their summers with. Red lives in San Antonio with his wife where he runs his company and works with the city government to promote geek culture.
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I rolled into Austin beneath dark and water-laden skies last week to see what the guys at Portalarium were cooking up for Release 8 of their Shroud of the Avatar. Thunder rocked the sky as I stepped from my truck and turned to see lightning striking across the menacingly named Greystone Building. The drama of the moment seems appropriate in hindsight, because I’ve now seen what the team has planned for their next release.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. The promise hinted at by games like Ultima Online and EverQuest had been promptly followed by a decade and a half of industry-enforced entropy. Then, like the hammer-wielding heroine from Apple’s iconic Super Bowl XVIII commercial, Minecraft came sprinting out of nowhere to crack the face of established mediocrity.
Just got off the horn with Richard Garriott and Starr Long, and thought you all might like some insight into the next release of their awesome new game, Shroud of the Avatar. Richard and Starr are very careful to tell you about how early in the development-cycle they are, but then they go on to tell you about all the great stuff they’re dropping into the game on the next release.
Well, he moderately dislikes us, I guess. I had to exaggerate a bit, because that’s what we media people do. According to Chris, we whip out sensationalist headlines to generate a little drama around our articles. To be fair to him, we do to some extent, but folks like him are there loading our ammo for us.
You know those people who quip little cliché sayings? I’m talking about the ones who might say, “Well, better late, than never,” when they hear you complain about Star Citizen’s dogfight module being delayed yet again. Those people are idiots.
One of the most interesting things about watching the development of Shroud of the Avatar has been observing the interactions between developers and backers. I have most definitely seen some awesome relationships created between players and developers. It’s always sort of seemed to me that guys like Matt Higby from SOE’s PlanetSide franchise were the model other developers and studios should look to for guidance on player-interaction, but I think I need to change that opinion, now.
Kerbal Space Program is one of those indie projects that just keeps getting bigger. What started off as a cool little platform with more content generated by users than the actual developers, has grown into a fantastically entertaining game. KSP recently took a giant leap for indie-kind when they teamed up with NASA to roll out a whole new pack of missions and ship parts themed on NASA’s mission to capture a near-Earth asteroid.
Richard Garriott’s team at Portalarium has been steadily moving forward with their new game, Shroud of the Avatar over the last month, and another release is upon us. Last week I had a chance to sit down with the guys based in Austin, Texas and get an early demo of this month’s release. Today we’re going to take a look at what’s in this release and what’s not in it, and see what it says about where the game is heading.
Erin Roberts graciously agreed to give me his first interview with a US-based audience and I learned a lot about Star Citizen’s optional introductory military campaign. While SC is an MMO, the S42 mission pack will be sort of a tutorial for new players. Today we’re going to take a look at what sorts of missions you should expect to see, what options players will have going into those missions, and what the success or failure of those missions will do to impact the rest of the campaign.