NCSoft has unveiled a new trailer for the next expansion to the City of Heroes/Villains universe. Issue 12: Midnight Hour will chronicle a group called The Midnight Squad and their efforts to bolster their numbers and try to stop the Rikti invasion. In addition to the new story, the expansion will also offer some new powersets, gameplay improvements, and a new Roman-themed zone that will factor into the story. The Issue 12 expansion is currently in beta and expected to release later this month.

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NCSoft’s COO, Sebastien Vidal talked with GamesIndustry.biz about the MMO business in the site’s first of several interviews kicking off its MMO week. Vidal started by revealing the secret of NCSoft’s success in the MMO market.

Our publishing and development strategy has always been to provide a wide range of titles from subscription based to free to play, from fantasy to science fiction. And there is even more diversity to come in the next few years, both on the business model and genre sides.

Unlike some publishers who focus on one or two MMO titles, typically within the fantasy setting, our strategy is to provide players with a portfolio of online gaming options, catering for all tastes and payment options, for both hardcore gamers and the casual audience.

The interview takes a look at current plans for NCSoft’s line up and also gives readers an idea of what the future holds for several of it’s MMOs. You’ll find information on Lineage and Lineage II, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 and a bit on Aion as well. Vidal also touches on City of Heroes and City of Villains.

Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa has been a big project for NCSoft. Vidal talks a lot about the complexity of the game, which has had a very rocky start. NCSoft has been concentrating on balancing and polishing existing content rather than rushing to add more “end game” elements. The company plans to initiate a series of online trials in the middle of May to get more people to try the game, and hopefully stay.

Vidal is confident MMOs have a future on consoles. In fact he feels the change is inevitable. He stated NCSoft’s deal with Sony is just the beginning.

Well, in the end it’s just a platform - the important thing is the game itself, and whether you’re playing with a keyboard and mouse, or a control pad…a game designer can come up with something good for either interface.

So I can’t see any reason why they won’t do well on consoles - it’s a huge market, although the biggest market right now is the Nintendo Wii and DS, which aren’t the best platforms for MMOs.

But all the consoles, including the DS, can go on the web and browse, so really the platform is the web, and the console is simply the interface for the web. So I think in the future, for me, you can design a game for the web and it will be playable on any platform - the DS, Wii, PS3 or anything.

via GamesIndustry.biz

Looks like I’ll have to amend my exhibitor list again. Kotaku is reporting that six more publishers have dropped out of E3 this year. Who are the missing half-dozen?

Well, to Vivendi and Activision you can add the following: Codemasters, NCSoft, Her Entertainment, and id Software. The new four have confirmed that they are not attending this year’s show, but they are remaining members of the ESA.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has been quoted as placing at least part of the blame at the feet of ESA President, Mike Gallagher.

“Lowenstein was a very savvy industry veteran who paid attention to the goings-on in the industry and cared what the community had to say. The new person… whose name completely escapes me because I’ve never met him or heard from him, is far less knowledgeable and sophisticated about this industry than Doug was and is going to make some rookie mistakes.

Doug used to be a very visible spokesperson in congress… when you’d get these [things like] Barack Obama saying videogames are corrupting our youth or MADD saying that Take-Two should pull GTA off the shelves, you would hear Lowenstein immediately shoot back. I would guess that Activision doesn’t perceive the same value from the ESA as they did under Doug’s leadership. I criticize [Gallagher’s] lack of drive to learn about the industry.”

Thus far, the ESA and Gallagher have had no comment, but it seems to me that common sense would say that if your largest members are leaving and/or not supporting your signature event, you may have a problem on your hands.

To be fair, NCSoft has publicly stated that their decision not to attend is based soley on their game development cycles, and has nothing ot do with the ESA or its leadership. However, the rest of us are left wondering what may come from all the other companies in the coming week, especially with the news that Activision will be holding an event on the first day of E3, just not in the convention center as part of E3.

Is this the beginning of the end for E3? We’ve speculated on it for quite some time, literally every year since the format was changed. Could it finally be upon us?

Via: Kotaku

City of Heroes Senior Designer Joe “Hero 1″ Morrissey has submitted a developer log on the Midnight Squad which is stepping out of legend in Issue 12: Midnight Hour. After a brief personal introduction, Morrissey dives into the back story of the Midnight Squad, those hit first and hit hardest by the Rikti.

In the Midnight Hour, players of both CoH and CoV will find new story arcs involving the Midnight Squad as the team gathers its strength to fight the Rikti.

The biggest revelation in this dev log isn’t the Midnight Squad but the introduction of a new game mechanic. Issue 12 introduces Contextual Dialog. NPCs will now use specific information about your character or where you are in a quest to give you information.  Morrissey hints that the new system may someday replace the status quo entirely, but that’s another Issue altogether.

via MMORPG

Guild Wars is celebrating three years online. In addition to player in-game perks, NCSoft and Arena.net are offering North Americans, with the exception of Quebec, a chance to win some very nice stuff.

The Grand prize, which I’m claiming now, is an Alienware Area-51 laptop. Five ATI Radeon HD  3870 512MB video cards are up for grabs for first prize winners. Three second prize winners walk away with Logitech G51 5.1 Speaker Systems. Third prize winners will snag a Logitech G9 gaming Mouse, Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card or a Logitech G15 keyboard. The article doesn’t mention how many of each of those thrird prizes are up for grabs.

No Purchase Necessary to enter or win. Sweepstakes begins April 28, 2008 and ends May 31, 2008. This sweepstakes is open only to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada, 13 years of age or older at the time of entry. Void in Province of Quebec and where prohibited by law. For complete rules click here.

If you’re interested, and who’s not interested in free loot, get over to the Guild Wars website, take a short survey and sign up for your chance to win something.

NCSoft is celebrating the fourth anniversary of the launch of its Lineage II MMO in North America today. The dev team is celebrating the occasion by offering players more details on Transformations included in last week’s Hellbound update in a new dev diary.

The dev diary goes into detail about Transformations. Although the ability is new to Lineage II players may already have experienced something very similar in Lineage I with polymorph scrolls. Basically higher level players can under certain conditions transform into a variety of creatures including some of the more powerful bosses. Some transformations are triggered by class changes or by obtaining specific items. Most of them result from the use of a special talisman, skill or consumable scroll. There are also a few non-combat transformations thrown in for the sheer fun of it.

You can download the full Lineage 2 - Hellbound Transformations Dev Diary on FileFront. Don’t forget to check out the library of transformations screenshots, also on FileFront.

City of Heroes is turning four this year. Having survived a change of ownership, the MMO now under NCSoft is commemorating the event with a downloadable calender featuring City of Heroes/City of Villains content. The months correspond with the twelve “Issues” released for the game since launch.

NCSoft’s Matt “Positron” Miller has also promised players a new dynamic in game play will released in the coming months.

“…I can’t tell you how excited I am for our game’s future, and although we have some major announcements yet to be made, one of the things I can talk about is a feature that we are planning. Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in…”

The calender will be available for download from the City of Heroes website later today.

As a person with a vast store of useless information, I have to pass on some CoH trivia:

Since City of Heroes launched:

• More than 32 million characters created – that’s 4 times the population of New York City!
• Players have spent a combined 292 centuries playing City of Heroes and City of Villains
• More than 100 million items have been traded through the consignment (auction) houses since they were launched in 2007

Read the full article

There’s an interview with Daniel Dociu whose distinctive art style is featured as concept art for Guild Wars. He’s found he enjoys working on video games because of the flexibility an artist have within the medium.

Dociu particular forte is architecture. As any player can see from the settings of Guild Wars and its expansions, Dociu is particularly influenced by many styles of architecture, and his work is quite eclectic.

I look back all the way to the dawn of mankind: to ruins, and Greek architecture, and Mycenean architecture, all the way up to the architecture of the Crusades, and castles in North Africa, and the Romanesque and Gothic and Baroque and Rococo – even to neo-Classical and art deco and Bauhaus and Modernist. I mean, there are bits and pieces here and there that make a strong impression on me, and I blend them – but that’s the beauty of games. You don’t have to be stylistically pure, or even coherent.

Incidentally, Daniel Dociu’s concept art and Simon Fowler’s photography were beautifully combined for use with Sarah Brightman’s latest release, “Symphony.” Dociu’s art is also used in the trailer for the CD. For more information, check out the Gaming Today article on the collaboration.

via BldgBlog

The latest expansion for Lineage II is finally up. Hellbound continues the story of the popular Kamael expansion. In addition to adding new quests, skills and more transformation options, Hellbound raises the level cap to 85. It also offers players with a wolf pet an option to grow it into a Fenrir mount.

Those who already own the game can download the expansion for free. However, there is some incentive to take a look at buying the 4th Anniversary Edition. Some of the bonuses included in the bundle are available only to subscribers of a year or more. It also includes two exclusive in-game items and 60 days of game time. That’s where the bundle almost pays for itself. Sounds like a great insentive to try out the game if you haven’t so far.

You can find the full list of additions and changes to Lineage II: Hellbound on the official website.

via MMORPG

NCSoft is looking to expand its studio staff in several North American offices. Austin (TX), Aliso Viejo (CA) and Mountain View (CA) all have positions open.

The company is hiring for its Aion and Lineage II teams as well as their dedicated City of Heroes studio. There are also four senior-level positions open at NCSoft’s Orange County studio for its “top, top secret project.”

If you love the sun and game design you might want to check out PlayNC for a full list of details and positions.

Its a shame to see a promising game begin to falter. Last week’s announcement regarding server consolidation for the recently launched Pirates of the Burning Sea MMORPG might not be the best sign that the game is doing well. Regardless it sparked a discussion between Ron and I about why MMORPGs fail today and thus this week’s Podcast was born. Then the topic moves to my recent trip to Chicago to meet with Wizards of the Coast about the future of Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re interested in more info on D&D 4E be sure to check out The Analog Gamer.

The rant and rave section of the podcast features a rant at a very special audience and Ron implores Sony to fix the horrible problems with the Playstation Store and its downloads.

This weeks show is available by direct download here.

As always, you can get past episodes from our podcast page at http://podcast.filefront.com, and you can send your comments, questions, suggestions, or snarky comments to podcast@filefront.com.

File-N-Forget is also available on the iTunes Music Store.

NCSoft has released a third Dev Diary for Exteel along with some new dynamic screenshots. The article covers The Frontliner Mechanaught and includes Weapon Highlights. It also runs down Practice Mode, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch gameplay.

After players work their way through all the beginning tutorials they quickly want to trade in their Pinkett training wheels on a new mech. The Frontliner mechanaught sports medium armor so that you don’t have to run at the first sign of danger. It also has superior energy generating and heat regulation capabilities to the Pinkett. It does has a durability rating and requires some maintenance.

Your other option is to upgrade your Plinkett with some new weapons. Check out the Poseidon underslung cannon, the Death Hurler rocket launcher or the Beam Spitter SMG. You can also increase you defensive capabilities by adding a Defender.

Get all the technical details when you download Exteel Dev Diary #3. You can also check out all the latest screenshots on FileFront.

via FileFront

NCSoft has issue a new dev journal on new features included with Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne – The Kamael: Hellbound. Players will soon have access to the Steel Citadel. The level cap has been raised to 85, and players are going to have to hit that before they attempt to breach the citadel’s defenses and take on Beleth.

Get all the details on negotiating the four towers of the Steel Citadel on MMORPG.

NCsoft has announced that patch 1.6.5 for Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa is almost ready to make its debut on public servers. There are still a few bug fixes to clean up before patch 1.6.5 goes live. For a preview of changes included in patch 1.6.5 check out the Test Server Patch Notes.

Also take a look at the latest Tabula Rasa video “Patches to Ashes.” Mission designer, Jason Ford gives players a visual tour around this new area, introduces a few new MOBs and gives players a few tips on stopping this dangerously self-aware AI, Patch.

via Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa

The second entry of a Mythos beta journal by an anonymous source is up on TenTonHammer. This free to play MMO is described as a mixture of World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Guild Wars.

The first journal entry focused on installation, character creation, graphics and UI. The second part goes into the multi-player aspects including partying and zone instances.

Flagship Studios’ Mythos MMO is currently in closed beta testing. The latest update, Zone 3 The Umbral Peaks, was released earlier this week. Mythos looks like it’s shaping up to be a good game for Diablo fans to follow closely.

via TenTonHammer

The company behind Guild Wars and Lineage can now be added to the list of developers making use of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3, it was announced today. NCsoft had made previous use of Unreal Engine (albeit Unreal Engine 2) for both Lineage II and Exteel.

“Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems,” said Young-muk Choi, lead programmer, Development Unit, NCsoft. “Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us to instantly produce and optimize our outputs, and we especially love how the engine enables designers to easily prototype concepts without the need for programming.”

“NCsoft pioneered online game development using Unreal Engine, as evidenced by Lineage II, one of the most commercially successful and enduringly popular online games in history,” said Jay Wilbur, vice president of Epic Games. “We are thrilled to take this next step with NCsoft, and are fully committed to supporting their projects.  We expect to be completely wowed by what they do with our latest technology.”

I can’t imagine Guild Wars being developed with Unreal Engine given how long it’s been in development, but could NCsoft’s PlayStation 3 project take advantage of the middleware engine? We really don’t have any clue, but expect further details in the coming months.

Codemasters is in negotiations to publish two MMOs for consoles.

After building on the success of several PC MMOs including Archlord, Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online; Codemasters is ready to to go up against games such as SOE’s The Agency, NCsoft’s PlayStation 3 project and Funcom’s Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The company already has NetDevil’s Jumpgate: Evolution prepped for launch later this year.

“The time is right for some good console MMO games. There’s two titles that we’re really interested in for taking to console right now and that’s something I’d like to see happen in the next year or so, but it’s got to be the right game,” said David Solari, vice president and general manager of Codemasters Online Gaming, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz.

“It’s a little more challenging because of the restrictions of a console – certain games aren’t going to work. Final Fantasy was very successful on 360 so I just think you need the right game, and I think there’s a really good opportunity there because there’s not enough companies there right now,” he added.

The biggest concern of Codemasters is sharing the cost of maintenance on online environments of home consoles and the revenues with format holders Microsoft and Sony.

“It’s got to be the right business model. It’s more difficult because the first-parties take a share of the revenue – and it’s quite significant share,” stated Solari.

“You have to do your sums and see if it’s going to add up at the end of the day. First parties aren’t going to run the data centres for us and that’s the biggest expense in our business. We have to work that out with them,” he said.

via GamesIndustry.biz

Melissa “War Witch” Bianco, Level Designer on its NCsoft’s City of Heroes MMO, has posted a dev diary on the reworking of the Hollows zone. Players have registered numerous legitimate complaints about Hollows. Poor framerate and repetitive, boring content are part of the problem. Enemies are reported as too hard, and players can’t solo it although they have missions there.

Bianco has wiped the slate clean and started over fresh creating a more streamlined area with both city spawns and hazards. Spawn changes include clearing roads, rescaling encounters and adding more variety of MOBs. Missions have also been revamped with a new contact giving out repeatable missions.

The full details of changes in Spawns and Missions by neighborhood are listed in the dev diary on City of Heroes.

When I think of MMOs with Real Money Trading problems, Guild Wars isn’t the first one that springs to mind. However, popularity draws real money traders like blood in the water.

ArenaNet has issued a statement with its policy on RMT and why players should avoid the practice of trading their hard earned cash for virtual gold and items. Most of you should have heard this all before. In case you haven’t; here’s how these companies ruin the game for everyone.

Some of the damage is mere annoyance such as bots that spam general and trade channels. Farm bots devalue gold and items that legit players work hard to earn. The gamers that are most likely to be harmed by these companies are the players using their services. Potential users of a RMT service should be aware that the same companies you purchase your ill gotten gains from will likely turn around and steal your account and strip it of all your valuables, then use it to farm more gold and items for some other sucker.

Here’s what measures are being taken to protect the Guild Wars community:

• We identify and ban accounts—typically more than 5,000 per week—being used by real-money trading companies.
• We attempt to identify stolen accounts and return them to their rightful owners.
• Our GMs monitor the game around the clock so they can remove botters and spammers from the game, often within hours of account creation.
• When we detect a large amount of abuse from a single Internet address (IP address), we block that address from accessing the game.
• We block open proxies (open Internet servers which can relay traffic from anywhere in the world) from accessing the game.
• We identify players who purchase gold from real-money trading companies, and we suspend their accounts and remove the purchased gold. We also encourage these players to seek restitution from their credit card company. Real-money trading companies are not legally authorized to sell Guild Wars gold. They don’t own the gold — ArenaNet does. Credit card companies know this, so buyers of gold can generally call their credit card companies and get the charges removed.

The dangers to your account security and other personal information should be apparent, yet there are still enough gamers out there dealing with these traders to keep them in business. Some people never learn, or just don’t care.

via Guild Wars

NCsoft has released another promotional trailer for its new Exteel MMO. This free-to-play game features giant mechanaughts for all the MechWarrior and BattleTech fans out there. Exteel offers PvE and PvP combat with Team vs. Team battles as well. Take a look at the action in the latest trailer featuring the Pinket BattleMech.

You can download the client or purchase NCcoin to upgrade your Mechanaught on the Official Exteel website.
via FileFront