• Wade, USA
• Alex, Canada
• Ryan, USA
• Kyle, Canada
• Thomas, Canada
• Clem, Germany
• Marian, Romania
• Katy, United Kingdom
• Perlusz, Hungary
• Mathieu, France

Congratulations to the winners who were among those who got the correct answer for our contest! The sound byte was played 9 times, excluding the demonstration and including the longer soundbyte which ends with the HTFU line and one ad the very end of the podcast.

Thanks for entering the contest and keep an eye out (or ear) for future contests!

If you’re worried about missing your chance, those who pre-order from Amazon will be guaranteed an open beta slot (along with some in-game goodies) and shouldn’t have to worry about the inevitable rush.

Star Trek Online is currently in closed beta.

Also, for those excited about the game, there’s a new trailer available sporting some very impressive visuals to further whet your appetites.

Any former subscribers will be able to log in their old accounts free of charge for the week, with all their old characters intact and ready to explore.  On top of the free play time, the good folks at Codemasters are also throwing a 25% experience boost to all players, both new and old, into the mix as well, so you’ll be able to make the most of your free week.

We will be giving away EVE Online prizes to 10 winners! Each prize includes:

• 1 x T-shirt (Faction and size of choice)
• 1 x Keychain (Faction of choice)
• 1 x EVE Shot Glass
• 1 x EVE Patch (Faction of choice)

To get a chance of winning these, listeners have to listen carefully to the podcast for the sound effect demonstrated  and then email podcast@mmogamer.com with the correct number of times the sound is heard throughout the podcast. The demonstration sound does not count.

10 winners will be picked from those who get the correct number. The contest is only open to those living in USA, Canada and Europe.

Good luck!

Update: This contest is now over! Winners have been contacted and will be presented soon.

Topics

• Guest: Noah Ward
• EVE Online: Dominion Contest
• What we have been playing
• Trouble at EA Mythic

EVE Online: Dominion Contest

We will be giving away EVE Online prizes to 10 winners! Each prize includes:

• 1 x T-shirt (Faction and size of choice)
• 1 x Keychain (Faction of choice)
• 1 x EVE Shot Glass
• 1 x EVE Patch (Faction of choice)

To get a chance of winning these, listeners have to listen carefully to the podcast for the sound effect demonstrated  and then email podcast@mmogamer.com with the correct number of times the sound is heard throughout the podcast. The demonstration sound does not count.

10 winners will be picked from those who get the correct number. The contest is only open to those living in USA, Canada and Europe.

Hosts & Guests

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews
• Noah Ward, EVE Online Lead Designer at CCP Games

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

Jeffrey Philipp had the opportunity to talk to David Allen and Hue Henrey to talk about Quest Online’s upcoming MMOG, Alganon. The in depth and candid interview can be found after the jump.

The MMO Gamer: Could you begin by introducing yourself and telling us what you do at Quest Online?

David Allen: I am David Allen, co-founder and President of Quest Online, creator of Alganon. I do pretty much anything that needs to be done. I make sure the right people are hired, the project milestones are on time, the core vision is shared and followed, and ensure Alganon comes together best as possible.

The MMO Gamer: First I was curious what the end goal for the studies system is going to be. Chiefly I am curious if there is going to be a hard cap for the amount of ranks you can learn on a character or if they will be able to study in perpetuity. If the latter, what are the plans to prevent players who have been playing for longer from outpacing newer players simply due to the fact that they have been playing and studying longer. And conversely, if there is no hard cap how are you going to make the increases meaningful without making them overpowered in edge cases?

David Allen: We will be launching with years of studies, and the available studies will grow over time, allowing players to focus on extended studies in the areas they are interested in pursuing. Keep in mind the study system is a “support” system first and foremost. A player can learn core studies they wish to focus on in just a few month’s time, but refining (or maximizing) those studies takes substantially longer. So one example could be a player can get +4% melee crit in 8 days, but get to that 5% crit it’s 30 days. The system is actually very well-balanced, so a player could get to max level and get great gear, but they may be lacking that 3-4% crit or 5% armor bonus that another player who has managed their studies has. This does add up, but the difference isn’t enough to cause problems, only enhance the gameplay for those who manage their studies wisely.

The MMO Gamer: Regarding the studies system, I am also curious as to your thoughts on the EVE online system that resembles it. Was it an influence on your plans and designs for your own system, and if so were there any parts you planned to improve?

David Allen: EVE has a great time-based progression system; they proved it works and works well. We have learned a lot from all major MMOGs, and simply put, all good MMOGs grow based on learning from each other. We do have a few things planned for the study system we haven’t announced yet, but these are features for next year, not at launch. Obviously it’s something that will grow and shape as the game progresses.

One last question about the studies system, I am just curious if you have had any particular feedback on the usefulness of the system, and whether players are finding that it helps. Also, a quick note/suggestion from a new player I wouldn’t mind having a slightly longer training queue.

It takes some time for the application of studies to shine, since it’s 1% here and 1% there, but over time it builds up. More importantly, it provides small differences between players. Two players, both of whom choose to play Soldiers, may choose two different weapons to specialize in. The one who specializes in swords isn’t going to see an enormous, game-altering advantage when they equip a sword versus an axe, but when they have to decide whether to have the local blacksmith craft them an epic battleaxe or an epic longsword, they’re going to choose the sword, even if the stats on both weapons are identical. The soldier who chose to study axes will make the opposite decision. Expand this concept across dozens of studies, and decisions more complex than just “sword or axe?” and you’ll see how the study system allows two otherwise identical characters to develop their own unique quirks.

We’re also taking a look at the study interface and training queue time, but the training queue is a delicate balance. The longer the queue, the longer players can work on their studies without actually logging in to the game. While the idea of players who pay us money, but never play the game, may sound good from a financial standpoint, we’d rather make a fun game, and to do that, we need people to play. A short queue time is there to encourage people to log in and enjoy the game, not just study.

The MMO Gamer: Again, pardon me if this is just me missing it because of my newbie status, and I understand the game is still currently in beta, but during my explorations I was not able to find the larger overarching plot or story. I personally am very fond of plot and story based gaming (though I’m likely setting myself up to get knocked down much of the time in this genre), so I was hoping to find myself at least tangentially entangled in some major event taking place in the game world. Are there any plans to bring that game world, it’s history and lore, and the current events of same to the forefront?

David Allen: Actually the starter quests on both continents are tied to main storylines. For example, the first quest on the Asharr side is to find out why the wolves around Andar have come out in the open, rather than hiding in their dens. (It’s not normal for the people of Andar to have a front yard full of wolves.) The cause of this strange activity leads to accusations of necromancy and the recovery of a bloodgem. This leads to the Scholars in Greenvale, and the discovery that the same madness has also infected the farmers in the area. The story continues to expand from there, as players discover the source of this plague, a secret Death-cult, and fight to put an end to the madness plaguing Asheran Forest. Even actions that may seem to be side stories or extraneous to the main story come back into the story at later levels. The quests only get bigger, better, and more in-depth the more one progresses throughout the game.

However, players aren’t forced to read the story if they don’t want to. If they just want to play the game, they only need to read the quest tracker, which tells them exactly what they need to do next. We’ve found that most players end up doing that. They tend to ignore the story and enjoy the game without it. As Alganon grows, we’ll add additional story-related features, such as cutscenes and scripted events, for those players who enjoy them. However, for launch, we are using those resources to improve gameplay, and so players who are interested in the story will have to read the quest logs.

The MMO Gamer: Another quite popular aspect of many games recently is PvP, though so far I haven’t managed to really get into it for some reason I’m still hoping one day that there will be some implementation that grabs my interest. What, if any, are the plans for Player versus Player content in your game?

David Allen: We will definitely have PvP, but we want to do it right. It is slated for the first major expansion in mid 2010. We are actually taking an approach that will allow us to balance PvP and PvE separately by giving each action the option of behaving differently based on the application (an NPC vs another player).

System Requirements

• OS: Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit)
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz or AMD Athlon X2 3800+
• Memory: 1GB RAM
• Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7950 / ATI Radeon X1800 / Intel HD Graphics
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c Compatible Soundcard
• DirectX: Version 9.0c or Higher
• HDD: 8GB Free Disk Space
• Network: Internet Broadband Connection Required
• Disc: 6X DVD-ROM

The recommended config is a bit steeper, of course, but who needs more than ten FPS anyway?  If your rig can run the current gen of MMO’s without a hitch (in particular Champions Online, which also makes use of the Cryptic Engine STO will be sporting) you shouldn’t have a thing to worry about.

Allods Online is a new MMORPG coming from the MMO portal gpotato.eu.

Update: All keys have been distributed! Sorry folks, but keep an eye out for future giveaways!

1. CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR KEY!

2. Register an account at http://en.gpotato.eu/ and activate your account.

3. Enter your key here: http://en.allods.gpotato.eu/ad

4. Play game.

The footage shows a lot of the information that we had learned about the starting areas for the new Cataclysm races, only in video form. I was surprised over all about the animations for the Goblins, as I wasn’t really expecting them to well, be cool.  The quality of the videos are really rather good, and you can check them out on Youtube here

Topics

• Guest: Becky Yin
• Star Trek Online Release Date
• World of Warcraft Opens Cash Shop For In-Game Pets

Hosts & Guests

• Jeffrey Philipp
• Steven Crews
• Siam Choudhury
• Becky Yin, Customer Service Manager of G4Box.

As always we appreciate your feedback! You can also send us your questions or topics you would like us to discuss by dropping a comment here or sending an email to podcast@mmogamer.com.

Remember to subscribe!

According to this report, Mythic appears to be but one of several EA’s developers affected by downsizing, with Tiburon (Madden, NCAA Football, etc) and Black Box Studios (Need For Speed, Skate) also suffering layoffs of unspecified proportion.

No official word from EA as of yet regarding the downsizing, but if true, things aren’t looking too bright for Mythic.  Sources are reporting upwards of 80 layoffs on the day, which would come to something like 40% of the Mythic staff.

The new client clocks in at a relatively “lite” 678 megs, just over a third of the of the 1.85 gig full client.

It should also be noted that those gamers already established in the game and above level 20 are still better off using the full client.

Grab the new lite (or the full, for that matter) client here.

The game is currently in closed beta testing, with no word yet on an open beta date.  Can’t wait until February?  Closed beta applications can be submitted here, and who knows, with a little luck perhaps you’ll have your chance to boldly go where no man has gone before.  Ya know, before everyone else does.

I’ve been spending some time out in the wild internet savanna recently, and the sheer variety that I’ve come across has prompted me to ask myself a question.

Basically I’m just wondering what exactly it is that makes one game a Massively Multiplayer game while others are simply classified as regular online games. I’m not here to be a snob about it or anything, it’s simply something that I’ve noticed.

I suppose it’s worth mentioning here, that generally speaking almost every game that has come out in this particular genre for the last ten years has been in some fashion modeled on EverQuest. That’s not inherently a bad thing, EverQuest was a fantastic game, especially for it’s time. Heck it’s still kicking today, albeit with a much smaller crowd than it used to have. The one downside to that however, is that when you have everything trying to be the same game you end up with a very bland gaming landscape.

Zip ahead a few years and you have the same thing, except you can replace EverQuest with World of Warcraft. Once again, not a bad idea to see what the winners are doing, but it gets boring when they’re all the same.

And that’s the train of thought that brought me to my little “huh” moment. Basically, these days, I’ve heard a number of people, not many mind you, but some try to say that games which are indeed legitimately massive in many senses of the word, and certainly multi-player in at least some cases, that take place online, are somehow not Massively Multiplayer Online games. Somehow it seems we’ve created a situation for ourselves. Some people believe that you’re not playing an MMORPG unless you have an action bar and levels and gear, and if it doesn’t look like something that they’re familiar and comfortable with it should not be included in the list of games that you can find on a site such as this.

Now if that was as far as the problem went I would be happy to ignore the folks who say that and take care of making my own judgement about games individually. However, it happens that the people who make these games do end up hearing from the people who have a very narrow view of what this genre is, and since this is by no means an industry with fat margins (excluding Blizzard; but let’s not go into the outliers right now) they become just that little bit more risk averse. And when they get that little bit more risk averse they become a little less willing to try something that might be new and might work, and might just be the thing that makes all these games into solid gold ROCK HARD AWESOME!

If you’ve ever read any of my other articles, or any of my reviews you’ll know that one of the first things I’m going to bring up is story and plot and writing. And you’ll also know the second thing that I’m going to bring up is what a game or system does differently. I bring these things up in this order before all the other more mundane aspects because I honestly believe that these are the things that are most important in judging a game, not only from the aspect of how fun it’s going to turn out, but also how it contributes to the body of work that is the art (and yes, I do mean art cause I’m a nerd that way) of video game design.

Basically think about if nothing had ever been added to the first person shooter formula for twenty years, since Wolfenstein. There is absolutely NO WAY the genre as a whole would be as big as it is today if all we got was a prettier Wolfenstein every nine months. Even the sports franchises from EA, which are notorious for being re-releases and roster updates tend to add something every few iterations that makes the game deeper and just a little more involved. The same thing should be true for our beloved online games, but currently many of the developers are just a little bit afraid to try something radical, or even slightly off message.

More than a little of the problem is due to the production of games as a whole becoming more and more costly, with MMO projects being even more so; and the hit driven nature of the games themselves. It becomes difficult to predict just what’s going to take off, and I understand that I just also wish that more dev houses were willing to try new things like Cryptic, or Hi-Rez with Champions Online or Global Agenda (Of course it’s really easy to say that when it’s someone else’s money, but we’re talking about ideals here).

The one thing that I think we, as players, can do to help this process though, is to perhaps widen our vision and our nets, and allow a little more latitude in what we try. I know there has got to be a few people out there like me that are happy to have a game which features a tagline of “No Elves”, but even the people who like their Elves, I implore you to be a little more adventurous in your game choices.

One other thing that I think we can do, that I will likely expand upon on another day, is stop marrying ourselves to games. The forums are lousy with this; go into any community you like and you’re almost certain to find in the top two pages, if not the top page, some small group of individuals debating over which game is better and how the other game should never EVER be played under any circumstances, because it’s not the game they like. Seriously, this kind of display is infantile, if you try it and don’t like it, fine, stop playing it and shut up about it, but the key to that particular situation is to TRY IT!

There has never been, in any situation I have been able to find, a game that actually and actively prevented you from playing another game AS WELL AS the one you are so worked up about. Saying that you can only play one game, and this happens with online games more than most I find, is nothing more than ridiculous fan boy talk, no matter how level headed you sound.

So to nutshell for everyone, all MMO’s don’t need elves, try new stuff, and you can play more than one game at a time.

Looking forward to getting some discussion going on how Hub and spoke games and instance focused games aren’t “true” MMO’s now.

Until next time!

The Pet Store FAQ has this to say regarding their decision to go with an out of game, real money pet:

The Pet Store provides a new way for players to obtain unique companion pets outside of the game, which is something that has been requested by many players who enjoy World of Warcraft’s non-combat companion

Currently there are only two pets to choose from, the Lil K.T. and the Pandaren Monk, but more are assuredly in the works.  Though they are they are purely cosmetic companions, one has to imagine  that the collectable nature of WoW pets will see a great many of the little critters sold.

It should also be noted, to Blizzard’s credit, that, until December 31st, for each Pandaran Monk pet sold 50% of the $10 purchase price will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

For further details be sure to check out Pet Store FAQ.

Hot on the heels of such services as WoW’s FigurePrints comes a new service officially sanctioned by Blizzard that allows you to make custom poster prints of your World of Warcraft Characters. Print Warcraft allows you to create your own completely cusomized poster your personal character.

You can chose from predeveloped templates for your poster or create your own using various backgrounds, logos, borders and poses. Pricing starts at $17.99 USD for the smallest 12×18 poster maxing out at $29.99 USD for their 40×27.

The site is getting hammered quite a bit since opening, but I had the oppurtunity to play around with it this morning, and it look like s a pretty cool service. They have links to some sample images, but I am really interested in seeing what a finished product looks like. If you happen to get a print of your character made this holiday season, shoot me a picture to take a glance at to ryan@mmogamer.com

Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report, released yesterday, cited the self propagating, data mining worm Taterf as one of the major emerging threats, with a rise of 156% in the last six months.  The virus specifically targets users of MMORPGs, and along with keylogging, packet sniffing, and other assorted shenanigans, it attempts to determine your MMO login details.

The report had this to say about the virus:

Taterf, with detections up 156 percent since the second half of 2008, targets massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). These attacks rely less on social engineering to spread, and more on access to unsecured file shares and removable storage volumes — both of which are often plentiful in the enterprise. Taterf’s impressive growth underscores the need for organizations to develop guidelines for removable drives (such as thumb drives) and evaluate how connections are made to outside machines.

As usual in the fight against viruses, the best offense is a good defense.  Be sure to keep those virus/malware scanners running and up to date.  Worried you’re already infected?  Grab Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool.  And cross your fingers.

Between now and November 18^th, any new user signing up or any current user who extends their membership with a multi-month (3, 6, or 12 month) subscription will receive Mirkwood, free of charge, on its December 1^st release date.  Already a multi-month subscriber?  Just keep your account active for the month of November and you won’t need to pay a nickel for the new expansion.

Turbine is also offering an Adventurer’s Pack, with the following perks:

• Shared storage: A storage space capable of storing 20 items accessible by all your characters on the same LOTRO server/world.
• Extra Character Slots: Two additional character slots on each LOTRO server/world that become visible once all other exisiting slots are filled.

The pack runs $19.99 and will be available, along with the expansion, on December 1^st.

Steve sits down with Alan Crosby, formerly SOE’s Director of Global Community Relations, and current Senior Producer of EQ2 to discuss the ten year history of the EverQuest franchise.

Topics include the changing tastes of players over the years, the prospects for an EverQuest 3, keeping the game on store shelves, and the next ten years to come.

The MMO Gamer: First of all, for those among our readers who may be unfamiliar, could you please introduce yourself to us and tell us a little about what it is you do at SOE.

Alan Crosby: I am Alan Crosby, and I’m the Senior Producer on EverQuest 2. I’m essentially the shepherd of the game.

The MMO Gamer: EverQuest has been around now for over a decade now, having hit its tenth anniversary back in March.

In terms of the online gaming industry, EQ was released when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, and yet it still survives into the present day.

How has the game managed it?

Alan Crosby: It’s done very well, it continues to grow, it continues to add expansions, new features, new content.

Its customer base, the community out there is very loyal, very passionate, and they stay around and keep playing, and demanding change.

We try to give them the change they want. They’re the main reason that the game has been around for ten years.

Yeah, we continue to put out content, we put out an expansion every year, we put out live content every few months, but it’s the players and their passion, their friendships, their social bonds that keep this game going.

The MMO Gamer: Do you have any figures as to how many people, in total, have played EQ over the years?

Alan Crosby: The total is somewhere over two million people have played EverQuest during its ten years.

The MMO Gamer: And do you know off the top of your head how many people have been playing it, consistently, for each of those ten years?

Alan Crosby: We pulled those numbers, I don’t have them readily available, but we actually announced it on the website for the tenth anniversary, some of the people who have been around since the beginning.

The MMO Gamer: Are there bronze statues of them in the middle of Freeport by now?

Alan Crosby: [laughs]

The MMO Gamer: What about the development side? Is there anyone still working on EverQuest who’s been there since the beginning?

Since the 989 Studios days, with Brad McQuaid at the helm?

Alan Crosby: I’m not sure if anybody from the original team is still on it. We have people from the original team still in the company.

Roger Uzun, for example, started with the original EverQuest team at 989, he’s now on the EverQuest 2 team. But I don’t know if any of them are still on the EQ team.

The MMO Gamer: EverQuest was pretty much the father of the MMO expansion pack, which, as you said, you used to release every six months and you’re still continuing to release on a yearly basis.

The base game, by the standards of the time was very large to begin with. Which makes me wonder just how large it’s gotten now, with all of those years of expansions under its belt.

Alan Crosby: I don’t have the number on-hand, but we did release how many square miles it equates to in the real-world on the site. But it is enormous. I dare say it’s the largest MMO out there in terms of land space.

We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 zones, each of them unique, each of them different with their own flavor.

And, we’re actually hard at work on the seventeenth expansion pack right now.

The MMO Gamer: EverQuest is also one of the few Western MMOs to have spawned a sequel. Asheron’s Call 2 notwithstanding, I wouldn’t include that because it did not long survive.

We’re currently at the point in EQ2’s lifecycle, around five years after release, where it was coming out during the lifecycle of EQ1.

But I haven’t seen any indications from SOE that an EverQuest 3 is in the making. Instead, you seem to be moving away from your roots, the traditional fantasy MMO, into more varied genres and age demographics.

Is this a trend that’s going to continue into the future? Will players ever see an EverQuest 3?

Alan Crosby: I can’t say whether you’re going to see one any time soon… I do know that we have not given up on the EverQuest franchise.

The brand is strong, in fact we now call it the EverQuest Universe, and we’re continuing to work on EverQuest 1 and 2, adding expansion packs and new content.

Eventually, I’m sure there will be some announcement… I’m not sure when, I’m not sure when work will begin… but this franchise is not going away.

Continued on next page…

The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), a regulatory body of the Chinese government, suspended their approval of Activision Blizzard’s The Burning Crusade (the latest version available in China) today, citing “gross violations” of regulations.

The GAPP has asked the Chinese WoW operator, NetEase, to stop collecting fees and to suspend registration of new accounts.  Currently the WoW battlenet gateway still appears to be accepting registration – so it is unclear how (or rather when) the ruling will affect players.