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October 29, 2007
Austin American-Statesman features Tabula Rasa
The Monday, October 29, 2007 issue of the Austin American-Statesman newspaper features three articles about Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™: two review/impressions articles, one geared towards more hard-core gamers and the other for casual gamers; the third piece focuses on the Destination Games™ development team in "crunch time" leading up to launch.Posted by adunkin at 12:49 PM
October 25, 2007
Veteran Players to be Rewarded in Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa
As the November 2 release date of Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™ nears, NCsoft today announced a Veteran Rewards program for players of the upcoming sci-fi MMO game. For each increment of three months with an active account*, AFS recruits will unlock exclusive in-game content and items such as emotes, gear, crafting schematics, titles, pets and more. Players will also receive an initial one-month reward that includes access to three exclusive in-game emotes. For more information about the Veteran Rewards program, please visit the official Tabula Rasa site at http://www.rgtr.com/.
Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that takes you, the player, into lush forest planets, volcanic moons, and exotic alien civilizations. Face off against powerful alien soldiers, armored mechanoids, and vicious creatures! Use a wide range of weapons and unique alien powers to help the Allied Free Sentients (AFS) in their desperate fight against extinction. Tabula Rasa combines a vast, persistent game world and ongoing storyline with fast-paced action, resulting in a striking new approach to the design of multiplayer online games.
*Active account time includes 1. the free month of game time included with the game, 2. free trial time, and 3. payments by credit card or game time card. Payments by credit card or game time card only include the paid time already incurred, not future time.
Each veteran reward is available to you for so long as your applicable account is current. If your Account goes unpaid, you stop payment or your account is terminated for any reason, then access to the foregoing games and items will no longer be usable by the account until it is reactivated. Your use of the software for each game and your game play remains strictly subject to the User Agreement, Rules of Conduct and Copyright/Ownership Policy applicable to the game, as each may be amended or modified by NC Interactive at any time in its sole discretion.
Posted by gdionne at 10:41 AM
Double Fusion Partners with NCsoft to Support Free-To-Play MMO Titles Dungeon Runners and Exteel With Advertising
San Francisco — Oct. 25, 2007 – Leading independent game advertising provider Double Fusion has made another stride in support of the proliferation of the free-to-play business model for the games industry by entering into a partnership in North America with premier MMO game publisher NCsoft®. The game advertising company will provide the technology and sales force to place in- and around-game advertising into the upcoming giant robot action game, Exteel™, and currently-running action RPG Dungeon Runners™, giving the publisher alternate monetization avenues for these online multiplayer titles, while continuing to make them available to gamers for free.
Dungeon Runners is an online multiplayer role playing game that allows gamers to play as a fighter, mage or ranger as they explore dangerous dungeons, battle ferocious monsters and discover incredible weapons, artifacts and loot. Gamers can play as lone warriors or team up with online friends to carve their paths of destruction. Exteel is a futuristic shooter that puts players in control of heavily armored, completely customizable Mechanaughts. As a mercenary pilot, each gamer charges into combat, destroying opponents and competing for total domination. Deathmatch and team battles take place on a variety of terrains, from futuristic cityscapes to bleak deserts.
The deal with Double Fusion enables NCsoft to gain revenue from both free-to-download titles whose primary revenue source is currently through players who purchase special items or participate in the game membership program.
“One of Double Fusion’s long-term goals is to grow the game industry by enabling the ad-supported business model that brings top-of-the-line games to those players who want to play for free,” said Jonathan Epstein, president and CEO, Double Fusion. “Partnering with a leading MMO publisher like NCsoft, a leader in free-to-play as well as subscription online game models, allows us to set the type of example we hope other publishers will look to and want to join.”
“As a publisher of MMO games, the community is of the utmost importance to us. We are constantly looking for more ways to grow the community for these titles and give them what they deserve—great gaming experiences supported by advertising that doesn’t detract from gameplay,” said Dorothy Ferguson, vice president of sales and marketing at NCsoft North America. “The track record of Double Fusion’s sales force proves the depth of their understanding of pairing brands to games so that we can be sure our players are very happy with the results.”
The addition of Dungeon Runners and Exteel to the Double Fusion network underscores the company’s commitment to offering their advertiser and agency partners a wide array of in-game advertising opportunities, to maximizing revenues for its publisher and developer partners and to building a portfolio of top titles among retail PC and console games, massively multiplayer online games, social networks, casual downloadable games, advanced online games and virtual worlds.
About NCsoft
NCsoft North America is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation. NCsoft, with its own development and publishing offices in Texas and California, also works with other NCsoft subsidiaries and third party developers throughout North America to develop and publish innovative online entertainment software products. The company has successfully launched multiple online titles and continues to support its franchises that include Lineage®/Lineage II, City of Heroes®/City of Villains®, and Guild Wars®/Guild Wars Factions®/Guild Wars Nightfall®, Guild Wars: Eye of the North™ and Dungeon Runners. More information about NCsoft can be found at http://www.PlayNC.com.
About Double Fusion
Double Fusion is the game advertising expert. The company brings together the leading in-game ad serving technology, the broadest network of games across a wide variety of genres, and a sales force that has helped create and evolve the in-game advertising industry. Double Fusion provides marketers and their advertising agencies with the broadest range of in-game, around-game and web-based solutions with which to engage and sell the valuable and hard-to-reach gamer demographics. Double Fusion is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Jerusalem, London, and Tokyo. More information on Double Fusion is available at www.doublefusion.com.
Advertisers interested in opportunities within the Double Fusion network; and developers and publishers interested in increasing their per-title revenues through integrated and dynamic ad placement opportunities should visit www.doublefusion.com.
Double Fusion is a registered mark of Double Fusion, Inc.
All trademarks, copyrights, registered marks, brand names, registered brand names, product names, and logos found in this press release are the property of their respective owners, may be registered in certain jurisdictions, and are mentioned in this release for identification purposes only.
Posted by PR at 9:39 AM
October 24, 2007
In the Press: City of Heroes Issue 11
With the upcoming release of City of Heroes® Issue 11: "A Stitch in Time", the gaming and mainstream media have really gotten a hold of all the cool features it'll have. New stories are available at Wired (includes a new video), GameDaily, 1UP, and Kotaku.Posted by adunkin at 3:06 PM
In the Press: Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa
With Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa™ now close to hitting store shelves, the media have also been covering it quite a bit lately. New stories include a whole slew of interviews from IGN (all about the audio aspects, with the design team, and today with the art team), an interview with producer Starr Long on GameZone, a mission design interview with Rebekah Tran at GameSpot, and a gameplay diary of sorts from MTV.Posted by adunkin at 2:27 PM
October 17, 2007
PlayNC Maintenance
On Thursday, October 18 at 9:30AM CDT (2:30PM GMT) we will be conducting maintenance on portions of the PlayNC website. Customers will not be able to access their PlayNC account during this period. We anticipate this maintenance window to last about two hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.Posted by adunkin at 5:16 PM
October 10, 2007
Dev Corner: Imagining Guild Wars 2
Every great game starts with a simple question: What do we want to play next? If you aren't passionate about the game you're working on, it is already doomed to mediocrity. And the best way to make sure you're passionate? Make something you want to play.
For the team at ArenaNet, the idea of making Guild Wars 2 started with a single conversation about all the things we wanted to do in the next Guild Wars® campaign. Very quickly it became clear that we could move the game forward by leaps and bounds... but only if we were willing to rebuild it from the ground up. Here's what we thought we could accomplish:
- Give players immense freedom of movement. The underlying systems in Guild Wars allowed us to make a very responsive, yet hack-proof game, but they also prevented us from giving players the ability to jump and swim and explore their environment freely. We’ll still keep movement hack-proof, but we want players in Guild Wars 2 to simply enjoy moving around.
- Allow players to encounter each other in common, persistent areas. The instancing of Guild Wars gave us a ton of story-telling and gameplay advantages over our competitors, but instanced areas and persistent areas each have their strengths and weaknesses. We want to give players the best of both worlds.
- Let players choose from multiple playable races (including our own unique addition to the fantasy genre, the Charr). Our team takes a lot of pride in the look and feel of each of the professions in the game, but some of the early technical choices we made for them prevented us from even considering introducing playable races. Now we have a chance to make new choices that give players more options.
- Give players deeper options for character advancement. We knew this would be the most controversial of our new goals. Could we do this without creating a game full of grind? As avid fans and players of RPGs, massively multiplayer or otherwise, we saw many untapped opportunities for making this work.
- Make everything about Guild Wars better. When you look back honestly on a game you've made, there are always things you wish you could have done better. Could we create a stronger economy with better options for trading? Definitely. Could we address player concerns about the relationship between PvP and PvE? With a new system, yes. Could we give players more and better storage? Yes! The list goes on and on.
Even so, not having to worry about backward-compatibility with the original Guild Wars engine and tools gives us an abundance of opportunities to make Guild Wars 2 jaw-droppingly beautiful. At the same time, new budgets for textures and poly-counts, and a whole new bag of tricks from our in-house graphics gurus, mean that every environment, character, and effect we’re making truly looks like a whole new game.
Getting excited about new graphics and new gameplay ideas is only part of the equation for us, though. As some fans noted when Guild Wars 2 was announced, by adding persistent areas and extensive character advancement to Guild Wars, we risked creating another me-too MMO in the Everquest tradition. Plenty of those games already exist, though, and making yet another has never been our goal. Instead, from the start, we talked a lot about the core principles of Guild Wars.
- Guild Wars isn't a hassle to play. Fundamentally, we made a choice to not build a game around time-sinks and inconvenience. Our streaming updates, instant map travel, character templates, account-wide storage, easily removed death penalty, and myriad of core features are all based on this principle. Although some details would need to change, we wanted the sequel to stay true to this tradition.
- Guild Wars lets you play the way you want to play. We've had a few years now of observing our players and their tendencies and preferences. Whether their play-style focuses on exploration, story, wealth, collection, achievements, socializing, PvP, playing solo or with strangers or friends, our goal is to give them a rich and rewarding experience playing the game they want to play. With Guild Wars 2, we'd seek to diversify their options even further.
- Guild Wars encourages skillful play. If you’re going to spend as much time playing a game as people spend playing their favorite online RPG, it had better engage you socially, viscerally, and, yes, intellectually. From the very foundation of the Guild Wars design, we’ve tried to create a game that rewards clever and active play. We’re confident we’ll do an even better job this time around.
- Guild Wars tells a story. We've learned a lot over the years about running events in common areas, and how to get the best effect out of instances. Guild Wars 2 gives us an opportunity to take that knowledge and apply it in even better ways.
- Guild Wars has no monthly fee. Let's face it: one of the reasons that Guild Wars has enjoyed so much success is that people like owning a game after they buy it. They like being able to take a break without a subscription continuing to drain their bank account. They like being able to buy and experience other games, too. Now we plan to bring that same model to a game with persistent areas, playable races, freedom of movement, incredible depth, spectacular graphics, and gameplay that builds on the best of Guild Wars while taking things to new heights.
James Phinney, Guild Wars Game Design Team Lead
James Phinney is currently the Game Design Team Lead for Guild Wars. He started as a programmer at Chaos Studios, which later became Blizzard Entertainment. James worked on Warcraft II and Diablo, then as lead designer and producer on StarCraft. He also wrote the story and dialogue for Shiny Entertainment's Sacrifice.
Posted by adunkin at 5:04 PM
October 4, 2007
Carbine Studios Becomes Latest Member of NCsoft Family
Development team located in Orange County, California has tradition-rich pedigree with ties to successful World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Fallout games
Austin, Texas, Oct. 4, 2007—NCsoft® Corporation, the world’s leading developer and publisher of online computer games, today formally unveiled Carbine Studios™ (www.carbinestudios.com), the latest member of its growing family of online game development studios. Carbine Studios is located in Aliso Viejo, California, in Orange County.
Carbine Studios is currently working on an unannounced project that promises to break new ground in massively multiplayer gaming. The studio, comprised of 17 former Blizzard employees including lead and senior developers from the World of Warcraft team, is led by industry veterans Kevin Beardslee, Tim Cain and Jeremy Gaffney. Kevin Beardslee, Carbine’s vice president of design, was a lead developer on Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft.
Tim Cain, Carbine’s programming director, was the producer, lead programmer and designer on the award winning Fallout, and co-founder of Troika Games. Carbine’s Executive Producer Jeremy Gaffney previously worked as executive producer on NCsoft’s City of Heroes®, and established the product development group at NCsoft’s Austin headquarters as VP of development. He was also a co-founder of Turbine, Inc., where he spearheaded development on Asheron’s Call.
“This is a dev team made in heaven,” said Robert Garriott, CEO for NCsoft’s North American business. “This group is as experienced as they come in the area of computer role playing and multiplayer game design. Making successful games is second nature to them. They are a very welcome addition to the NCsoft family. The gaming community should be excited to see what great things come out of Carbine Studios in the coming years.”
“NCSoft’s established global infrastructure, commitment to their development studios and passion for online gaming makes them an ideal partner,” says Carbine co-founder Kevin Beardslee. “In the coming months Carbine Studios will continue to grow and we look forward to bringing many more talented industry professionals into our fold.”
For more information on Carbine Studios and its job openings, go to http://www.carbinestudios.com.
About NCsoft Corporation
NCsoft North America is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation. NCsoft, with its own development and publishing offices in Texas and California, also works with other NCsoft subsidiaries and third party developers throughout North America to develop and publish innovative online entertainment software products. The company has successfully launched multiple online titles in the last three years and continues to support its franchises, which include Lineage®/Lineage II, City of Heroes®/City of Villains®, Guild Wars®/Guild Wars Factions™/Guild Wars Nightfall™ and Dungeon Runners™. More information about NCsoft can be found at www.plaync.com.
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NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, Carbine Studios, PlayNC, Lineage, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars Nightfall, Dungeon Runners and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. City of Heroes, City of Villains and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation and Cryptic Studios, Inc. Cryptic Studios is a trademark of Cryptic Studios, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Posted by PR at 9:49 AM
Check out Spacetime Studios
Along with the news about Carbine Studios™, you should also check out the new website for Spacetime Studios®, an Austin-area development house currently working on a title for NCsoft®. They have lots of new job openings, a weekly development blog written by various staff members, and more.
Posted by adunkin at 9:45 AM