But World of Warcraft’s reboot is nothing compared to the turmoil the entire genre is undergoing.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games, once the home of fantasy, magic and swordplay, is increasingly diversifying to include not only new themes and settings to explore, but also new takes on what it means to role-play and how players interact.

“I think something very big is happening in online play in general,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, the company behind DC Universe Online, Free Realms and EverQuest.

The year kicked off with the launch of MAG on the Playstation 3. The first-person shooter created by the folks behind popular shooter series SOCOM supports rolling battles of up to 256 players at a time. And there is no way to play the game offline.

At first blush MAG may seem like a standard military shooter, but the game shares a lot of elements with traditional MMOs, it has gamers choose from one of three factions to play in and then tracks each player’s progress, allowing them to level up their character and unlock talents.

“It’s about getting a large number of people to play” Smedley said. “It’s a huge notch above current-generation shooters.”

And MAG isn’t the only game to combine the popularity of first-person shooters with the addictive nature of online role-playing.

The largest MMO shooter in the world was created in China. Crossfire hit the United States last year and makes all of its money by charging players for premium weapons.

Smedley added that he wouldn’t be surprised if the maker of the game he currently plays most right now, Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, didn’t create an MMO of its own soon.

“I think the lines for what you call a massively multiplayer online game are being blurred,” he said. “Now an MMO just needs to be a game where a large number of people can interact. It doesn’t mean it needs a subscription or to have micro transactions.”

Smedley says that Sony Online Entertainment are starting to invest more heavily in the free-to-play model. Kid-friendly Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures are both doing well and SOE just launched a new Facebook game called Wild Life Refuge. The publisher is also gearing up to launch a new Facebook game based on James Patterson’s books that will have players hunting down a killer.

And Sony Online Entertainment is also keeping a foot planted in the realm of big budget games. DC Universe Online is currently in beta, preparing to go live soon. And spy versus spy MMO The Agency is still in the works despite significant delays.

Smedley says The Agency, which is now due out in the second half of next year, needed a lot of work, so it was delayed.

“There was a moment in time in our company where we looked at our own stuff with a clear eye and saw we have to do better,” he said of the delay. “DC Universe was held for a year-and-a-half from when we wanted to launch it and now I’m very happy with it.”

While Sony Online Entertainment works to develop both pay to play and free to play massively online games, they also keep an eye out on the less traditional forms of massive online games, especially those made by smaller, indie developers.

League of Legends, which has players controlling heroes as they try to take down an enemies fortress, isn’t really massive. Less than a dozen gamers can play in a single match at a time. But Smedley says that the number of people playing matches at any given time is staggering, something that reminds him that the massive in massively multiplayer doesn’t necessarily have to be in a single game. It can instead by a mammoth community built around a single game.

“These guys are doing amazing numbers,” he said. “Is it an MMO? It’s definitely not an MMO but they are rivaling MMO concurrency numbers.”

Smedley points to Minecraft as another surprising success of a game that bridges the gap between traditional MMO and traditional single-player titles. Minecraft, which was launched after a week of development by one person and has since been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, remains in a constant state of upgrading and beta testing.

“Great games,” Smedley said, “attract a lot of people.”

The diversity and complexity of this the ever-evolving massively multiplayer genre means that the PC, despite the decades of naysayers, remains a powerful and robust gaming platform. It’s just having successes that aren’t as easy to track as are the sales of boxed games in a retail store.

“People say that a lot of the PC industry has declining sales,” he said. “But really it is the things we are measuring that are declining. The tools aren’t there to measure the games we play.”

Is The Future Of PC Gaming Massive And Online? | Kotaku Australia

The sticker comment there with crafting in Free Realms is at the end of the video . . . you do this process over and over and over. What was awesome and fun for the first 50 times, slowly begins to lose its shimmer. Then again, comparing it to Wizard101 or Everquest or The Game Which Shall Not Be Named or any number of other MMOs, it feels more “real” than simply clicking a button to say “combine” these things. GO! I like that I can get more or less of a raw or refined element based on how well I do on the mini-game.

So, if you were to apply a similar system to Wizard101, I think it could be done . . . better. I like that I can collect ground spawns of items, but what if when I clicked to pick up a ground spawn, I was given the option to play a short mini-game to get a better chance at the rare node item? (This would be kind of how the silver chests in game work, only you get an either/or option instead of all/or nothing situation.)

You know how we have four or so different crafting tables in our houses? I think each one of those could be turned into a mini-game as well. I like options though, so I would like to keep the “click to combine” option of crafting for the sure thing, but since I’m a gamblin’ man, how about instead of clicking to combine, I get the option of playing a mini-game for either nothing or a rare combined item! Sure, I can craft tacos, but what if I played a mini-game to make SUPER TACOS WITH SUPER SAUCE? Sure, I can craft a carousel, but what if I could craft a rideable carousel? Hmm? It’d be like crafting advanced!

But, please, KI, if you were to ever take crafting in this direction, just make sure there is more variety than what crafting is like in Free Realms. My word do those mini-games get repetitive after 100 times or so. Then again, I guess that’s why they put leader boards on them so you could try to get yourself into the top 10.

The Friendly Necromancer: Something to Admire with Crafting in …

See original here:
The Daily Grind: Do you like minigames in MMOs?

Speculative “what if?” question — what if past canceled MMOs, such as Tabula Rasa, had gone F2P in the first place, with RMT backing it up?  It’s not hard to imagine NCSoft proudly announcing that Tabula Rasa just hit its two millionth “registered user” as they continue to rake in their operating budget plus profit in micro-transactions.

Anyway, I’ve yet to try Runes of Magic — not really willing to return to anything WoWish — but I hear it’s pretty solid and the content they dish out for free is impressive.  I’d think this would be a day for them to celebrate pretty hard.

Runes of Magic: If You Build It (For Free), They Will Come « Bio Break

The Austin, Texas-based GDC Online conference and expo is keenly focused on development of connected games including social network titles, free-to-play web games, kid-friendly online titles, large-scale MMOs, and more, with a leading advisory board guiding the evaluation and choice of lectures.

While there are already over 25 confirmed lectures across the entire event — created by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this site — organizers are focusing on the ‘Live’ track, which discusses the vital topic of successful strategies for online games post-launch.

The rise of swiftly iterated social games and microtransactions have led to a wide array of new techniques and technologies that can help increase fun, profitability and retention, and the ‘Live’ track will deal with many of these.

Some of the highlights of the GDC Online ‘Live’ track, as announced thus far, include:

- In ‘From Shadowbane to Wizard101: Strategies for Expanding Player Communities and Sustaining Enthusiasm After Launch’, J. Todd Coleman & Josef Hall of KingsIsle Entertainment will reference their 10 million registered-user online game and previous experience, identifying “sustaining community that transcend genre and generation, the importance of always having new content in queue, and strategies for communicating milestones and methods for remaining engaged in public conversation.”

- ‘Surviving Social Media: Advice From The SOE Playbook’ sees Sony Online Entertainment’s Linda Carlson discussing how the Free Realms and upcoming DC Universe Online creators “identify the best outlets for ROI, implement efficiencies in time and money, involve all departments for the common good, craft audience-specific messaging, proven strategies to engage and motivate fans, manage multiple games in social media, maintain brand strength” — with “plenty of war stories and scars to prove points!”

- IMVU’s Brett Durrett will present ‘Building A Successful Business After Launch through Rapid Iteration’, showing how, by “creating systems that utilize A/B testing, instant customer metrics and a sophisticated deployment process IMVU is able to shorten the iteration loop and deploy new software to production up to 50 times per day” – leading to an avatar-heavy online environment with over 100 million registered users.

In addition to the main conference content, GDC Online will present specialized Summit programs, with in-depth business and technical advice on major up-and-coming facets of the game industry, including 3D stereoscopic games and iPad development.

The event is also hosting the first ever Game Developers Choice Online Awards — honoring the accomplishments of the sometimes overlooked creators and operators of persistent online video games — from large-scale MMOs through free-to-play titles to social network games.

GDC Online will take place October 5-8, 2010 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. To learn more about the newly announced lectures across all tracks for GDC Online, for which registration is now open, please visit the official GDC Online website.

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<a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29128/GDC_Online_Announces_First_Sessions_Live_Track_Specifics.phptag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29128/GDC_Online_Announces_First_Sessions_Live_Track_Specifics.phpTue, 29 Jun 2010 16:44:25 GMT 00:00″>GDC Online Announces First Sessions, 'Live' Track Specifics

Free Realms, created by Sony Online Entertainment, is a 3D fictional free-to-play whim-based massively multiplayer role-playing game, which will lead players into a virtual world where no one rules. The game is played just as its name suggests, with gamers basically doing whatever please them in the game and getting fun the moment they log in.

It provides gamers with a new concept of freedom as they roam their way through the changing sceneries with much ease. No matter domestic chores such as shopping, doing gardens, cooking, doing laundry, bathing up pets, or socializing activities such as throwing a party, playing cards, chatting with friends, players have the say at the pace, intensity of what they are doing. For instance, they don’t have to weed out the garden if they feel like kicking back and watching TV instead.

Combats and battles, though incorporated in the game, is also not a must for players to level up their characters. They can choose to either confront a boss, who is not as intimidating in Free Realms as in other MMOs, or simply ignore it if not in the mood of fighting.

Mini-games are everywhere in the game as a kind of quests for players to accomplish. Get a character and delve into one of the mystery, you will find so much satisfaction the moment you pull it off! However, you can still choose to pass on it if you don’t feel like to.

The game also provide a platform for players to get involved in social networking efforts, and build up interpersonal relationships through chatting and competing with peers.

The Free Realms grants gamers not only freedom in creating their own gaming experience, but also full control over things like how the story line unfolds and what kinds of adventures to take.

Unlike most MMOs, in Free Realms, violence are largely absent and evils are not as dreadful and blood-thirsty, and most of the time, players are pit against the boss intellectually rather than physically.

The graphical look of the game is eye-catching with colorful settings and vibrating characters. The sound effects are also designed to keep with the flow of stories.

You don’t have to glue to the screen all the time in order to accumulate points to get leveled up, as is usually done in other games. Instead, time is also under your control, and you can choose to leave whenever you get a task done.

Hesitate no more to join the game and share videos, images, or links with your fellow players!

Free Realms Review, Cheats, Walkthrough, Guide, Tips and Download …