Get bored of doing what the game designers deem interesting content? Enjoy wiping the blood of a stricken warrior across your face? Perhaps you’re just looking to spice up your entertainment by keeping it fluid between the two? Either way, WildStar, the upcoming highly-customizable MMORPG from Carbine Studios, is planning to deliver interesting content for PvP and PvE. While we’ve talked about PvE at length, the core PvP experience hasn’t seen as much attention. Until now.

In a recent interview with ZAM, the Lead PvP Designer Jen Gordy detailed the plans for pitting players against one another. Everything from basic systems, like Leaderboards, to PvP environments, such as the heavenly Warplots, to balance and gear are discussed in the lengthy interview.

It concerns me that WildStar is looking to keep the same abilities across PvE and PvP. Sure, PvE mobs won’t have the reaction or skills necessary to compete like a normal player, but as World of Warcraft found out, it often causes unwanted nerfs/buffs to PvE skills due to PvP. And get ready to farm two sets of gear if you want to be remotely optimized for PvP, another gripe of mine. It wasn’t confirmed, but Gordy makes mention of two unique PvP stats that, seemingly, won’t come from PvE gear.

Thankfully, the PvP and class teams are already investigating any required balanced changes.

Never one to shy controversial topics in the video game industry, Mark Jacobs is expecting the free-to-play genre to get hit hard soon. The lead designer to every Mythic Entertainment game worth mentioning, Jacobs explained to VG247 that the popular F2P business model is just that, another option. He took the analysis further, essentially calling the model an ever-increasing bubble. A bubble, that like the housing market in 2008 and Dot Com bubble in 1999-2000 and everyone before them, is bound to burst.

Again, like those aforementioned bubbles Jacobs expects a catastrophic failure of the F2P model in three to five years due to unsustainable practices. The results? Developer closures and substantial losses for publishers.

You’re going to see a lot of developers shutting down, and you’re going to see a lot of publishers going, oh yeah maybe spending $20 million on a free-to-play game wasn’t the best idea ever. That’s part of the reason, but the other reason is equally as important, that if you go free-to-play, you really have to compete with every other free-to-play game out there.

Jacobs believe that Camelot Unchained, his spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot, will fare better by targeting his specific niche of gamers with a (potentially lower) subscription title developed for them. This follows numerous basic business principles of delivering the right unique product to the right target market.

That doesn’t make F2P incorrect or subscription correct. Simply different. To follow the basic business analogy, F2P games are essentially consumer packaged goods that approach a wide market with low margins covered by high volumes.

What’s your take on the potential of a F2P bubble? Could even World of Warcraft launch today and be the same success it was in 2004?

Camelot Unchained is currently over halfway to its $2 million Kickstarter goal with 16 days remaining.

Red 5 Studios has changed the core progression of FireFall not once, not twice but thrice. At first, the open-world shooter was your typical experience-based level grind. The game designers and the community saw such a trope odd in a shooter, causing the modification to a battleframe-based level system complete with skill trees. The battleframe system remains, but modified to be more customizable and easier to understand.

Lead Designer Scott Youngblood elaborates on the drastic changes, the impact the final one will have on players and the game’s future before touching upon other topics. Consumable experience, the possibility of a PvEvPvP map, crafting and customization, constraints, tiering and the massive amount of PvE content are fair game in the latest FireFall interview.

Check out the whole interview complete with gameplay and screenshots behind that fancy little button. Continue Reading

I’ll just nip this one in the bud.

“Hey, it’s Bob Sagat!”

It’s not. It’s actually Todd Harris, the COO of Hi-Rez Studios, discussing a little project the company calls SMITE. Lore Hound has been following the game. Quite closely. Eerily close in fact. We do the “I have candy, get in the van” schtick for you. To get you all the juicy details on the god-based MOBA. We’re putting on the facade to get your questions answered!

There’s numerous benefits to being such creeps. First off, plenty of time with HiRezBart. We’re forced to play an enjoyable MOBA, learning the ropes in the process. And there’s the occasional preview, interview or charity event to boot.

Todd and iTZKooPA discuss the ongoing beta process of SMITE, including the miss of the Focus mechanic, how the community has guided the title’s design and when to expect the full game. Hit the jump for the latest and greatest interview with Hi-Rez Studios.

Interested in PvP or eSports? Be sure to view the other Hi-Rez interview on those very topics.

Bonus, these meet and greets allow us to have a ton of convention skins, like the one hidden somewhere on this post! Continue Reading