In the midst of all the E3 coverage from last week (for which Lore Hound has a lot more to come), it seems that one interview with Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime went largely unnoticed. But indeed, Fox Business News sat down for an interview with the legendary Morhaime, and a few interesting tidbits came out as a result.
Some may ask — what make’s Morhaime’s thoughts any more important than anyone else’s? And I would answer – because unlike most others, Morhaime actually has the potential to take those thoughts and work them into the games that you and I play.
Topics covered included:
How it feels to finally be mostly finished with Starcraft 2 — “thrilled”
Why Starcraft 2 will be followed up with 2 expansions — to “tell a better story and deliver a more epic experience by focusing each installment on a particular race”
On working with the Starcraft fan base — “It’s always sort of dangerous… because you don’t know what they are going to say.”
On whether Activision applied pressure to break up Starcraft to increase revenues — “Activision doesn’t tell us to break up a game or to release a game on a particular day.”
On Morhaime’s thoughts on interactive games such as XBox’s newly announced Kinect system — “It doesn’t work in every type of game. It does open up the door to new innovative ideas that we haven’t thought of yet.”
And, to me, what was the most interesting response:
Fox interview with Mike Morhaime
Q – “World of Warcraft” has the largest market share of the massively-multiplayer genre, but there are two major franchises under development: “Star Wars” and “Final Fantasy XIV.” When you see these new franchises, are you concerned?
With E3 hitting this past week, us gamers had our chance to listen anxiously for any tidbits of information that gave us more insight on mechanics, plot points, and more from developers of the games that we love the most.
Last years, E3 left every Star Wars fan drooling in his or her seat as BioWare revealed precious information on Star Wars: The Old Republic. Since then, we’ve seen little on the actual gameplay, but BioWare has shown us a bit more much on the content and planets we will be playing on.
E3 ’10 has been even better to those loyal to Lord Lucas’ franchise — although perhaps not in the way that fans expected. Amatera covered the newest highlights previewed at E3 a few days ago.
I’ll preface these comments by first stating that I am a devout George Lucas fan and in no way intend to downplay the Star Wars franchise. With that said, watching the MMO’s newest cinematic trailer, “Hope,” has left me questioning how eager I really am to play Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Those who read the comments can guess what I’m thinking: Instead of an MMO, the trailer left me craving another Star Wars movie.
Read on for my reasoning plus another look at The Old Republic (movie) trailers.
Final Fantasy XIV has been relatively out of the limelight at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. Most of the updates have come out as videos on Square-Enix’s sites, notably their Youtube channel. With the game supposedly launching this year, I wish that they would put on a better show.
The released videos are equally underwhelming. In this video, some Japanese men put on some 3D glasses and look at a multi-monitor display and make some gasping noises. We can’t see the 3D in the video, so its extremely underwhelming.
How do you feel about how the FFXIV media campaign is being handled?
The official FFXIVYoutube channel has fresh videos from the Electronic Entertainment Expo with a cinematic trailer and updated gameplay for the upcoming MMO. Its not super exciting, but the trailers confirm the game will be out in 2010, and the cinematics seem to imply somewhat of an over-arching story.
The Old Republic was shown off as the last of ten games during Electronic Arts’ E3 presentation today. Here’s what we learned:
Each player will get their own, customizable starship.
PvP will feature massive battles in classic Star Wars battlegrounds (like Alderaan). Empire vs. Republic, Jedi vs. Sith.
New trailer being shown, titled “Hope.”
Republic soldiers ambush an Empire battalion in a forested area. Lead Sith beats the snot out of the Republic general with Force Lightning and attempts to cut his head off via lightsaber as humiliation.
As one might predict, a fellow Jedi shows up to stop this from happening. Beautiful female warrior with a dual-bladed saber.
The two fight for a bit, and the Jedi uses her Force powers to engage in a little “deforestation” as a distraction.
Sith cuts the Jedi’s saber in two and attempts to stab her through the chest, but she uses her hand (and presumably the Force) to hold it off under great strain.
The Republic general, having regained some of this strength, runs up and sets off a bomb in close proximity to the Sith, knocking them both back.
The Jedi recovers, pushes him into a cliff and then hadoken’s the dude with a concentrated ball of Force, shattering both the Sith and the rock wall behind him.
General stands up, generic message of hope, cue epic shot of the planet, ships entering from behind the screen in true Star Wars fashion, aaaaand logo.
The trailer was, like the previous one, not gameplay.
Well, apparently that’s all we’re getting at this conference. Considering what exists of the gameplay out there, I’m not surprised they went with a pre-baked trailer instead. It’s hard to make an MMORPG looks really exciting in front of a large audience, anyway. Still, I would’ve hoped for more information on the content anyway, and the few details we got barely scratched the surface. An announcement of PvP, but no specifics?
Luckily, the game will be on the show floor tomorrow, and with iTZKooPA in attendance, we may be able to bring you more interesting footage in the coming days (assuming they allow footage to be taken of it, and he can make the time).
After taking a couple years off to market spin-offs and expand the DLC network, Harmonix is returning to Rock Band with the third act in their core series of MMO games. Wait, wha–? MMO? Minimally Multiplayer Online game? Mastering Multiple Octaves? Murdering Music (by singing) Offkey? Okay, I tried. But, as with the last iteration, Rock Band 3 still features online (and offline) play with your best friends, whether they exist in the virtual world or meatspace.
However, the “Big New Thing” for RB3 is the introduction of a brand new instrument — the Keyboard. And not just another plastic toy to clutter up your living room, but a quality, 25-key set of ivories that can also be plugged into a computer and used as an actual MIDI instrument. But, as Ron Popeil would say, there’s more! The emphasis in Rock Band 3 seems to be on realism, providing yet another step for players to transition into using real instruments. That means that the Drums will be getting an upgrade (three new cymbals in addition to the four current pads), and several new versions of Guitar will be available, as well — a Squier Statocaster with real strings that senses where your fingers are, and the Fender Mustang Pro from Madcatz that keeps the good, old button motif, but adds a whole bunch more of them to accurately reflect different hand positions for chords and bars. And those three-part harmonies from Beatles: Rock Band? Still in, meaning you could have up to seven people play simultaneously for certain songs.
There are more details on all the new rockage after the jump, but I implore you to check out the video that accompanied the official reveal at USA TodayGame Hunters, which features liberal footage of the Keyboard peripheral:
In the midst of all the E3 coverage from last week (for which Lore Hound has a lot more to come), it seems that one interview with Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime went largely unnoticed. But indeed, Fox Business News sat down for an interview with the legendary Morhaime, and a few interesting tidbits came out as a result.
