Ok, so the Age of Conan rating was just released today. M for Mature which means 18+. However, there are some stipulations by the ESRB board here in America that just astound me. No Nipples! I am allowed to decapitate, maim, slaughter, drink, fight, and pretty much have a good time with the ladies, but NO, I cannot see nipples. Seeing nipples will just ruin the rest of my life! I can go to war, buy cigarettes, and vote, but wait the ESRB is here to save me from nipples! Ok, end of sarcasm. My big question is “why only nipples?” An M rating from the ESRB is basically a NC-17 rating for the movies, which if I am not mistaken, allows full nudity. I think it is quite backwards. What do you think?

UPDATE: Apparently some bad information came out. Check this link for the updated information. Here is the basics:

-full blood
-full fatalities
-breasts with nipples
-not full nudity

Do not know how that bad info got out, but thankfully it has been corrected. Yay for nipples! Oh and I do not have the uncensored version of the above picture.  Perhaps I should change the name of the title to “Nipples for All?”

Okay, so not really, but that movie immediately jumped into my mind after reading about a new Flash-based MMO by Creatrix Games, called Lila Dreams, that takes place inside the mind of an 11 year old girl. I have to say, I do not know whether to be intrigued or disturbed about this game. The game looks to be a step away from the usual elves and orcs fantasy games, and is trying to make an interesting spin on the MMO genre itself. Here is a basic description of the game from the developers blog:

You get to make a character, choose what to wear, fight exciting battles against a bestiary of insanely weird creatures from Lila’s mind, team up with friends and explore strange places, meet in towns and emote at each other, get to know helpful NPCs (non-player characters), grow items in your garden, and manage your character’s abilities and inventory. We’ll see how much more we can cram into the game before launch, but we also hope to keep building on it after launch to make it even better.

Only time will tell if this game will be successful, but for a Flash based game, even a fraction of the MMO market can make this game succeed. Apparently there will be a beta test coming in the months ahead, which I would love to take a look at. I will revisit this game when there is more concrete information. In the meantime, feel free to check out the developers website.

Until now I have resisted the urge to write about World of Warcraft, but after reading about Blizzard’s 1.2B (yes that is Billions) in revenue in 2007, I could not resist any further.  World of Warcraft is the first MMO to 10 Million subscribers, which I feel has allowed it to succeed where no other MMO has before, and that is in popular culture. It has infiltrated our lives from bumper stickers, to t-shirts, books, computers, non-video games, and jewelry. The list does not stop there and I am sure more World of Warcraft stuff is in the works. It is a David and Goliath story, except Goliath keeps getting bigger and David is stuck without a rock. World of Warcarft has become the iPod, the hula hoop, and wonder bread all in one, with no end to the gravy train in sight.

But we also cannot deny that World of Warcraft is the big bully on the block that is just constantly taking the lunch money from those who are weaker. Somehow Blizzard has created the Canon of MMORPGs and with that carved a huge majority chunk of the MMO market. Will Blizzard be able to maintain such a strangle hold? With so many new games on the horizon, can Funcom, EA Mythic, or any of the other MMO studios have a chance to dethrone Warcraft? With an expansion on the way (and another every year until the end of time) I do not see World of Warcraft slowing anytime soon, but I am very interested to see what happens in the coming years. What are your thoughts?

Please keep it civil. Thank you.

For many of us, our childhood toys bring back great memories. Some of us have fond memories of Transformers, GI Joes, or even Mr. Potato Head, but one toy that was universal, boy or girl, was the LEGO block. Today, the LEGO turns 50! Read about the history of the block here. So why is this article here? Well in 2008, LEGO Universe will go online (supposedly), marking an interesting turn for the ubiquitous plastic block. For the past few years, LEGO has made the jump from reality to virtual reality, going from block to video game, and now to MMO. Here is a small description from their forums:

Imagine living in a LEGO universe as a minifig where you can meet your friends, build together with virtual LEGO bricks, bring those creations to life, be a part of an ongoing game adventure and more…

I have to say, that although Second Life never appealed to me, LEGO Universe does. Freedom building whatever you want out of LEGO is a fantasy to many I am sure, and with this game that fantasy will come alive. Unlike Second Life though, this MMO wants to be a game, and if it includes anything like the Star Wars or upcoming Indiana Jones LEGO games, then I feel this MMO can be a true success. Details are scarce about the game right now, so as things get revealed, look for some updates.

Craig “Silirrion” Morrison. The man behind the robot.

It is the dream of many players to work on, in some aspect, their favorite MMO. Whether it was world building, item creation, or class balance, we have thought that if we were in charge, the game could become “perfect.” What if that dream can come true? In recent years, many games have hired former players to become developers. Craig “Silirrion” Morrison is a player turned Game Director for Funcom’s Science-Fiction MMORPG, Anarchy Online. As a long time player of Anarchy Online I was very interested in finding out more about Craig, as well as his thoughts on being Game Director. Craig was very happy to answer a few questions for MMOCrunch:

Can you state your name and current job title?

My name is Craig Morrison and I am currently the Game Director and Producer for Anarchy Online.

Can you state any other positions you have held at Funcom?

Prior to becoming the Game Director I was the company’s Community Manager.

What brought you into gaming? What brought you to Anarchy Online?

That’s a tough one, I’ve been gaming since I was about six years old and my father bought us a BBC Micro home computer and I first discovered Asteroids! I don’t think I ever stopped being a gamer. In the 90s I got into MMO games, starting with Meridian 59 before moving onto Ultima Online and Everquest. It was while playing Everquest that a guild mate showed me Anarchy Online during the beta period and since then I have been hooked on Rubi-Ka!

In terms of getting into the industry it was really a series of very fortunate accidents to be honest. I first threw up some help pages for Anarchy Online onto my personal website to help some other EQ guildies get into the game. From there it somehow turned into a fully-fledged fan-site I updated every week, almost without me realizing I was doing so! It was really the support and encouragement from the community at the original fan sites like AO-Basher and the AO-Vault forums that helped me expand into actually running a fan-site too. Then I was hired on a freelance basis (as I had what most would call a ‘proper job’ at the time working in the newspaper industry in the UK) by IGN to run their AO Vault fan site and so it became a daily thing for me. Then being part of IGN I got to meet, interview and get to know some of the folk at Funcom and go to things like E3 and eventually through those connections I was offered the Community Manager’s position when it became available. There definitely wasn’t a magical career path I had plotted for myself and I still look back and am very thankful that things turned out the way they did!

Do you still play Anarchy Online? Do you play any other games?

I still play AO as often as I can, it is very important to keep in touch with the player base and experience the game we spent our time creating from their point of view as well. I don’t get to play as much as I did as a fan, but I still make sure I find the time to spend time on Rubi-Ka!

I think I have played most western MMO games and a good deal of the eastern ones as well! Now through professional curiosity but I have always loved the genre and it’s always interesting to see what other people are doing. So I still pick up all the new releases as they appear.

What was it like to go from player, to community contributor, to Funcom employee and then to Game Director?

Easier then you might think! The first transition was actually not all that hard, as Community Manager you are representing players in many ways, so that felt quite natural going from playing to providing the feedback on that. As I got more involved in the production side of the game, and then to Game Director I think the biggest (and scariest) change is when it first dawns on you that people aren’t just asking for your opinion anymore but are asking you to make the decision! I’m very lucky though that we have a fantastic team working on the game and they really make my job in that regard pretty easy. It definitely takes a little getting used to though!

How do you react to some players who may feel that certain classes are still unbalanced, particularly in regards to PVP?

There will always be opinions about balance. That’s inherent in any situation with such a diverse selection of gamers, game-styles and preferences. So we expect there to be disagreements (all the designers don’t always agree, let alone tens of thousands of players!). With PVP in particular the systems in AO are deep and complex, which is the beauty of the game, it is also however a fact that means that there will always be some inherent ‘imbalances’ in the system. Therefore it’s a constant task to nudge, adjust and otherwise meddle with things to try and bring improvements.

How do you react to some players who may feel that certain classes receive unwarranted buffs while others do not receive any?

I don’t think we would ever put anything in that we considered ‘unwarranted’. Of course the players might always have a different opinion! We do realize that when other professions (who did need it) get some attention, that others (who don’t so much) feel left out. It’s one of those pesky tricky balancing acts we have to get right when we do professional changes. At the end of the day sometimes you do have to consider some updates or changes for a given profession on the basis that they haven’t had one in some time. As with the PVP question in a game as complex as Anarchy Online this is an area that’s never easy, and we won’t get it right 100% every time, but an area that we would never make changes too that we didn’t think would have some overall benefit.

Being a former player, how do you separate your want to please players, yet still retain the responsibility of Game Director?

I think deep down we always want to please people! After all we are making these games to provide entertainment for people. Yes, it’s a business too, but if people aren’t having fun with your game, they won’t keep playing it. We do have to do so responsibly though, in particular with virtual worlds like Rubi-Ka and we always have to consider the implications of the changes we make. It’s not always an easy balance but it’s an important one and something that is at the core of all the decisions we have to make, so whether we want to or not, that responsibility is forced on us. I wouldn’t have it any other way either!

What do you feel has been your most successful addition to Anarchy Online?

Personally I love the recent Dust Brigade team instance. I was very happy with the balance we managed to get there between challenge, reward and fun. I think it’s re-playable in a good way with a decent return for the player’s time.

What do you feel has been your least successful and how have you learned from it?

I try to avoid thinking in negative terms too much, but there are definitely things we learn from all the content we put in. I’d certainly like to think nothing has been totally ‘unsuccessful’ so far! What is true is that we have definitely learned how to do things better as we go along. I think the experience in the Alappaa team instance was better then that in Albtraum (which was the first team instance we ever made) for example, and the Dust Brigade instance better again as we moved along with learning how to integrate the team instancing technology better and get the game-play and the rewards balanced better. It’s always a learning curve.

Any advice for other players looking to get into MMO game development?

Get involved in the communities around the game, and never presume that things are as easy as they sometimes might seem from the outside! It’s not a guarantee that you might one day land a job, but it’s certainly not a bad start! Also always try to be objective in your views on the game and look beyond your own personal preferences. The key to being able to understand and work on MMO games, is understanding all the different play-styles and how they interact. Always remember that the designers of your favorite game made any given change for a reason, even if you don’t understand it (or worse really hate it!) try and think about it and why that change might have been done. Looking at these games in that way will generally give you a much better idea of the concepts involved. I think that’s what any company making an MMO are looking for most when they interview for design positions – someone who understands the dynamics within the gameplay of a virtual world.

If you are artist then just keep producing and practicing! Your portfolio is really what you will succeed or fail by.

What do you feel you bring to Anarchy Online that the previous Game Directors did not?

I think that’s a hard one and probably something you should ask the players rather then me. I think everyone who heads a creative process brings something to the table and it’s very different for each person. The main thing I have tried to focus on is providing the players with new content and asking the design to team always keep one question in their minds – ‘will this be fun?’ I think that’s the most important thing I try and maintain.

Is Omni-Tek your friend?

Now that would be telling! In all seriousness it’s a not so well hidden secret that the majority of my characters were Clan and as a player I was in Clan organizations, so purely in that context I guess Omni-Tek would not consider me a friend!

I would like to thank Craig for his time in answering these questions. As a player, I feel his passion for the game has given Anarchy Online a fresh breath of air. From implementing player suggestions to bringing in new and challenging content, the game has changed quite a bit since he has become Game Director, with many more improvements on the way.

You can check out the game at www.anarchyonline.com.

It appears that yet another government agency is getting into MMO development (see my previous article). NASA recently announced their intentions to create an MMO aimed at high school and college level education, which would include a focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. No specifics have been made as to who will be developing the game, but the requirements of a realistic physics engine will definitely make this an interesting addition to the MMO realm. Why would NASA be looking into MMO development in the first place? They give a very good answer in their FAQ:

“MMOs help players develop and exercise a skill set closely matching the thinking, planning, learning, and technical skills increasingly in demand by employers. These skills include strategic thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, plan formulation and execution, team-building and collaboration, and adaptation to rapid change.”

In the current anti-gaming political environment, it amazes me to see NASA come forward with this statement. It is about time the world at large sees that today’s youth is increasing its integration with technology everyday. Text messaging, MySpace, and YouTube are now becoming the preferred methods for communication and entertainment, foregoing traditional methods. With this in mind, NASA is looking to reshape online learning by making a virtual world for educators and business leaders to teach the skills needed in the real world:

“Virtual worlds with scientifically accurate simulations could permit learners to tinker with chemical reactions in living cells, practice operating and repairing expensive equipment, and experience microgravity – making it easier to grasp complex concepts and transfer this understanding quickly to practical problems.”

The big question, is how popular would this type of environment be? I see no issue with the students being able to pick up the mechanics, as they are already knee deep in gaming, but trying to educate the educators how to use a virtual environment I feel will take time. However, coming up with attractive and engaging educational games within this world will be the main challenge. Even if they manage to provide the training and come up with the games, it will also be hard to implement this game into a curriculum.

A large collaborative project such as this has some precedent, but the scale at which this is being done, may dwarf all previous educational gaming attempts to date. It will be interesting to follow the development of this game and see where it is taken. See you at the virtual particle accelerator!

In most MMORPGs, once a player reaches max level, he or she has limited options to further increase the ability of their character. You can do dungeons, world encounters, raiding, or PVP. Most players can only concentrate on one or two of these, depending on how casual they are as a player. There is one alternative however: create an alt. Many players will create alts, but will ultimately keep coming back to that first character, or “main.” But what if you could make that alt more powerful than your main, merely by hitting max level? Shaiya, by Aeria Games accomplishes this through a difficulty system. Here is the system as outlined by their website:

• Easy – This mode should only be played by those who have no experience playing MMORPGs. Level cap is 30, experience gain is 2x, and no special skills are available.
• Normal – This mode is for players who have some experiences with MMORPGs. Players must reach level 50 in Normal mode before Hard mode will be made available.
• Hard – Level requirements are much harder in this mode, but Status and Skill Bonuses are increased. Players who reach level 50 in Hard mode will unlock Ultimate mode.
• Ultimate – Level requirements are the same as in Hard mode, but Status and Skill bonuses are increased and players can use exclusive items, skills, spells, and bonuses only available to Ultimate characters. WARNING!!! Characters who die in Ultimate mode will be deleted if not resurrected within 3 minutes. This mode is only for those players looking for the Ultimate experience.

As you can see, as you reach max level in one difficulty mode, you upen up a harder mode, allowing you to create a new, more powerful character. I see this system having both pros and cons. On one hand, your new alts will be vastly different and more powerful, ensuring a new play experience, but you must abandon your previous character; twice if you make it to Ultimate mode. As stated above, many players identify with their first character, kind of a “coming of age” feeling. Leaving a max level character behind, one that is inherently inferior will be tough for many players. This new mechanic, however, allows those with the time and effort to achieve something more casual players cannot: rewarding them with superior characters. I can see this having a large effect on PVP near the beginning, but will even out eventually as more people ascend the difficulty modes. All in all, I think this is a new twist to MMORPGs in general, and I will be interested in seeing how it turns out.  Shaiya is currently in Open Beta.

Disclaimer: MMOCrunch takes no responsibility for any damage you do to yourself, others, or Orc Shamans.  Seriously, please be careful.

Have you ever seen a Fire Mage and thought to yourself, “Wow, that would be neat.” Who here hasn’t wanted to throw fireballs from their hands? Well, now you can in just a few easy steps. Just follow the directions at this site to create your own homemade fire balls! Impress your friends and get laughed at by your loved ones! You’ll laugh all the way to the fire extinguisher knowing that you were a Fire Mage at least once in your life.

Thought I might introduce myself here as I am one of the new MMOCrunch writers. My name is Andrew and I am an avid gamer and MMO veteran. My first and favorite MMO is Anarchy Online and cannot wait for Age of Conan to launch. I have played just about every major MMO on the market and Beta tested quite a few. I work in Information Technology so look for some Tech related articles in the future. Hope you enjoy my first article!

For many years, video games have been used as educational and learning tools. Realistic flight simulators have been in use by the United States military for quite some time and even our National Champion LSU Tigers use a modified football video game to run offense and defensive playbooks, but how can online worlds bring education and video gaming together?

Second Life, an online multiplayer game, gives users free range to create whatever they can, using the 3D modeling tools provided. Large communities have been created and an entire virtual world emerged. Many educators saw this as an opportunity to create something unique. Several university and college campuses have been erected on private and public areas, where classes meet and students collaborate. Hospitals are created to educate medical students. Banks and businesses have started to follow suit, experimenting with virtualization of their storefront operations. Even a US Defense Department grant looks to takes video game education to a new level.

With a new SCORM compliant project, the US government takes education to new places, literally. Utilizing a team of programmers, 3D modelers, researchers, and educators, the US Department of Defense has begun building a virtual China within Second Life. Created on its own private island with the aid of photos and maps, the virtual world is being used as a supplement to current diplomatic training to educate US diplomats and other government employees about China’s history, geography, and even how to use Chinese ATM and Subway ticketing machines. More than just text books and slideshows, this training aims to ensure that government agents not only know China, but also how to function within China. If this virtual training succeeds, perhaps the scope of the project will grow to include more places, or even become a public learning tool. Why not model the entire world complete with historical landmarks, storefronts, and people? Learn to interact with people and machines from all around the world. Learn their customs, even their languages, all from this virtual world.

So where does this leave education in the future? Now that major universities and colleges have created there own campuses, can virtual education replace traditional online courses? With more virtual worlds in the works from Google and Sony, will virtual worlds start to become less of a game space and more of a living space? I just wonder how long the lines at the Virtual DMV will be.