Profile: Adrys
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• • The wife-aggro.com podcast 51: The Flying Labs Interview 2

  • I wanted to send you a little news blurb about our latest podcast, "The wife-aggro Podcast 51: The Flying Labs Interview 2."

    I got to talk with Rusty Williams of Flying Labs about their game, "Pirates of the Burning Sea."

    Topics included:
    The development of PotBS. What design decisions worked well, which ones didn't, and what they're doing to fix those that didn't.
    What prompted the recent server consolidation and what it means for the future of the game.
    What it's like being a game developer in the post World of Warcraft MMO Industry.

    The show can be found at www.wife-aggro.com/podcast as well as downloaded from most podcast sites (I-Tunes, Podcast Pickle, Podfeed, Odeo, etc.

  • Posted: 5/10/08 1:10 PM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • The wife-aggro Podcast 48: The Earthrise Interview

  • This week, Rage is joined by two members of Masthead Studios.

    Atanas Atanasov, CEO, and Apostol Apostolov, Lead Designer, visited our Ventrilo server to discuss their upcoming MMO, Earthrise.

    Some of the topics include:

    • An overview on the Continoma and Noir
    • The Types of Guilds in Earthrise
    • Guild versus Guild Combat
    • Guild and Player Housing
    • Crafting
    • Skill-based Characters
    • Vehicles
    • “Gold” selling

    Rage and I want to thank the folks over at Masthead for making this interview possible. It’s obvious that they’re passionate about their game and, after listening, I’m sure you’ll agree they have some innovation going on over there in Bulgaria.

    -Seth

  • Posted: 3/22/08 9:51 AM
    Earthrise
• • Earthrise Questions answered over at wife-aggro

  • I think there's a thin line between being truely innovative and creating a niche game.

    Most Dev teams will say that they're just trying to create the best game they can while being true to their vision but I think in the back of their minds they're all hoping to create the next million subcriber break out game (WoW's numbers are a freak in the industry so I'm basing my comments on the *other* successful MMOs).

    So, I think they're willing to slide in some innovation here and there but shy away from drastic gameplay changes for fear that they'll alienate too many MMO gamers.

    The PVE / PVP / Player Created Item trinity have become the 3 pillars that MMO games become successful on. And there's historic examples of games that have tried to exclude one of these 3 and either failed outright or had to come back later and add them in due to player pressure *cough* Guild Wars *cough* City of Heroes *cough*.

    Alot of money goes into the creation of an MMO these days. The dev teams where a handful of guys can rent a house and some computer equipment and kick out an Asheron's Call are awful rare any more. So it's only fair to give a team a break when they're designing to a well known audiance.

    I do think Masthead is to be recognized for trying some new things here. As are some other groups out there who are pushing the envelope a little one what the MMO norms are.

    We're working on getting an interview scheduled with these guys for our show, so please keep up the questions and comments. Maybe we can get them answered for you. And you never know, maybe it'll prompt MMORPG to give Earthrise an actual link from the, "Games in Development" part of their forums page.

  • Posted: 2/27/08 10:43 PM
    Earthrise
• • Earthrise Questions answered over at wife-aggro

  • We got the chance to submit some listener (and host :) ) questions to the Devs over at Masthead Studios who are developing the upcoming MMO, "Earthrise."

    Atanas Atanasov, CEO at Masthead Studios, sent us back his answers which we've posted up on our podcast website at www.wife-aggro.com/podcasts

    Enjoy.

    -Sethanon

  • Posted: 2/25/08 9:29 AM
    Earthrise