Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Marv Wolfman is a great name for a person, especially if that person is a comics writer who launched Crisis on Infinite Earths and invented Blade. The same guy is responsible for writing the story for PlanetSide 2, according to Gamespy. Presumably that won’t be too much a stretch for Wolfman because wait… they brought in a pro for the story? Really? They needed to bring someone in to write the story to “three factions fight over planet, forever”? The source Gamespy story comments “Nice. PlanetSide definitely needs a bit of meaning added to its conflict.” And I am thinking: No, it really doesn’t.

I wonder, actually, if this is some kind of commercial response to Firefall hiring Orson Scott Card? Anyway.

UPDATE: See below for SOE’s comment.
I hadn’t really considered PlanetSide 2‘s payment model. I just assumed it would be the same as PlanetSide. For I am a fool. Speaking to the efficiently named Chinese site 17173.COM, translated somewhat on the equally perfunctory title MMO Site, SOE president John Smedley gave a few hints about how it’s all going to work. And inevitably, it’s some form of Free To Play. But what form?

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UPDATE: Here’s the news from Sony.

“Customers outside the United States should be advised that we further discovered evidence that information from an outdated database from 2007 containing approximately 12,700 non-US customer credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes) and about 10,700 direct debit records listing bank account numbers of certain customers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Spain may have also been obtained. We will be notifying each of those customers promptly.”

Oh dear. The sites for Everquest 2, Planetside, and a bunch of other games are now all defaulting to a “maintenance” screen. The message reads: “We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).”

This is probably just Sony being thorough after last weeks debacle, but it’s nevertheless going to be causing a few frustrations this evening.

While we didn’t blog the release of the Blur Studios intro cinematic to DC Universe for some reason, this interview between DC’s Jim Lee and Blur Studios’ Tim Miller is just a fascinating analysis of craft. They go through the full intro, beat by beat, talking and debating the choices – what works, what they wished worked better and the thinking behind it all. If you’ve any interest in this sort of thing at all, it’s an enthralling ten minutes.
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The new free-to-play Clone Wars Adventure has just gone live. As in, open Beta where you can pop in and play. Since it’s in Beta there’s content unavailable – including the pay stuff, really – but the basic structure is there. And, as far as I can see, it’s basically a glorified chat-room (with dress up) and a whole load of mini-games you can play. In fact, while you can actually go to places in the world to start the games in an atmospheric fashion, it’s much easier to just press the play button and select from the list. It’s a fancy arcade, with you able to hop between Clone-Wars themed archetypal online games. For example, the sword-fighting is basically an Audition-clone, with whoever hammers out a sequence faster gets to win the clash-of-swords. The Tower Defence clone is probably my favourite so far, with the quality of others varying wildly. I did like the OTTP powering up of your guns in Starfighter when you get a combo going. Alas, the typing-game isn’t the Typing of the Dead… with Jedi thing you’d have hoped for. Anyway – you can sign up and play here or watch the new trailer with devs yabbering below…
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The Gamescom 2010 trailers keep on coming. VG247 noticed the latest one for DC Universe, which sort of sets up the moral question at the heart of the game. As in, is vigilante justice ever really justified, or is it just proto-fascism? As in, whether you want to be naughty or nice. Pictured is the Joker, who generally leans a little naughty. He’s punching Nightwing, who generally leans a little nice. Except isn’t Nightwing Batman at the moment? Would now be an apposite moment to mention Eddie Argos of Art Brut & friend’s new project, Spoiler Alert!, being songs about the Justice League. The Batman one which should enlighten you all about the current continuity. Anyway, out on November 2nd and here’s the videosity…
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What with my extra-RPS-ticular activities I should probably be careful with this one, yeah? Anyway – among the E3 assets there’s a trailer for the forthcoming (November!) DC Universe Online, which is trying to sell its “You’re a new hero and you get to choose whether to go good or evil and then fight alongside the legends” angle. And in its scripted manner, it actually does it pretty well. I also see the last set of assets released were a load of grabs of Power Girl, which seems to be some PR generously setting us up for a load of “Power Girl’s Assets” gags. I’m going to resist, instead talking about where I left a copy of the – actually very lovely – recent run around the house Delightful Fiancée stopped, considered it, then informed me “Power Girl’s breasts are ridiculous” before wandering off again. This is true. Er… trailer follows.
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Marco Weigel noted we haven’t actually written anything about this. This is no longer true, a disease cured by writeitude. In short: it looks like they’re going to be two options for a free Star Wars MMO this year. Firstly, you can pirate a copy of The Old Republic and hack someone else’s account. Secondly, you can play Clone Wars Adventures. It’s a free-to-play MMO based around the Clone Wars animated malarkies, featuring pets, housing, mini-games and all that sort of thing. You can also choose to play a Jedi, a Padawan or a Clone Trooper. Why would anyone play a Padawan? It’ll be like a racing game giving you an option between playing a driver or someone learning to drive. Anyway, it’s out in fall this year, and here’s the trailer…
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There’s a trailer out for Free Realms, showing off their ponies, both walking and flying. I’m posting it first, because it made me think of I’m On A Boat. And second, because it made me think of I Love Horses. And believe me, they’re below. But then I went to the game’s site to check stuff out, and it sort of needed me to be a NEW USER to continue, and then it had me create a character, and by that point sticking an email and password in didn’t seem a big deal, by which point it was downloading the game for me, because… because the squirrel kept telling me to.

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