Nerfbat - Grouchy Gnome

TenTonHammer recently posted a pair of interviews with 38 Studios about our audio and UI for “Copernicus.” The first interview is about our game’s audio with Audio Director Aubrey Hodges, most recently from EA Tiburon. The second is about our game’s user interface with Senior UI Designer Irena Pereira, most recently from Blizzard Entertainment.

“Hardcore.” It’s an ambiguous term. Everyone throws the word around. Everyone knows what it means. But not everyone agrees. Over the next few weeks (or months), I plan on investigating not only the term “hardcore,” but I plan to create a usable measurement of hardcore that we can refer to when talking about game design. I [...]

People often talk about balancing risk and reward. If a player is taking risks, they should be rewarded significantly. If a player isn’t taking risks they should be rewarded insignificantly. Most of us can agree with that — but have we agreed about it on a more fundamental level? What is risk? What is reward? [...]

After a 3 month furlough, massive hosts/MMO designers Ryan “Blackguard” Shwayder and Steve “Moorgard” Danuser return to discuss Death Knights from the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Show Notes: - You can find future episodes via the podcast feed or by hitting up MMOPodcast.com. - If you’d like to download the mp3 directly, [...]

I’ve talked about the Azeroth Advisor before (free, personalized character guidance for your WoW character), but I haven’t mentioned this: If you currently have a (free) subscription to AA, or sign up for one before the end of the year, you could win a sketch of your character from Todd McFarlane! Find out more at [...]

Did you know that World of Warcraft has a new expansion out called Wrath of the Lich King? Were you aware that EverQuest II has one coming next week called The Shadow Odyssey? Did you know that there is also one coming out for The Lord of the Rings Online called Mines of Moria? If [...]

Fallout 3 was everything I could have hoped for. I was worried for many reasons about the game. I loved the first two, and regard the first in particular as one of the most formative games in my background–it was one of the games that propelled me toward my destiny as a game designer. Bethesda [...]