 | Maxis internal SimCity memo leaks Mar 8th 2013, 16:20 Studio general manager says server rollout in North America has been "challenging," promises studio is working 24/7 to fix issues. 
Polygon has obtained an internal memo from Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw. It comments to developers on SimCity's rocky launch in North America and outlines the developer's plans to address the game's ongoing server woes. "I'll start by saying that I couldn't be more proud of SimCity and the Maxis team that made it and are supporting it," Bradshaw wrote. "The game launched with great reviews from both new critics and the veterans who have loved this franchise for so many years. SimCity is a software achievement that everyone at Maxis is extremely proud of (her emphasis). I am also thankful for all of the hard work put in by our marketing, EA Global Publishing and Origin teams, which drove very strong Day One performance around world." "Then we launched it," she added. Bradshaw said more than 700,000 cities were created by players in the game's first 24 hours, but also acknowledged that a portion of gamers are "experiencing server instability and consequently, the rollout in North America has been challenging. It's also now evident that players across Europe and Asia are experiencing the same frustration." Maxis' top goal, Bradshaw said, is to "quickly and dramatically increase the number and stability of our servers and with that, the number of players who can simultaneously access the game." A trio of new servers were added yesterday and more will be introduced this weekend, she said. Bradshaw said Maxis is working "24/7" to fix the SimCity server issues and also commented on review scores for the game. "I'd like to say that it's not fair--that the game score shouldn't be punished for a server problem," she said. "But it is fair (her emphasis). SimCity is an online game and critics and consumers have every right to expect a smooth experience from beginning to end. I and the Maxis team take full responsibility to deliver on our promise." For more on SimCity, check out GameSpot's review. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Ultima creator reveals Shroud of the Avatar Mar 8th 2013, 16:02 Industry veteran Richard Garriott announces his "ultimate RPG" coming to PC; Kickstarter campaign asking for $1 million underway. 
Ultima creator and role-playing game founding father Richard Garriott today announced Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, the industry veteran's "ultimate RPG." Garriott's Portalarium studio is heading up development on the project, with a Kickstarter campaign for the PC game going live today asking for $1 million. Describing Shroud of the Avatar, Garriott told GameSpot that the game is both emblematic of what he's created in the past and also a vision into what the future of role-playing games could look like. "I not only believe it will hearken back to my work of the past, but I believe it also makes some important strides forward in what a multiplayer role-playing game can be," Garriott said. Shroud of the Avatar (which has nothing to do with the World of Warcraft item of the same name) is not a single-player game, nor is it a massively multiplayer game. Instead, it's somewhere in between, Garriott explained. "It's a game you can play completely solo and offline, but it's also a game that ad-hoc will feel more like an MMO when you are online, in the sense that you'll see both friends and strangers in the world alongside you," he said. Regarding structure, Shroud of the Avatar will be made up of two distinct elements: an outdoor travel map and then third-person encounter scenarios. Garriott described the overworld map as similar to that of Civilization V. "We are not doing a social game; we're not doing a game where it's free-to-play then it endlessly pesters you for money. That is also not what we are doing." "And as you travel around the map it will feel like an Ultima 3-6 feeling. You'll see both static locations that you can go find, whether they're towns or dungeons or other points of interests, as well as you'll see mobile points of interests like bands of gypsies travelling around or dragons flying around mountains," Garriott said. "And when you then find that encounter, it will take you down into what we call the scenario-level activity, which is a third-person, over-the-shoulder exploration of a scene," he added. "And the scenes are story-based scenarios that you can complete in five-to-30 minutes and it can be completed or played solo or multiplayer." In terms of pricing, Garriott said the game does not easily fall into a simple category. It's easier to explain what the game is not, he said. "It is neither what I'll call a standard retail boxed game where it'll have a retail price and that's the end of it; nor are we anticipating that it will be subscription-based MMO," Garriott said. "But at the other end of the extreme is also what we're not going to be; we are not doing a social game, we're not doing a game where it's free-to-play then it endlessly pesters you for money. That is also not what we are doing." "What we are doing is somewhere in the middle," he added. "We're doing a game where we will make the trial version you can play for free. But then as soon as you really want to participate in a meaningful way, there's a game cost; so we don't have an exact price for that. " The first alpha testing period will be held at the end of 2013, if all goes to plan. For more, check out Garriott's comments on how his exotic travels--including trips to space and to the Titanic wreckage--have affected his creative process. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Assassin's Creed: Rising Phoenix surfaces online Mar 8th 2013, 15:30 Leaked logo reveals connection with Ubisoft Digital Arts, suggesting a new Assassin's Creed tie-in could be on the way. 
An image showing the logo of something called Assassin's Creed: Rising Phoenix has appeared online. The background of the leaked image (spotted by All Games Beta) shows an environment with the logos for the Erudito Collective, the shadowy organisation seeking to unravel the other shadowy organisation Abstergo Industries in the series' present-day storyline. Text in the corner on the image mentions Ubisoft Digital Arts, which previously worked on live action Assassin's Creed II tie-in Assassin's Creed: Lineage. The recently announced Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag features a modern-day storyline where the player takes the role of a researcher at Abstergo, though Ubisoft is staying tight-lipped about specifics. Assassin's Creed is no stranger to crossing over into books, comics, and animation, with previous work including animated short Embers and comic series The Fall. Ubisoft declined to comment when approached by GameSpot. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | No plans for free-to-play StarCraft II Mar 8th 2013, 15:02 Blizzard game director says developer has not yet found design choices that would fit the model. 
Blizzard has no plans to transition StarCraft II to a free-to-play business model. Game director Dustin Browder commented on the matter during a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything session, saying though such a switch may work for certain games--like Team Fortress 2--it would not for StarCraft II. "We have no plans to go free-to-play in the traditional sense. We do have a trial version that allows players to check out the game but it isn't like Team Fortress 2," Browder said. "Valve did make a lot of changes to Team Fortress 2 to make that game work for free-to-play," he added. "We have not yet found design choices for StarCraft II that we would be happy with to make it free-to-play, so we aren't going to do it." Team Fortress 2 became a free-to-play title supported by microtransactions during summer 2011. Since the business model switch, the game's player base jumped fives time over. In September last year, Browder said Blizzard was "looking at" turning the multiplayer portion of StarCraft II into a free-to-play experience. The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red recently called the free-to-play model "strange and awkward." Studio head Adam Badowski said though there may be money to be made in this market, it is still "far from perfect." StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm launches March 12. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | EA not offering refunds for SimCity digital copies Mar 8th 2013, 13:16 Publisher says it generally does not offer refunds for digital games sold through Origin. 
SimCity publisher Electronic Arts is not offering refunds for digital copies of the city-building game sold through Origin amid the game's ongoing server woes. "As a general policy, EA does not offer refunds on any products downloaded through Origin," the company said on its Returns & Cancellations support page. Gamers who purchased a physical copy of SimCity through the Origin Store can seek a refund as part of the company's 14-day unconditional guarantee. Origin global community manager Marcel Hatam commented on SimCity's rocky launch in North America on Tuesday, apologizing to gamer's through the EA forums. He said (via Polygon), "If you regrettably feel that we let you down, you can of course request a refund for your order." However, Hatam's post has since been edited, and now simply reads "please review our refund policy," with a link to the above-mentioned document. In addition, Develop spoke with an Origin customer support representative, who told the site that "refunds are only given in exceptional circumstances." Asked if SimCity's server issues came under that description, the representative said, "not right now." SimCity launched today in the United Kingdom, where the game--as promised--is not experiencing notable server issues. For more, check out GameSpot's review of SimCity. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Tomb Raider logs 1 million players Mar 8th 2013, 12:44 Latest Lara Croft game from Crystal Dynamics sees seven figure player base in under 48 hours following launch. 
More than 1 million gamers have played Tomb Raider in its first 48 hours after launching on Tuesday, according to a tweet from global brand director Karl Stewart. It's not clear if this figure is all sales or just those who have played the game online since launch. Stewart also noted that additional shipments of Tomb Raider are now heading to stores that may be running low on stock. Tomb Raider is available today for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It is the first core entry in the series since 2008's Tomb Raider: Underworld. For more on Tomb Raider, check out GameSpot's review. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | SimCity launches in the UK without major connectivity woes Mar 8th 2013, 10:53 Problems that plagued US launch of SimCity seem to avoid the UK for now. 
The launch problems that have hobbled SimCity since its US release on Tuesday seem to have avoided the game's UK launch. SimCity was made available in the UK at midnight and, so far, seems to be working. GameSpot has managed to successfully and repeatedly login to SimCity, which requires a constant connection to the game's servers in order to function, and play the game this morning. EA said this week that it was "confident" the game's European launch would avoid the same missteps that saw the game's US release completely hobbled by connectivity problems. "Good news, Mayors--we just added a brand new #SimCity server: Europe East 3. Hop on and start building," tweeted the official SimCity account this morning. In total two new servers for Western Europe and an additional server for Eastern Europe. EA's next test will be whether the game's European launch can cope with the stress of the peak evening and weekend period. Overnight, Amazon pulled digital copies of the game from sale, citing the ongoing server issues, while EA disabled some of the game's features--including Cheetah speed, leaderboards, and achievements--to reduce stress on the servers. GameSpot's SimCity review has also gone live, where the game received a score 5.0. "The bugs will probably be fixed, the wrinkles smoothed, and the online problems sorted out. What hurts most, though, is that it didn't have to be this way. SimCity's makers looked to MMOGs for ideas on how to bring players together, but didn't absorb the lessons MMOG developers learned long ago on how to implement practical online play. SimCity (the game) isn't the pinnacle of the series, but it's super fun. SimCity (the service) is a disaster," said reviewer Kevin VanOrd. After posting yesterday to say that EA was committing "everything we have" to fixing the game, SimCity senior producer Kip Katsarelis returned to the EA forums to once again apologise for the troubled launch and to update fans on the current status of the game. "Server capacity is our biggest obstacle," said Katsarelis. "We launched in North America on Tuesday and our servers filled up within a matter of hours. What we saw was that players were having such a good time they didn't want to leave the game, which kept our servers packed and made it difficult for new players to join. We added more servers to accommodate the launch in Australia and Japan, and then more yesterday to accommodate the launch in Europe. As of right now, we are adding even more servers which will be going live over the next three days. And, our plan is to continue to bring more servers online until we have enough to meet the demand, increase player capacity and let more people through the gates and into the game." Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Former Epic Games president Mike Capps parts ways with studio Mar 8th 2013, 10:00 Mike Capps leaves advisory role at Epic Games to focus on family. 
Former Epic Games president Mike Capps has announced he is leaving his advisory role within the studio, and will no longer be affiliated with the prominent developer. Capps had held his advisory role since December 2012, when he stood down as Epic Games president. "When we announced that I wanted to transition out of my leadership role at Epic, the plan was for a continued but less active role, service on the board of directors, and ideally, being that eccentric semi-retired guy who still comes to playtests and gold parties," said Capps on his Facebook page. "I’m sad to say that plans have changed, and as of February 11th, I’m no longer affiliated with Epic Games. I have many wonderful memories of my time at Epic, and I wish my friends there all the best in their future projects." Capps intends to remain part of the video game industry, but is now focusing on family. "Games have been so good to me, and I’m delighted to have the time to give back. I’m a member of several game industry boards, and I’m proud to serve as an advocate for our art in Washington. I’m considering seats on a few company and advisory boards, as well as options for teaching at one of the world-class universities in the North Carolina Triangle area. And mostly, I’m focused on being a new dad in a few short weeks. Time is flying by, and I’ve still got a dozen games I want to play before the UnSleep begins!" Epic Games' next title, Gears of War: Judgment, will be released on March 19 in the US and March 22 in Europe. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
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