News

According to the following announcement, Pwned Radio will be hosting Cheyenne Mountain's Dan Elggren on Sunday, May 25, 2008.

The Stargate Worlds studio head himself will be appearing live on Pwned Radio Sunday, May 25, from 8-10 p.m. Eastern!

Dan will be giving away rare items such as Stargate Worlds t-shirts and FireSky hats to viewers. Be sure to tune in!

Pwned radio, with Shane Hamelin and the Pwned Posse, airs every Sunday evening online.

You can find out more about the program HERE.

MMORPG.com editors had a chance to talk with Cheyenne Mountain's Joe Ybarra about Stargate Worlds. The discussion wandered through many subjects, not the least of which was the upcoming beta. As reported a week or so ago, the SGW beta has already procured over 100,000 beta sign ups.

Beta signup is open right now and Ybarra expects that closed beta will begin in the next couple of months to begin working on "pocket worlds", that is testing situations in quests, missions and combat. The community site is also being revamped and will soon contain a knowledge base and game information.

Finally, I asked if the actors and Stargate characters are involved in some fashion in the game. "Oh, very much so," said Ybarra, "We interact with the actors and they are all very interested in the progress of the game and sometimes have ideas for us. As for the major characters being in the game, most likely they will be used for live events."

Keep your eyes on this site in the next several weeks. We'll have some news for you as well.

Since we are dealing with computer-generated cyber worlds that are more than likely not our own creations, there are certainly roadblocks and speed bumps in these games that challenge roleplayers to improvise and adapt. These game mechanics come with the nature of the beast, and many are very necessary to the operation of the games, and are often so obvious as to threaten to pull a roleplayer out of character. While they may not be pleasant to experience during roleplay, their effect in-game can be at least lessened through the lens of imaginative roleplaying.

After only a couple of weeks of registrations, Stargate Worlds devs announced that they have surpassed the 100,000 mark.

Holy Hannah! In only half a month the closed beta registration list for Stargate Worlds has exceeded 100,000 applications!
"This is a huge milestone for our game," said Community Manager David Read, "but as a big Stargate fan myself this comes as no surprise. In the words of Executive Producer Brad Wright, this franchise has 'got legs,' no matter what medium it reaches. Stargate Worlds is sure to excel."

If you haven't gotten around to registering for closed beta, now is the time!

Fans have reason to be proud today. Thank you, community, for helping to spread the word.

If you haven't yet, do it!

Gamespot UK has posted a Q&A with Stargate Worlds developers Joe Ybarra, Rod Nakamoto and Dan Elggren. The discussion focuses on the progress devs are making towards a 2008 release and Project: Ascension.

GSUK: Can you tell us more about Project: Ascension?

Rod Nakamoto: Project: Ascension is a code name for a framework for fun games, much like a shopping centre is a framework for stores. A mall has big anchors like Macy's and Nordstrom's here in the United States. In much the same way that a mall brings together disparate stores and restaurants to offer a great entertainment package, Project: Ascension will bring together a variety of games, all in the online space. There's much more to it than that, but that's all we can tell you about [it] at this time.

Obviously Stargate Worlds won't have the full dynamic of Project: Ascension at launch. The full depth can't be achieved until there are multiple titles existing in the framework. We'll be announcing more of those titles this summer.

There's lots more to be read at Gamespot.

As game worlds become more and more advanced, they also grow larger and larger. The by-product of this improvement is the long distances that must be traveled between locations. For some reason, with this increase in world size, there is not a corresponding improvement in traveling systems. Indeed, there seems to be almost a perverse joy in sending players on quests that involve running back and forth between two distant points with no other objective but carrying a bickering message between a pair of NPCs.

Jim Moreno tackles the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: "Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!"

Stargate Worlds devs proudly announced that one day after opening beta sign ups, they had surpassed the 65,000 mark:

Only a day since the official announcement, the beta list for Stargate Worlds is already pushing 65,000 sign-ups!
"We are extremely excited and overwhelmed by the positive response by fans to get a chance to beta test," said Senior Community Manager Katie Postma. " It gives the dev team a feeling of support and encouragement to know that so many people want to share this game with us, and work with us to make it better and better!"

Remember that the beta process has just begun, so please be patient if you have not been accepted yet. Testers will be added slowly over time, ramping up with much larger numbers in the coming months.

If you have yet to register for beta, do so now!

You can sign up for the beta HERE.

Closed beta applications are now being taken by Stargate Worlds. Publisher Firesky announced that the registration process is now live in the following bulletin:

MESA, Ariz. - April 24, 2008 - Stargate Worlds, the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) from new publisher FireSky, is now taking registrations for closed beta at http://www.StargateWorlds.com.

The closed beta is an invitation-only test of the upcoming science fiction MMORPG Stargate Worlds. Invitations will be sent out this spring and summer as the Stargate Worlds team ramps up the numbers for testing.

Check out the rest by clicking below.

Sean Bulger's periodic community column today looks at the concept of Open PvP (player vs. player) and what it does to games and their communities.

A while back we talked about conflict between players and what sort of a role that it can play in a game and for communities. During this, it was noted that player competition can be implemented in numerous different ways. This week, I would like to revisit this discussion and talk about one of those particular methods: the open PvP world.

Open PvP is one of the more controversial topics in MMO circles and plenty of people have fairly strong opinions one way or the other on the subject. That said, I would like to explore both the positive impacts and negative ones on the player community. Open PvP has the potential to help bond a community fairly tightly, but it also has the potential to truly tear it apart as well.

Read more after the leap.