Back when Mongbat was formed, our goal was to play Warhammer Online together. And it worked – for a while. The game was riddled with flaws that, little by little, put us off until there was nobody else left playing. In the end we are left here, missing the good times that were shared but the love simply isn’t there anymore and, as any kind of relationship goes, if the blond one makes you miserable despite her looks, go for the brunette or the redhead.

The point I’m trying to make throughout this convoluted mess of a post is that, as a group, we have moved on. Sorry Warhammer, it was fun, but please stop calling, I’ve already given you your stuff back – and bitch, don’t dare and try to steal my money from my bank account. While we did try many games, there is a consensus that the game that we truly are going to be all playing together is the new Star Wars mmorpg, which is coming soon but not soon enough, for many.

So we, the geeks of Mongbat welcome our new Bioware overlords.

May the future be shiny and fun and may we never run out of things to do as a group.

–Blind.

1. We’ll start with a serious one. What are your favorite couple games ever, and why? (there are few more important questions to a gaming community)
My gaming now spans over 30 years, yes I’m an old gamer 
Favorite Old games: Robotron, M.U.L.E, Populous, Age of Empires, Street Fighter
Favorite MMOs: City of Heroes, World of Warcraft
Favorite Shooters: Battlefield, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty MW2

2. Was there a specific game(s) that inspired you to want to actually develop games?
After I started playing City of Heroes I became very interested in developing a game (again, since I made some games while in college).  I enjoy playing with a good community and enjoy the character progression, but I also had a couple of major  issues: 1.  There was nothing significant for my top level characters to do, and 2.  tab targeting felt very artificial.

3. If there were no GA, and you had the choice of two projects- would you rather have helped design the best Multi-Player FPS of all time, or the best MMORPG of all time?
That’s a hard question because to me the best Multi-Player FPS of all time would have MMO features and the best MMORPG would have multi-player FPS features

4. From a development standpoint, were there any aspects of the making of GA that surprised you guys? Any unforeseen roadblocks, etc?
All software products tend to take 2x the amount of time you want/expect them to take.   There are many small roadblocks and limitations that you need to work around but no one single major issue.

5. Within your studio, if Random Joe the background artist has a great idea for a gameplay function, are the boss’ open to that, or do people generally stick in their own cubicles because they know the decisions have already been made?
Many people have ideas and some get incorporated into the game, the general problem is usually having too many ideas and finding the few that do make sense for us to implement.

6. Speaking to that, and the question before it- how different is GA now from how it was originally thought of/conceptualized? How exciting is that evolution of a game for the people working on it?
The core game is about what we expected (in fact if you look at the early design thoughts it’s fairly close), the implementation of those concept went through hundreds of iterations and those do tend to take a toll on people.

7. Other than devilish charm and Disney prince good looks, what are some key qualities for a person who wants to make games for a living? Is it all in the imagination? Discipline? Father’s bank account?
Making a games for a living is not much different then most other ’software’ type jobs.   Having good work habits is the most important quality since you can get experience in a fairly short amount of time.

8. Let’s talk to the YOU of January 2008. What advice do you tell yourself about what’s coming up at Hi-Rez? (and I’m not talking about the twinkies Travis laced with laxative…oh that Travis)
…If the question is what we would do differently, then the general answer would be dozens of small things that we learned over time about everything from performance considerations to art pipeline.

Now more GA focused:

9. Is there anything that you can speak to, that you personally wanted to fit into the game but just couldn’t get to work, or didn’t have the time/resources for?
There are dozen of small things I would like to add, but all the key elements are in the game.  Given the MMO nature we should be able to add those over time.
Some examples would be more PvE content with different fights, more achievements and stat tracking, a more polished UI system.

10. MMORPGs work. FPSs work. Why did you guys feel the need to make a whole new genre? Was it marketing, or is it something you think gamers actually crave?
It’s something that I personally craved and had the resources to make happen.

11. Now that closed beta is finished, are you pleased with how you structured it? Did it all go how you hoped?
The closed beta was generally what we expected.

Here’s one from a member of our community-

Bird asks:

12. What is Hi-Rez doing to ensure a healthy life for their game releases (IE what measures are being taken to not end up like AoC, WAR, ETC)
We try to under promise and over deliver, we expect a fairly clean game release, we believe we have a good on-going game format (end-game) that will keep players interested.

13. If someone doesn’t belong to an agency… they smell funny or something- can they still experience all the game has to offer? Will they feel penalized for being a loner?
It’s possible to play all parts of the game without belonging to an Agency.  For AvA specifically, you would most likely not get the full ‘feel’ of it unless you were in some kind of group (even a small group with just a few friends)

14. I doubt it, but any last minute super secret announcements that you want to put out before the game launches?
We don’t keep too many secrets around here 

That’s all I got good sir. Thanks for your time.

What I leaned coming out of this, is Erez is making a game for the absolute best reason.  He saw what other games were missing, and wanted to make something that would fit to what he’d enjoy playing as a gamer.

…    there could be no nobler cause.

–Slade

EVE saw quite a bit of activity but in the end of the year, many of us got back to WoW, believe it or not. If you plan to adventure there, be sure to check out the Dragonmaw server, where we play under the banner of Mongbat.

Now, what does 2010 hold in store for us all? Soon Global Agenda and Star Trek will be released, then Final Fantasy XIV, followed sometime later hopefully by some Diablo 3 beta and maybe, Star Wars: Old Republic will go live in the summer!  So, be it in space, in creepy dungeons, on the back of a Chocobo or in high-tech warehouses, we fight the good fight. It sure seems like a good year to be a Mongbat.

Come check our forums and have some fun. :]

-Blind.

I know there are quite a few people anxiously awaiting the PS3 slim, and a price drop. So maybe this is hope for you? Or maybe you have an explanation as to why the consoles would be blurred out? Because I sure don’t have a clue. I have to assume that Sony will eventually “slim” the PS3 sooner or later, and of course, a price-drop will happen. The question is simply “when?”

SOURCE

-Tenser

One of the more recent pieces of nonsense I’ve been into is a internet show called “There Will be Brawl.” It was introduced to me by Tober (whom i sure most of you remember), and it uses a “What If” storyline. It’s a pretty recent creation. They are only up to their 6th episode, which was just released not long ago. I encourage you to check it out.

Now, i know none of this is exactly “news” per-se, I’ve just always been intrigued by this sort of thing, and was curious to hear if there are other similar shows that you guys might be into.

-Tenser