Posts Tagged ‘Copernicus’

38 Studios: Amalur Marries Fighting Games & RPG’s

Friday, December 2nd, 2011, posted by Matt

from the Copernicus desk

Curt Shilling’s 38 studios is becoming increasingly vocal about their upcoming 3rd person action RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The title will be the predecessor to the BigWorld-powered MMO titled Copernicus, coming when its ready.

Steve Farrelly at Ausgamers interviews Reckoning Lead World Designer Colin Campbell…

There’s abilities, there’s talent trees, there’s the crafting systems and of course there’s RPG combat, but it’s amazing RPG combat. It’s marrying a lot of fighting games into an RPG, it’s not an action game that has a few small RPG elements, it’s very much a cohesive experience that way.

we have thousands of variations of weapons in the game, depending on our procedural approach to how these weapons get made and generated for the player to use and find.

So they can go through the world and on different replays, they’ll find different weapons and be able to build themselves in different ways and really find the things that work best for what they’re trying to achieve as a player.

I’m really excited about the open-world aspect of this; of running through and exploring those RPG and combat systems in this sprawling environment. So I can’t wait to see you guys check it out.

Interview: Kingdoms of Amalur & Copernicus

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011, posted by Matt

from the examination desk

Chris Nutt at Gamasutra has done a bit of an overview of 38 Studios’ Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, as well as its upcoming BigWorld-powered sister MMO, currently code-named Copernicus.

In 2006, star Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling formed a company, now called 38 Studios, to create an MMO. That game, codenamed Copernicus, is still in development at the company’s Rhode Island headquarters. He sought the cooperation of big names — artist Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn, and R.A. Salvatore, the author behind the popular Drizzt Do’Urden books — to help flesh out his franchise.

Nutt interviews Big Huge Games studio & project art director Tim Coman, about working with an legends like Curt Shilling, R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, on such an ambitious project…

For me, I always wanted to, from an art direction standpoint, look at something and say we shouldn’t be basing design necessarily off of the hardware. You should be basing it off of what’s right for the title. So, for us, we really wanted to combine the idea of building everything from the ground up… We’ve got tons and tons of concept art where we build these ideas around this stuff.

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38 Studios Releases Copernicus Portal

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011, posted by Matt

from the Copernicus desk

After an extended period of silence regarding their upcoming BigWorld-powered MMO, 38 Studios has finally released some information on the game.

The studio has confirmed that their MMO project, stealth-titled Copernicus, will indeed take place in the same universe as their upcoming Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

The Reckoning site showcases the upcoming single-player title, while adding a bit of information about the world that both Reckoning and Copernicus will take place in, while the Amalur site showcases R.A. Salvatore’s fabled 10,000 years of custom-written lore for the pair of titles.

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Curt Shilling & 38 Studios at Full Sail University

Friday, June 10th, 2011, posted by Matt

from the knowledge drop dept.

MLB and Games Industry Icon Curt Shilling paid a visit to Full Sail in Providence, 38 Studios‘ new home.

In May 2011, Full Sail University (fullsail.edu) welcomed 38 Studios (38studios.com), the Providence, Rhode Island-headquartered entertainment and IP creation company. Senior staff from 38 Studios, including Curt Schilling, the company’s Founder and former Major League Baseball and World Series-winning pitcher, held interviews to recruit graduates for potential job openings and concluded the visit with a lecture and Q&A session for students, staff, and faculty.

38 Studios is working on a stealth game project, tentatively titled Copernicus, with R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane. They’re licensing BigWorld as their server solution.

Read the full press release here.

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Salvatore & Schilling Speak – Copernicus and Big Huge Games

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010, posted by skg

from the Mad in Maynard desk

ZAM has an interview with the esteemed RA Salvatore and Curt Schilling of 38 Studios. In it they discuss their reasoning in driving their linked RPG world from studio Big Huge Games into the Copernicus IP, before and not after their BigWorld powered MMO ships :

Salvatore: When I came in and started working with the 38 Studios team, it wasn’t to simply create a game. Our goal was to create an intellectual property based on a world. A big world. A world where you could do anything you wanted to do. Because of that, when we brought in the guys at Big Huge Games, it was very easy for them to understand their parameters. It’s almost like telling a King Arthur story; you know the tale and the type of tale it is, but there are dozens of different stories that you can create from the characters and settings that are there.

More over at ZAM.

38’s Close talks up Vivox partnership and the IP in general

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008, posted by skg

from the Joystiq AGDC round-up dept.

Brett Close, head honcho at 38 Studios talks up some tidbits on their project in Boston, Copernicus, as well as their recent announcement with BigWorld partner, Vivox :

So, the announcement with Vivox, what’s that about?

So, that was about a couple different pieces: 38 Studios is all about very strong partnerships. Smart, strategic partnerships that allow us to deliver the absolute best for the customer, but also allow us to free our hands up to focus on building what we do best, which is building the game. Creating IP and building the game. We are licensing engine technologies like the Unreal engine and Big World, and in a similar way VoIP is nothing that you want to take lightly.

There’s a big operation there. I’m an ex software engineer, I know how it works. You can go write some basic VoIP but there’s so much more than just the protocol and transferring those packets. Vivox is the best of breed in the market for both the feature set, the technology, the business model and the operational model of us being able to offload the bandwidth and server demand to their servers. They offer incredible security solutions. Voice fonts allow one of the biggest and most exciting pieces to come together.

It’s always been if Andrea’s a giant orc and I’m playing a little human woman, and we start chatting it’s going to sound really silly. So, I can start applying voice fonts that make her sound like some big orc and make me sound like a little human female. There are so many things that they are doing right to deliver that kind of solution that it’s just easy, plug and play, we just want it. It delivers the best for us and it delivers the best for the customer.
Andrea: The community building aspect was obviously a major point for you.

Community is key. This isn’t just a product, it’s a service that you’re delivering to the community and continuing to build and perpetuate and cultivate that community. This is a key piece of delivering something that continues to enrich the community.

A peek at 38 Studios ‘Copernicus’ Concept Art

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008, posted by skg

from the It’s not ready for Primetime dept.

Nothing ‘in-game’ yet, but a short review with Thom Ang – Director of Art for 38 Studios by the team at Allakhazam.

“Thom, who was very recently hired and thrown into the 38 Studios frying pan, took charge from early on and made it clear that he wanted to talk about the concept art that they had to show us. One of the first topics of our conversation was “Idealized Reality”, which is going to be the official art standard or rather ‘calling card’ of 38 studios. The vision is that a game enthusiast will be able to look at a screenshot or video and be able to tell that it’s a 38 Studios game. They certainly seem as if they all have a very clear idea about the direction of the art: this game is going to be visually stunning.”

38 Studios is helmed by Brett Close and based in Boston, Mass.