It’s no news that iconic fantasy author R.A. Salvatore is part of the team working on 38 Studios’ upcoming BigWorld-powered MMO, Copernicus. He joins Curt Schilling, Todd McFarlane, and a host of game development icons in the MMO followup to the upcoming Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. This Boston Globe article focuses a bit on Salvatore and his role in narrative development.

“I tried to think of the people that were the best in the world at what they did,’’ Curt Schilling wrote in an e-mail, explaining why his Providence-based video game company, 38 Studios, partnered with Salvatore. The former Red Sox ace needed a detailed fantasy setting for two projects: A World of Warcraft-like online game currently called Project Copernicus (still in development), and a single-player game, called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (set to launch Feb. 7).

Chinese internet giant Netease licensed BigWorld Technology to build Genesis: Journey to the West, their hybrid MMO/tactics fighting game. It is a unique offering in the Chinese MMO offering, and is one of the multiple titles Netease is building on BigWorld tech.

See, here, some of the action as seen through the player’s eyes….

Wargaming.net has released patch 0.6.5 for its flagship game, World of Tanks.

Among the big changes is an entire U.S. Tank Destroyer line from tiers 1 through 9, two new maps and the introduction of the top-tier M46 Patton main battle tank.

Wargaming.net recently announced that World of Tanks has surpassed 3 million registered players!

2 million are now registered in Russia alone, while Europe and the US host over a million players and climbing fast. With the release last month in China, we’re certain that this is just the beginning of World of Tank’s meteoric rise.

“At the very beginning of development for World of Tanks, we were assuming that the maximum number would be around 600,000 players worldwide. Now, we have 2 million registrations in Russia alone, not to mention the Western audience and its immense growth,” said Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi. “With the tremendous number we’ve reached in Russia as well as the dynamics of community growth in Europe and North America, we are looking forward to the many more milestones to come.”

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” it’s on to the cat pet. It’s becoming increasingly clear, with each passing video, that the order of things in Moego tend toward: player joins/creates family, recruits various animal castles, which then release pets of the same animal type out of the gigantic building on their back. It looks like the animals and animal castles come out to fight… but, what we can say for sure is that this little guy carries a pipe and/or large ladle… which endears him to us greatly.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll take a little-bo-peek (unavoidable, sorry) at another acquirable pet: CRISPY SHEEP. We’re still not entirely clear on the meaning behind this little buddy’s name, nor are we totally clear on the “100%” bib that he/she is born wearing, but we love it. The video below showcases pet upgrading pretty well.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” here’s a couple more character classes: The Swordsman, y El Soulkeeper. A note on aesthetics: we’ve enjoyed the contrast of simple, strong tones on world assets, which provide a nice, clean canvas upon which characters in increasingly complex and awesomely-designed garb can run around doing their thing. We think this video exemplifies this pretty well.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” another look shall be had the legions of animal pets that the player will acquire through the course of the game. This time, it’s a Rabbit. We’re extrapolating here that the now-infamous animal castles (building-sized animals with buildings on their backs) are the source of pets in Moego. This is depicted in the video below, wherein a gigantic rabbit animal castle basically poofs a new rabbit in front of the bowing player character.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll peek at two character classes: The Monk, and Le Priest . Comprising the more spiritual side of the character class array, these short video overviews demonstrate some of the unique abilities and tendencies that these two exhibit. Our particular favorite, visible below, is the massive flying fist of doom that the monk throws around with reckless abandon… or is it controlled abandon? Do or do not, there is no try.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” it’s time for our first look at one of the key ingredients of the game’s unique hyperbolized world: PETS. In particular, you’ll find a video below featuring Dog… who is apparently a crack shot in a gentleman’s duel.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll now run through a couple of the game’s more domestic, albeit equally well-designed activities: Farming & Fishing.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll peek at two character classes: The Knight, and Ze Archer.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll take a look at one of the two opposing kingdoms in Moego: The Western Penguin Kingdom. Also shown here is the character creation screen for players who choose Penguin allegiance.

Also featured prominently in this video is the kitty animal castle, which will kill you with cuteness…. don’t turn your back on it.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,”, we have reached the point in the show were we take a look at… ANIMAL CASTLES. By far our favorite awesome anomaly to come out of the Userjoy collective brain, the animal castle is a superstructure riding on the back of a gigantic, but nonetheless adorable, uber animal. Undoubtedly, depending on which kingdom you fight for, your family will have access to the appropriate mobile animal castle, an entity that can be upgraded progressively over time. The strategic benefit of having a building-sized animal holding a building on its back should be, at the very least, moderately clear.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

MOEGO is a “community-ceentered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we unveil the Ninja Character Class.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

The Realm of the Titans dev team has unveiled a new class in their DotA-style, BigWorld-built game of awesomeness. Behold: Tidewalker.

Beta is closed, but accessible. go register before the flood!

The BigWorld-powered World of Tanks MMO has been receiving quite a bit of press attention recently, but this one surprised even us.

Behold the latest development in a long string of awesome emanating from Wargaming Studios in Minsk: La Gargantua.

The massive “treaded fortress” apparently sports a long-range impulse rail turret, mine-laying capabilities, and a host of other yet-to-be-revealed functions.

This news has the BigWorld team questioning a number of its assumptions about reality, but also whether or not this signals a new change in the theme of the until-now period-based tank warfare game. Should we be expecting even more futuristic tech appearing from vortices across the WoT world? Steampunk, anyone?…. anyone?…. Bueller?

Still, rumors suggest that this may be the work of an independent faction or individual using the BigWorld Indie development license.

At the very least, the WoT player community can’t complain any longer about Russian tanks being overpowered. This unprovenonced beast now takes the cake… and basically anything else it wants to take….

Yikes.

La Gargantua

In the following video, the Wargaming team convinces us with little-to-no arm-pulling to sign up for the EU or North American open betas.

Wargaming.net just announced an April 12 release date for it’s hit title World of Tanks.

“Our team has been working really hard to create a unique blend of action, strategy, simulation and RPG elements in World of Tanks, and now the moment all fans across the globe have been waiting for is right around the corner”, said Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net. “We are delighted to be finally announcing the release date for this ground-breaking title and invite all veteran players and those new to the game to enjoy tense and uncompromising armored warfare on World of Tanks battlegrounds”.

You can sign up now for the North American open beta here, or the European open beta here.

Wargaming.net recently announced that it has set the new World Record for Most Players Online Simultaneously on One MMO Server. Guinness stated that the World of Tanks Russian server broke the previous record on January 23, 2011 with 91,311 players.

Victor Kisliy, Wargaming’s CEO says that since that date, World of Tanks has set new records in excess of 120,000 concurrent players.

To get in on this runaway success, you can join the EU or North American open betas and break some records yourself!

Wargaming.net just released a new trailer to celebrate the launch of World of Tank’s Open Beta!

Wargaming.net has entered Open Beta stage for the EU and North American World of Tanks server groups!

Open Beta will be certain to swell the ranks of this popular title that has already managed to gain over a million registered users and recently logged over 70,000 concurrent users on their Russian server alone.

Final release for both markets is expected in Q1 2011

To sign up for the EU Open beta register here

The U.S. Open beta can be found here

Wargaming.net has just announced that their MMO World of Tanks has surpassed 500,000 active players!

The incredibly popular title, still in beta, has drawn over 700,000 registrations and recently was able to boast of over 40,000 concurrent users on the Russian open beta.

For more information, a key to the English language closed beta and client download click here

Wargaming.net has added a truncated American tank and SPG tree along with two new maps in their latest patch to World of Tanks.

You can get a key for the closed beta and download the client here.

Wargaming.net has added two new battle maps to their English-language closed beta test, bringing the total up to 12. Komarin features a small rural village setting in Eastern Europe while Cliff (pictured below) resembles the coastline of Normandy.

You can register, apply for a beta key and download the client here.

Wargaming.net is giving away a free Valentine tank if you register for a beta key at Massively.com.

“This lovely Valentine tank will send your enemies’ hearts a-flutter with its dynamically balanced metal treads, sturdy metal armor, and amazing maneuverability. In all due seriousness, however, this tank is a real tank that was used in WWII during 1938 to 1940 by the Allies and Soviet army in a wide variety of war theaters. The Valentine was considered to be one of the best tanks of WWII, and it will serve you well in your online fights.”

Click HERE to get your very own Valentine courtesy of Wargaming.net and Massively.com!

World of Tanks from Wargaming.net launched their Open Beta today for Russian-speaking players. If you can read Russian, the beta can be downloaded here.

World of Tanks

Massively awarded Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks as Best New Concept in their Best of E3 2010 edition.

Late last week Wargaming.net also released a wrap-up of its closed Russian beta with some interesting stats. They received 40,000 applications, averaged about 12,000 active players per day, and hosted over 4000 players simultaneously.

They are currently planning on launching their Open Beta Test in Russia by the end of the month. with other territories to follow soon.

Check out their latest teaser video here.

GD: Which will take center stage realism of gameplay? Or are we looking at a blend? If so what sort of split should we expect, 50/50, 20/80?

A good balance between realism and captivating gameplay – that’s what we are looking for. However, it’s rather hard to tell the proportion of each component in the game. As I’ve already said we’re not going to create absolutely realistic gameplay or introduce realistic controls as it’s just impossible. Alternatively, we are focusing more on tactics and cooperation within a team. We already see our beta-testers setting up well-coordinated attacks or making ambushes according to military guidelines of the day with flanking maneuvers, encirclements of enemy groups and strict distribution of roles in a battle, even though Clan Wars have not yet been implemented. That’s where realism is preserved. Regarding combat characteristics of military hardware, they are close to those of real tanks, though not completely identical, because the tank is not just a combination of such features as speed, armor plating or rate of fire… It has an enormous number of parameters that can be hardly modeled or even estimated.  If we take a look at two T-34 tanks – one produced in 1942 and one in 1943 – we’ll see vehicles with different characteristics because they undergone changes almost every month.  So we use a generalized image (or a “legend”) of a tank and construct its digital prototype.

With thanks to Game Debate.

The 8th Annual Russian Game Developers Conference (KRI) will be featuring two BigWorld-powered titles by IT-Territory and Wargaming.net.

Northern Blade and World of Tanks will both be on display at the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow starting Friday May 14 through Sunday the 16th.

Check this space next week for more information and updates on these two great MMO’s.

《三国群英传》，这是一个拥有12年历史的系列游戏，这是一个被数以万计的玩家记住的系列游戏，从单机版到网络版，一直被中国玩家所追捧。在单机版中，玩家们与电脑厮杀，挥洒着满腔热血，施展着雄才大略，最终一统全国！虽然倍感畅快，但却又感受到一丝丝孤寂和无奈，毕竟那只是战胜了电脑。

现在，十二年经典传承，新3D巅峰巨作！中国首款开放式战争网游《三国群英传2 Online》预计于5月开测。这里有全国有志之士与您同台竞技，让您能够充分施展自己的雄才大略，不愁英雄无用武之地。不仅如此，我们还将为您开启“百万公会计划”，重奖三国第一人！

活动奖励：
1,000,000人民币现金巨奖（税费自理）

活动规则：
自不删档测试开服后，各服务器开启的100天内，首个统一本服务器所有城市的公会，将会获得《三国群英传2 Online》颁发的100万人民币现金巨奖。

活动时间：

　　不删档测试开启当日-2010年12月31日

　　各服务器活动周期：100天

　　报名时间：40天

　　公会绑定时间：30天（开服后，开启军团与公会绑定功能）

　　活动结束判断：

　　（1） 单组服务器开启100天内，只要有一个公会统一该服务器三国势力，活动结束。

　　（2） 2010年12月31日前若未有公会统一服务器，活动结束。

　　活动流程：

　　报名创建公会→不删档测试开启后，招募游戏内军团前往活动页面与公会绑定→统一三国→公会长领取百万现金。

十二年经典传承，新3D巅峰巨作，中国首款开放式战争网游《三国群英传2 Online》于2010年4月25日24：00圆满完成中国大陆地区盛世内测。4月26日《三国群英传2 Online》将开启全新旅程开放不删档测试游戏大区激活和客户端下载，迎接从5月10日开始的中国大陆地区大规模不删档测试。

Some of the stock example water distortion, reflection and active surface in the BigWorld 3D client including interaction of atmospheric effects like rain on the water surface.

BigWorld texturing Brushes allow you to save texturing masks for later use. Here a snow brush detects relatively flat areas of high altitude.

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.

Martin Wilkes from fMod took some time out at GDC to wax lyrical on all things audio on the floor at GDC 2010 in San Francisco :