Atari buys Cryptic

[Velorath]

DRAGONLANCE MMO?

Uh. Why would anyone want to make an MMOG out of the one D&D setting that was truly only about the heroes and their story? Doing crappy licenses like that is already half the problem of the genre.

It's the one D&D IP I can think of that has a very focused good faction vs. evil faction conflict, and would probably be the most ideal setting if you're doing a game with PVP/RVR.

[sidereal]

Speaking of which, why the hell doesnt someone come out with a DRAGONLANCE MMO?  As if jousting on dragons wasnt cool.

Getting mid-air corpse camped by XxxN00blerMaster1996xxX on his black dragon **CHICKENCHOKER** isn't nearly as fun as you're imagining it to be.  If it were, you'd already be in the beta for the Pern MMO.

Other players will ruin everything good about your favorite game.

[raydeen]

Cause people want to fly around on dragons?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpIvn4tMqKQ&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=jOr&q=dra 

I played that game, and even with the sucky controls and difficulty hitting things I still had fun.

I had fun too. Or as much fun as a 486/DX 33 would let me. Hmmm....might just have to try it again on ye olde DosBox....

[Ghambit]

Speaking of which, why the hell doesnt someone come out with a DRAGONLANCE MMO?  As if jousting on dragons wasnt cool.

Getting mid-air corpse camped by XxxN00blerMaster1996xxX on his black dragon **CHICKENCHOKER** isn't nearly as fun as you're imagining it to be.  If it were, you'd already be in the beta for the Pern MMO.

Other players will ruin everything good about your favorite game.

Quite true...  but just think of it, a Wing Commanderish Dragonlance MMO.  All those people that shun Sci-Fi games and giz themselves over Fantasy would camp out at the local Gamestop for a medievel version of Wing Commander (errr Jumpgate, err Ace Online), complete with landgrabbing, rts resource, dungeon running, DnD lore-enabled RvR and plenty of taverns.  Instead of adding a "power pack" to your "G-Gear", you'd add ruby-studded mithril ass-chaps to your custom Dragon; just after you turncoat respec from a Red Wizard to a full-on Black Mage and stab your fellows in the back, so you can lay with a voluptuous evil demigod with a penchant for ruling the World.   Cmon now, you know you want it.  (the game that is, not the ass-chaps)

Shoot... I'm about to go beg someone to build me an FSX/CFS Dragon addon.

[Fordel]

I'm all for it if I can be a Draconian Engineer. 

[Ingmar]

You will never get a D&D MMO, regardless of setting, without D&D mechanics unless the pnp game itself dies. So stop dreaming about this game; it will not, could not, be what you want it to be.

[Venkman]

Putting an object in the air and having it move fast isn't that impressive a feat.

CoH is right behind Planetside for fun flying. And unlike just about every other avatar-based MMO, you actually fight in the air. Even WoW with all its cash only occasionally bothers using flight for anything more interesting than a flying horse for travel (and then lost their will again by making it a new [old] achievement 7 levels after you already got used to using it  ).

Yea, I'm sure you can rattle off a hundred games nobody else has played from six different genres with superior systems. And yes, even old shit like XvT was better. But I'm thinking within just what this genre has done so far when I talk about the scale of fun flight. Because nobody's making Freespace 3 and I'm not into flight sims as the only game experience.

[UnSub]

In the dragon-oriented MMO I can see in my head: firstly, dump the D&D angle. Next: have dragon breeding (done tastefully, of course  ), dragon raising, dragons as ground battle mounts and as flying battle mounts. Dragon duelling. Different colour dragons too, so that you can make them specialise in other ways. Add in keep / castle building, territory control and troop management. Could be fun and something different.

EDIT: meant to throw in that Ubisoft was apparently also in talks with Cryptic. So Cryptic must have been able to wring some nice concessions out of Atari to go with them, given that Atari are a much riskier company to go with.

[Ghambit]

In the dragon-oriented MMO I can see in my head: firstly, dump the D&D angle. Next: have dragon breeding (done tastefully, of course  ), dragon raising, dragons as ground battle mounts and as flying battle mounts. Dragon duelling. Different colour dragons too, so that you can make them specialise in other ways. Add in keep / castle building, territory control and troop management. Could be fun and something different.

So dragon breeding (the real focus here)... we're talkin scaley-armored dominatrix dragon femmes in human form right?  Being able to transform is a common dragon trait.  Watching 2 flying monitor lizards breed is not my thing though.

But, I get the feeling you're lookin for Dragon Pokemon Online.

[UnSub]

But, I get the feeling you're lookin for Dragon Pokemon Online.

Pokemon can breed?

DO NOT LINK PICTURES, KTHX.

[sidereal]

He's confusing Pokemon with Monster Farm Online

[Lantyssa]

Drakan was pretty fun for fighting while flying.  But it's not (thankfully) Dragon Lance.

Pokemon can breed?

DO NOT LINK PICTURES, KTHX.

Awww.  I've seen a great one of Victory Bell...

[raydeen]

Sounds like we're talking about Dragonriders of Pern Online.

[Lantyssa]

I imagine it would get boring killing Thread after a while.

[Merusk]

Drakan was pretty fun for fighting while flying.  But it's not (thankfully) Dragon Lance.

Pokemon can breed?

DO NOT LINK PICTURES, KTHX.

Awww.  I've seen a great one of Victory Bell...

There used to be a whole newsfeed under .erotica that was dedicated to pokemon porn.  Oh my it was some bizarre shit.

[sidereal]

I imagine it would get boring killing Thread after a while.

Unless you could roll a Thread toon.
"Oh, I'm falling!  Yay, I leveled up my Falling skill!  Oh, I hit a guy and burned him!  Oh, I'm dead. . :("

[HaemishM]

There used to be a whole newsfeed under .erotica that was dedicated to pokemon porn.  Oh my it was some bizarre shit.

 

Just thinking about it... my mind is borken.

[Lantyssa]

I imagine it would get boring killing Thread after a while.

Unless you could roll a Thread toon.
"Oh, I'm falling!  Yay, I leveled up my Falling skill!  Oh, I hit a guy and burned him!  Oh, I'm dead. . :("

It has PvP that could put WAR to shame!

[Draegan]

In the dragon-oriented MMO I can see in my head: firstly, dump the D&D angle. Next: have dragon breeding (done tastefully, of course  ), dragon raising, dragons as ground battle mounts and as flying battle mounts. Dragon duelling. Different colour dragons too, so that you can make them specialise in other ways. Add in keep / castle building, territory control and troop management. Could be fun and something different.

AutoAssault with a dragon skin?

[UnSub]

As an unsurprising update: 2K drops ChampO as a title they will publish.

[Ghambit]

As an unsurprising update: 2K drops ChampO as a title they will publish.

And there goes the Spring release schedule.  Not that they would've made it anyways.

[UnSub]

Cryptic say their plans haven't changed at this point.

I do think they'll want to push it back a bit, but mainly because every bit of polish counts.

[Venkman]

They don't need to change their development plans. But getting that on shelf, yea, that's going to be the problem now.

[Goreschach]

They don't need to change their development plans. But getting that on shelf, yea, that's going to be the problem now.

Why do MMO's even need shelf space? They aren't exactly an impulse buy, and most people who plan on picking one up at launch have already downloaded the majority of the software through some kind of beta. I'd much prefer they just switch to an online distribution model.

[Venkman]

That is not the case for a new game's launch unless it's a big enough game to have started its marketing and PR campaign well before even beta began. And for that you need recognition and a big IP, neither of which ChampO has.

Someday down the road we'll all be jacked-in over FiOS, but we're a ways away from that

[Trippy]

They don't need to change their development plans. But getting that on shelf, yea, that's going to be the problem now.

How's that a problem? Atari will publish it now.

[Venkman]

Forgot the part that was, like, the thread title

[UnSub]

Most PC gamers still buy off the shelf. Some blanch at downloading several gigabytes, especially on a shared connection.

Also, ChampO is meant to be on the Xbox 360. They'll definitely need physical distribution for that.

[Ghambit]

There's no way they can restructure a distro deal and have the box ready in 1 quarter, for both PC and 360.  The legal BS alone would take that long and even if the dev. was done they'd have to delay.  Same crap happened to PotBS.

[Trippy]

What the hell are you babbling about?

[UnSub]

If ChampO launches Q2 2009, as has been their target, Atari have plenty of time to sort out distribution.

Game needs to go gold what? 30 days? 20 days? before launch to have the required time to print the DVDs and boxes.

This is not a late nor surprising switch given the Atari purchase.

[Venkman]

Depends on how quickly you can move the suppliers and distributors over from 2K to Atari, or how quickly Atari can get this into their own queue. It might be as easy as telling the retailers to expect the same game just from a different publisher, but I'm just guessing there.