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[PAX East 2020] Azeroth Reborn: Nostalgia Trips at PAX
Nostalgia can be a heady thing. It’s also currently trendy, with two primary camps of opinions on the matter. There are those who honestly believe you can never go home again and that dipping too deep into nostalgia is a bad thing, often because it blinds people to the cool stuff already around them or prevents them from looking to the future and making progress
read more[PAX East 2020] Stack Up Looking After Veterans
In these uncertain times, it’s good to reflect on the organizations which are providing assistance to others. At PAX East, we had the privilege of speaking with Stack Up’s founder and CEO, Stephen Machuga about their mission. Stack Up is a nonprofit organization that was founded from a simple idea: veterans and active-serving military needed something to help their mental health.
read more[PAX East 2020] Marvel and Netmarble Announce Marvel Future Revolution
The resulting experience is the open-world RPG Marvel Future Revolution. The basic premise is a sort of mash-up of worlds called the Convergence where the heroes from each reality will be teaming up to save them all in conjunction with Omega Flight. The panel revealed expansive landscapes pasted onto our world that featured Sakaar from World War Hulk and Xandar from the Nova books, as well as mentioning a New Stark City where the heroes had Iron Man-ized costumes.
read more[PAX East 2020] Population Zero Gives You 168 Hours to Survive
Population Zero is a new entry into the genre of exploration/survival games, created by Enplex Games. Stranded on the planet Kepler with the survivors of colonization expedition, it’s the player’s goal to survive for 168 hours (7 earthly days) before they surrender to madness due to a mysterious Sphere.
read more[PAX East 2020] Panel Review: Build Your Guild: Make and Support Friends in Gaming
What’s interesting is that many large game companies tend to do the occasional celebration of this sort of camaraderie, but it’s rare that a company continues the tradition and in fact doubles down on it. ArenaNet started such an initiative last year called Friend/Ships, acknowledging both romantic and non-romantic lasting relationships that sprung up amongst their Guild Wars 2 community, and it continued this year with a modest booth on the show floor and a special panel at PAX East.
read moreHolly Longdale to Depart Darkpaw Games
In a heartfelt March Producer’s Letter on both the EverQuest and EverQuest 2 sites, Executive Producer Holly ‘The Windstalker’ Longdale announced her departure from both games’ leadership for a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’. She named Franchise Technical Director Jennifer Chan as her replacement and stated she would remain involved in the games as a player going forward.
read more[PAX East 2020] Exclusive Interview with LotRO Composer Bill Champagne
Big-time raiders aren’t the only ones who get world firsts. We here at MMO Central are pleased to bring you a world first, an exclusive interview with Lord of the Rings Online’s head of Quality Assurance and also the reigning game composer, Bill ‘Darth Celtics’ Champagne. We discussed a number of topics from both his spheres of influence in the game, so here’s the video of that interview, recorded at Standing Stone Games during PAX East.
read more[PAX East 2020] Interview with SSG Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini
With PAX East being in Boston, it’s natural for us to reach out to the resident MMO studio in the neighborhood every year, especially in light of the recent announcements made at their player meetup last week. We sat down with Standing Stone Games’ Executive Producer Rob ‘Severlin’ Ciccolini to ask questions about the state of both MMOs being developed by his studio, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online, and to gather more details on the big ticket items announced at the Adventure Pub.
read more[PAX East 2020] Big News at the Standing Stone PAX East Meetup
Standing Stone Games and their players raided the Adventure Pub in Arlington, MA on Friday night at PAX East 2020. It coincided with the 14th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons Online, and the big news was the announcements from DDO and Lord of the Rings Online’s Executive Producer Rob ‘Severlin’ Ciccolini, including an explanation why the LotRO Producer’s Letter is still pending.
read morePerfect World Entertainment Announces Star Trek Online: Legacy
This time, the update includes an homage to Original Series episode ‘The Savage Curtain’, returning players to the planet Excalbia in a two-part episode to pit them against villains from previous game content updates. They will have the benefit of some of Starfleet’s finest at their side, such as Seven (voiced by Jeri Ryan of Voyager and Picard) and Michael Burnham (voiced by Sonequa Martin-Green from Discovery).
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