General News - Carbine Studios Team Includes WoW and Fallout Designers

magerette

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Strictly speaking, this is MMO related news, but general rpg readers may be interested to hear that along with 17 ex-Blizzard employees including WoW lead developer Kevin Beardslee, former Fallout designer and Troika co-founder, Tim Cain joins the MMO developer, Carbine Studios, as vice president of design.
Gamasutra gives the basic information on NCSoft's latest online game developing company in a short clip here, while Gamespot has an interview with Beardslee and two other Carbine Studios developers about their latest project and set-up, including a bit about Cain's qualifications:
GS: Speaking of the creative, a lot of the Fallout fans were interested to hear that Tim Cain will be involved in the project. What has he been bringing to the game?
JG: Tim's kind of a triple threat because he is a super nice, experienced guy to work with who's seen all sorts of cool projects--from some of what I consider to be the best role-playing games of all time across a whole slew of genres. He's also a killer programmer, and he's also a top-notch designer. That's like, three good hires in one for Tim. And he's a friend of ours. He's worked with a number of the studio's founders before. So what he brings to the court is all of that. I think a lot of the same sensibilities led into the Fallout design and some of the neat aspects of that are making their way into this, especially as he codes systems that he coded in Fallout. On top of that, he's a great manager. We probably underpay him, actually. We'll go give him a raise after this talk.
More information.
 
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Tim Cain is back in game business? Is this real or some kind of joke? Oh my gosh, this can't be true.

Edit: Hope they hire Jason too, I remember reading somewhere on the net he was interested in MMO development too. I guess that somewhere was here.
 
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Surprised me, too. I hadn't heard anything about Cain being back in the biz. Good news, imo, even if it is MMO.
 
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Brother None mentioned that both Cain and Boyarsky were still part of the
game industry several times in relevant threads around here...

And I could definately see J.A going onboard after his recent interview
(No reason to assume that they are considering him ofcourse).

Too bad (for me) that I am in no way interested in MMOs. I would have loved
to get my hands on something new out of these people...
 
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Too bad (for me) that I am in no way interested in MMOs. I would have loved to get my hands on something new out of these people...
I feel exactly the same. Hopefully he'll make tons o' pieces o' eight on the MMO and then come back to the realm of SP RPGs where we love him so much.
 
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Probably should have said "hadn't heard anything this specific" :) I do vaguely remember BN referring to it now that you mention it, though. Apparently they kept this under wraps a bit while the studio was forming, according t the GS interview.

I agree with you guys about it being a shame from the SP perspective but it's always good to see talented people get work in any aspect of this field. It can't be a bad sign, and maybe someday we'll see some SP stuff.
 
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The first WoW-Quests on both Human and Orc-Side had IMO interesting Storylines (The Influence of the Burning Blade Cult in Orgrimmar and the missing King in Stormwind) but the Questlines suddenly stop and only around Lvl 60 you get another Glance at these Storylines - probably because of the Blizz-Designer-Exodus...

A blend between the Spirit of "Primal-WoW", the Troika-Games and Fallout would be awesome and while I stopped paying WoW because IMO the AddOn (and of course human nature) destroyed the last bit of Atmosphere of the Game, I would like to try another MMORPG. Maybe the *not so bright* Players stay with WoW :)
 
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I loved WoW for a long time, and I'd like to find a new MMO. I think it's a bit silly to just say 'I don't play MMOs' or ignore any game that's an MMO. WoW was successful because it's a great single-player game that hooks you in, and keeps you hooked. It helps if you enjoy phat-lewt and playing dress-ups as well.

I found the social environment interesting as well. Watching boys who clearly have no idea about how to talk to girls try was pretty funny. People talk about how being female is the most overpowered ability in an MMO, but being a male who is not socially-retarded is almost as good.

I agree that some kind of cross between the original WoW and Fallout/Arcanum could be a pretty cool game. Is there any fundamental reason why MMO quests can't have the same sort of choice and consequense as single-player RPG quests?
 
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Badesumofu wrote:
I agree that some kind of cross between the original WoW and Fallout/Arcanum could be a pretty cool game. Is there any fundamental reason why MMO quests can't have the same sort of choice and consequense as single-player RPG quests?

No reason in the world that I know of, and my reason for not playing multi player games isn't that I think they're inferior in any way. Looking at the talent in this Carbine Studios team, for instance, it would be hard to imagine that they would turn out schlock.

I don't play because my few experiences playing LAN have convinced me that I would only embarrass myself or hold back a group. I'm old and sl-o-o-w. :) I suppose if the right game came along it could change my mind.
 
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I'm really hoping that the MMO Carbine is making will re-shape the genre somewhat. Have more proper quests rather than grinding on gathering drops and come up with a better end-game structure than raiding.
I'd dearly love for a return to something like Arcanum's world, but from the concept art on the Carbine website it doesn't look that way and the music isn't at all reminiscent of that game. It looks maybe a bit John Carter Of Mars-ish in inspiration, which would be extremely cool as well, and while not like Arcanum it does come out of a similar aesthetic.
 
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