DC Universe - Programming Blog

Cryptic Gives Away Another Free Champions Weekend [MMORPG Champions Online to Bring New Player Ccostumes and Quests]

20 Nov 2009

Champions Online, Free Sample

Super hero-themed MMORPG Champions Online is having its second free-play weekend, after only being released two months ago and having its first free-play weekend one month ago. The upcoming free-play weekend, which will be based around Thanksgiving, will coincide with an in-game content update called ‘Nemesis Confrontation’, and will feature new player costumes and quests.

The developers of the game hope that it will lure new players in, as the new quest kidnaps the player to an intergalactic prison where you have to fight your way out to freedom. However, as good as it may sound and despite a lukewarm launch reception,the folks from Cryptic Studios had several adverting campaigns, like reduced subscription deals, price drops and free-play weekends, which leads one to wonder if the game is actually struggling for subscriptions. But since exact numbers of active subscriptions are rarely released publicly by a MMO developer, and usually only when the game is doing well, all these are only speculation.

Champions Online faces competition from City of Heroes, Cryptic’s first super hero-themed MMO that is now being run by NCSoft, and a pending DC Universe Online, a game with the popular DC Comics license.

The ‘executive producer’ of Cryptic is Bill Roper, formerly of Blizzard Software and Flagship Studios, who worked on such critically acclaimed games like Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3, but also worked on MMO bust, Hellgate: London.

See: Cryptic Gives Away Another Free Champions Weekend [MMORPG Champions Online to Bring New Player Ccostumes and Quests]

Posted in Computer/Console Gaming on 2009/11/20

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Tags: Bill Roper, blizzard software, Champions, City, Cryptic, DC Comics, DC Universe, flagship studios, game, London, online, technology gadgets, Weekend

Animators Collaborate on Facebook All the Way to the Theaters

In: web resources

18 Nov 2009

Last fall, Mass Animation, which calls itself the largest global animation collaboration ever, posted an invitation on Facebook for artists around the world to collaborate on the making of an animated short film. This film is now getting a theatrical release this week with Columbia Pictures’ Planet 51 release. It’s called "Live Music."

"When artists arrived at Mass Animation’s virtual studio on Facebook, they were given the essential tools and animation software necessary to participate, including individual storyboards and 3D models bundled for download along with guidelines on animation," a representative for Facebook tells WebProNews. "Through the social networking features of the application, animated shots could then be viewed, voted on and shared with friends."

"’Live Music’ reflects the input of 58,000+ participants from 101 countries and 51 animators who collaborated in the making of this unique film, which introduces Mass Animation to the world," she adds.

Mass Animation has illustrated to a great extent what can truly be acheived with collaboration efforts on Facebook (or social media in general). It probably helps that Mass Animation puts so much focus on Facebook as a tool. They even use their Facebook page as their website. If you go to massanimation.com, it redirects to facebook.com/massanimation. That’s some dedication to a specific channel.

Now Mass Animation is involved in another Facebook project with Sony Online Entertainment and DC Comics. This week the DC Universe Online Animation Contest was announced. This is being called version 2.0 of the Mass Animation FB app and will give DC fans, gamers, and animators a chance to animate characters from the DC Universe online game that Sony is developing. This is another example of Mass Animation allowing fans to collaborate on a big product. The contest will launch on December 7.

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