Kevin Balentine spoke with Curse.com in a recent interview:

Stargate Worlds Exclusive

Stargate Worlds, which is being developed by industry new comers Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, will allow players to take control of a character in the Stargate universe. Players will be able to explore an ever-expanding galaxy of planets, spaceships and aliens all the while waging war as part of one of two player factions – the light side or the dark side.

The interview features two nice screenshots of worlds in the game.

Yes indeed, you heard it here first. On episode 14 of the Gatebuzz podcast I pointed out:

Im sitting here still breathless, still drooling over the graphics. 1UP.COM was understating thing when they said “the footage I saw of Stargate Worlds, while brief, was certainly nice to look at” … the footage was gorgeous. There was a little over 3 and a half minutes of total video footage, probably 1/2 of which is the actual interviews. So, that means under 2 minutes of actual in-game footage and I am hooked.

I would suggest taking a look at the recent “anatomy of a sound” video podcast from CME, where Nick LaMartina discusses creating the ambient sound for a location in the game. We see a very basic test-setup with a grey-uniformed, shaven headed soldier with P90 on his back, and Nick moving him around to demonstrate how the ambient sound system for the game will work.

The demo that folks saw at GDC, I assume is the same one that is cut into the GAME TRAILERS interviews with Dan Elggren and Demetrius Comes. It shows that same test soldier running around in the environment of several worlds. What it also included was a few gorgeous panoramic camera angles, and sweeping cinematic camera shots to establish the environment. An atlantis style puddle-jumper was clearly visible in the foreground early on. The Creative director at CME - Chris Klug - has a background in the visual arts … and it shows in-game with shots like these. There was an epic feel to them, a saturated colour palette that was rich without being garish, and beautifully modelled and rendered scenes to explore. The decision to use the Unreal Engine 3 was clearly a good one, given what we can see on the GAME TRAILERS website.

Well, today there were 2 pasts from Khatie:

Feb. 28th, 2008 at 7:29am, Khatie wrote:

So after speaking with the powers that be, we can’t show the trailer in its current state but there were LARGE portions of the trailer shown here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31116.html?type=

and here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31116.html?type=

I am sorry for not being able to release more yet but… we’ll get it to you eventually.

I feel like I let you guys down.

Then in a later post, after being asked why the full trailer couldnt be shown:

Feb. 28th, 2008 at 7:48am, Khatie wrote:

It’s finished for what it was used for (to show press at GDC) but, there are portions that aren’t yet finished (the player character you see running around in the trailer is a place-holder, not final) and so they want to wait until all elements are final before revealing it to the broader public.

The podcast community heard it first, by a full day, 200 downloads of that particular episode and counting! So, be sure to subscribe (either to the email notification, with your Zune, with iTunes or another podcatcher) as Alison, Fenrir, Uplink and I work to bring the latest in timely news & buzz … and here’s hoping that we score a few exclusives in the coming weeks too!

There are two kinds of notification available:

• Basic
• Enhanced

Any user who enters an email address is signing up for the Basic notification - you will be notified in plain-text that a new podcast episode has been published, with a snippet of the show notes in the email that is sent out.

Enhanced notifications go to users who have registered on the Gatebuzz site. Registered users will receive an email containing the whole show notes for new podcast entries. In addition, registered users may manage their subscription through their profile here on the site, allowing the selection of either plain-text or HTML emails, and the ability to sign up for notifications about other categories of post (News, Podcast Episodes, Site Updates, etc) as well.

So, if you want to receive an email when something happens here on the site, either sign up as a user or, click the “Sign up for email notifications” link and enter your email address.

It looks like CME made quite the splash at the GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco this last week. Three separate news websites reported on Stargate Worlds - 1UP.com, IGN.com and MMORPG.com - with glowing reports about the in-game trailer that they saw. Gate Buzz Episode 14 gives you the scoop on not only what they had to say, but the recent news of sections of the video being shown as part of interviews given to the Game Trailers website, where we get to see it too. As with Episode 13, there’s still an EASTER EGG hidden in episode 14, let me know if you find what these 2 episodes have that previous podcast episodes didn’t!

 

 Gate Buzz Episode 14 [19:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (690)

There was a deliberate Easter Egg inserted into episodes 13 and following of this podcast. Did you find it? It’s something that other episodes before didn’t have that these ones do. Drop me an email, message me on Xfire, or give me a call (206)-984-BUZZ if you find it. First 3 people who contact me will be mentioned on the next show, and if you phone, I’ll most likely play your comment on-air. Happy Hunting!

A lot going on this week, quite a random grab-bag of goodies - MMORPG.com declared Stargate Worlds to be their “game of the week” and will be hunting down the CME devs at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Gatebuzz site got a redesign just in time, dates for the SG-1 Radio sweeper contest have been extended … and more!

 

 Gate Buzz Episode 13: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (585)

MMORPG.com have declared Stargate Worlds to be “Game of the Week”. The buzz here is that they

…will be speaking with Cheyenne Mountain about the game at this week’s Game Developer’s Conference.

Take a look at their site, and what they have to say about the game. It would have been a lot of fun to visit the GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) in San Francisco all this week (Feb 18-22, 2008). Maybe I could swing a trip to it next year on the grounds that it’s on right around my birthday? It would certainly beat visiting the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, that’s for sure!

So, keep your eyes open for news out of the GDC, I would put money on this being a venue for CME releasing new information and creating buzz.

The site has had a major overhaul to improve both the load-time (it should load a lot faster than before) and make better use of screen real-estate. It’s been tested on Windows (in Firefox and IE 7) and on my Mac (in Firefox and Safari) and all seems to look good. Let me know if you notice any glitches.

I’ve added the ability to rate posts and podcast episodes. They all have a small “5-star” rating on them, simply mouse over and click your rating and your vote will be logged. I will be particularly interested in seeing your ratings on the podcast episodes!

ESAK players often see the game world as a great stage, full of things to see and people to meet. They love teaming up with people to get to the hard-to-see places, and they relish unique experiences.

Breakdown: Achiever 33.33%, Explorer 80.00%, Killer 20.00%, Socializer 66.67%

The Bartle Test was originally designed for players of MUDs (multi-user dungeons) but continues to have applicability to virtual worlds of all kinds–especially MMORPGs. The test attempts to measure a player based on what they enjoy most about a game, based on four axes:

The Four Bartle Catagories

• People with high Achiever scores tend to prefer collecting points, levels, treasure and accomplishments that set them apart from other players–or simply present challenges.
• People with high Explorer scores tend to enjoy finding all of the unique areas of the world, often enjoying the immersion of the experience. Finding a place with unique monsters and seeing what those monsters do is usually more fun for an Explorer than defeating the monsters themselves.
• People with high Killer scores prefer the player-versus-player aspect of any game more than anything offered by the environment. They often relish the adrenaline and challenge of pitting themselves against real players.
• People with high Socializer scores enjoy interacting with other people, forming organizations, and finding cooperative solutions to the challenges within the virtual world.

Episode 12 of GateBuzz covers the Mmolecule interview given by Conan Brink, Sean Dugan’s interview with Warcry and the exclusive Q & A session hosted by the Stargate Worlds Wiki team along with thoughts about Stargate “canon” and the US Supreme Court!

 

 Gate Buzz Episode 12 [24:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (660)