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City of Heroes Senior Designer Joe “Hero 1″ Morrissey has submitted a developer log on the Midnight Squad which is stepping out of legend in Issue 12: Midnight Hour. After a brief personal introduction, Morrissey dives into the back story of the Midnight Squad, those hit first and hit hardest by the Rikti.

In the Midnight Hour, players of both CoH and CoV will find new story arcs involving the Midnight Squad as the team gathers its strength to fight the Rikti.

The biggest revelation in this dev log isn’t the Midnight Squad but the introduction of a new game mechanic. Issue 12 introduces Contextual Dialog. NPCs will now use specific information about your character or where you are in a quest to give you information.  Morrissey hints that the new system may someday replace the status quo entirely, but that’s another Issue altogether.

via MMORPG

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As Jonathan reported yesterday, no new Xbox Live Arcade games were released today, thanks to Grand Theft Auto IV’s release yesterday. The day after Halo 3 was released we also saw an XBLA release of Jack Squat, so today’s lack of any releases doesn’t come as much of a surprise. After a rocky start to the whole Xbox Live Arcade Wednesday campaign, we’ve had just four weeks (not including today) since August that didn’t bring any new games – and that was due to new games becoming Arcade Hits, Undertow being temporarily released for free, or Halo 3’s release. So I won’t go too hard on Microsoft.

What you can find new on the Xbox Live Marketplace today is a totally free Dr. Pepper theme! Please, hold your applause, because there’s more. A bunch of Turok themes have also been released (although they’ll run you the ridiculous standard price of 150 Microsoft Points each), a free F-16C -PJ Emblem- download for Ace Combat 6 owners, an Alone in the Dark trailer, and some sort of Raving Rabbids invasion of Chessmaster Live that will run you 150 points. I have no idea what it’s all about, but I’m jealous that Chessmaster gets it and not Spyglass Board Games.

You may now resume your regularly scheduled GTA session.

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Journalist and MMO commentator Michael Zenke has written an article explaining his theory on why Microsoft has a black thumb when it comes to MMOs. Microsoft has a bad track record with the genre. Marvel Universe Online is the latest title to make the list of its failed games; which include Asheron’s Call 2, Mythica, True Fantasy Online and Vanguard.

Zenke chalks many of the casualties up to poor planning and lack of foresight. He also cites preoccupation with Xbox Live as an obstacle to cashing in on porting MMOs to its console.

Of course Microsoft’s failure has made it that much better for Sony. SOE has very successfully capitalized on the MMO market including porting them to the PS2 and PS3 consoles.

Zenke presents a very simplified theory, but I happen to think it’s a sound one. Take a look at all the evidence and judge for yourself.

via Gamasutra

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Funcom has announced full details of subscription fees for its upcoming MMORPG, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Should you be eager to jump into the lands of Hyboria when the game gets officially released on PC and Microsoft Xbox 360, you’ll have to pay prices similar to World of Warcraft.

Europe, North America, and Oceania territories have access to 60-day time cards that go for US 30 or 30 Euros. Other than that, North American barbarians can pay US 15 per month, US 42 per three months, or US 78 for six months of play.

Age of Conan adopters from several European countries would have to dish out 13 Euros monthly, 36 Euros for 3 months, or 76 Euros for six months of subscription. In the UK, it’s 9 monthly, 25 for three months, and 46 for half a year. Do note that VAT is not included in these prices.

Valve has been amazingly successful at a time when it everything it does is against current industry trends. The developer has managed to remain independent while other indie companies have been swallowed up by huge corporations like EA. Valve continues to focus on PC games while some companies have given up on the market altogether. Despite this, Valve is still making their own way in the games industry.

Valve’s VP of marketing, Doug Lombardi lays Valve’s business strategy out on the table; talking about its Steam service, games and the state of PC gaming in this interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

Seeing Valve succeed helps me keep my faith in the gaming industry. Their are so many studios that are consolidating and conforming at this time. Games are increasingly less innovative sticking close to a tried and true formula of sequels and variations on a theme. Valve keeps pushing the envelope to bring gamers fresh dynamic titles. As much as I admire the studio I truly hope they aren’t the last of the independents.

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Did the rumor about the Halo Wars alpha which we reported a few weeks back get you stoked? Ensemble Studios has just checked back again with its April Halo Warsupdate, bringing news that an Alpha for the real-time strategy game does exist.

However, the devs from Ensemble Studios were mum on details, only relaying the fact that Microsoft people were in on the Alpha.

The devs also confirmed that their planned internal April Madness Halo Wars Tournament of Destruction is currently on hold. They want to postpone it until the “game’s full arsenal” is already available. We hope it’s worth the wait.

Though there is no new gameplay updates, the Ensemble devs did share a thing or two about their practice rounds. Scorpion tanks are proving to be a popular choice, however they can be countered with a contingent of Marines. Likewise, air units are also exceptionally effective with their hit-and-run capabilities that the devs have decided to tone it down a bit.

For more of the Ensemble devs practice round discussions, head over the via link where an interview with the Halo Wars Music and Sound Director also awaits you. More updates as QJ.NET gets them.

The long awaited MC Escher-inspired puzzle-platformer, echochrome, is set to release tomorrow on the PlayStation Store tomorrow for both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. Each version features 56 unique levels and will cost $9.99.

We’ve written our fair share about it, and if you checked out 1UP’s recent preview and import video review (above), you should know that this game is a must-buy for owners of either of Sony’s systems.

I’m glad the game ended up being a downloadable game versus retail, as there’s simply no way that the game could have been priced at $10 in stores. And at this price, it’s not going to be too expensive to pick up both versions of the game.

So who else will be getting the game tomorrow, and for what system(s)?

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Peter Molyneux of Lionhead talks about why he believes the gaming industry has so very few household names compared to other forms of entertainment. He points out that people are much more likely to know who wrote their favorite book or directed their favorite film, than who designed their favorite video game.

“I don’t think publishers like there to be people attached to a certain franchise,” he says. “I don’t think they want Peter Molyneux known for the Fable franchise and they don’t particularly want a famous person attached to any franchise – because if that famous person leaves, they can take the franchise with them.”

The Fable 2 designer also says that individuals, such as himself tend to get too much credit for a team effort in the development of the game.

“For a long, long time I’ve been credited unduly,” he says, “Not so much these days, because the role of a designer is much, much more understood. But for a very long time, I was way, way over-credited for many things.”

There are many times when I look at a game and the publisher is the name that the public focuses in on. The Development team is almost an after thought even though it created the game. I like to see publishers like Valve and Lionhead release dev diaries so that players can get to know what goes into the games they play and who makes it happen. Do you know who created your favorite games?

via guardian.co.uk

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In case you haven’t noticed, some realms in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft have been suffering from erratic connection speeds and frequent disconnections. Authorities are hard at work, but several servers had to be taken down for maintenance.

According to blue poster Drysc at the WoW forums, here are the World of Warcraft realms that went down:

• Aman’Thul
• Barthilas
• Blackrock
• Caelestrasz
• Dath’Remar
• Dreadmaul
• Frostmourne
• Frostwolf
• Khaz’goroth
• Kil’Jaeden
• Kilrogg
• Nagrand
• Ner’zhul
• Proudmoore
• Sen’Jin
• Silver Hand
• Thaurissan
• Tichondrius
• Vek’nilash

It’s been a few hours since the switch was turned off, but continuous latency issues and disconnections pushed Blizzard to extend the urgent server maintenance. We’re sure to keep tabs, so check back for updates!

Some players have been complaining that players on the PvP realms are having a hard time unlocking the Sunwell phases in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Due to this, some have taken the liberty of asking the community managers when the phases will automatically be unlocked.

Community Manager Bornakk responded to the question, saying that they “haven’t released exact time frames for the auto unlocking of phases.” He further added that “it seems most realms are progressing at a good rate though.”

It seems that the main reason some players are complaining is due to the massive ganking that has been occurring on the way to the badge vendor. Well, be that as it may, a poster on the WoW forums named Cainine put it best when he said:

You rolled onto a PVP server knowing, or should have known, that you could be delayed by being attacked and killed in world PVP, and it happens, and you complain about it.