14 DAY TRIAL // There's a new development house in town, named Carbine Studios and its existence was announced last week. The company's owned by NCSoft and focuses on MMO titles, as the team of developers promises to change the world of MMORPGs forever. You might want to know that Carbine's staff includes ex-WoW designers, Tim Cain (lead programmer and designer of Fallout) and the executive producer of City of Heroes.
Kevin Beardslee, former lead animator working on WoW mentioned that accessibility is one of the main issues of MMO games nowadays and EverQuest is way harder than WoW. Carbine aims to please every gamer and reach the entire gaming community, avoiding the cliches that define the world of MMORPG titles. It's tough to design a challenging and deep game that can be fun and enjoyable at the same time. Sooner or later you'll be chasing fortunes and experience points, forgetting about the primary reason for your MMO passion: fun, pure cheap fun....
The word's out that Carbine's getting ready to deliver a MMO game, having started its development, without giving us too much details. Also, there are hints towards a console-oriented game, as NCSoft owns Carbine and it has recently signed a deal with Sony, promising to bring the MMO experience to the PS3. Will the ex-WoW staffers' company open the road for the PS3 massively multiplayer RPGs? Also, having worked with the likes of Blizzard and knowing what sets in motion the World of Warcraft universe can be a huge advantage for the emerging company.
Carbine's biggest aspiration must be releasing a worthy rival for WoW right now and ever surpassing the most famous MMO in the world. After all, we're talking about people who got bored of working on World of Warcraft... When even that's boring, you're either a genius or an RPG hater. I think that the first option is the correct one and we'll be seeing some neat MMORPGs in the future, being produced by the Carbine team.