MMO news, guides, reviews, features, interviews and more at Ten Ton Hammer

Ladies and gentleman, start your criticism...
Gamespy has posted crafting, races, classes, landscapes,
and video previews of Auto Assault.  Just before their biomek
content editors' minds went into overload with catastrophic results,
they posted this:

"We kick the tires, look under the hood, fiddle with the
radio dial, and
get behind the wheel of "The fastest MMORPG" to take the game for an
exclusive unrestricted test drive."

Go browse the entire Gamespy Preview,
then drive yourself on over to the TTH Auto Assault site.

[Insert Caribbean accent] A.......O...A a a a O
RPG Vault has posted an interview Funcom's game director, Morten Byon in which they discuss Anarchy Online: Lost Eden. A slot machine started ringing and a lady in flowery clothes jumped up and yelled:

"In case any readers are not familiar with it, how would you outline the conflict that provides the foundation for the base game, Anarchy Online?"

You can read the entire Anarchy Online: Lost Eden Interview at RPGVault.

Crafting and Gadgets and Cannons, oh my!
GameSpy has posted another Auto Assault Preview. The focus this time is on crafting. A Human told a Biomek who told a Mutant that they might have written this:

"There's a whole lot of really valuable junk out there, and the Auto Assault crafting system is how you're gonna get your hands on it!"

You can read the entire Auto Assault Preview at GameSpy.

TVG talks to RG on the QT.
TVG has posted an interview with Starr Long, the producer of Tabula Rasa. All hailed Lord British and then wrote something almost like this:

"Richard Garriott and I (Starr Long) started this project together with other key team members so he has been involved since the beginning. For the first couple of years we took the project down a path that was more fantasy oriented, with a very unique combat system and focused entirely on instanced adventure spaces for small groups. After bringing it to E3 in 2004 we realised that the setting and visuals were getting in the way of the game we wanted to make so we decided to make some major changes. We moved the game towards a more science fiction direction for the visuals and setting. We also changed the design towards a focus on large persistent battlefields where player’s actions can impact the state of the battle. We also changed combat to feel much more like a shooter-style game while retaining RPG systems underneath everything. This means while you are shooting your weapon via a mouse click and cycling through weapons like a shooter, the outcome of each shot is being determined mainly by your character’s skills that you have built up over time."

You can read the entire Tabula Rasa Interview at TVG.