Formerly Green Monster Games, 38 Studios is growing a large pool of talented folks for their MMO endeavor. First, we heard R.A. Salvatore (writer of the Dark Elf series) was heading over to work on a story, art direction by Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn) and now Irena Pereira from Blizzard and a sound designer, Aubrey Hodges.
Hodges has done sound for games like Kings Quest, Quake and even Madden NFL. Pereira was a World of Warcraft interface designer which allows us to invision a bit about what 38 Studio’s MMO may look like from a user interaction perspective.
The MMO, currently titled Copernicus has a tentative launch date of 2010, which seems short for a full MMO design but they’ve been hard at work for roughly two years. Not too shabby a team for a privately held company founded by baseball star Curt Shilling.
It’s important to note Shilling is an avid gamer and loves massive multiplayer online games. What else does a man with a lot of money do as a side project? Fund a company based on the hobby he loves! If anyone knows the best directions and qualities of an MMO it should be an experienced team guided by someone with a passion for the game genre.
We’ll have to wait and see!
Read on for the full press release
– Aubrey Hodges and Irena Pereira Join 38 Studios’ team of expert game designers –
Maynard, MA – November 4, 2008 – 38 Studios, a pioneering entertainment company dedicated to delivering a broad spectrum of immersive products, today announced that Aubrey Hodges and Irena Pereira have joined 38 Studios as director of audio and senior UI (user interface) designer, respectively.
With his music and sound design heard in more than 180 video games, Composer and Sound Designer Aubrey Hodges is an audio pioneer in the video and computer game industry. Hodges is credited as among the very first to use MIDI in a video game, the first to use sound effects in an online game and among the first to use General Midi in a video game. He also is cited as the innovator of ambient music design for games with his groundbreaking work on the Doom and Quake series. Before joining 38 Studios, Hodges spent five years as an audio director at EA-Tiburon, home of the popular Madden franchise; and before that as audio director, composer and sound designer for Midway Home Entertainment for ten years. Hodges began his career in audio for videogames at Sierra Online in 1991. His music and audio credits span classic series such as King’s Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, and Conquests of the Longbow to some of the most popular video game series including NFL Blitz and Madden NFL. In his new role, Hodges will report directly to 38 Studios CEO and President Brett Close.
Senior UI Designer Irena Pereira comes to 38 Studios from Blizzard Entertainment, where she spent over two years working on the interface design and development for World of Warcraft and its expansions The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Pereira also worked at game studio Artifact Entertainment where she was responsible for interface design, technical documentation, tools development, and web site design; and at Verant Interactive. Her experience extends beyond MMOG development to include interface development and web design for online companies Hollywood Stock Exchange, Homestore Inc, and LowerMyBills. Pereira will report to Design Director Jason Roberts.
“38 Studios has been able to attract phenomenal talent, and these hires continue that trend,” Close said. “Smart interface design and rich audio are key components of the 38 Studios product vision, and Irena and Aubrey have extensive records of exceptional success in these areas.”
(Thanks, Kotaku)
Diablo 3 Lead Designer Jay Wilson sat down with 
Gating the users ability to heal is a classic RPG/Adventure game mechanism for changing the playing field in terms of difficulty. You can make a game with weaker enemies in abundance and still cause you harm, take a look back at Gauntlet in the arcade for an example of this method. You can build challenging enemy styles and dungeon traps to cause the player to mind their step, look at the classic Zelda series and some of their crazy enemies. A great example is the Darknuts from The Legend of Zelda, it was a small knight that could only be attacked from behind but had a sharp little dagger if you bumped them from the front. You had to use tactics to wipe out a full room of Darknuts.