Chris and Ben talk about the latest news as Defiance launches in game form and nears it’s TV Premiere!

Crime and Punishment

Last episode we focused on the conflict between two wealthy family men seeking more power over their town. Today lets step over the line and meet the true power and authority of Defiance.

Chris – Tommy Lasalle (Dewshane Williams)

“The only way to move forward in this new world is to accept, to love, and to come together in order to be strong and rise above this chaos.â€

• 
  
• Tommy comes from a shady and painful upbringing. He’s the bad kid turned good cop.
  
• According to the Making of Featurette video on Tommy, he and Irisa are polar opposites, but I think that really, Tommy sees his past self in Irisa.. a scavenger and survivor.
  
• Tommy is a people person (probably due to his unfettered optimism) who knows how to charm the people of Defiance due to the simple fact that he’s a regular.
  

Amanda Rosewater (Julie Benz)

“Its not about what we’ve lost, its about what we’re creating.. and this town is worth fighting for.â€
//this is a small character trailer for Amanda that shows more her coming into power and fighting to earn the respect of the town populace.

• 
  
• Amanda comes from a past similar to most who survived the Pale Wars. Her parents were killed, leaving her to shoulder the responsibility of raising her sister.
  
• Amanda is idealistic, much like Ara Shondu is in-game. She believes that humans and Votans can live in peace. //to see how we handle “living in harmony,†one should play through the Tranquil Surface sidequests and listen to the recordings.
  
• Amanda does have to deal with her sister Kenya (played by Mia Kirshner) and the fact that she is the proprietress for the Need/Want, a bar/hangout/gambling establishment/brothel that Amanda hardly approves of.
  
• Similarities between Julie Benz’s character and Mary McDonnell’s Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica are immediately apparent.
  
• Both assumed power reluctantly and out of necessity. //Neither were voted into office.
  
• Both take their positions of authority with the utmost seriousness and highest regard for their constituents
  
• And I have no doubt they both fight for what they believe in or feel is right.
  

Show Predictions

Ben

• 
  
• [recap] Alak and Christie get married and Quentin dies
  
• [new] Nolan will have relations and maybe feelings for Kenya, but will get spurned and fall for Amanda.
  

Chris

• 
  
• [recap] Alak and Christie’s relationship will be put in jeopardy by Irisa.
  
• [new] We will be introduced to a character flaw in Amanda that could later cost her job. I’m guessing she’s done something illegal in her past….
  

Kevin Murphy Talks Syfy’s TV Series/Transmedia Project ‘Defiance,’ Mythology Coordinators and the Second Season That’s Already in the Works

“[Kevin Murphy]..shared the news with us that he’s already working on a second season of the show.â€

Will Syfy’s Defiance Game/Show Hybrid Deliver? <Wired’s GeekMom>

“SyFy has been pushing Defiance hard. We encountered them at last year’s Comic Con and this year’s SXSW. They took the show’s Dodge Charger to the Chicago Auto Show and talked about creating alien languages for TED. With just a few weeks before both pieces launch, can the first integrated TV show and video game deliver on the hype?â€

The Game:

• 
  
• Hates the cutscenes “I’m of the opinion that if I wanted to watch a movie, I’d have put in a DVD instead of a game. That feeling is even stronger when the game actually has a whole TV show to go with it.â€
  
• She calls it a basic first-person shooter
  
• Does feel optimistic that the tie-in to the show will be strong
  

The Show:

• 
  
• Found the first 14 minutes of the show “interesting to look at†with a rough video-game style (which could make the tie-in easier)
  
• And, as far as I can tell, likes most of the casting choices
  
• Her Verdict? Its all a big gamble. She feels that if one medium doesn’t do well, then it will sink the other.
  

Making of Defiance Part IX: Game Meets Show

Rehash of more of the same..

Only show on television that has a crossover video game.

The show and game are designed to be enjoyed separately but its a deeper experience if choose to enjoy both

Julie Benz – “This is the first time where you have two portals into the same world.â€

Grant Bowler – “Nolan starts in the game.. then my character and Irisa drive into frame. So the game world will launch. And the time it takes us to drive from San Francisco to St. Louis, the show will launch. And I’ve never seen anything like that happen before.â€

This trailer shows quite a bit of footage between the game and show, but it’s interesting to see some of the show characters. I’ve seen quite a bit of the Volge, Raiders, and at one point I thought I saw a 99er.

Tony Curan talks about the game

While I have my reservations about Tony Curran playing the game for a length of time, he HAS had the pleasure of playing it and seemed to enjoy it.

Feels that playing the game will really enhance the show and vice versa.

And yes thats all he said. Its a short 40 second clip, but its reassuring to hear the actors taking the time to try out the game and really enjoying it.

What we did in game

Chris

• 
  
• Some issues with getting a code for launch, and a busy week at work means less play time than I wanted, but I got the intro area done, and working my way through Mount Tam.
  
• Still preferring a LMG/Pistol set up. Lets me deal with distance + up close. I may switch out the pistol. Going to experiment as I move through Mount Tam.
  

Ben

• 
  
• Completed all Mount Tam pursuits and participated in some Shadow War.
  

Reviews around the web

Time Magazine says, “So far, definitely not full of shtakoâ€

• 
  
• [neg] A few minutes in, I notice something that feels very O’Bannon-ish: aliens that say “bitch†like they grew up watching Real Housewives, but use “shtako†for the four-letter English-language curse word that starts with “s.†From “frelling†to “fracking†to this. Someday TV might grow up and talk like the rest of us. In the meantime, I wonder what Defiance‘s f-word equivalent is. “Skrugginâ€? //we can add “jaja†and “jek†to the list of alien slang
  
• [neg] Of course, this being a pay-once ($60), subscription fee-free MMO, Trion snuck freemium features in, meaning that yes, you can pay real money to unlock abilities more quickly. I haven’t played long enough to say whether the default allotments feel generous enough, but I’m seeing complaints from others that loot drops aren’t frequent enough
  
• [neg] You’ll also bump into some of the TV show characters, because of course you will, even if the missions involving them feel contrived, as they pretty much have to be, setting you up to feel like a Key Player in the show’s mythology without actually making you part of anything.
  
• [pos] That said, everything seems to work properly, which I find noteworthy considering it’s an MMO that launched simultaneously on three discrete platforms
  
• [pos] The maps are huge and elaborate
  
• [pos] Interface is clean for a console MMO
  
• [pos] Pacing feels about right.
  
• [pos] The most intriguing piece so far is probably what Trion calls “Shadow War,†which brings PvP to you, playing out dynamically in PvE space, but only involving you if you opt in. I haven’t yet, but it’s kind of cool to watch dozens of players hash out some competitive scenario or other as you’re going about your business, giving the world a volatile, lived-in feel. It’s a little like Guild Wars 2‘s dynamic event system, except with PvP folded into the world instead of clipped off and dropped on the other side of a portal.
  

Kotaku says, “Defiance is Off to a Rocky Start, But You Won’t See Players Complainingâ€
//Written by Mike Fahey

• 
  
• Not much was positive in this review but Mike does voice some issues and concerns that the community was experiencing at large during launch.
  
• Not the first reviewer to say Defiance is the quietest MMO launch ever, but his reasoning was more due to the fact in-game chat and voip were broken.
  
• Considers the game not very PC friendly, pointing out video options as the prime example and calls the game “built for consoles and ported to PC.â€
  
• Players with monitors over 100mhz are crashing when opening any menus – this is a known issue that is being resolved.
  
• Said lag is ridiculous on the 360, his other test platform.
  
• All in all, he calls Defiance a work in progress, though he jokes that chat should remain broken.
  

Venture Beat

• 
  
• Launching a massively multiplayer online game is always a major undertaking, but developer Trion Worlds might have set a new high mark for technical difficulty with the debut of its latest title.
  
• “I can’t tell you how proud I am of all the teams that got together and made this a reality today,†Trion executive producer Nathan Richardson told GamesBeat yesterday. â€We didn’t exactly choose the easiest route.â€
  
• To even call it a “tie-in†is a bit of a misnomer. Defiance, the game and the show, are symbiotic entities that will directly affect one another — a “transmedia†project.
  
• Richardson went on to list some of the issues his team had to solve when creating Defiance: “Massively multiplayer on PC, Xbox, and PS3? Sure. Connect it to a TV show? Why not. Launch at the same time, no delays possible? OK. Wait, multiple territories, integrated with Microsoft and Sony infrastructures, and it’s a shooter? Yup. Also add microtransactions as well as an aggressive free and paid downloadable-content schedule. OK.â€
  

Metacritic Stats

PC 7.7 PS3 8.0 XBOX 360 8.1

Massively’s last 3 days of hands-on 

Day 1:

• 
  
• Character customization is barebones. //Truth be told it is rather barebones and a lot of people miss out on the few panels that adjust features of a character.
  
• in typical Trion fashion it’s gorgeous and it runs well
  
• In world UI is very minimalist which is fine because it affords me a better view of the gorgeous environments.
  
• Jef digs the complexity and in character presentation of the EGO screens, inventory, skill panes, and the like
  
• He also discovered that there was no fall damage the fun way.
  

Day 2:

• 
  
• Lore is appealing
  
• Jef has heard PvE described as “bland,†but dug the mmo-ish elements in his shooter
  
• He did have issues with running animations and calls them the worst in a AAA MMO since Lord of the Rings Online
  
• Longs for a 1st person view
  
• Chat seems like an afterthought
  
• “ I’m a notorious game-hopper, and frankly most of the MMOs that have come out in the past couple of years haven’t made it beyond my typical week-long litmus test. Defiance may yet be an exception; we’ll have to see.â€
  

Day 3:

• 
  
• PVP is pretty enjoyable
  
• Dug Shadow War, which is open world PvP that you have to opt in to and takes place in and around the rest of the game world.
  
• PvP however pales in comparison to games like Panetside 2, That said, it’s just fun.
  
• Jef also found crafting mechanics interesting, but cumbersome.
  

Letters to the community from Nathan Richardsson

THE DAY OF DEFIANCE IS HERE, WHAT BEAUTIFUL BABY OF OURS IT IS We’re neck deep addressing all the issues that come up when you scale something up to a million people from a test environment of thousands.

Of the issues that we are working on right now, these are an example of the highest priority for us.

• 
  
• Connectivity
  
• Pre Order Items and not getting them
  
• Bosses and Arkfalls and the scaling of loots as the scale of the
  
• Chat and VOIP – yes its broken
  
• Trion is deploying patches and improvements frequently
  
• And they are still taking issues via various means – in game, email, forums, etc.
  
• THEY ARE LISTENING
  
• DAY 2 IN THE LIFE OF DEFIANCE, LITTLE BIT OF HUMBLE, LITTLE BIT OF CAUTIOUS You will now see our top four issues today, as opposed to yesterday
  
• Game Server Crashes
  
• Lag
  
• Patching Woes
  
• Client Crashes
  

LAST MINUTE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Trion is now selling bits on Game Cards!

$15 – 1200 bits + lockbox

$25 – 2100 bits + lockbox

$39.99 – 5 DLC , in game hat , and lockbox

CONTACT US

Email: defiance@mmoreporter.com

twitter: twitter.com/defiancepodcast or @defiancepodcast

site: http://defiancereporter.com

Voicemail: 616-666-6778 (and our new widget on the ride hand side of the page)

youtube: youtube.com/user/mmoreporternetwork

Ben: twitter.com/nebsinsane

Chris: twitter.com/almazar