The City of Heroes Mission Architect allows players to quickly create their own missions for the superhero MMO, so why not actual writers? First up is Bill Willingham, New York Times bestselling author and creator of the comic book Fables, who wants players to aid civilian Irena Faust in her quest for super powers. PVP creator Scott Kurtz has players facing off against the rogues gallery of internet meme-obsessed hero LOLBAT. Last but not least, Red VS. Blue creators Rooster Teeth has players teaming up with Captain Dynamic against the vile Great Face.

The four more-or-less professionally written missions will go live in the game on Tuesday, October 13, with plans for more stories by more writers as time goes by. Check out the official descriptions below for more details.

Guest Author: Bill Willingham, New York Times bestselling writer, and the creator of the multiple award winning comic book series Fables

Title: “Quest for Magic”

Description: Irena Faust is tired of being a civilian in a super world, so she’s embarked upon a quest for super powers. She thinks magic is the way to go and she has an idea of where to start. Can you help her?

Guest Author: Rooster Teeth, best known for the popular comedy series, Red vs. Blue

Title: “Mission: Awesome”

Description: Help Captain Dynamic defeat the Great Face’s evil plans…

and

Title: “The Great Face-Off”

Description: The Great Face wants to wreak havoc on Paragon City. He needs your help to free him from Paragon Prison and then carry out his master plan…

Guest Author: Scott Kurtz, a full-time comic-strip artist for “PvP”

Title: “OMG, it’s the LOLBAT!”

Description: OMG! Your new contact on the street is none other than the Internet meme-obsessed hero, the LOLBAT, and he brings grave if not confusing news. The Algonquin Hate Table, a rogues gallery of the LOLBAT’s greatest foes, are looking to expand their heinous if not artfully influenced crime syndicate into Paragon City. If you know what’s good for you and the citizens you protect, you won’t let that happen. Luckily, the LOLBAT knows how these guys work and he’s ready to help you defeat these pompous profligates.

The Red vs. Blue team from Rooster Teeth’s machinima series take a look at the “normal soldiers” of Halo 3: ODST.

Their reaction was pretty much the same reaction I have to a new Halo game. I think, “Hooray! I shall be at the same skill level as many other people for a short period of time!” Unfortunately that short period of time is around 15 minutes, give or take, so the elation generally doesn’t last long. After a half hour, the advanced players have already found out how to teleport directly into the game’s code to attack the AI programming, while I am still trying to not sticky grenade myself.

The creators of the Red vs. Blue series take on City of Heroes, in a series of live-action shorts featuring the greatest superhero of all time, Captain Dynamic.

The series revolves around the new Mission Architect being released in City of Heroes, with Captain Dynamic, whose superpowers include “super stuff”, hiring a writing team to spice up his adventures. His demands are relatively simple. He just wants missions that level him up incredibly quick, with as little effort as possible. I don’t see why saving a kitten from a tree isn’t worthy of a crystal fortress.

Not Rooster Teeth’s best work, but there are a few laughs to be had. Things pick up a little in episode 2, when we discover Captain Dynamic’s amazing ability to make letters with his arms.

Starting on Monday the hunters will be releasing video walkthroughs of how to grab the achievements in Dead Space. “Dead Week” will also include contests, live broadcasts and other Dead Space material posted on the site.

If you want to catch a glimpse of what an achievement walkthrough video looks like, check out the Achievement Hunters take on finding the Holocrons in The Force Unleashed over on their site.

Achievement Hunters

Rooster Teeth’s Burnie Burns, creator of This Spartan Life Chris Burke and Bioware’s Armando Troisi, among others, will be present at the ACMI in Melbourne from June 14 to 15. They’ll be talking about all-things animation, including making movies in games like Halo and World of Warcraft.

Press release with pricing and bios after the jump.

[Pic, thanks Sgt. Hartsock]

Machinima Film Festival
Saturday 14 – Sunday 15 June, ACMI Cinemas
Information & bookings: www.acmi.net.au or PH: (03) 8663 2583

The coolest machinima from around the world hits the big screen at ACMI this June.
A convergence of animation, computer game technology and filmmaking, machinima films are created within the virtual reality of a game engine. Using sophisticated gaming software as the foundation, with its already beautifully realised 3D animated characters and landscapes, machinima-makers create animated films in real-time for a fraction of the cost of traditional computer generated imagery seen in multimillion dollar big budget studio films.

From the latest season of Red vs. Blue to highlights from the European Machinima Film Festival, through to workshops and Q&A sessions with some of genre’s most talented filmmakers, it a weekend packed full of machinima at ACMI.
Industry innovators coming to ACMI to introduce their work, conduct workshops and give presentations include:
• Armando Troisi, Lead Cinematic Designer Bio Ware
• Chris Burke, creator, This Spartan Life
• Frank Dellario, President, ILL Clan
• Burnie Burns, creator, Red vs Blue
• Ezra Fergusen, producer, Rufus Cubed
• Rod Mayer, CEO, Beepa

Full bios in attached document. All are available for interview on request.
For screeners, interviews, images or further information please get in touch.

* Program overleaf *
* PROGRAM *
Sat 14 Jun 11am-5pm
Machinima Festival Showcase unclassified 15+
Explore the art of machinima filmmaking and its dynamic relationship to videogames when the world’s top machinima filmmakers gather to talk about their work. ACMI Cinemas > Full $20, Concession $15

European Machinima Festival Highlights
Reels 1 & 2
Festival screening s of highlights from the first European Machinima Film Festival presented by Frank Dellario Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences. Works include: The Viral hit Ballad of Black Mesa is a toe tapping, gun toting, tour de-force. Taking cues from works like STOMP, and contemporary advertisement, Hark! Hear the Wails, short take on the traditional Christmas carol in World of Warcraft, with a devious twist. A Child’s War is a Virtual Video Project by Global Kids produced at the Museum of the Moving Image New York. The video is based on research done by the youth about the situation of child soldiers in Uganda and the upcoming trial and the International Criminal Court.

Chris Burke (This Spartan Life)
Taking over the Sandbox: Machinima As a Live Environment
A presentation and live discussion inside Halo 3. In a day of online gaming, relationships are forged, current events discussed, narratives recorded and, occasionally, games are played. Here, the crew of a talk show can feel pretty vulnerable. But along with the perils come some unique opportunities in participatory media. In our quest to rise above the smack talk, we will be joined live by other gamers and a special guest in Halo 3.

Armando Troisi (Bio Ware)
Blending and Bending Mediums: BioWare’s Mass Effect As videogames mature, the cinematic language has become increasingly prevalent as a way to convey narrative and emotion. BioWare’s Mass Effect series criss-crosses the ever-blurring line between passive & interactive entertainment, imbuing their trademark roleplaying games with a strong dose of cinematic storytelling. This fusing of two mediums is not without its challenges, however. Should narrative be front and center, or should the Player discover plot without the directed camera? Armando Troisi, lead cinematic designer Bio Ware, will present what narrative design considerations are made as well as further explorations into the balance of cinema and games.

Frank Dellario (Electric Sheep)
From Quake to Carnegie Hall: An ILL Clan Journey
Frank Dellario’s is an epic adventure that spans than entire history of machinima from Quake runs to his work with virtual world entrepreneurs Electric Sheep the largest 3D and virtual reality architecture company in the world. A founding member of the Ill Clan, he is the creator the popular machinima series Tra5h Ta1k . He has produced and directed numerous machinima projects for clients such as MTV2, Spike TV, Audi, Intel and Microsoft.

Ezra Ferguson (Rufus Cubed)
How Machinima Changed Everything: Indie Film Finds World of Warcraft
“Film-maker Ezra Ferguson of Rufus Cubed explains how his tiny production house enjoyed incredible success and unexpected tragedy in the budding art-form of Machinima and more precisely: World of Warcraft Machinima. “WoW”, with over 10 million subscribers, a rich mythology, and a dynamic culture of social interaction created a perfect vessel for Rufus Cubed’s most memorable work. Learn how Machinima has upended film-making and forever left a camera crew in virtual space.”
Sunday 15 June, 11am – 1pm

Making Machinma
Making Machinima World of Warcraft
Ezra Ferguson (Rufus Cubed), Rod Mayer (Beepa)
Practical tips to Making Machinima in Warcraft from leading filmmaker Ezra Ferguson of Rufus Cubed and Rod Mayer the creator of FRAPS
Forge: The Making of Griff Ball
Burnie Burns (Rooster Teeth)
Burnie Burns the creator of Griff Ball will explain how one day when going about his business making the worlds most popular machinima he accidentally made a game. Learn the origins of Griff Ball and some tips on working with Forge.

Making Machinima Panel
Chris Burke (This Spartan Life), Burnie Burns (Rooster Teeth), Frank Dellario (Electric Sheep) Ezra Ferguson (Rufus Cubed), & Rod Mayer (Beepa)
Discussion offering practical advice on making machinima. The panel discusses what its like to work in an emerging genre revealing there most foolish ideas and their most cunning tricks in filmmaking in games engines.
Sunday 15 June 2008, 2pm – 5pm

Red vs Blue
Reds vs Blue Reconstruction
With Q & A with writer and director Burnie Burns (Rooster Teeth)
Red vs Blue: Reconstruction is the follow-up to the internet phenomenon Blood Gulch Chronicles. In Reconstruction, everyone’s favourite group of hapless soldiers faces off against an all-new enemy, while still fighting amongst themselves. Filmed in Halo 3’s theatre tools, RvB: Reconstruction continues the tradition of first class machinima from Rooster Teeth Productions. Approx run time 90 minutes

If you’d like to talk to Burns about his work, or machinima in general, he’s scheduled to host a Q&A session on June 18 at 7:30PM at the Telstra Experience Lab. The lab can be found at Level 2, 400 George St, Sydney.

The SFF 2008 is host to two other machinima-related talks – one on June 18 at 5:30PM with Frank Dellario (Electric Sheep) and another on June 19 at 5:30PM with Chris Burke (This Spartan Life). These sessions will also take place at the Telstra Experience Lab, and all three are free of charge.

Be sure to hit up the SFF website for more info.

Digital Innovators [Sydney Film Festival]

Now, clearly, these are production values in the upper 1 percentile, and we’d expect no less of Rooster Teeth, and I’m not gonna hate on it. But can I ask a question? How come any elected-office character in a military-genre movie has to have a condescending Southern accent?

It’s like a British friend of mine once said about the stereotype of his accent: “If I am in a Star Wars movie, then I command the Death Star.”

That said, I can’t wait to see (and hear) where this is headed.

RVB: Reconstruction [Rooster Teeth, embedded video courtesy of Slackerchan at Gametrailers]