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MMO worlds are stagnant. They have cardboard cutout monsters and NPCs that stand in their assigned space. Players knock the monsters down like a fantastical shooting range, but after a few minutes, the pulleys whir, the monsters stand up, and the world reverts to its static state. On a micro level where thousands of players are sharing the same game space, this is to be expected. The problem is that it also exists at a macro level and constantly echoes in the background, "This world is not real... this world is not real..."

The folks at Masthead Studios, developers of Earthrise, were kind enough to take some photos around their office and send them our way. For those of you interested in Earthrise, check out where it's made below the cut!

Three members of the Earthrise development team at Masthead Studios - Stefan Dragnev, Atanas Atanasov, and Lead Game Designer Apostal Apostalov - were kind enough to answer a few questions we here at WarCry had for them!

In this week's "RoleCraft," Jim Moreno looks at the difficulties of scheduling RP events with an established group, and some of the solutions involved.

In this week's "RoleCraft," Jim Moreno looks at different ways to roleplay with weather effects in-game.

In this week's "RoleCraft," Jim Moreno continues his look at character alignment in MMORPGs - this time focusing on how in-game factions make characters "evil" (or not).

In this week's examination of Clausewitz "On Gaming," Jonathan Steinhauer looks at what victory and defeat mean ... to NPC monsters.

In this week's RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at the standard D&D concept of alignment, how it works in roleplaying, and how it's applied to MMORPGs.

Jonathan Steinhauer continues his application of the writings of Carl Clausewitz to MMOGs, this time focusing on defeat and "life after death" in online worlds.

This week in RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at ways for roleplayers to deal with the Fairer Tongue of Elvish.