I’ve been slaving away all this week trying to get all of the game’s user interface graphics into two 1024x1024 textures. It took me twice as long as I thought it would to cram all the On-Screen UI stuff into the first one and am now banging my head against the wall trying to get all the Dialog Menu UI pieces onto the second. As of today I am officially behind schedule! There is also this thinking that once I get everything onto the two master textures that it won’t be any work getting it all to work in game. I am pretty sure there will be quite a bit of time spent by me and the programmers putting it all back into the game.
Connie was promoted to “Lead Quality Assurance” on Fury today. My review is on Tuesday, I’ll let you know if the decide to toss me out or not.
I just found out the other day that we are going to be showing off Fury at the Game Connect expo this Friday and Saturday. I’ll be working the booth Saturday.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
eGames Expo
So the gang was at the eGames expo this last weekend. It was at the same place where I was at two weeks ago but where that was an auto show with a new video games thing added on, this is an actual video game show. We think they had somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand people attendees over its 2 and a half day run.
The Nintendo Wii was there again as well and was again a major draw now 1 week ahead of its Australian debut.
This 3D Video thing that is currently being Slashdotted was there but none of the people who were there that I asked actually saw it. They all said it was there; other people saw it and said it was pretty cool, but I’ve yet to interrogate any of them.
Anyway people really seemed to really like Fury. Lots of people say that it was much better than WoW or Guild Wars though I will add that would be in context of what Fury is compared to what those other games offer along those lines, which is pure Player versus Player action.
Comments from the MMO players were:
The best part about the show is these audio clips Tony did we he asks people what they thought of Fury. When one player compared it to WoW, Tony asked him what server he plays on and the kids starts saying “Oh I play on a” and its about there he realizes what he is saying and as the words are coming out of his mouth you can hear him trying to draw them back in “on a private server.” Whoops.
The Nintendo Wii was there again as well and was again a major draw now 1 week ahead of its Australian debut.
This 3D Video thing that is currently being Slashdotted was there but none of the people who were there that I asked actually saw it. They all said it was there; other people saw it and said it was pretty cool, but I’ve yet to interrogate any of them.
Anyway people really seemed to really like Fury. Lots of people say that it was much better than WoW or Guild Wars though I will add that would be in context of what Fury is compared to what those other games offer along those lines, which is pure Player versus Player action.
Comments from the MMO players were:
“So much faster than a normal MMO”.Comments from the FPS gamers were:
“No boring level grind”
“I don’t have time to play Wow any more – I got to 60 and now there’s nothing to do that takes less than 4 hours”
“Battlegrounds is full of twinks and uber-geared players”
“I don’t play MMO’s because they’re too slow and boring – and I don’t have the time”Tony mentioned that when he talked to a few of the people who didn’t seem to be getting it, he got comments along the lines of “I found the controls awkward.” But upon further investigation he found these people were more FPS type gamers who aren’t used to the 3rd person controls found in most MMO games. We do have plans to have a more FPS friendly keymap default in the game and Adam is now talking about adding the keymap selection to character creation.
“I really like it – it feels like Unreal Tournament but with swords”
The best part about the show is these audio clips Tony did we he asks people what they thought of Fury. When one player compared it to WoW, Tony asked him what server he plays on and the kids starts saying “Oh I play on a” and its about there he realizes what he is saying and as the words are coming out of his mouth you can hear him trying to draw them back in “on a private server.” Whoops.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Secrets of Game Design: 1
I have decided to reveal some game design secrets. The first of which is that when you are writing design documents you have to say stuff happens. I take it from your stunned silence you don’t get it. I’m sure you get that stuff happens but you don’t get my point. You have to write that stuff happens not that stuff will happen. I have this problem when I write I say things like “When the player presses the close button the GUI menu will close.” That’s bad. You have to change that to “When the player presses the close button the GUI closes.” See the difference?
Every time I finish writing a design document I have to then spend another 30 minutes changing all the “will do stuff” to “does stuff”.
But Joseph, what does it matter? It’s the same thing! Why does it matter?
Beats me.
But be sure to join me next time on SECRETS OF GAME DESGIN!
Every time I finish writing a design document I have to then spend another 30 minutes changing all the “will do stuff” to “does stuff”.
But Joseph, what does it matter? It’s the same thing! Why does it matter?
Beats me.
But be sure to join me next time on SECRETS OF GAME DESGIN!
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Last Weekend in Melbourne
I finished typing this up Friday night but was going to pull a picture off my camera but forgot about it. I've been slaving away at Customer Service Tools all weekend and only realized I didn't post this when I went to shut the computer down and found the doc still open. So anyway without further ado I spent last weekend at the Game1 expo in Melbourne. Let me tell you about it…
First of all Ashwin doesn’t show up at the airport. He is one of the two marketing guys going to the show with me. The second marketing guy, Paul, is supposed to take another flight. Ashwin is the guy running the show, he knows who we are getting the rental computers from, where we are getting the monitors from, where we are getting the plasma TV from, who to talk to about setting up the booth and other little stuff like where the expo is actually being held. He’s the guy in the know. Me? I’m just the guy carrying the GIGANTIC, two-handed laptop computer that will be running the server. The problem is that Ashwin hasn’t shown up at the airport.
I get on the plane and after about 10 minutes sitting at the gate there is an announcement on the PA that if Mr. Segkar was on board could he please make himself known to a member of the flight crew. I look around… nope he’s not here. Then about 5 minutes later a ground crew guy comes on the plane and starts giving me the third degree right there in my seat where all of the other passengers can assign this delay on me.
“Am I traveling with Mr. Segkar? Did I check in with Mr. Segkar? Have I seen Mr. Segkar at all this morning? Is there a phone number where I could try to call Mr. Segkar?” I think he even asked me I was, or have I ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
I’m sure they are going doubly nuts because of the foreign sounding name. All I have that I can think of to give them before they start in with the thumbscrews is the cell phone number of Andrew, my assistant producer. I don’t know if he has Ashwin’s phone number or not, but hey it’s early in the morning and I figure he’d probably appreciate the wake up call. They leave me alone after that and about 15 minutes later we take off. I shrink back into my seat, pop on my $500 Bose, noise reduction headphones, and pretend I can’t feel the eyes of the other passengers on me.
I should interject that my Bose, noise reduction headphones ROCK. The whole background airplane noise was gone. I have The Prestige by Christopher Priest unabridged audiobook on my iPod. I saw the trailer for the movie adaptation a few days ago and it looks awesome so when I saw the audio book on Audible.Com I grabbed it. The movie is already out in the states but doesn’t open here till the 17th which is still a week away for those of you reading this at some alternate future time.
Consider that a message from our sponsors, back to the story…
I land in Melbourne and get to the hotel. We were supposed to stay in the Holiday Inn but it was booked up as it is the weekend before the Melbourne Cup horse race. Instead we get a place right around the corner. I was told the Holiday Inn got 3 stars and this place got 4, though I realize now that I don’t know exactly what system this is and what it’s star’s might mean. For all I know the stars could represent the number of unsolved homicides in the hotel the previous month.
This place is several very old buildings chopped up on the inside, divided into closet sized rooms with a tiny bathroom added on. It has a 12 inch TV mounted way up in the corner of one wall with no cable or movie service. I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep in a hotel room without the Discovery Channel on the background. It has a little internet room down in the lobby but the wireless doesn’t even connect from the room.
It did have a very large piece of green, furry, spiked, carpet that crawls along the baseboard.
But who cares about the room, it’s a place to sleep and I can live without the Discovery channel especially with the wonderful wildlife already living in the room. I toss my bags onto the bed and call Andrew to find out what’s going on.
Ashwin had problems with his rental car return, told the airline he would need to take the next flight and they removed his bags from the plane. The problem appears to be the ground crew didn’t get that update. All they knew was they had some guy with foreign name not show up for the flight but had luggage on the plane they couldn’t actually find. It must have been fun for them.
The important thing is that he was actually on his way which is more than we can say for Paul. I heard one story that he was bleeding from the ears and was taken to the hospital and another that had something to do with him getting a tooth pulled the day before and him not being well. Never did find out what happened there.
Fast forward a few hours and Ashwin arrives and goes right to the Expo center. He gives me a call and tells me to “grab a cab” and head on over.
Have you ever tried to grab a cab, downtown in a major city at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon? I go out front and give up after a few minutes. The hotel is on the very corner of the central business district and the street outside is very busy and had a physical divider along the center. All the cabs driving by on my side of the street have already gone through the city and have passengers, all the cabs entering the area are on the other side of the barrier.
I go back into the hotel ask the front desk to call me a cab. The receptionist tells me that there is a cab stand around the corner in front of the Holiday Inn. I go up and around the corner. There is a cab there. I ask him if he is on duty and he says yes. I get in. He asks where I want to go. I say the Melbourne Expo center. Suddenly he can’t take me because he is waiting for somebody in the hotel. Umm… Okay. I get out.
But a woman comes right out of the hotel and gets in the cab. He puts her luggage in the trunk and gets back in. Then there is some arm waving and shouting type gestures from both of them and they both get out and he takes her bags out of the trunk. She demands his card and says she is going to report him. He drives off with out a passenger and she leaves her luggage on the curb and storms back into the hotel. By this time there is a couple waiting for a cab as well. The problem here is the traffic is at a dead stand still so no cabs are going to get here any time soon. Eventually one works its way up and two businessmen come out of the hotel and walk right up and into the cab. We shout that there is a line. The guys looks at me and says, “Its okay, you can get the next one.” I give him a suggestion that he probably would need several years gymnast training to accomplish and go back to my hotel and tell them that the cab stand is a bust and I need her to call me a cab.
Fifteen minutes later a cab shows up. I get in and tell him I’m going to the Melbourne Expo center. He looks at me confused. He points out the window, “But that’s right there!” One city block in the cab, 10 bucks. Granted though it was a long city block, a good 10-15 minute walk. Except that isn’t the end of it. I go into the Expo center and ask the woman in the front desk how to get to the Game1 Expo. She apologizes before telling me that I have to walk the length of the expo center, go out the back, the width of expo center, then back halfway up the other side. The length of the expo center is about the same distance from the hotel.
So about another 20-30 minutes later I BS my way into onto the floor because of course I don’t have a badge or any sort of registration. Ashwin tells me that the computers have just arrived too. Oh that’s great! Only it isn’t because of the 7 computers we were supposed to get (6 and a spare) we have 5. They should all have 2 gigs of ram and two of these have 1 gig and the 3 have 512mb. Ashwin takes care of this. We have the guys doing our computers for the up coming eGames get us computers. Ashwin we have need more tables, he finds more tables. We need chairs, he finds chairs.
I set up the computer. Yes me. Normally I am the LAST person you want setting up computers and installing things because things just go wrong for me. But no this seems to all be working. Turn them on and half of them boot right up. Check the others and then they boot right up too. Install “Fury” and “Call of Juarez” on them just in time for them to kick us out at 11pm. Show runs 10 to 10 the next day and I call Andrew and tell him to expect my call at 9 (8 his time as there is no daylight saving time in Brisbane) to have him walk me through setting up the server. We had prearranged that he would have to walk me though the server set-up. I set the alarm for 7 so I’ll have time to eat something in the morning except that who ever put the clocks forward in the room got the AM / PM thing messed up. After oversleeping and missing breakfast I do manage to get to the expo floor at 9:00 and call Andrew. Setting up all the IP stuff goes fine but although machines can ping the server just fine the game won’t connect to the server and we can’t figure out why. We start calling other people, we believe people from playtest are in the office but can’t find a phone number that will bypass the “Auran office hours” recording. Eventually Andrews manages to get ahold of Chris Bergman who calls me and after a few minutes he solves the problem. The server is trying to use the ‘main’ database which isn’t there instead of the local database on the machine. To make the mater worse the program to switch which database the server uses isn’t installed on the laptop. So Chris talks me through editing the registry to repoint it to the right database. Me editing the registry are another thing you generally don’t want me doing but again this time it all works find. The machines connect, the game loads, yay!
So the rest of the show went pretty much okay not counting there are only two of use for a booth that really needs 3 minimum, 12 hours show days, and one of machines kept overheating while another kept losing connection to the server. I never did get to go stand in line to try out the Wii but looks like people were having fun with it.
First of all Ashwin doesn’t show up at the airport. He is one of the two marketing guys going to the show with me. The second marketing guy, Paul, is supposed to take another flight. Ashwin is the guy running the show, he knows who we are getting the rental computers from, where we are getting the monitors from, where we are getting the plasma TV from, who to talk to about setting up the booth and other little stuff like where the expo is actually being held. He’s the guy in the know. Me? I’m just the guy carrying the GIGANTIC, two-handed laptop computer that will be running the server. The problem is that Ashwin hasn’t shown up at the airport.
I get on the plane and after about 10 minutes sitting at the gate there is an announcement on the PA that if Mr. Segkar was on board could he please make himself known to a member of the flight crew. I look around… nope he’s not here. Then about 5 minutes later a ground crew guy comes on the plane and starts giving me the third degree right there in my seat where all of the other passengers can assign this delay on me.
“Am I traveling with Mr. Segkar? Did I check in with Mr. Segkar? Have I seen Mr. Segkar at all this morning? Is there a phone number where I could try to call Mr. Segkar?” I think he even asked me I was, or have I ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
I’m sure they are going doubly nuts because of the foreign sounding name. All I have that I can think of to give them before they start in with the thumbscrews is the cell phone number of Andrew, my assistant producer. I don’t know if he has Ashwin’s phone number or not, but hey it’s early in the morning and I figure he’d probably appreciate the wake up call. They leave me alone after that and about 15 minutes later we take off. I shrink back into my seat, pop on my $500 Bose, noise reduction headphones, and pretend I can’t feel the eyes of the other passengers on me.
I should interject that my Bose, noise reduction headphones ROCK. The whole background airplane noise was gone. I have The Prestige by Christopher Priest unabridged audiobook on my iPod. I saw the trailer for the movie adaptation a few days ago and it looks awesome so when I saw the audio book on Audible.Com I grabbed it. The movie is already out in the states but doesn’t open here till the 17th which is still a week away for those of you reading this at some alternate future time.
Consider that a message from our sponsors, back to the story…
I land in Melbourne and get to the hotel. We were supposed to stay in the Holiday Inn but it was booked up as it is the weekend before the Melbourne Cup horse race. Instead we get a place right around the corner. I was told the Holiday Inn got 3 stars and this place got 4, though I realize now that I don’t know exactly what system this is and what it’s star’s might mean. For all I know the stars could represent the number of unsolved homicides in the hotel the previous month.
This place is several very old buildings chopped up on the inside, divided into closet sized rooms with a tiny bathroom added on. It has a 12 inch TV mounted way up in the corner of one wall with no cable or movie service. I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep in a hotel room without the Discovery Channel on the background. It has a little internet room down in the lobby but the wireless doesn’t even connect from the room.
It did have a very large piece of green, furry, spiked, carpet that crawls along the baseboard.
But who cares about the room, it’s a place to sleep and I can live without the Discovery channel especially with the wonderful wildlife already living in the room. I toss my bags onto the bed and call Andrew to find out what’s going on.
Ashwin had problems with his rental car return, told the airline he would need to take the next flight and they removed his bags from the plane. The problem appears to be the ground crew didn’t get that update. All they knew was they had some guy with foreign name not show up for the flight but had luggage on the plane they couldn’t actually find. It must have been fun for them.
The important thing is that he was actually on his way which is more than we can say for Paul. I heard one story that he was bleeding from the ears and was taken to the hospital and another that had something to do with him getting a tooth pulled the day before and him not being well. Never did find out what happened there.
Fast forward a few hours and Ashwin arrives and goes right to the Expo center. He gives me a call and tells me to “grab a cab” and head on over.
Have you ever tried to grab a cab, downtown in a major city at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon? I go out front and give up after a few minutes. The hotel is on the very corner of the central business district and the street outside is very busy and had a physical divider along the center. All the cabs driving by on my side of the street have already gone through the city and have passengers, all the cabs entering the area are on the other side of the barrier.
I go back into the hotel ask the front desk to call me a cab. The receptionist tells me that there is a cab stand around the corner in front of the Holiday Inn. I go up and around the corner. There is a cab there. I ask him if he is on duty and he says yes. I get in. He asks where I want to go. I say the Melbourne Expo center. Suddenly he can’t take me because he is waiting for somebody in the hotel. Umm… Okay. I get out.
But a woman comes right out of the hotel and gets in the cab. He puts her luggage in the trunk and gets back in. Then there is some arm waving and shouting type gestures from both of them and they both get out and he takes her bags out of the trunk. She demands his card and says she is going to report him. He drives off with out a passenger and she leaves her luggage on the curb and storms back into the hotel. By this time there is a couple waiting for a cab as well. The problem here is the traffic is at a dead stand still so no cabs are going to get here any time soon. Eventually one works its way up and two businessmen come out of the hotel and walk right up and into the cab. We shout that there is a line. The guys looks at me and says, “Its okay, you can get the next one.” I give him a suggestion that he probably would need several years gymnast training to accomplish and go back to my hotel and tell them that the cab stand is a bust and I need her to call me a cab.
Fifteen minutes later a cab shows up. I get in and tell him I’m going to the Melbourne Expo center. He looks at me confused. He points out the window, “But that’s right there!” One city block in the cab, 10 bucks. Granted though it was a long city block, a good 10-15 minute walk. Except that isn’t the end of it. I go into the Expo center and ask the woman in the front desk how to get to the Game1 Expo. She apologizes before telling me that I have to walk the length of the expo center, go out the back, the width of expo center, then back halfway up the other side. The length of the expo center is about the same distance from the hotel.
So about another 20-30 minutes later I BS my way into onto the floor because of course I don’t have a badge or any sort of registration. Ashwin tells me that the computers have just arrived too. Oh that’s great! Only it isn’t because of the 7 computers we were supposed to get (6 and a spare) we have 5. They should all have 2 gigs of ram and two of these have 1 gig and the 3 have 512mb. Ashwin takes care of this. We have the guys doing our computers for the up coming eGames get us computers. Ashwin we have need more tables, he finds more tables. We need chairs, he finds chairs.
I set up the computer. Yes me. Normally I am the LAST person you want setting up computers and installing things because things just go wrong for me. But no this seems to all be working. Turn them on and half of them boot right up. Check the others and then they boot right up too. Install “Fury” and “Call of Juarez” on them just in time for them to kick us out at 11pm. Show runs 10 to 10 the next day and I call Andrew and tell him to expect my call at 9 (8 his time as there is no daylight saving time in Brisbane) to have him walk me through setting up the server. We had prearranged that he would have to walk me though the server set-up. I set the alarm for 7 so I’ll have time to eat something in the morning except that who ever put the clocks forward in the room got the AM / PM thing messed up. After oversleeping and missing breakfast I do manage to get to the expo floor at 9:00 and call Andrew. Setting up all the IP stuff goes fine but although machines can ping the server just fine the game won’t connect to the server and we can’t figure out why. We start calling other people, we believe people from playtest are in the office but can’t find a phone number that will bypass the “Auran office hours” recording. Eventually Andrews manages to get ahold of Chris Bergman who calls me and after a few minutes he solves the problem. The server is trying to use the ‘main’ database which isn’t there instead of the local database on the machine. To make the mater worse the program to switch which database the server uses isn’t installed on the laptop. So Chris talks me through editing the registry to repoint it to the right database. Me editing the registry are another thing you generally don’t want me doing but again this time it all works find. The machines connect, the game loads, yay!
So the rest of the show went pretty much okay not counting there are only two of use for a booth that really needs 3 minimum, 12 hours show days, and one of machines kept overheating while another kept losing connection to the server. I never did get to go stand in line to try out the Wii but looks like people were having fun with it.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
IGN Australia
So I spent the weekend at the Game1 expo in Melbourne. I am in the process of writing a whole incident report but I really need to get back to work on this design spec so I’ll leave that for tomorrow.
In the meantime I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything so here are two Fury links from IGN Australia. First their Studio Tour of Auran and then their Fury Hands On.
There are some memorable quotes. My personal favorite is:
He also got a little mixed up with the elements. The game is based on 5 elements kind of taken from Asian lore. It is Water (Life, Positive Energy, Blue) opposed to Fire (Death, Negative Energy, Red) and Nature (Growth, Positive Form, Green) opposed to Air (Decay, Negative Form, Purple). Earth, the 5th element is neutral and isn’t involved in the elemental parts of game play. For the purest Air really should be Metal in the Asian system we are using, but the effect of metal became lightning and eventually the name got changed to the more Western-like “Air”. For the simplistic its just Red vs. Blue and Purple vs. Green.
He makes a little mistake trying to peg Fury’s place in the current pantheon of next generation game graphics:
In the meantime I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything so here are two Fury links from IGN Australia. First their Studio Tour of Auran and then their Fury Hands On.
There are some memorable quotes. My personal favorite is:
"twitch gaming skills move to twitch thinking"I also guess nobody told him the “low-flying dragon clutching a large crystal” is called a Perkon. Or maybe they did and he just didn’t it sounded as cool as a ““low-flying dragon clutching a large crystal” and you know, he may have a point there. Where did we come up with the name "Perkon" anyway?
He also got a little mixed up with the elements. The game is based on 5 elements kind of taken from Asian lore. It is Water (Life, Positive Energy, Blue) opposed to Fire (Death, Negative Energy, Red) and Nature (Growth, Positive Form, Green) opposed to Air (Decay, Negative Form, Purple). Earth, the 5th element is neutral and isn’t involved in the elemental parts of game play. For the purest Air really should be Metal in the Asian system we are using, but the effect of metal became lightning and eventually the name got changed to the more Western-like “Air”. For the simplistic its just Red vs. Blue and Purple vs. Green.
He makes a little mistake trying to peg Fury’s place in the current pantheon of next generation game graphics:
"Although bettered by Gears of War and others, the Unreal Engine 3.0 kicks some serious butt. Gorgeous."The Problem is that Gears of War was also built using the Unreal Engine 3.0. DOH!
Friday, October 27, 2006
Rambling On
So it’s another exciting Friday night. I’m sitting in Ironforge waiting on the Battleground queues that are all over an hour, 20-30 minutes apart from each other and yet will inevitably all pop on top of each other. (note as I’m posting this: they did pop on top of each other) To make matters worse I’m watching “How to Lose a Guy in 10 days” on TV. It could be worse as we have “First 50 Dates” and “Cold Mountain” on the other channels. Actually, had I thought about it, I probably would have picked the Adam Sandler movie but this one came on after Smallville and I was too busy in Alterac Valley to change the channel. Now I don’t want to change since I already missed the beginning.
You are probably thinking “Oh swept in after Smallville, I can see that” but had I gotten of my ass and finished buying the DVDs I would have seen this Smallville already. You see I’m in Australia which means that the latest episode of Smallville is actually over a season behind the U.S. They occasionally air something simultaneously as the U.S. and then make a big deal about how you can “EXPERIENCE IT SIMULTANIOUSLY WITH THE U.S.” That is what they are doing with Jerico, you know about Jerico don’t you? You’ve heard of shows that are advertised as “LOST ON ACID!” well Jerico is “Lost that probably took some acid or something at a party Friday night, a party that lasted till sometime Sunday and is now hung over on a Monday morning as it stumbles into work.” Actually no, that implies too much excitement. It’s just “Lost that stumbled in late and tired on a Monday morning.” I so much want to like the show but its boring me to tears. The naivety of these people in the show, the country’s been nuked and they are busy playing soap opera.
I haven’t been keeping on posting all the Fury in the news links lately not that there has been a lot of new and exciting information released but I’ll be at the Game1 expo in Melbourne next weekend showing off Fury. Auran will also be at the eGames Expo at the same place two weeks later (Nov 17-19th). We have some older stuff like this German review based on seeing the game at PAX (You can make fun of this Google translation if you don’t speak German), this audio interview with Adam on Cybershack, and Adam’s latest Dev Diary is in the latest PC PowerPlay. I have a scan of it but decided not to post it. Who would want to put our crap in their rag if I just go and post scans of it instead of making you go buy the issue? I did a Dev Diary myself on designing and creating the ability icons but it sucks so I am going to redo it. It’s full of good info and insight to the process, just doesn’t have my trademark witty humor.
You are probably thinking “Oh swept in after Smallville, I can see that” but had I gotten of my ass and finished buying the DVDs I would have seen this Smallville already. You see I’m in Australia which means that the latest episode of Smallville is actually over a season behind the U.S. They occasionally air something simultaneously as the U.S. and then make a big deal about how you can “EXPERIENCE IT SIMULTANIOUSLY WITH THE U.S.” That is what they are doing with Jerico, you know about Jerico don’t you? You’ve heard of shows that are advertised as “LOST ON ACID!” well Jerico is “Lost that probably took some acid or something at a party Friday night, a party that lasted till sometime Sunday and is now hung over on a Monday morning as it stumbles into work.” Actually no, that implies too much excitement. It’s just “Lost that stumbled in late and tired on a Monday morning.” I so much want to like the show but its boring me to tears. The naivety of these people in the show, the country’s been nuked and they are busy playing soap opera.
I haven’t been keeping on posting all the Fury in the news links lately not that there has been a lot of new and exciting information released but I’ll be at the Game1 expo in Melbourne next weekend showing off Fury. Auran will also be at the eGames Expo at the same place two weeks later (Nov 17-19th). We have some older stuff like this German review based on seeing the game at PAX (You can make fun of this Google translation if you don’t speak German), this audio interview with Adam on Cybershack, and Adam’s latest Dev Diary is in the latest PC PowerPlay. I have a scan of it but decided not to post it. Who would want to put our crap in their rag if I just go and post scans of it instead of making you go buy the issue? I did a Dev Diary myself on designing and creating the ability icons but it sucks so I am going to redo it. It’s full of good info and insight to the process, just doesn’t have my trademark witty humor.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
No adware notice the Aussie BF 2142 box
Kotaku has a post up that the Australian Battlefield 2142 box comes with no such adware notice. One of the commenters who goes by the handle Aeternum claims she is an EB empoyee and says:
I will go to my local EB this weekend and see if they do indeed tell people about the adware.
I just finished a shift at EB and it's true, no note, but we have to tell them about the spywear. so we do get the spyware, but we don't have as many returns because people tell us to shove it before they buy it.I've decided I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and not umm... not on the counter at my local EB... meaning umm... I'm not going to buy the game. That analogy didn't quite come out the way I planned. Who would want to put money in their mouth anyway?
I will go to my local EB this weekend and see if they do indeed tell people about the adware.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
EA - Adware, Its In The Game.
In the latest (October 11th, 2006) Computer Gaming World radio podcast they open up an advance retail box of the very soon to be released "Battlefield 2142". Inside the box they find a disclaimer notice informing you that the game includes monitoring software which runs while your computer is online, records personal information and sends it back to the advertising companies which provide the in-game advertising. ADWARE!!!!
There doesn’t seem to be much major news coverage of this yet but its popping up on a few independent game forums followed by a plethora of "fuck EA I won’t be buying this game" posts.
Now I’ve long been a fan of "Fuck EA" I mean fan of Battlefield 2 and I’ve been really excited about Battlefield 2142’s release... until now.
I remember when I first heard of EA when I bought "Archon" for the Commodore 64. I read the little "about EA" blurb and thought they were such a cool company. I was walking on air when a game I worked on, "The Mars Saga", was published by EA with my picture on the inside flap with their old, cool “cube, sphere, pyramid” logo. I loved that logo and I think they sold their soul about the same time they stopped using it. By the way, the little "about the developer blurb" that went with our picture for "The Mar's Saga" was the first time I snuck Douglas Adam’s references into some of my published writings. EA trimmed my original text a bit which ruined the pacing but they had legitimate space issues so I didn’t mind.
SERIOUSLY THOUGH ADWARE! I’m really upset about this. Okay there is something you should know about me. I have a computer curse. Things go wrong for me, mysterious things that nobody can explain; IT people have actually resorted to waving dead poultry over my machines. Back at Westwood I used to be required to bring my home machine in to test the install of our games because they would ALWAYS screw up for me… unless somebody was watching, but you probably guessed that part. Anyway I would bring my machine in and run the install program and then call the guys in from out in the hall (because it wouldn't do it if they were in the room) to see the machine after it had screwed up.
Because of that I don’t even surf the net on my game machine… ever! If I need something for that machine, I download it on this machine and then copy it over to that one. It is my clean machine. I am deadly afraid of installing the wrong thing that is going to slow that machine down. And now EA wants to install Adware on my clean machine! I am all for in game advertising, but this is going too far. I understand they think this information is valuable to them but it’s a bit more valuable to me. If Mr. Advertising Agency guy wants that information I’ll sell it to him but my price is going to be slightly higher than me paying full price for a game and having software on my machine slowing it down. It’s funny that I don’t feel that I am coming out ahead in their deal.
Now I do think that people are erroring on the side of chaos in what this adware actually does, but after the Sony rootkit scandal I don’t blame them. I lost all faith in Logitech when I found them installing adware with my new G15 Keyboard and G5 mouse. The infamous Real-player admitting it installs adware and not caring what you think about it. We simply can’t trust the big, main stream companies anymore than we can trust some back alley warz website. The fact that EA is scared enough about what they are doing to warn you with an actual writing on paper notice instead of something hidden away in a 12-page, 6 point font, end user license agreement written in lawyer language should tell us something.
There is another thing about this that intrigues me though. This is a notice inside the box for an online game where the game’s serial number is then attached to your online account so the game can’t be used again by somebody else. Most software stores have a no return policy on those types of games once opened. So what is the chance Mr. Software_Story_Guy is going to allow you to return the game once you’ve opened it, read this adware warning notice, and decided that you rather not have EA sodomize you?
Speaking of Computer Gaming World, the latest issue is the last issue under that name. They are being reborn as “Games for Windows: The Official magazine”. While you are spouting off your opinions of that, you can download PDF versions of the first 100 issues that they scanned and put online. I’d like to point your attention to my first game cover (well half a cover anyway) Number 55 from January 1989 with "Battletech: The Crescent Hawk’s Inception". Or Number 71 from May 1990 featuring "DragonStrike". Then a few months later we see Number 75 from November 1990 showing "Battletech II: The Crescent Hawk’s Revenge".
Don’t look for mega-hit "Eye of the Beholder" on the cover of Number 83 from 1991 because it got beat out by "Legend’s Timequest"... tell me who went down on Scorpia to get that deal through?
Before end this and go get my jammies on I’d like to point out the legendary vaporware "Champions" cover from March of 1992. A game that never got released made the cover. It was a very big embarrassment for them. I wonder who was forced to go down on Scorpia as punishement for that one?
There doesn’t seem to be much major news coverage of this yet but its popping up on a few independent game forums followed by a plethora of "fuck EA I won’t be buying this game" posts.
Now I’ve long been a fan of "Fuck EA" I mean fan of Battlefield 2 and I’ve been really excited about Battlefield 2142’s release... until now.
I remember when I first heard of EA when I bought "Archon" for the Commodore 64. I read the little "about EA" blurb and thought they were such a cool company. I was walking on air when a game I worked on, "The Mars Saga", was published by EA with my picture on the inside flap with their old, cool “cube, sphere, pyramid” logo. I loved that logo and I think they sold their soul about the same time they stopped using it. By the way, the little "about the developer blurb" that went with our picture for "The Mar's Saga" was the first time I snuck Douglas Adam’s references into some of my published writings. EA trimmed my original text a bit which ruined the pacing but they had legitimate space issues so I didn’t mind.
SERIOUSLY THOUGH ADWARE! I’m really upset about this. Okay there is something you should know about me. I have a computer curse. Things go wrong for me, mysterious things that nobody can explain; IT people have actually resorted to waving dead poultry over my machines. Back at Westwood I used to be required to bring my home machine in to test the install of our games because they would ALWAYS screw up for me… unless somebody was watching, but you probably guessed that part. Anyway I would bring my machine in and run the install program and then call the guys in from out in the hall (because it wouldn't do it if they were in the room) to see the machine after it had screwed up.
Because of that I don’t even surf the net on my game machine… ever! If I need something for that machine, I download it on this machine and then copy it over to that one. It is my clean machine. I am deadly afraid of installing the wrong thing that is going to slow that machine down. And now EA wants to install Adware on my clean machine! I am all for in game advertising, but this is going too far. I understand they think this information is valuable to them but it’s a bit more valuable to me. If Mr. Advertising Agency guy wants that information I’ll sell it to him but my price is going to be slightly higher than me paying full price for a game and having software on my machine slowing it down. It’s funny that I don’t feel that I am coming out ahead in their deal.
Now I do think that people are erroring on the side of chaos in what this adware actually does, but after the Sony rootkit scandal I don’t blame them. I lost all faith in Logitech when I found them installing adware with my new G15 Keyboard and G5 mouse. The infamous Real-player admitting it installs adware and not caring what you think about it. We simply can’t trust the big, main stream companies anymore than we can trust some back alley warz website. The fact that EA is scared enough about what they are doing to warn you with an actual writing on paper notice instead of something hidden away in a 12-page, 6 point font, end user license agreement written in lawyer language should tell us something.
There is another thing about this that intrigues me though. This is a notice inside the box for an online game where the game’s serial number is then attached to your online account so the game can’t be used again by somebody else. Most software stores have a no return policy on those types of games once opened. So what is the chance Mr. Software_Story_Guy is going to allow you to return the game once you’ve opened it, read this adware warning notice, and decided that you rather not have EA sodomize you?
Speaking of Computer Gaming World, the latest issue is the last issue under that name. They are being reborn as “Games for Windows: The Official magazine”. While you are spouting off your opinions of that, you can download PDF versions of the first 100 issues that they scanned and put online. I’d like to point your attention to my first game cover (well half a cover anyway) Number 55 from January 1989 with "Battletech: The Crescent Hawk’s Inception". Or Number 71 from May 1990 featuring "DragonStrike". Then a few months later we see Number 75 from November 1990 showing "Battletech II: The Crescent Hawk’s Revenge".
Don’t look for mega-hit "Eye of the Beholder" on the cover of Number 83 from 1991 because it got beat out by "Legend’s Timequest"... tell me who went down on Scorpia to get that deal through?
Before end this and go get my jammies on I’d like to point out the legendary vaporware "Champions" cover from March of 1992. A game that never got released made the cover. It was a very big embarrassment for them. I wonder who was forced to go down on Scorpia as punishement for that one?
Friday, September 29, 2006
This Blog Sucks (+Fury Q&A link)
Fury-Sanctuary has another Q&A with world famous computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV and some yokel named Cameron McNeil.
Not so much slamming Cameron McNeil there but more of an opportunity to say the phrase “computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV” I have to say the phrase “computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV” because a friend of mine complained that he had a hard time finding my blog “Working As Designed” while web searching for it. He pointed out that I don’t mention my own name, computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV, enough and that by changing the title “Working As Designed” to a graphic instead of the actual text “Working As Designed” means it probably won’t be picked up as easily by search engines.
He also said I am a very funny writer and that I can and have produced some really really hilarious stuff. Knowing that he asked why then my blog sucks so much.
Taking this very seriously I thought about it. It is almost like I go into some ‘official reporter mode’ when writing here. It’s like I think I am some stuffed shirt, news reporter taking everything way too seriously. “Today on the Intertubes there was this funny thing… and umm here I’ll link to it for you.”
He’s right! What is that crap? And even when I do make an attempt its only half hearted. Look at yesterday’s post, see that at the end, the bit about the gay prison sex reference? It’s a good joke, how can you go wrong with a gay prison sex reference, but the execution is only half hearted. No real wind up, lame prison guy names, and weak final delivery.
Now compare that to this post I made on the Fury Sanctuary forums a few months ago. That was all right off the top of my head without even trying.
Not so much slamming Cameron McNeil there but more of an opportunity to say the phrase “computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV” I have to say the phrase “computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV” because a friend of mine complained that he had a hard time finding my blog “Working As Designed” while web searching for it. He pointed out that I don’t mention my own name, computer game designer Joseph B. Hewitt IV, enough and that by changing the title “Working As Designed” to a graphic instead of the actual text “Working As Designed” means it probably won’t be picked up as easily by search engines.
He also said I am a very funny writer and that I can and have produced some really really hilarious stuff. Knowing that he asked why then my blog sucks so much.
Taking this very seriously I thought about it. It is almost like I go into some ‘official reporter mode’ when writing here. It’s like I think I am some stuffed shirt, news reporter taking everything way too seriously. “Today on the Intertubes there was this funny thing… and umm here I’ll link to it for you.”
He’s right! What is that crap? And even when I do make an attempt its only half hearted. Look at yesterday’s post, see that at the end, the bit about the gay prison sex reference? It’s a good joke, how can you go wrong with a gay prison sex reference, but the execution is only half hearted. No real wind up, lame prison guy names, and weak final delivery.
Now compare that to this post I made on the Fury Sanctuary forums a few months ago. That was all right off the top of my head without even trying.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Girl Rocks Halo on the Violin and More Urban Tile Art
I meant to post this a few days ago but the “blog this” link from YouTube wasn’t appearing here and I had to figure out how to do it by hand. Not that hard (the secret is to remember to remove the equal sign from the end of the URL code) but while doing it a WoW Battleground popped and after it was over I forgot about it. The smell of dead Horde players does that to me.
Anyway, the above YouTube video showing what appears to be a High School talent show with a teenaged, female, violinist rocking out the XBox Halo theme song has been going around the net. At first nothing was known about the girl, the group, or the performance. It caught the attention of Bungie who put up a higher res-ed uncompressed version on their site.
Now (well a few days ago) Florian of Kotaku.com managed to get an interview with Hana Stuart the above mentioned violinist.
Kotaku also has another picture of some retro tiled urban street art. I really love this stuff especially since I used to do game art back then. I am seriously thinking about doing some of this myself. Technically it is graffiti though and you could still get arrested for defacing private property. Can you imagine being in jail, doing the face down with Ice-Pick Bob and Larry the Cannibal, and having to answer the “what’ya in for?” question with “doing Nintendo art on the side of building.” Yeah, unfortunately the Princess is in another castle and you’ll be standing in for her.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Fury Stuff with add bonus: Lawyers versus Marketing
Auran CEO Tony Hilliam, Fury Lead Designer Adam Carpenter and Art Director Jason Robson share their thoughts on what went down at PAX’06 over on our own site.
Game Musketeers has a interview with our Producer Paul Whipp.
There are few other write-ups that I’ve proof read for Paul and Adam that should pop-up in the next few days. I know what you are thinking, "You? Proof read?!" Well not "proof reading" for grammar or anything like that. Content proof-reading type stuff: don’t use that word because it makes it sound like your implying this when you really mean that. That sort of stuff.
If I hadn’t gotten into Games I would have probably done really well in marketing. That is kind of odd since I consider marketing people to be the most evil people on the planet.
The common belief is lawyers are the most evil, but that is only because marketing people have sold you on that idea to throw you off the real scent. You see lawyers are just tools. You got an lawyer to fight for you? Well I can hire my own lawyer to fight your lawyer. We can send them off in the arena, I mean, courtroom to fight it out while we head off to Starbucks for some coffee. But if you got a marketing evil demon trying to sell me on something, I can’t hire my own marketing demon to fight your marketing demon. By the time we get back they can have it all worked out.
For example, there used to be a commercial for Lucky’s super-market. They claimed to be the “Low Price Leader” and to prove this they had an independent accounting firm with an impeccable reputation choose 100 items at random and then they compared their price on those items with those of other stores. Would you believe it that Lucky’s actually had the lower prices of all the stores!!! Boy that would sure have been embarrassing for them if they shot that commercial with the hot babe (I’m lying she wasn’t hot, I actually found her annoying) only to have to admit at the end that another super market had a lower price on those randomly chosen items. How did they know they would come out cheaper? An accounting firm with an impeccable reputation, items chosen at RANDOM! Why it’s water tight, they must actually be the low price leader!
Now see if I were to hire my own marketing person he could try and sell Lucky’s on the idea that I am the Ultimate Shopper! But that doesn’t really break their “Low Price Leader” evil plan!
But wait! If I were to hire a lawyer he would point out that Lucky’s never said just how many times they had the accounting firm choose 100 items at random. Isn’t it true Mr. Lucky’s that you actually had the accounting firm pick 100 items at random hundreds of times? And of all those lists where some times you came out lower and some times you came out higher didn’t you then picked which list of 100 items that you used on your commercials? The list where you came out the lowest? Isn’t it also true that you caught your wife having an affair with your best friend and in a fit of jealous rage murdered them both and concealed their bodies in the false bottom of your refrigerator where my client found them when putting away the cantaloupes he purchased at a competitor’s super-market?!
See the lawyer is my tool which I can use to defeat the evil marketing person and marking people know that which is why they decided to make us all think lawyers are the evil ones! You know that joke, “Why don’t sharks eat lawyers? Professional curtesy.” Marketing people came up with that joke!
Maybe later I’ll tell you how the anti-violent video game movement is actually a front for the Zombie Army. No really I figured it all out. It’s obvious once you see the pattern.
Game Musketeers has a interview with our Producer Paul Whipp.
There are few other write-ups that I’ve proof read for Paul and Adam that should pop-up in the next few days. I know what you are thinking, "You? Proof read?!" Well not "proof reading" for grammar or anything like that. Content proof-reading type stuff: don’t use that word because it makes it sound like your implying this when you really mean that. That sort of stuff.
If I hadn’t gotten into Games I would have probably done really well in marketing. That is kind of odd since I consider marketing people to be the most evil people on the planet.
The common belief is lawyers are the most evil, but that is only because marketing people have sold you on that idea to throw you off the real scent. You see lawyers are just tools. You got an lawyer to fight for you? Well I can hire my own lawyer to fight your lawyer. We can send them off in the arena, I mean, courtroom to fight it out while we head off to Starbucks for some coffee. But if you got a marketing evil demon trying to sell me on something, I can’t hire my own marketing demon to fight your marketing demon. By the time we get back they can have it all worked out.
For example, there used to be a commercial for Lucky’s super-market. They claimed to be the “Low Price Leader” and to prove this they had an independent accounting firm with an impeccable reputation choose 100 items at random and then they compared their price on those items with those of other stores. Would you believe it that Lucky’s actually had the lower prices of all the stores!!! Boy that would sure have been embarrassing for them if they shot that commercial with the hot babe (I’m lying she wasn’t hot, I actually found her annoying) only to have to admit at the end that another super market had a lower price on those randomly chosen items. How did they know they would come out cheaper? An accounting firm with an impeccable reputation, items chosen at RANDOM! Why it’s water tight, they must actually be the low price leader!
Now see if I were to hire my own marketing person he could try and sell Lucky’s on the idea that I am the Ultimate Shopper! But that doesn’t really break their “Low Price Leader” evil plan!
But wait! If I were to hire a lawyer he would point out that Lucky’s never said just how many times they had the accounting firm choose 100 items at random. Isn’t it true Mr. Lucky’s that you actually had the accounting firm pick 100 items at random hundreds of times? And of all those lists where some times you came out lower and some times you came out higher didn’t you then picked which list of 100 items that you used on your commercials? The list where you came out the lowest? Isn’t it also true that you caught your wife having an affair with your best friend and in a fit of jealous rage murdered them both and concealed their bodies in the false bottom of your refrigerator where my client found them when putting away the cantaloupes he purchased at a competitor’s super-market?!
See the lawyer is my tool which I can use to defeat the evil marketing person and marking people know that which is why they decided to make us all think lawyers are the evil ones! You know that joke, “Why don’t sharks eat lawyers? Professional curtesy.” Marketing people came up with that joke!
Maybe later I’ll tell you how the anti-violent video game movement is actually a front for the Zombie Army. No really I figured it all out. It’s obvious once you see the pattern.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Sorry Nintendo: No Wii for Me
If you are up on gaming news you might have read about Nintendo's VP of marketing Perrin Kaplan at the recent New York City press event said that the Nintendo Wii would be region free, meaning that games you bought in one country (region) could be played on the system bought in another.
After that was reported around the web there a Nintendo UK spokesman contradicted that saying the Nintendo U.S. arm had made a mistake:
I’ll repeat what I said before in my previous post. Game companies have not gained any new console video game sales from me going on 3 years now. Now they are losing out on selling me their new expensive console systems all because of region coding. The only way they will regain me as a customer, the only way they will get any money from me, is if I move back to the United States or if I am willing to start modding my systems. Well either that or they can swap me a region 4 system and copy of every region 1 game I own for that system with a promise to swap them all back plus any new one's I've bought while in Australia for region 1 versions if I go back to the United States. Somehow I'm sure they will have some detailed business model rational on why that isn't a good idea even though the current business model that I just spelled out doesn't have me doing any actual business with them.
By the way I am not a Nintendo hater, I’m a big Nintendo supporter. I’m a Zelda, Mario, Metroid fanboy! I think Shigeru Miyamoto is god! I was really looking forward to the Wii. If I wasn’t busy typing this up while waiting for a WoW Battleground to pop I’d be playing my region free Nintendo DS instead.
“Like the Nintendo DS, the Wii will be able to play games from other regions, such as Japan, without any restriction.”In my case that meant that if I bought a Nintendo Wii here in Australia I would still be able to buy games for it if I went back to the U.S.
After that was reported around the web there a Nintendo UK spokesman contradicted that saying the Nintendo U.S. arm had made a mistake:
"We are region-locked."Well now Joystick.com claims to have finally gotten the straight answer from Nintendo:
"We've heard conflicting reports from lots of folks out there, but can tell you that Wii will be region encoded, as will first-party software."So there ya go. Those of you who read my previous post on region locking will know my stance on it. So let me just say, “Sorry Nintendo but no Wii for me.” I had planned on actually reserving one at my local EB once the Australian release date was announced but it isn’t going happen now.
I’ll repeat what I said before in my previous post. Game companies have not gained any new console video game sales from me going on 3 years now. Now they are losing out on selling me their new expensive console systems all because of region coding. The only way they will regain me as a customer, the only way they will get any money from me, is if I move back to the United States or if I am willing to start modding my systems. Well either that or they can swap me a region 4 system and copy of every region 1 game I own for that system with a promise to swap them all back plus any new one's I've bought while in Australia for region 1 versions if I go back to the United States. Somehow I'm sure they will have some detailed business model rational on why that isn't a good idea even though the current business model that I just spelled out doesn't have me doing any actual business with them.
By the way I am not a Nintendo hater, I’m a big Nintendo supporter. I’m a Zelda, Mario, Metroid fanboy! I think Shigeru Miyamoto is god! I was really looking forward to the Wii. If I wasn’t busy typing this up while waiting for a WoW Battleground to pop I’d be playing my region free Nintendo DS instead.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Yet another write up from another trade show
MMORPG.COM has a “hands on” write-up by Laura Genender from the Austin Game Developer’s Conference.
There is one small mistake; she says “Though I had a mana bar, I never once looked at it.” The build we are showing off still has the mana (actually we called it Ki, it’s an Asian thing) bar but we had already taken its functionality out of the game. The version we have been allowing people to play with still has the old GUI so it the blue bar is still there.
If you look at the screenshot I posted over on the Fury-Sanctuary forums you can see how the health bar now extends overtop of the where the Ki bar was.
There is one small mistake; she says “Though I had a mana bar, I never once looked at it.” The build we are showing off still has the mana (actually we called it Ki, it’s an Asian thing) bar but we had already taken its functionality out of the game. The version we have been allowing people to play with still has the old GUI so it the blue bar is still there.
If you look at the screenshot I posted over on the Fury-Sanctuary forums you can see how the health bar now extends overtop of the where the Ki bar was.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Online Comic Update
I'm adding a few more links to the comics section that should have been there all along: VG Cats, Mac Hall, and The Perry Bible Fellowship. Warning if you are easily offended you should steer way clear of PBF, don't let the word 'bible' fool you. It is hilarious though.
There was another comic that I wanted to link but I can't find the bookmark for it. It was black and white, single panel, and the main character is a serial killer with a goofy hockey mask. It was very dark and morbid comic and I am trying desperately to remember its name because it was one of my favorites. It’s very much like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac which isn’t an online comic.
Wait, found it! Chopping Block! It was there all along just thought that was something else. By the way, it too isn’t for the easily offended… like I said it is about serial killer.
In my search for Chopping Block stumbled upon an alarming fact! In reading all these comic news blurbs with the reasons they post about why they are late putting up their latest comic I have found that the internet is going down hourly, natural disasters are running amok across the country, car accidents, dogs sleeping with cats, water turning to blood, Armageddon is upon us! THE END IS NIGH!!!
Somebody alert the media, I’ll be cowering in the bathtub.
There was another comic that I wanted to link but I can't find the bookmark for it. It was black and white, single panel, and the main character is a serial killer with a goofy hockey mask. It was very dark and morbid comic and I am trying desperately to remember its name because it was one of my favorites. It’s very much like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac which isn’t an online comic.
Wait, found it! Chopping Block! It was there all along just thought that was something else. By the way, it too isn’t for the easily offended… like I said it is about serial killer.
In my search for Chopping Block stumbled upon an alarming fact! In reading all these comic news blurbs with the reasons they post about why they are late putting up their latest comic I have found that the internet is going down hourly, natural disasters are running amok across the country, car accidents, dogs sleeping with cats, water turning to blood, Armageddon is upon us! THE END IS NIGH!!!
Somebody alert the media, I’ll be cowering in the bathtub.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
More Fury being unleashed at PAX
I went looking to see if part 2 of the previoius post's interview was up but no luck. I did find these two videos though. The second one, which is just a quick talk to a couple of fans at PAX doesn't show any gameplay and was actually made by Auran at the show and contains a dirty word.
Fury at PAX
PAX 2006 - Fury Fans
Fury at PAX
PAX 2006 - Fury Fans
Thursday, August 31, 2006
PAX 2006 Gameplay footage of Fury
Gamehelper.com has this gameplay footage as part one of their coverage of Fury.
I didn't think having the announcers was that great of an idea for E3 and I was wrong. They were great and really got people into the booth. The hot two Amazon-sized Fury booth babes helped too. At PAX though I can see how their style may not have meshed with the real hardcore gamers especially without the hot babes. Nothing is really as good without hot babes. I’ve always said that.
I know many gamers were probably really annoyed by the really loud announcer guy yelling at everyone in the expo hall about "unleashing their fury" but if you didn't get a chance to unleash it, you can at least watch someone else do it...
I sat down with the folks over at the Fury booth (before the hall opened so I could get away from the loud dude) and play the game. I've got 2 videos for you to watch: the first is gameplay footage with developer commentary and the second is an interview with their lead (and hungover) designer Adam to discuss the finer points of unleashing our fury.
I didn't think having the announcers was that great of an idea for E3 and I was wrong. They were great and really got people into the booth. The hot two Amazon-sized Fury booth babes helped too. At PAX though I can see how their style may not have meshed with the real hardcore gamers especially without the hot babes. Nothing is really as good without hot babes. I’ve always said that.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
PAX
MMORPG.COM has some pictures of PAX, (Penny Arcade Expo to you noobs) where you can see the Fury booth. I don’t want to imply anything, but compare the Fury Booth picture vs. the ArenaNet Guild Wars Booth picture.
Carolyn also mentions playing Fury in her coverage from the floor.
UPDATE! I was just told that Fury was also mentioned under the tournaments feature:
Fury on the other hand had no super fancy prizes. Their supremely well placed booth is in the center of everything and attracted a lot of attention, especially thanks to their two loud-mouth commentators. They simply randomly handed out loot on the first day to lucky “MVPs” of matches. Carolyn and I both played quite a bit and had a grand time, which I will get into in a more formal article later. Nonetheless, Fury looks like the ultimate game for jump in, causal, fast PvP action.
UPDATE! Dana Massey from MMORPG.COM posted her write up of Fury as part of their full coverage from the floor of the Penny Arcade expo. Few minor points were off the mark but a nice general primer.
Carolyn also mentions playing Fury in her coverage from the floor.
UPDATE! I was just told that Fury was also mentioned under the tournaments feature:
Fury on the other hand had no super fancy prizes. Their supremely well placed booth is in the center of everything and attracted a lot of attention, especially thanks to their two loud-mouth commentators. They simply randomly handed out loot on the first day to lucky “MVPs” of matches. Carolyn and I both played quite a bit and had a grand time, which I will get into in a more formal article later. Nonetheless, Fury looks like the ultimate game for jump in, causal, fast PvP action.
UPDATE! Dana Massey from MMORPG.COM posted her write up of Fury as part of their full coverage from the floor of the Penny Arcade expo. Few minor points were off the mark but a nice general primer.
Kane
I just saw the latest sneak peak video for Command & Conquer 3. No, I’m not going to link it. I’m not doing anything for EA unless they are giving me lots of money to do so. If I’m going to be a hypocrite I’ll at least have to be bought first. Yeah I redid all the infantry icons for the German version of C&C: Generals for them but it paid for my trip to Disney World. If you want to see all 20 seconds of the video it you can go looking for yourself. I just wanted to say: Joe, if you’re reading this. I hope you're making EA pay through the nose!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Check!
Breaking out the “things to do before I die list”… Snorkeling on The Great Barrier Reef… CHECK!!! Been there done that! It was very very cool and I am definitely thinking about going again.
I did loose my Tour de France hat though. I watched some lady go out onto the fore of the boat and have her hat just vanish. The wind was so strong coming up over the front of the boat and funneling along the side that it didn’t blow off, it vanished. So then a few minutes later when I was getting motion sick I made sure to hang on to my hat very tightly when I went out. I had a barf bag in my other hand but once I got up front the fresh air and being able to see the dips and waves coming calmed me down. I decided to stick the barf bag in my pocket but I couldn’t fold it up one-handed. I was going to take the hat off and tuck it under my arm but when I lifted it an inch off my head the wind caught it, ripped it out of my hand and it was gone. I replaced it with a hat from Quicksilver, the tour outfit that took us out to the reef.
We also went up to the Daintree Rainforest for two days where we hung on the beach and did some Jungle Surfing but missed out on the night forest walk because it was constantly booked up. On the drive back down to Cairns we did see a Cassowary standing in the middle of the road. One of the Jungle Surfing guides had asked us if we had seen one saying it had taken him 5 years of living up there before he saw one. We had read a sign somewhere that said we should report any encounters or sightings of the bird but none of us could remember where we had read that or where we were supposed to report it to. Besides we couldn’t figure out how to describe where we had seen it since “that curvy part of the road with all the trees” wasn’t going to narrow it down much.
I got a whole slew of pictures from the trip but I seem to have uninstalled Photoshop. I was using it a few weeks ago and did do some cleaning up of my harddrive since then when making room for ComicBase. I can only guess I uninstalled it by accident when using the Add/Remove Program list to remove crap.
Back to the list, it originally said “Scuba diving” not “Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and last year I did go down to take scuba diving lessons. The first introduction lesson was free and we asked ahead of time if my diabetes and irregular heartbeat would be a problem and they said no worries. But once we showed up they said I would need a note from my doctor. I did plan on getting said note but then we spent that money on a trip to Sydney to see the Lord of Rings museum exhibit which was being extended an extra week.
What else have I done on the list? Play Poker in Vegas which isn’t really fair because I was living in Vegas when I first decided to make a list.
I’ve also seen Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC which was a disappointment because I found out that the theatre had collapsed in 1893, was rebuilt as a warehouse, then abandoned in 1931 then rebuilt and restored in 1967. So it’s not like it’s really “the same” Ford’s Theatre anymore. The museum in the basement was pretty cool though, seeing the coat President Lincoln was wearing stained with his blood really brings it all into reality. The coat had a big section cut out where somebody had been cutting it up and selling small squares of it as souvenirs to people.
Actually I’ve never actually “made” the list as in formally write it down. But if I did number one on things still to see would be the Aurora Borealis. I’ve wanted to see that since I heard about it. Then in no particular order Mount Rushmore, Great Wall of China (a remote part), Easter Island, Great Pyramid of Giza & the Sphinx. I’m a little wishy-washy about those last two now that I’ve checked the area out via Google Earth. The place looks like tourist hell. I would also have to include Uluru here in Australia.
I’ve had a chance to see the Statue of Liberty and to go up into the World Trade Center when I was in New York a few years ago. But I passed on those “standard” tourist things in favor of some other things. Of course now that the two towers aren’t there anymore I wish I hadn’t passed. I get to see the guy and kitchen they based the “Soup Nazi” on in Seinfeld, a Broadway show whose name I can’t remember, and hang out in Grand Central Station to people watch. I also saw a really scary, crazy, homeless man down in the sub-way. Not things on “the list” but still pretty cool.
Now after reading all this, you may think you really know what kind of dweeb I am but you'd be wrong. What was I doing while hanging out on the beach in the Daintree Rainforest? New Super Mario Bros on the Nintendo DS.
I did loose my Tour de France hat though. I watched some lady go out onto the fore of the boat and have her hat just vanish. The wind was so strong coming up over the front of the boat and funneling along the side that it didn’t blow off, it vanished. So then a few minutes later when I was getting motion sick I made sure to hang on to my hat very tightly when I went out. I had a barf bag in my other hand but once I got up front the fresh air and being able to see the dips and waves coming calmed me down. I decided to stick the barf bag in my pocket but I couldn’t fold it up one-handed. I was going to take the hat off and tuck it under my arm but when I lifted it an inch off my head the wind caught it, ripped it out of my hand and it was gone. I replaced it with a hat from Quicksilver, the tour outfit that took us out to the reef.
We also went up to the Daintree Rainforest for two days where we hung on the beach and did some Jungle Surfing but missed out on the night forest walk because it was constantly booked up. On the drive back down to Cairns we did see a Cassowary standing in the middle of the road. One of the Jungle Surfing guides had asked us if we had seen one saying it had taken him 5 years of living up there before he saw one. We had read a sign somewhere that said we should report any encounters or sightings of the bird but none of us could remember where we had read that or where we were supposed to report it to. Besides we couldn’t figure out how to describe where we had seen it since “that curvy part of the road with all the trees” wasn’t going to narrow it down much.
I got a whole slew of pictures from the trip but I seem to have uninstalled Photoshop. I was using it a few weeks ago and did do some cleaning up of my harddrive since then when making room for ComicBase. I can only guess I uninstalled it by accident when using the Add/Remove Program list to remove crap.
Back to the list, it originally said “Scuba diving” not “Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and last year I did go down to take scuba diving lessons. The first introduction lesson was free and we asked ahead of time if my diabetes and irregular heartbeat would be a problem and they said no worries. But once we showed up they said I would need a note from my doctor. I did plan on getting said note but then we spent that money on a trip to Sydney to see the Lord of Rings museum exhibit which was being extended an extra week.
What else have I done on the list? Play Poker in Vegas which isn’t really fair because I was living in Vegas when I first decided to make a list.
I’ve also seen Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC which was a disappointment because I found out that the theatre had collapsed in 1893, was rebuilt as a warehouse, then abandoned in 1931 then rebuilt and restored in 1967. So it’s not like it’s really “the same” Ford’s Theatre anymore. The museum in the basement was pretty cool though, seeing the coat President Lincoln was wearing stained with his blood really brings it all into reality. The coat had a big section cut out where somebody had been cutting it up and selling small squares of it as souvenirs to people.
Actually I’ve never actually “made” the list as in formally write it down. But if I did number one on things still to see would be the Aurora Borealis. I’ve wanted to see that since I heard about it. Then in no particular order Mount Rushmore, Great Wall of China (a remote part), Easter Island, Great Pyramid of Giza & the Sphinx. I’m a little wishy-washy about those last two now that I’ve checked the area out via Google Earth. The place looks like tourist hell. I would also have to include Uluru here in Australia.
I’ve had a chance to see the Statue of Liberty and to go up into the World Trade Center when I was in New York a few years ago. But I passed on those “standard” tourist things in favor of some other things. Of course now that the two towers aren’t there anymore I wish I hadn’t passed. I get to see the guy and kitchen they based the “Soup Nazi” on in Seinfeld, a Broadway show whose name I can’t remember, and hang out in Grand Central Station to people watch. I also saw a really scary, crazy, homeless man down in the sub-way. Not things on “the list” but still pretty cool.
Now after reading all this, you may think you really know what kind of dweeb I am but you'd be wrong. What was I doing while hanging out on the beach in the Daintree Rainforest? New Super Mario Bros on the Nintendo DS.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Fury / Duke Nuke'm Forever Combo Pack
Adam has an interview about Fury over at Game World Network where he totally busts me for making a Duke Nuke'm Forever joke.
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