Xenophobia

We have met the enemy and he is us.
-Walt Kelly

It is so funny listening to World of Warcraft players from the Horde or Alliance faction talking about WoW players of the opposing faction as if they are some completely different, culturally alien race of beings.

Now I will give you the fact that the Horde side probably has slightly more of the young adolescent, more aggresive type players. The reason for that is the Horde’s fiction and their playable races fit in more with the type of play experience they are looking for. The Horde faction are getting the Blood Elf race in the Burning Crusade expansion to hopefully bridge some of that distance and acquire players who have a stronger tie to the more attractive races in these types of games.

Back to the point, besides that very slight demographic discrepancy… players of the other faction are just other players. Other players just like them! There is no master brain controlling them. They don’t get together to vote on some agenda. They don’t have a developmental historical or cultural anomaly inherent to them that is any different from players of the other faction. There is no real difference between either set of players!

Yet you constantly hear people saying stuff about “the insert faction does this. The insert faction can’t handle this. The insert faction always exploit that.”

I like the way players from both factions justify their bad behavior; doing exactly the same thing they are accusing the other faction of doing, as being okay because it’s paying them back for doing it first.

My personal specific favorite is the way both sides accuse the other of using some ‘auto flag pick-up exploit program/mod” in the War Song Gulch battleground. Like if there was such a program, which there isn’t, it would be keyed to only be downloadable to people who can prove they play on that faction’s side.

There has got to be behavioral scientists that could get some wonderful insights into human behavior by studying this. Xenophobia created by two pretty much identical groups of players, hidden behind the anonymity of their characters, who cannot communicate directly with each other inside of the game. Oh there has got to be a wealth of information that can be learned from this. I am sure if we could nail this down we could bring about peace in the Middle East.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Sandwiches are not made, they are created. Each type of sandwich is special piece of art in and of itself. Each has its own special qualities and a set of unique skills required to bring it to life. We will start with the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, easy to make, impossible to master, delicious for lunch.

You will need the following:

Peanut Butter of the old fashion variety, this is the type that needs to be stirred because the oil all rises to the top. It is smooth, not chunky, and room temperature. If it was in the refrigerator you’ll need to set it out for awhile before you start. A fresh, previously unopened jar of peanut butter is the best, but you can’t be expected to throw out the jar after every sandwich.

Grape Jelly because there is no other flavor. Jelly not jam. The jelly should be chilled, straight from the refrigerator. Unlike peanut butter, jelly is best after the jar is 2/3rds gone. This is because the sound the utensil makes on the glass jar has better tone when there is less jelly.

Fresh white bread; speak to me not of wheat or other so-called ‘healthy’ bread.

Utensils: Butter knife, bread knife and a tea spoon.

Start by taking four slices of bread from the package, skipping the top nose piece and two slices. Yes, four pieces. You are making two sandwiches, you can’t eat just one. You might think you just want one, but after you eat the first and don’t have a second one you’ll be sorry. Trust me, two sandwiches. Take the first two pieces and lay them out on a paper towel so that the sides of the bread slices that were together are now both face up. Do the same with the second two pieces. This is so when you put them back together they will fit properly.

Slice a swath of peanut butter out with the bread knife and evenly spread it onto one slice of each of the two sets of bread. The key word here is “evenly” and make sure it goes all the way to the edge but not over. Neatness counts. You way want to hold the bread in the palm of your hand as you swirl the peanut butter around the bread. Don’t be rough and don’t tear or bruise the bread spreading too hard.

Use the spoon to stir the jelly. You just want to loosen it up a bit, break up the big jelly chunks so you can spread it out onto the bread. A few rotations of the spoon are more than fine. Use the spoon to scoop the jelly out onto the remaining two slices of bread. Spread it out with the bottom of the spoon, again evenly and all the way to edge watching the mess. Keep that peanut butter contaminated butter knife away. Take your time here, this part may sound simple but jelly can be deceptively difficult to spread evenly. If you have a big solid jelly chunk that you are having trouble spreading, use the edge of the spoon to ‘cut’ it. Go slow, no need to rush.

Now this part might seem esoteric but you will just have to trust me here. Forge the masterpieces together by taking the peanut butter bread and putting them on top of their corresponding jelly pieces, and then turn them up side down so the jelly is on top. Now finally cut the sandwiches in half diagonally with the bread knife. Think you are getting good at this? Try doing it in one clean stroke without tearing the paper towel underneath. If you need a crutch, you can cut them on a chopping block. I won’t even mention anything about cutting the crust off, grow up. Everybody knows the crust is what keeps the taste from leaking out.

Put a fresh paper towel or napkin onto a clean sandwich plate and arrange the sandwiches on top. Add some chips, I recommend Fritos. Quickly clean up and then get a tall cold class of a good beverage. Enjoy.

10/02/09 - IMPORTANT UPDATE LINK!!!

The Long and Short of It

I’ve been growing my hair back out. I’m smack dead in that ‘looks like shit’ phase at the moment. At this point it usually only looks good right when I get out of the shower and its doing the wet curly thing. I had been just letting it grow and wearing a hat to hide it. I’m not really a hat person but my dress style has become more relaxed since I moved to Australia so I've gotten away with it. It got to the point that it was just a total mess and I had an emergency haircut to clean it up right before flying to SOE back in December. I am getting it cut regularly now, just trimming the ends and trying to keep it neat kind of thing. I am getting some highlights put back in at my next appointment. I only have to wear the hat on the really bad hair days now.

I bring this up because yesterday I actually had a good hair day. I had even been wearing headphones during the day, ones that touch the top of my head no mater how they are adjusted, and even that didn’t mess up my hair. It still has a good while to go before it gets to the length I want which isn’t going to be as long as I had it before. I am just going to grow it to just a tad below the shoulders; before it was almost to my waste. I’m also wearing it straight back now instead of sweeping it to the side and you can see how much it is thinning on top :-( Damn you androgen-receptor genes!

I wanted to post a picture of what it was like before and where I am at now so you could see how it compares to the picture over on the right, but I can’t find the big version of the picture I’ve been using for my forum icon. I have some zipped files I saved off when I reformatted the other machine and I’ll look through those.

Just a quick funny bit

A slightly funny World of Warcraft: The Text Adventure Wired News post.

Snippet:

Welcome to World of Warcraft: The Text Adventure.

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. There is an elf with an exclamation point above her head here.

>Talk elf

"Alas," she says. "There is a great darkness upon the land. Fifty years ago the Dwarf Lord Al'ham'bra came upon the Dragon Locket in the Miremuck Caverns. He immediately recognized the ..."

> Click Accept

"Hey," the elf protests. "This is important expository. Azeroth is a rich and storied land, with a tapestry of interwoven ..."

> Click Accept

"OK, fine. Bring me six kobold tails."

...

Out with the old even if I'm not done with it yet

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a walkman-sized cassette player now days? It might be different back in the States, but here in Australia I’ve tried everything from high end electronic stores to Kmart and can’t find one. I have found a few boom box CD players that are also cassette players but cost just under $100.

The reason that I am looking for one is because even though I sold off / gave away most of my unabridged audio books when I left the States, I still have a good number of my favorite ones including the entire unabridged Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy & Dirk Gently books read by their author the late Douglas Adams. I don’t think you can even get those on CD. The cassettes are over 10 years old now and starting to show wear. I want to preserve them by turning them into MP3 files. A got some software from our sound guy at work and he even gave me his old duel cassette dubbing machine but it isn’t in great shape and I'm not happy with the output quality.

I have been listening to Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson while working this weekend. I don’t think I’ve listened to it since I bought it way back when. If you are familiar with his later works such as the Baroque Cycle you know he is a very very very intelligent guy. And knowing that I am amazed at the number of things he got wrong imagining a cyber-space type meta-verse. I’ll note that he does mention / apologize for some of these things in an appendix that might be at the end of the audio version or may be in the book itself, I can’t remember. I did actually read the book before it came out on audio.

For example he mentions that people wouldn’t like / accept avatars just appearing in the virtual world. That it would break the illusion and ruin the experience. You can’t just teleport from place to place for the same reason. If you play in any online games you know that people pop in and out all the time any nobody seems to notice or care. There are bunch of other examples like how things would be rendered and how the places in his meta-verse take up geographical space, like I said he talks about some of them in the appendix.

I have his next book, Diamond Age unabridged on cassette as well. His third book, The Cryptonomicon came out on cassette in an “unabridged excerpts” version from a different publisher than the first two. Unabridged excerpts… umm wouldn’t that make it Abridged? Sorry guys, I don’t buy abridged audio books. I thought about writing Mr. Stephenson a letter about it. I did write a letter to Douglas Adams once complaining about the first Dirk Gently book not being out in unabridged format and his personal assistant wrote me back and told me that it would be as soon as the rights from the previous publisher of the abridged version expired.

I’m rambling. I’ve creatively exhausted from doing all these damn icons all day and I’ll have to go in again tomorrow and finish them up. I think I’m going to take a day off next week to make up for having to work 12 hours days over the weekend. It’s not that object to having to work long hours to do the important stuff. I’m familiar with crunching to get the product out, but this isn’t something that should have been dumped in my lap a week before it had to be done for GDC. It is way too demanding on the creative process to try to come up with all these icons in this short amount of time. There was no time to even organize all the abilities to try to define all the themes. For example define what a stun effect looks like as part of the icon. I’m having to try my best to do that on the fly. I just have to remember that I already did an “area-effect knock back field effect” for one school so I can try to make the area-effect knock back effect for this other school look similar. The desired result being that the player will be familiar with the theme of the icon art so he will have some idea what the ability does without having to look it up. “Oh that swirl symbol means a sleep or stun effect” or “the red-cross symbol means it’s a heal or health related effect.”

Speaking of the red-cross symbol being used for healing / health in video games the Candian Red Cross has called the video game industry’s use of the red colored plus symbol in games as an “unauthorized and indeed illegal use of the Red Cross emblem.”

Anyway, I'm going to bed.

There is never time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over

We are in pre-GDC hell at work. I am trying to redo all the icons, yes that’s right I’m doing icons again! AGAIN! I am having trouble sleeping at night worrying about all the icons I still have to have done by Sunday night PLUS all the other stuff that I will have to redo after GCD. For example we are re-skinning the GUI. But after GDC it will all have to be redrawn for a 1600x1200 screen resolution. It will also have to be done in separate pieces so that it can be scaled independently of the screen resolution. Why aren’t we just doing it that way now? No time.

I found out I won’t be going to GCD if I hadn’t mentioned that since last talking about it.

Just to relax tonight I started playing around with Google Earth while watching TV. I had messed around with it before but just looking for places I used to live, my house in Vegas, that sort of thing. Still can’t zoom in close enough to San Vito dei Normanni, Italy to see the area in any detail, but you can see our apartment and Auran here in Australia really clearly.

Today I also went looking at the Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, Mount Saint Helens, Great Wall of China, etc. The 3D building technology they are putting is pretty cool too. Spinning around Manhattan Island with all the buildings on is like something you would have seen on TV or the movies just a few years ago and rolled your eyes at. I was disappointed to see they have a square building for the Luxor in Vegas. Guess they can’t do pyramids.

I couldn’t find Uluru here in Australia either. I searched around Alice Springs for a while, tried to find a map on the web but gave up.

Half-life 2 Comic

Found this absolutely hilarious Half-life 2 comic, Concerned: the half-life and death of gordon frohman. Granted it probably looses something if you haven’t played Half-life 2, but they do have notes at the bottom that you can turn on to read about each comic and how he made it.

My Old Resume Site

While writing the previous post I did some searching to see if I had any pictures of Dune 2 still saved in some dark, dusty folder on the site and I found part of my old resume demo site that I put up in 2002-2003.

It is missing the top and sidebars that went with it and the Earth and Beyond link is blank for reasons I don’t care enough about to look into, but it has a number of pictures from some of my much earlier games.

Oh and if you’re asking yourself what’s this about Earth and Beyond Mr. “massively-now canceled-loads of crap that flopped under the weight of all their poorly thought out, over intellectualized, stupidity”?

The answer is “Electronic Arts.” The E&B that hit the shelves was nothing like the E&B we started out designing. My contribution to the design was working on “planet mode” which was cut about a year and a half before the game shipped. The only thing that was left in that game that I had anything to do with is the window’s icon. So there you go Mr. “If you had read my history link over on the left you would have known that already”!

Yet Another Soapbox

For the last week or so I have had to force myself not to write about a Gamasutra soapbox article about World of Warcraft. It is just another piece of mindless drivel written by somebody in the industry with one whole game credit (at least that I could find in my whole 30 seconds of looking) who seems to have just wanted the attention for his blog or something. He just comes across as completely clueless idiot with thing likes slamming the terms of service because he thinks they can just code around all anti-social and exploitive behavior players can come up with. He really should get back to his day job of herding cats.

Anyway, I’m breaking my silence because Gamasutra has posted a soapbox response article which prints some response letters from game professionals and other respondents. Personally I don’t think any of them give him the smacking around he really deserves, but what do I know?

The thing that gets me about these types of spouting off isn’t that this game may not just be his cup of tea, but rather the tendency for people to point at the latest, greatest, best-selling, immensely popular game and say how they have got it all wrong. These are the same yahoos who are responsible for all the other massively-now canceled-loads of crap that flopped under the weight of all their poorly thought out, over intellectualized, stupidity.

And if you think I’m reacting as a fan boy remember that I worked at the late Westwood Studios and was part of the team that invented the Real-Time Strategy genre with the creation of the game Dune 2.

Play Westwood's Dune 2 and then play Blizzard's Warcraft, notice anything similar? Easier question would be, “notice anything different?” (Correct answer is: “the trees” and that’s about all)

Next play Blizzard’s Warcraft 2’s pre-release press demo, then Westwood’s Command & Conquer, and then the actual released version of Warcarft 2. Did you see that brilliant interface change? The one that wasn’t in Warcraft 2’s press demo, but was in Command & Conquer which shipped about a week or two later and then somehow wound up in Warcraft 2 when it hit the shelves?

Quickly for those of you who didn’t just rush out and play all those games; Dune 2 and the first Warcraft had you selected a unit, then pressed a button like “move” or “attack” and then clicked where you wanted him to go or what unit you wanted it to attack. While working on the mouse cursor art for Command & Conquer it occurred to me that the game should be smart enough to know that after selecting on a unit if you clicked on regular terrain you probably wanted that unit to go there as opposed to clicking on an enemy unit which you probably wanted to attack. Blizzard saw that inovation and reworked it into Warcraft 2!

Whew! I have wanted to rant about that for a long time. I feel so much better, so light... so free...

But seriously, I hold no hard feelings. It was a brilliant "well duh" idea and they would have been stupid for not using it. Blizzard is very good at taking an existing game type or what have you and polishing it up very very very well. In my opinion sometimes improvement can be just as good as innovation when it comes to progress. It keeps things moving forward which is always a good thing… the bastards.

Absolute Fabrication

The following peice of made up crap is reported to be an 'inside source' into the up coming Hero Classes in the World of Warcraft expansion.

-----------------------------------
Sources inside Blizz have revealed their plans for hero classes. Blizzard does plan to release hero classes with the expansion, but they haven’t explicitly stated it because they want to announce it close to the release date, insuring a huge amount of hype. I haven’t been told much more than the basics, but I’ll try to explain the system as best as I can:

At any given level there is a certain amount of content; at level 60, the amount of content is very disproportionate with the available content for other levels. The reason is obvious: it is the current endgame, and players need something to enjoy. However, with the level cap raised players would be able to blow through and skip a lot of the content that has been developed over the past year, and allowing players to do so would be a poor use of the developers’ time. This is where hero classes come in.

You will be stuck at level 60, just like you are now, even when the expansion comes out. An epic quest (of REALLY epic proportions) for each hero class will be made available to level 60 players. The only way to break the level 60 barrier will be to go on one of these quests to become a hero class. The quest will require the player to do a lot of solo content as well as a variety of group and raid content. Upon completion of the quest, the player will become a level 61 hero class . They can then once again begin their normal level progression. A hero class is not innately more powerful than a normal class (but the level differentiation makes them more powerful of course). Hero classes will be available to everyone and although the hardcore players will naturally get their hero classes first, it is designed so that players of all play styles will be able to become a hero class in a reasonable amount of time. Blizzard’s implementation of hero classes will accomplish a lot of things. It will create a natural barrier at level 60 that will insure that the average player will experience more of the content Blizz has developed, it gives players a way of further differentiating themselves, and it adds a huge amount of new dynamics between different classes.

Each race/class combination will have 2 hero classes available to them (with several overlapping). This presents a monumental balance job (there are about 50 hero classes), which is probably another reason why Blizzard is delaying the information release. Choosing your hero class will be irreversible, much like the tradeskill masteries. Some hero classes are an extension of the “father” class, some have tweaked mechanics, while others are radically different. The easiest example I can think of is a Night Elf priest, for which the 2 hero classes are a Priest(ess) of the Moon (a continuation of the priest’s current form) and Demon Hunter (an agility-based combat hero with a variety of discipline-esque abilities). So without further ado, here is a brief overview of some of the hero classes:

DRUIDS
---Night Elf Druid:
Arch Druid: This will be a hybrid class in the same vein as its “father” class, and Storm Crow form may make a reappearance.

Keeper of the Grove: The druid will sacrifice some of his shapeshifting abilities in exchange for improved healing and casting, and will even be able to command treants on occasion.

---Tauren Druid:
Arch Druid: see above

Elder: This is essentially a druid that has lost some shapeshifting abilities and gained some beast-like abilities similar to the hunter. The casting and healing abilities are also amped up, but not nearly as much as the Keeper of the Grove. The Elder also has a bit of the Diablo II druid mixed in for good measure.

HUNTERS
---Night Elf Hunter:
Ranger: The Ranger is sort of a hunter/rogue mix. The Ranger will use the energy bar, will have a few stealthy abilities (but not of the same caliber as the rogue), and will no longer have a pet.

Beastmaster: The Beastmaster focuses more on the beast aspect than the ranged aspect of the hunter. He gains new beast abilities, such as switching pets in battle, and is a bit meaner in melee combat in exchange for a lot of his ranged hitting power.

---Dwarf Hunter:
Mountaineer: The Mountaineer is similar to the ranger (no pet, energy bar), but without the stealth aspects. The Mountaineer is hardier in melee combat than the hunter and and also has more extensive tracking and detection abilities.

Beastmaster: see above

---Orc Hunter:
Outrider: The Outrider is very similar to the wolfrider from Warcraft III, focusing on swift maneuvers and incapacitating enemies. He uses the energy bar.

Beastmaster: see above

---Tauren Hunter:
Tracker: The Tracker uses the energy bar like the Mountaineer, but still retains the hunter pet, and as a result is not as tough as the Mountaineer.

Beastmaster: see above

---Troll Hunter:
Shadowhunter: This is essentially a hunter that drops some of it’s beast and survival abilities for some shadow spells (think Hex). The Shadowhunter still uses mana.

---Headhunter: The Headhunter still has the ranged emphasis of the hunter, but it focuses on throwing weapons (a massive revamp for throwing weapons is planned). The Headhunter uses energy, has more combat abilities, and drops the pet.

MAGES
---Human Mage:
Archmage: The Archmage is an exact extension of the mage class, with arcane, fire, and frost spells. Apparently one of the abilities being toyed around with is Summon Water Elemental. The planned incarnation of the spell will be a long-cooldown summon that will not function like a normal pet, and will instead function more along the lines of the Mechanical Yeti (no player control).

Necromancer: The only similarity between the Necromancer and the mage is the emphasis on magical damage. The necromancer uses shadow damage and has a major focus on pets, similar to the warlock. However, unlike other pet classes, the majority of the Necromancer’s damage will come from the pet instead of the Necromancer. I do not know if the Necromancer will be able to have multiple pets out at once.

---Gnome Mage:
Archmage: see above

Arcanist: The Arcanist is similar to the mage, with a focus on arcane magic. The Arcanist does slightly less damage than the Archmage, but gains added utility and new support spells.

---Undead Mage:
Archmage: see above

Necromancer: see above

---Troll Mage:
Hydromancer: The Hydromancer is similar to the Arcanist, but with a focus on the frost tree. The Hydromancer may also receive the Summon Water Elemental spell. In addition to added utility and support spells, the Hydromancer will also get some limited healing abilities.

Shadowcaster: The Shadowcaster is essentially a mage that uses shadow magic instead of fire and frost.

PALADINS
---Human Paladin:
Templar: The Templar is the holy warrior that so many paladins wanted their class to be. The Templar has limited healing, but receives a slew of new combat abilities, making the Templar much better at tanking and melee damage than the paladin.

Cleric: The Cleric is the other side of the paladin spectrum. Instead gaining new combat abilities, the Cleric gains improved healing, more utility and support, and some holy damage spells.

---Dwarf Paladin:
Templar: see above

Cleric: see above

PRIESTS
---Human Priest:
High Priest: The High Priest is essentially a priest that drops the shadow tree, but gains new damage spells from holy and discipline. The High Priest will be the most powerful healer in the game.

Spellbreaker: The Spellbreaker wears mail, has several combat abilities and diminished healing, and has several anti-caster abilities.

---Dwarf Priest:
Thane: The Thane is basically a priest in mail, with a slight hit to healing abilities but a few new combat abilities.

Runelord:
The Runelord is similar to the High Priest, although not as healing heavy.

---Night Elf Priest:
Priest of the Moon: The Priest of the Moon is similar to the High Priest as well, but has some extra damage and utility spells coming from arcane and nature magics.

Demon Hunter: The Demon Hunter is radically different in playstyle from the priest. The Demon Hunter is a mana-using melee damage hero class. The Demon Hunter has a mix of discipline spells and combat abilities with some shadow spells mixed in.

---Undead Priest:
High Priest: see above

Shadow Priest: The name is pretty self-explanatory. The Shadow Priest does not have all the healing abilities of the High Priest, but makes several gains in the damage, utility, and crowd control departments.

---Troll Priest:
Shadow Priest: see above

?:

ROGUES
---Gnome Rogue:
Assassin: The Assassin is an extension of the rogue with damage, stealth, poisons, and martial arts.

Scout: The Scout has slightly less damage than the Assassin, but is tougher in combat, and has the ability to use traps among other new utilities.

---Human Rogue:
Assassin: see above

Scout: see above

---Dwarf Rogue:
Assassin: see above

Pitfighter: The Pitfighter is a rogue without stealth, but with improved combat and defensive abilities.

---Night Elf Rogue:
Assassin: see above

Scout: see above

---Orc Rogue:
Assassin: see above

Pitfighter: see above

---Undead Rogue:
Assassin: see above

Scout: see above

Troll Rogue:
Assassin: see above

Scout: see above

SHAMANS
---Orc Shaman:
Farseer: The Farseer has more emphasis on healing and casting than the shaman, and as a result has less combat ability. The Farseer doesn’t use totems but gains it utility from other abilities. Feral Spirit might make an appearance using a system similar to the Water Elemental.

Spirit Walker: The Spirit Walker is a more direct extension of the shaman than the Farseer, maintaining a rough balance of combat, casting, and healing ability.

---Tauren Shaman:
Farseer: see above

Spirit Walker: see above

---Troll Shaman:
Witch Doctor: The Witch Doctor is similar to the Farseer, but has a heavy emphasis on totems. In addition to the elemental magics the Witch Doctor also uses some shadow magic.

Spirit Walker: see above

WARLOCKS
---Human Warlock:
Master Warlock: The Master Warlock is an extension of the warlock class, keeping the pet and the vast majority of the warlock mechanics.

Shadowguard: The Shadowguard has more melee emphasis than the warlock, and loses the demonic pet. The Shadowguard on his own is weaker than other melee classes, but is aided by demonic-type abilities (such as burning blood and fiery breath) to power himself up.

---Gnome Warlock:
Master Warlock: see above

Shadowguard: see above

---Orc Warlock:
Master Warlock: see above

Shadowguard: see above

---Undead Warlock:
Master Warlock: see above

Shadowguard: see above

WARRIORS
Blizz hasn’t fleshed out warrior hero classes as much as the others, so I wasn’t able to get much on them. However, it has been confirmed that Orc warriors do have the option to become a Blademaster!

Question marks (?) denote a hero class that hasn’t been decided on by the developers yet. I don’t know the Blood Elf hero classes. I don’t know the new Alliance race (although I hear they’re going to reveal it soon). I have no idea how talent/abilities are going to work, I don’t know what will happen to armor requirements and class specific sets, etc. Everything I know I’ve posted here, and it is subject to change as it is still in fairly early development stages.
-----------------------------------

I believe this is fabrication for two big reasons:

1. It implies that after level 60 you aren’t the same class anymore. "You liked being a Hunter? Well too bad because now you’re a Ranger or a Beast Master. Please drive through." Nobody would be happy with this.

2. Making the hero classes race dependent means they would piss off everybody even more than reason 1. "You wanted to be the best healer in the game? Too bad you picked the wrong race way back when we hadn’t told you about the hero race-class combinations."

There are also a number of smaller points that lead me to believe he made this up.

He mentions wasted content at level 60. Where does he think people will go to earn the experience needed to get from 60 onward? There will be a host of new content with the expansion, but not enough to feed the entire player base. Sure it will make existing content easier but once they raise the level cap you will just see more 5-man groups running through the instances doing the related quests instead of 10 man raids just there for boss loot.

Notice the way every race and class has a detailed new hero class at the beginning of his post which quickly pitters out into “see above” as he runs out off steam and finally nothing for warriors when he is completely spent.

Honestly though, I don't understand what drives people to make up crap and post it on the forums. What kind of pathetic little ego must you have to so need to be the center of attention, the ‘inside guy’, that you would be driven to make up such a poorly thought out load of dribble?

What do I think is going to be in the expansion? Player housing is my number on prediction. What proof do I have? Just a little and the knowledge that it would go a long way to feed the social gamers that are complaining about too much high end raid content. Anybody want to put money against me?

Dr. Tran!

I am fairly confident that you will soon be hearing people quoting Dr. Tran in all your favorite online habitats in the Leroy Jenkings, Chuck Norris, “Go Go Good Team!”, “All your base are belong to us” fad type manner.



So this just leaves me with two questions. Who would win in a fight between Chuck Norris and Dr. Tran? And what was the name of the level 1 troll some guild brought with them on a Trakanon raid in Everquest? I was trying to remember because it was a fad for awhile to yell "do it for so-and-so!" on raids.

Valentines Day

When I was born and my mother suggested naming me after my father, he said no. He said there had already been enough Joseph Benjamin Hewitt’s. So my mother suggested naming me Valentino since I was born on Valentines Day. My father’s response was something along the lines of “You’re not bringing any kid into my house named Valentino.” So Joseph Benjamin Hewitt IV it was.

At first it might seem kind of cool to be born on Valentines Day. You get to be all suave with women, “Hey baby, I was born on Valentines Day” as if that implies something special. But what it really means is that you can’t really ever expect to have a birthday party for yourself. Well at least for a guy anyway. The logic works like this: if you have a significant other you have to take her out to dinner, buy her flowers and such. If you don’t have a significant other you can just forget about any of your friends being able to do something for your birthday because they are all out with their significant others.

There were a few times when I didn’t have a significant other on my birthday when my mother took me out for a birthday dinner, and let me just tell you that being in a restaurant, on Valentines Day, with your mother… I was never sure if people were feeling sorry for having Valentines Day dinner with my mother or thought I was some sort of Gigolo. I’m not actually sure which I would prefer either, I’d rather just not think about it.

Most of times if I do something for my birthday, it’s usually the on weekend before or after. This time however we did have a few people over for dinner. It was pretty cool.

We Go Again

Second post in one night, amazing you say. Well I’ll be honest; the World of Warcraft servers have gone down for weekly maintenance. But I wanted to do a separate post regarding just what I am doing here on this blog. It was meant to be something that would force me to write a bit more, but as I put it up I almost instantly tried to make it into a copy of the blogs of other game designers. But I’ve never really been able to pull that off. It wasn’t for lack of things to write about. I have game ideas I would like to talk about but I don’t want to just give them away. I have some stuff I would like to vent about but most of these vents have some tie to work and I don’t really want to drag work into these things because that’s just not right for a number of reasons. So what I am left with is just random comments about semi-industry related things that catch my eye. There is nothing really wrong with that; it just isn’t the same thing.

So I am going to officially let myself off the hook. I am just going to write about whatever I damn well feel like.

So you are probably going to see a lot of post about WoW. It’s the game that I am currently playing the most.

I am very frustrated that I can’t raid with my guild because of the big time zone difference in Australia. I leveled up a Priest to 60 because I figured it would be easier to get groups which it is, but there is so much more pressure on a Priest. If I screw up as a Rogue I die, if I screw up as the Priest another character dies. I’ve never liked playing the healer character for that very reason, but I never really gave it a serious go before. Dymion (the Priest) is now much better equipped than Sentris (the Rogue) I got to go on a real raid with the guild a few weeks ago, 3 of the outdoor dragons, Onyxia, and a full Molten Core run. I got 4 epic items if you include the quest piece that eventually led to me getting Benediction, an epic Priest staff. I hated it because I was woefully unprepared and just not up to speed with the game mechanics and dynamics as I was with Everquest. I also loved it because I was getting to raid again. Being part of that well oiled Afterlife machine where any failure is meet with our motto: “We go again.”

I have also been doing a lot of the PvP battlegrounds trying to rank up as another way to get good gear. I have never really been that into PvP, and as an under equipped Priest I tended to get killed rather fast as soon as I attracted the attention of the enemy. But I am starting to get the hang of it and now I got some better gear so it isn’t so bad anymore.

Well I have to go back to trying to teach Ventrillo to say Dymion correctly. It is pronounced “Dim-ee-un” not “Dime-ion”. It’s basically Endymion without the “En”. It is more of a Dan Simmons reference rather than the Keats or Greek mythological reference. Though I guess it could be “En-dime-ion” for all I know, next time I see the moon goddess I'll ask her.

Two Years

So I’ve gotten a few people get on my case for not updating my blog. So I am trying to think of something to write about that I won’t wind up spending hours looking up reference material and such.

We are crunching pretty hard at work getting a solid, polished demo ready for the Game Developers Conference in San Jose. If you want to see what I’ve been working on for the last… oh my… TWO YEARS!... come to GDC next month. I might even be there myself!

I have been holding off redeeming some Amazon.com gift certificates I got for Christmas while waiting to see if I actually do go back to the States for GDC. I’ll be able to hit the book and video stores while I am there and can bring stuff back in my suitcase. Then I can spend the gift certificates on the harder to find items. Books and such are just too expensive here.

In case you didn’t know I did get back to the States over Christmas for work related stuff and managed to squeeze in a whole week in Vegas with family. I brought 2 half empty suitcases with me and wound up taking 3 full ones back filled with DVDs, what’s left of my Books on Tape/CD collection and 3 Logitech G15 Keyboards. I think the airline luggage guys stole my CD audio version of Neil Gaiman’s latest novel, Anansi Boys. I remember seeing it sitting in my open suitcase before leaving the States and I have no memory of unpacking it. I had my mother search her house to see if I left it there, but no luck.

So anyway TWO YEARS! I just realized that it has been exactly two years since I moved to Australia. Well Sunday was the actual two year anniversary. I feel I should have done more with that… been prepared with a special two year anniversary blog theme or something… maybe even a graphic. Oh well, maybe next year.

What's Going On?

Regarding this Blog lately it’s been either nothing I feel like writing about or its something I that would take some effort to write about and I’ve been too busy.  Yeah I know that is what everybody says but we’ve been gearing up for the Austin Game Conference which was the week before last. I didn’t to go, they gave me the excuse that somebody who knew what was going on had to stay in the office while they were away.  As soon as it was over me and the wife spent a week up at Brampton Island which was pretty nice.  I bought a new digital camera before we went so I might link some pictures. I also have some pictures of when we went to the Australian Zoo a few months ago (That’s Steve, the Croc-Hunter, Erwin’s zoo.)  Cricky Mate!

My other problem has been my big powerhouse computer. It’s been down forever and after doing a fresh Windows install, updating the BIOS and using every diagnostic, virus scanner and ad-aware remover program I could get my hands on I have finally given up and taken it in to work. I bought the computer from the guy who supplies computers for work and I’ve having our tech guy handle it all for me.   The scary thing is this computer has been giving me odd problems too. A couple of time on boot up I have gotten a warning message saying the hard drive is operating outside of normal parameters and that I should back up all my data and contact Dell immediately.

I am still catching up all the crap I missed while I was away.  I just found out Keith Parkinson passed away.  He was my favorite of all the old TSR (Dungeons & Dragons) artist.  I remember when we did DragonStrike I got to convert a few of his paintings into splash screens for the game.  Keith also did the box covers for Everquest before going on to become the art director for Sigil Games.  Rest in peace Keith.

Speaking of Dungeons & Dragons I saw a clip for the upcoming D&D Online game from Turbine.  Umm… what a load of crap.  Plastic models with the second worst voice over I’ve ever heard.  I work with a guy here who used to work for Turbine and I’ve heard some interesting stories about what has been going on there and I believe him. I believe him because not because I did a phone interview with Turbine and they passed on me. I believe him because they did an interview with a friend of mine who I think is one of the best technical game designers I know and they pass on him.  I remember they kept asking me about old Westwood stories instead of focusing on if could do the job I was interview for.  Anyway, I think D&D Online is going to flop bigger than Asheron’s Call 2 whose servers are being shut off next month.

As far as our game goes we got some very good response from the closed door showing at the Austin Game Conference.  I think we will be releasing a teaser trailer sometime soon.

You’ll notice I didn’t bother linking anything in this post.  That’s what Google is for, get off your lazy but and look stuff up yourself.  I really like pretending I actually have an audience that comes here and reads these ramblings.

Added a Few Links

I added a link to Lost Garden to my Game Industry Blog list over on the right. It’s a really good Blog with various essays on things video game related.  He posted an excellent piece on the new Nintendo Revolution controller last week and his site was nearly killed by being linked to by a good number of big time sites. It’s the kind of thing I would like to think I would write if I had real writing time.  He posted a follow up today that answers some of the questions people had after reading his post and I recommend you check it out.

I also added Escapist Magazine to my Game Industry News list.  I thought the first ‘issue’ I read was a bunch of mindless dribble, but I have since found a few good articles.  Damion Schubert of Zen of Design wrote a good article on Guild Designs which echoes a lot of what I’ve been spouting off at work myself. Unfortunately a lot of my next gen guild design stuff has already been cut, but that isn’t as bad as it sounds as the change in direction of our game makes a lot it less useful and unnecessary at the moment.

Auran News Article

Oh look we are in the news.

Minions

We have some University students in at work; they are doing some sort of work experience thing which basically means free slave labors for us.  I personally have two guys helping me with some stuff and I’ve taken to calling them “my minions.”  From what I gather most work experience people usually wind up being errand boys at what ever company they intern at.  But I’ve got these two poor bastards doing in game equipment icons for me. If the icons are good enough they will be used in the game and the two of them will even get art credit.

It was really nice that when I gave them the dog and pony show sales pitch that described the game they were actually very into it.  This is before actually seeing anything we have running; this was just after hearing me give a brief game play overview.  It has been awhile since I’ve been around when anybody new was introduced to the game and it was quite uplifting to see such a positive reaction to it. I’d tell you about it but it is still hush-hush secret.

Well, I am off to see if I can get this old copy of The Secret of Money Island running on my computer. I managed to get a hold of all four games and am planning on playing through trough. I never got to play 3 & 4 and that always bothered me.  Oh, in case you are wondering that this old computer not the new computer as I still haven’t fixed that one, I actually haven’t touched it in forever hoping maybe it will fix itself or something.

Nintendo Revolution Controller

The details about the Nintendo Revolution controller are out. You can read good hands on review over at 1Up.com. It only took 4 or 5 posts to our internal Clan Auran mailing list before the sexual innuendo jokes started flying about what kind of games would benefit from this type of controller.

Promotional video shown at Toyko Game Show of the Revolution Controller provide by Etoychest.org. They say they will have a streaming video cast of the TGS keynote here friday morning. Thats friday morning for you people in the real world as it is already friday night here in the future!

I do remember reading that Nintendo originally wanted to launch this type of controller back in the early 90’s but decided against it. I’ll have to look up the exact details on that when I get home. Anyway, I think it could be very very cool. I am looking forward to the Revolution more than the PS3 or XBox 360 because of it. Granted, I will probably wind up getting all 3 systems but I haven’t seen anything for the other two that makes them any different from what I would expect from the next new game system. Hell I haven’t even seen any release titles that have made me want to make sure I'll buy any of them day one.

Quite the opposite actually if you’ve read this, again over at 1UP.com, which talks about the difference between the ‘target render’ clip of what we were assured Madden NFL 2006 would look like compared to the actual game shots that have been released. Not that I am interested in sports games myself, but still that is quite a difference. I’ve faked up plenty of screenshots in my day for marketing but they were all made with the consideration that it had damn well better represent what the game will actually look at. Funny enough two of the screenshots on the C&C: Tiberian Sun box are fakes I did early on in development. They are easy to spot when you are looking for them because of the motion blur and lighting effects, but still pretty close. I was kind of annoyed they were used for box art though since by that time we had plenty of real shots they could have used.

Okay, How about a Grape XBox 360?

I remember my mother telling me stories about when she was a kid and different brand record players played at different speeds.  When she bought an album she had to make sure it was the correct speed for her record player.  I can assume you all know what records albums are right?

Anyway so on the subject of Microsoft’s multiple flavors of Window Vista I thought I would continue ranting about Microsoft’s multiple Xbox 360 flavors.  So assuming dear reader, you are my mother who doesn’t know anything about any of this; I’ll explain. The next version of the Xbox will come in two different versions.  The $400 dollar version is the whole kit and caboodle (Even I have no idea what a caboodle is though I remember looking it up once but have forgotten what I found).  The $300 dollar version is just the basic console; the two big things it is missing are the wireless controller and the 20GB hard drive.  The minor things you don’t get are the headset, Ethernet cable, and media remote.  You can buy all the missing pieces separately to eventually get everything the $400 dollar version has.  I do wonder if you need what ever is included with the remote to access the multi-media functions (play CD’s, DVDs, etc.) like you did with the original Xbox.

Now the wireless controller isn’t a real big deal. It’s just a controller. The hard drive on the other hand might be a big deal.

Lets me explain by first telling the story of the Sega Genesis 32X.  The 32X was an add-on for the Sega Genesis that was released in November of 1994 that would turn the Genesis from a 16bit system into a more powerful 32bit system.  One of its biggest problems was that by being an add-on and its owners were a sub-set of the sub-set of video game owning people.  At the time you had the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, 3DO and the Atari Jaguar (in that order and not counting the Sega CD.)  As a game developer in 1994 you decide you are going to make a game for the Sega Genesis, but are you going to make a regular Genesis game or a 32X game? Y ou have to ask yourself how many Genesis users have the 32X add on?  Let’s assume you are certain that 60% of the Genesis users are going to buy your game.  But if only 40% of the people who own the Sega Genesis also have the 32X that means that your 60% gets squashed down to only 24% (40 percent of 60 percent… I think. Man, how embarrassing would it be to get that wrong? Well not so embarrassing that I am going to check. I just spent 30 minutes trying to find what percentage of the market the Genesis had in 1994 in The Ultimate History of Video Games. I know it’s in there but I can’t find it.)  Anyway unless you have some shot at getting a whole lot of free advertising from Sega for being a 32X game to make up for that huge loss of potential sales you are going to do a regular Genesis game.

Now back to the present and the Xbox 360 with its optional 20GB hard drive.  It isn’t quite as bad as the 32X situation because it’s a storage device not something that runs the game.  But it does mean that if there is some feature of the game that requires the hard drive it is going to be cut or changed to not require the hard drive because the developers know that not everybody is going to have one.  Nobody who isn’t doing a product directly backed by Microsoft is going to want to put a “Hard Drive Required” sticker on the front of their box and cut into their potential sales.

Again, I know Microsoft is in this to make money. I also know that all game hardware manufactures take a loss on the hardware in the hope to make up for it later with software sales. And on top of all that knowledge I also know that $400 is quite a bit above the magic price point for new game hardware.  So being that I am so full of it… I mean full of knowledge… what would I have done? Well if I worked at Microsoft and the decision was up to me, I would steam about the halls angry that they took the decision away from me when I told them to eat the cost of the hard drive on top of all the other costs they are eating. It is probably just too much of a loss on top of the rest.  

To be honest $100 bucks is a decent price for a hard drive and a wireless controller. The controllers alone cost around $30-50 bucks for ones with a rumble pack.

In the end I’ll just recommend this public service announcement from CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Windows Vista - Grape Flavor

I am sure you have all heard by now about the next version of Windows, “Windows Vista” coming in 7 different versions.  It is kind of funny that just last week I was day dreaming about what I would do if was suddenly in charge of Microsoft. No, really I was. I think I had read some anti-Microsoft post or new article somewhere and was thinking about the bad rap they get. I was trying to think of what I would do if I was in charge of changing that.  One of the things I thought of was that I would get rid of two version of Windows XP.  It just confuses people and makes Microsoft look like a bunch of greedy bastards.  

Imagine my surprise when just a few days later they announced that there will be SEVEN different versions of Windows Vista.  

1. Starter Edition
2. Home Basic Edition
3. Home Premium Edition
4. Windows Vista Professional Edition
5. Small Business Edition
6. Enterprise Edition
7. Ultimate Edition

Go read the details of each edition over at Ars Technica and then try to imagine your Mom standing in front of a shelf full of different versions of Windows trying to figure it out which version she should buy.  

Imagine the poor Microsoft Tech Support phone guy who now has to try and get Grandpa Fred to tell him which version of Windows he is running and then try to explain to him that version doesn’t support that feature and that he need to upgrade to another version.

John Dvorak over at PCMag.com has an article on how Microsoft Should Confuse the Market More.  I really think he is on to something with the Microsoft Vista Porn Edition.

Seriously, what the hell are they thinking?!  This is the reason everybody hates them.  It isn’t like the different features of each edition are actual physical things that cost more to put into one version or another. Including some feature or other doesn’t make the box bigger or weigh more. It is digital content, it cost money to develop but once it’s created it can be put into every version for the same price.  The only reason to have different versions is to try and see if they can get squeeze some people into paying a little more.  Yes, I understand that the main goal of a business is to make money. But why don’t any of them ever see the benefit of doing the right thing.  They spend millions on marketing but then continue to act in such a way that makes them all look like evil jack-asses.  They don’t even see the marketing value of not looking like evil jack-asses.

I think right now Bill Gates should send out a press release that says, “I just read the memo on the 7 different versions and personally hauled out and shot the marketing vice president that came up with this stupid idea. There will be one version (well two if you count that damn European version that doesn’t include the media player.)”

I think if he did that, all the anti-Microsoft ill it would stave off would actually wind up making them more money in the end, even including the high profile murder trial for him having shot that marketing jerk.    

Fame and Fortune for All!

Seems like everybody I know has something exciting going on at the moment.

We just got out copies of My Virtual Home today. It’s home decorating software that is being developed here. I say here instead of here at Auran because it is technically another company even though it is a lot of the same people. The software is actually free and will be included in next months Australian Better Homes and Gardens magazine. The various home building and furniture manufactures pay to have their products in the software. That user gets the software for free and lays out a virtual version of their house which includes almost everything from what type of door frame types and outlet covers you have. They can then browse through somethink like "couches" until they find one they like that fits well in their living room. They can get order that exact couch from the manufacturer. It is my wife Connie’s first product here as a Senior Tester.

My friend Matthew Ford, a producer here at Auran, was interviewed for a MSNBC article about parents in the game industry and how they handle video games with their own kids. When gamers become parents - How those in the industry cope with issues of sex and violence.

He also has a sidebar article that is linked from the above article which basically summarizes his tips for parents. Parenting and video games: One dad's tips - Game professional offers tips on managing the video game minefield.

I just heard that my friends and former Westwood co-workers at Petroglyph just announced a partnership with Publisher Sega to create an original Real-Time Strategy (RTS) franchise for the PC. SEGA Partners with Petroglyph to Build Blockbuster RTS Franchise.

My friend Greg is going to work for Ubi Soft in China. He asked them about the legislation restricting online play to 3 hours and requiring game developers to put some code in to do that. He said they told him nobody is taking that seriously. There are two government bodies fighting over who has jurisdiction over the online game market since it is a very popular and profitable segment. The two bodies are just trying to prove they are the one with jurisdiction by passing laws that govern it. Although it was all hastily explained to him, he said he also got the impression that it isn’t a passed law, more like a bill being proposed. If you read the article I linked or any of the dozens of others, they all read like this is already passed and companies are hard at work putting in those restrictions which wouldn't appear to be the case.

So, what about me? Well I did say I would stop trying to grow my hair back out and clean myself up if they took me to the Austin Game Developers conference next month. I don’t know if they are taking the bait yet, but I did get a semi-positive "Hmm, you never know" response. I don't think we will be announcing our game there so it will probably only be shown behind closed doors. Austin Texas… Mmmm good Mexican food!

I do know we are looking to hire another level designer so if you know anybody have them email me.

Ookla the Mok

Speaking of the whole file sharing thing, a friend of mine had me listen to a bunch of mp3s last week from a band called Ookla the Mok. The name is taken from the Saturday morning cartoon Thundar the Barbarian from the back in the 80’s. They are a band that plays at sci-fi & comic book conventions. They have released 7 CD’s, won 3 Pegasus awards, did the theme to Disney’s Fillmore and the sound track for the movie Bite Me, Fanboy (which I still havn't seen).

I absolutely loved the album Super Secret; it spoke to the comic book geek in me. And because I think the people that created it should get paid for it if I listen to it I tried to go out and buy it this last weekend. I wish I had looked it up on the web before traveling from music store to music store because as it turns out you can only buy it online. Anyway I did order the album from CDBaby.Com this morning. Unfortunately it looks like some of the other albums are sold out and the news section of the Ookla the Mok site hasn’t been update since the release of their last album on May 8th 2003. I wonder if they still even perform.

Av4st Y3 Scurvy Dogz!

The whole pirated video/music controversy has been getting on my nerves lately. Let me say upfront that I think the people who make the crap should get paid by the people who watch/listen/use it. But I am really getting sick and tired of Hollywood and the music industry making me WANT to go down load an illegal copy of something. I’m sure I am not pointing out anything that hasn’t already been said before when I say that the industry is sitting there in stagnation, afraid to move forward because they are scared of messing with the overly profitable system they have in place. Afraid that the actual people making the product are going to realize there are a awful lot of people in-between them and the customer who aren’t really needed and who are taking more than their fair share of the profit.

According to various sources the United Kingdom is the largest downloader of pirated television shows followed by Australia and then the United States. Living here in Australia now it is so easy to see why. I am sick and tired of hearing about a cool new show and then having to wait 8 months to see it. We just finally saw the season 1 finale of Lost just a few weeks ago. The U.S. premere of season 2 starts the 22nd while we have to wait till sometime NEXT YEAR! I can rent the entire new season of Dr. Who at Blockbuster down the street and it hasn’t even finished airing here yet. And it isn’t just that we are getting the shows late, the television companies here just don’t seem to get that people are really sick of them moving the damn shows around and having them pre-empted every 3rd week for some other show. I accidentally learned who won last season’s Survivor, American Idol, and The Amazing Race before they were finished airing here. (Yes, we started watching Survivor but in my defense it’s become a social thing where a bunch of us take turns going to each other’s places for dinner and to watch the show. As for the other two shows all I can say is that the TV is on while I play game on my computer. Please don’t think any less of me.)

Anyway, the last straw was when I noticed a link on Yahoo’s front page saying “Watch the entire first episode of ‘Supernatural’ now”. So I clicked on it. I like the supernatural thriller type stuff so I figured I’d give it a shot. I clicked the link to watch the show and got: “We’re sorry, this content is restricted to users in a predetermined viewing area.” Well you know what? That just makes me want to go out and download an illegal copy. And then download the entire series with the commercials edited out! Assuming it doesn’t suck, this is the WB we are talking about.

I read that Season one of the new Battlestar Galactica was the most downloaded show ever so far. Easy to see why, it was aired in the UK first and there are a lot more people in the U.S. A lot more people who didn’t want to wait for them to get around to airing so they could watch it.

The solution has been talked for as long as I can remember. It’s the 21st century and I am over us not having the flying cars I was promised in my science fiction, but I am really pissed that the technology isn’t in place for TV on demand. I should be able to turn on my TV by now, sort through a menu, and watch any previously broadcast TV show. All the existing networks just add their content to the overall library for a fee. They pay for that fee with commercials. I tell my TV receiver the relevant information about me and whomever else is living in my house and it shows me relevant commercials. I don’t have to tell them who I am exactly just my information. The networks just know that there a household containing two people one male and one female that spent watched season 1 and half of season 2 of Futurama this weekend. That’s one lesson the marketing demons really need to learn, we would be less reluctant to tell them all of our demographic information if we didn’t have to actually identify ourselves.

Still Staying Away from Zone Alarm

Check Point, the company that now runs Zone Alarm put up the following notice on the top of the Zone Alarm forums:

Zone Labs knows that some of our customers are having issues with the upgrade to ZoneAlarm 6.0, and is working hard to fix the situation.

The cause appears to be related to the upgrade process, not the application itself. Therefore, we recommend users experiencing difficulties uninstall any prior version of ZoneAlarm (v.2.x - v.5.x) residing on their computer system and do a clean installation of their new ZoneAlarm 6.0 product.

We sincerely apologize to any customers affected and appreciate your patience.

I did try to uninstall and do a fresh install back when I had my melt down and that’s when the really big problems began that lead me to have to reformat my computer which still isn't working by the way. I tried to update the bios and now I get a checksum error on boot up. Just on thing after another. Its really depressing.

Well at least they are admitting there is a problem finally. I am still looking into other options. If you are wondering if it is worth it to stick with Zone Alarm I suggest you read a page or two of their forums. It has been weeks now and the negative posts are still piling up.

Who am I?

Your identity and your success go hand in hand. Many people sacrifice their identities by not doing what they really want to do. And that's why they're not successful.
-Lila Swell

The only place I’ve published the yahoo email address is on this site. I created the yahoo email address specifically for this site. I bring this up because it appears that this blog has gotten linked somewhere industry related because I got 4 recruitment type emails today. That’s right, 4 in one day. Wow, that probably means my readership more than tripled in one day!

Now its not the recruitment letters that bother me. The only thing that is worse than getting recruitment letters is not getting recruitment letters. What really gets me is the ones that mention the specific position they are looking for are for artist. The resume is right over there on the right just under my picture. It says “designer” at the top. Look at the title of this blog, “Working as Designed.” Get it? Designed? Work – Designed.

Granted I used to be an artist, had fancy business cards that said “senior artist” and a whole collection of colored pencils. Actually I still have the colored pencils but that is beside the point. I didn’t keep up technology wise, stick 3DS Max or Maya in front of me and I’ll just start laying out a level using low poly models. You aren’t going to get game ready 3D modeling out of me and I know that’s what you want from an artist.

I can whip out a cool little picture in Photoshop to show you exactly what the GUI I spec’ed should look like. I might go poking around in the spell icons and come up with a set that shows exactly how the art style should reflect to the different magic schools I designed. I might even hack around with a few textures to use in the level I’ve layed out. But let us be clear about this, I am a game designer. Not an artist.

Team Kills and Punishment

To err is human; to forgive, infrequent.
-Franklin P. Adams

I got to play a little Battlefield 2 on my newly reformatted game machine last night (there are other problems with the machine that I don't want to think about at the moment). It got me thinking about the punishment system for team killing. In BF2 you lose a few points off your total if you damage or kill a teammate. If you actually kill a teammate he has the option of punishing you which causes you loose even more points.

You do have to have a system that lets players have some sort of recourse against their team mates who do them wrong, because there are people out there who get bored with the game and then decide its fun to ruin your game.

Turning off friendly fire isn’t really an option because it ruins a lot of the balance and dramtic tension. With friendly fire turned off there isn’t any drawback to just tossing grenades around, zooming around in a buggy running not caring who you run over, and just firing your mini-gun at any and everything in the hope that you'll hit any enemy.

The first problem with the punishment system in BF2 is the way they implemented it in their user interface. During the game people can call for votes of various things such as voting to kick people off the server, voting to change maps, or voting to mutiny against your commander. When voting in all these cases it is the Page Up key to vote “Yes” and the Page Down key for “No”. But after being killed by a teammate it asked if you want to “Forgive”. So if you follow that you would be voting “No” I don’t want to kick this player off the server, “No” I don’t want to change maps, “No” I don’t want to mutiny, but then its “Yes” that I do want to forgive. It should be asking you if want to “Punish” him so the “Yes” and “No” answers are consistent with the other votes.

The second problem and the one I was thinking about was that it is too easy to punish. Most players of these types of games, safely protected by the anonymity of the online community are jerks. They punish every time they are team killed. Most team kills are accidents. Yes there are a few asses out there that do stupid stuff like shooting their teammates when they don’t get a seat in the Blackhawk or some such, but overall most are accidents. They are obvious accidents. Hell, a lot of them are accidents caused by the person getting killed, running out in front of a vehicle or not paying attention and running into friendly artillery fire. But they all punish.

There are posts in various forums where some people talk about some mythical promised land where eventually the community will come in line with some polite code of conduct. Not happening won’t happen, not with this type of game, these types of players, in this environment. By the way, for every “don’t punish” thread on the forum there is a “that’s it I don’t care anymore, I punishing everybody now too” post. I personally tried the televangelist thing where after I forgave somebody I would preach to the team channel “I have been TK’ed and I have forgiven!” It didn’t catch on.

The problem is the people punishing aren’t losing anything themselves. It is no skin off their nose. As a game designer you only want players to punish other players when those players deserve to be punished. So make the person who is punishing lose a few points too. If person who is presented with the question of punishing or forgiving is going to lose something too, they might not just punish by default. This is assuming it is implemented in such a way that the player is informed of this when he is asked if he wants to forgive or punish. (Another problem with Battlefield 2 is there is just so much they don’t tell you, but that is another rant.)

I should note there are other problems with Battlefield 2 that if fixed would help alleviate this problem. For example it is too hard to see the icon warning you of a mine or claymore set by a friendly unit. There is also a bug where sometimes you will see a friendly target with a red name. I have personally starting shooting at a helicopter with a red name that suddenly turned into a blue name after I had hit it with a missile.

More Serenity and other TV Shows on DVD

Okay I haven’t posted in a little bit, but really how do you top a Serenity sneak peak? You are reading the 3 issue Serenity comic right? The second issue just came out last week and the first issue sold out and is getting a second printing. There was a post on the Browncoat's Forum from "our Captain" Nathan Fillion about his adventure in a local Canadian comic store trying to buy an issue for his mother. I tried to find the specific link but you have to sign in first and then find the post. Here is what it said:

It is times like these that I feel like Malcolm Reynolds. This is something that would surely get you kicked into an engine. I just went to a comic store to purchase the Serenity comic for my mom. The sweetheart that she is, gave her issues (with her favorite character on the front) to relatives who were having trouble tracking one down. Please bear in mind that Canada is a wondrous place where the service industry is polite and helpful, and that this experience is not the norm. The store I chose, which shall remain nameless (Warp 1 Comics), at an undisclosed location (just off Whyte Ave), has the singlemost sanctimonious, condescending, dishonest a$$hole I've had the misfortune of meeting. My brother and I called ahead to find out they had one issue left, but upon arriving, found out they are gouging people $20 bucks for the damned thing! "That's what they're worth." he sneered at me. I asked him to show me a listing of some sort to back it up. "Well, I just know what I paid Dark Horse for it." He wouldn't show me that, either. I am aware that Dark Horse wasn't expecting these books to sell as well as they are, and that they are going into a second printing, but I just picked up three of them two days ago at cover price at another store. My brother piped up with a, "What an interesting attitude you have." Let me tell you folks, this fella had an attitude, and a smirk that you wanted to knock off his face with a baseball bat dipped in dog poop. Of course, my brother couldn't help letting this guy know who he was trying to hose by holding the issue next to my face. "This guy look familliar? This isn't some JoJo off the street! He knows what he's talking about!" Check this out- the reply of this crap-catcher, who shall remain nameless (Darryl) was, (and imagine a dullards voice- how we make people we don't like sound in a story) "Well, then you can call Joss Whedon and ask him." I had to tell this purplebelly that I was being sacastic when I thanked him for his excellent service, and I don't think he knew what sanctimonious meant!

Wouldn't a smart business man ask me to sign an issue and sell me one at a fair price? Wouldn't that fetch a prettier penny than ripping me off for one issue? Congratulations, dude! You are now on the Browncoat $hitlist.

Never have I tried to wield power in this way, but if being Malcolm Reynolds has taught me anything, it's to follow my over-developed sense of vengeance. BOYCOTT WARP ONE COMICS! If you are in the neighborhood, drop by to tell "the Buttress" that Browncoats don't take $hit from anyone. Tell your friends not to shop there, and lock 'em in the airlock if they do. Copy this post and e-mail it to fellow Edmontonians. Bump it to keep it alive.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me rant. If you feel I'm overboard, please feel free to, as Joss would say, contemplate silently.

The Captain

Edited to be less cruel, and to mention how wonderfully my dear mom was treated at HAPPY HARBOR. Thank you, staff and owners at Happy Harbor. You made my mom's day. Turns out, Warp One tried to hose her, too, by telling her that the Jayne covered issue was a rarity. Love you, Adam B. You ARE a rarity. Nothin' agin you. But will these butt-tards stoop so low as to steal from a woman? For shame, Warp One, for shame.

I fully understand the difficult position comic book shop owners are in and that they don't make tons of money but this guy was a complete ass. Forget selling an issue to him at the cover price he should have given the issue to Nathan for FREE, asked him to autograph a few copies and then gotten a picture of him in the shop to hang up behind the register. In my best Simpson's Comic Book Guy voice: "Biggest... idiot... evvver."

I did piddle around with my DKP history and start a rant about the horrible mistakes they made in the social systems they tried to put into Battlefield 2. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to finish either.

I have been also been spending extra time at work doing stuff I am not allowed to talk about yet as well as spending last weekend watching season 1 of Deadwood. I feel like I am missing out on so much of modern American culture living in Australia. I just found out the other day that there are new nickels! We have tomorrow off and I will be camping out on the couch with season 1 of Dead Like Me to watch.

I just meant to post a quick rant about Zone Alarm and wound up with all the above. So I split the Zone Alarm post off and posted it first.

Zone Alarm Killed My Computer

Last night I tried to upgrade Zone Alarm on my gaming machine and it looks like I might have to reformat and reinstall Windows. There are all sorts of horrible things being said on their forums. I hadn’t realized that there had been a change of ownership and things have been going down hill but it does look like it isn’t the God send program it used to be.

I won’t go into the whole long story about what I’ve gone through so far, but at this point I can’t uninstall Zone Alarm even in Safe Mode.

All I can say is if you’re currently running it to stick with the current version and if you’re not using it keep it that way.

Serenity Sneak Preview

Last night we went and saw a sneak preview of Serenity which, as you should all know by now, is the movie continuing the cancled Fox television show Firefly. If you are still clueless about the whole thing you should run out and get the show on DVD.

We wore our "Joss Wehedon is my master now" tshirts which come from this PvP Online comic strip and can be brought from ThinkGeek. There were a couple of people wearing Jayne's knit hat there as well.

And the movie... Oh yeah baby. I've just seen it and I already can't wait till it is released on September 30th. In my opinion is that it was too good, but I can't say why without spoiling it. I think it is going to be a big hit for fans of the show and the uninniated. Better for the fans though so if you arn't inniated you best get a move on. There is no such thing as a non-fan, either you are a fan or you havn't watched the shows. Having watched part of an episode when it aired and dismissed as a stupid wanna-be western in space doesn't count. That is what got the show cancled though. Personally I always did think they didn't mix in quite enough future tech in with the western stuff. The movie doens't make that mistake.

It was an hour drive up from Brisbane to the little town of Robina where the movie was playing as an opening to their Film Festival. Although it wasn't a large theatre it was packed full. Remember that Firefly only kinda aired here in Australia, so they are all fans post airing of the show. I say kinda because last year they played a few episodes late at night on channel 10, and just like Fox started with the "Train Job" instead of the real first episode. They asked for a show of hands for people who had driven in from Brisbane and about 75% of the people raised their hands. They pointed out some people that claimed to have driven in from somewhere else with the impression that it was a really really long way to drive. My wife had been running "Firefly Nights" for the people at work. Basically showing two episodes every week till everybody caught up, they are all diehard fans now.

Hot Coffee

"Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie." -William Shakespeare

I am sure you have all heard about the “Hot Coffee” sex scandal of the game Grand Theft Auto: San Adreas. But in case you haven’t it appears that Rockstar Games had a mostly complete “Sex mini-game” in the game. Modders have managed to unlock the content and now the media and politicians are in an uproar about it.

Here is a LINK where you can find a video of Hot Coffee mod in action. Go ahead and watch it so you know exactly what everyone is talking about. It’s all over the news at the moment anyway and now you can tell all your friends that you actually saw without having to spend the money modding your XBox and figuring out how to download a patch to it.

From the wording of the re-classification from the ESRB I get the impression that they are changing the classification because the content is actually included in the original product regardless that it is only accessible by a third party patch (and some actual hardware modification for the console systems) in violation of the terms of service.

"After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs of all three platform versions of the game (i.e., PC CD-ROM, Xbox and PS2)," commented Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB, in an official statement announcing the ratings change.

Vance continued: "However, the material was programmed by Rockstar to be inaccessible to the player and they have stated that it was never intended to be made accessible. The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar’s permission, which is now freely available on the internet and through console accessories. Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined."

What about the Sims 2? Isn’t the nudity of the models also included in the original product only covered up by a pixilated blur effect that can be easily removed with a “freely available” software patch?

Remove the blur with "The Sims 2" nude patch.
In "The Sims 2," Sims are blurred when they use the bathroom, take a shower, or enter the hot tub naked. There is a user made nude patch that will get rid of the blur. The nude patch for "The Sims 2" works for Sims of all ages.
The nude patch does edit the exe for "The Sims 2," but makes a backup in case you want to restore the patch at a later point.
Instead of the nude patch, there is a cheat code you can use to turn the blur on and off. To turn off: intProp censorGridSize 0, to turn on: intProp censorGridSize 8
Download "The Sims 2" Nude Patch
-Courtney Marchelletta From About.com

Grand Theft Auto: San Adreas was already ready rated “Mature” and obviously wasn’t intended for children. It is now rated “Adults Only” (a difference in age 17+ to 18+ but also no more Wal-Mart sales.) The Sims 2 is rated “Teen.” You can read all the ESRB rating details here to see what those actually mean.

So to quote Damion Schuber (scroll down to find his 7/12/05 post), “Clearly, the lesson here is: white suburbanite hot tub sex = good. Black gangsta sex in the hood = bad.” He makes another very good point in the same post "almost any game can be deviant if the player tries hard enough - that’s what interactive MEANS. Wanna commit genocide? Go play Civilization. Wall up your neighbors and watch them collapse, sobbing, in puddles of their own urine? The Sims is right up your alley. On the other hand, if what you really want to do is pretend you’re an EMT saving lives, GTA is pretty much the only game in town."

In the end Rockstar is re-mastering the discs without the offending files in order to get reclassified back to be “Mature” (it’s original rating still saying that it is inappropriate for children) and the modders will change their mod to include those files back in. Nothing really changes except that Rockstar is forced to waste some of the millions it’s made on the sales of the game and politicians will another example of how are protecting the children (did I already mention that the game was already rated inappropriate for children?) I'm sure the whole scandal just boosted the game's sales anyway.

And if after all this you find that you actually like the idea of sex video games, you should try Japanese Dating Sims. You can find them at JList. I’ve never played one myself, 30 minutes of a boring game just to watch 30 seconds of porn doesn’t seem like a fair trade.

Thank You Lance Armstrong

“Live Strong”
-Lance Armstrong

Outdoor Life Network is doing a thank you card for Lance Armstrong. The actual giant card will be going around the country in July but if it isn’t going to be in your area you can still send him a message via email that they will collect and pass on.

Realistic Video Game Violence and Environments

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and -- thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."
-Robert A. Heinlein

I did have a very interesting thought about video game violence while playing Battlefield 2. I realized that I never attached any real world significance to any of the killing I do in the game. Every time I kill an enemy the violence of the killing never occurs to me. Instead I find myself picturing some pimply faced 13 year old kid whining and complaining that I had ‘got him.’

I do however find myself attaching real world significance to the environment. There are houses, apartments, shops and billboards and I keep thinking about the people that used to live there. What happened to them? How would it feel to have your neighborhood become a war zone? You get the impression from a lot of the Middle Eastern maps that they have been getting blown up for years and years and yet there are also new, half completed construction projects. They keep getting blown up and they keep building new ones. The weedy brick path up to the TV station that is lined with palm trees, how long ago was that a brand new building? The half built damn that somebody must have thought was going to be a great boon to the area, will it ever get finished? What would it be like to live like that?

People keep going on about how the graphics are getting realistic and the violence is getting too real. But the realistic graphic violence isn’t turning me into a crazed killer, but rather getting me to think about the innocent victims of that violence and destruction.

It reminds me of a commercial that was on TV in the US a few years ago. It was for one of those ‘too violent for TV’ videos that showed real people getting killed and maimed. The commercial showed a few clips that cut away right before the gory part. One was of a woman about to cross a train track in front of an on coming train. That commercial proved to me that I have not become insensitive to violence because I could not watch that commercial. I had to turn away. Knowing that it was real, knowing that woman was about to actually be hit by that train was just too much.

Oh there was another one from about the same time. This one regarding child / spouse abuse. It just shows this little kid about 3 or 4 years old, sitting on the stairs in his house. In the background you can hear his drunken father yelling at his sobbing mother. Then you hear a loud ‘SMACK’ and the kid on the stairs starts dramatically at the sound. Oh man, that commercial got to me. Every time I saw it, even knowing it was coming, I would jump too and get this queasy lurch in my stomach. Wonder what they did when filming it to get the kid to jump like that. He is way too young to be acting.

There was a good deal of violence in video game links floating around this week too. One piece was written by a guy who went to school at Columbine when the shootings occurred who claims to have known both some of the victims as well as the two killers. I started to read it but unfortunately got distracted by work and never went back to it. The Slash Dot article that lead me to it also had a few reaction links to that article but I didn’t get a chance to read them either.

Ranting about Battlefield 2

The best thing about playing online is playing with other people. The worse thing about playing online is playing with other people.
-Unknown

So I am playing a good deal of Battlefield 2. Although I really like FPS games I hadn’t played one seriously online in a very long time. I was going to write a bit about the ‘online’ part mentioning how I usually just play the single player versions of the FPS games. I would then back up that admission with some quotes from one of the Unreal developers who mentioned that something like 80% of the people who bought the previous versions of Unreal Tournament didn’t play online. Some of us don’t like showing off how much we suck at the game in front of others and nobody likes to get killed over and over before they even learn the game.

But instead I am going to rant about Battlefield 2. I haven’t had such a love/hate relationship with a game since the early days of Ultima Online.

First of all the menus are horrible. When you are in the game there is a pause to get the menu up. Why? Because they are playing a full screen movie behind the menu and it has to load. You may think a few seconds delay to bring up the menu isn’t a big problem but it really starts to get on your nerves, especially when you meant to press RETURN to bring up a different menu but accidentally hit ESC instead. No option to turn this movie off.

While I am going on about the menu not only does the delay in opening it suck, but it and its various other information screens suck as well. Now I have created quite a few game menus in my time. I am building a few right now at work. I know how hard it is to plan out and display a whole slew of information on screen in a way that is readable and doesn’t look too busy. So I won’t make any disparaging remarks about the menu layouts but rather how they work.

Let’s start with selecting a server which uses and embedded Gamespy server. I play on local Game Arena servers (I would normally play on an Internode server who are my local ISP but BF2 keeps kicking me off their servers keep kicking me offline with a punk buster warning) and in order to find them I type gamearena in the server filter (which works most of the time). Now because the game is new most of the servers are full, but since it would be too hard to update the population of each server in real time you have to press the refresh button which also works most of the time. Only when you do so it doesn’t keep the filter text. There also isn’t any queue to get onto a server so you wind up just clicking on the server, try to enter, say okay to the window that says the server is full, and then click on the server again, repeat until you get in. There is also no way to see what servers your friends are playing on except to select each server and then scroll through the player names on both sides until you find them. Like I said at the beginning I haven’t played an FPS online in quite some time so I can’t really compare their server stuff to other games but one reviewer did ask why all other game servers seem to be getting better while Gamespy is getting worse.

Okay you’ve played the game and the round is over. It throws up a menu screen with loads of information about the previous battle except it doesn’t tell you what any of it means. Hey look I got 32 trophies, 12 checker board thing, 16 crosshairs and 10 skulls! Would it have killed them to have some tool tips or at least a page in the manual that explains what all that means instead of making me go searching through inane message boards for the info? And even when I know what they mean it doesn’t help that much since its really vague how the total score is arrived at.

You can go to the Battlefield HQ and look at your character stats and see what awards and medals you have won. All the awards that you haven’t earned are grayed out and there is no way to see what they are. You can’t select them and there is no tool-tip for them. I can just imagine the frustration of the achiever archetype player who has only 1 or 2 medals left to earn but has no clue what they are let alone what element of the game he has to master to earn them. Again searching though fan sites and such shouldn't be what you have to do.

Now there are bunch of little things I could nit pick about the game itself like how the auto balance feature loves to switch me to the loosing side seconds before the end of the match, but the thing that pushed me over the edge this weekend that had me screaming and pulling my hair out is that I went out and spent 60 bucks on a new joystick because I want to fly helicopters and jets. I didn’t want to do it online because constantly taking these vehicles and smashing them into the ground while I try to adjust my joystick settings and get comfortable flying isn’t really fair the rest of the people on my team. But the only offline maps you can play are the small 16 versus 16 player maps that are very small. If you are lucky you can shoot down your own helicopter before the NPCs, who have jumped in as soon as the map started, take off with it. Then you can fly for a few minutes before you wind up drifting off the map and getting killed for being AWOL before you even get a chance to smash it into the ground. Would it have been hard to give me access to the large maps in some sort of training mode so we could practice flying? How about a specific ‘training map’? You can’t create your own server and play by yourself either, you need a second player to start the game. (Edit: I was just able to start a server and get into the game by myself, it still says it is waiting for a second player but it lets me start.)

There is some love in the love/hate relationship though. It is really fun to play especially when you are on a squad with your friends who have microphones that work. Mine doesn’t, I am guessing it has something to do with the onboard sound card in my machine and we will see what happens once I get a real sound card in there. The graphics are incredible, especially on my new monster PC in 1600x1200. I guess the best thing I can say about it is that I am going to skip proof reading this post and get online. Bye.