Lords of the Dead is a very old guild having gotten started in SSI’s Dark Sun Online in 1995. They were a powerful PK guild on the Baja server in Ultima Online and have also had a presence in Asheron’s Call, Dark Age of Camelog, Everquest, Guild Wars, Shadowbane and Star Wars Galaxies.
They added FURY to their list of upcoming games they were interested in at the beginning of the month and have just now wrangled a very good set of Questions and Answers from our lead Designer. Both of those two links are hosted in their forums so you can read the reaction posts of their community as well.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Ganked versus Pwned 2
After rereading my previous post just now; I should have been more careful writing it. The key element that differentiates being ganked and being pwned is expectation.
Just because you are a 3rd level character and you are killed by a 75th level character doesn’t mean you were ganked.
If you walked up and smacked the 75th level character and he turned around and killed you just by raising his eyebrow, you were pwned. If you were wandering around in an area of the game mean for characters of that level and one of them popped your head off as he rode by, you were pwned. You should know better in these cases. You deserved to get beaten. You brought it on yourself. Did you really expect thing to happen differently?
-Now for my answers to the 5 situation questions:
1. You have a group of high level players hiding out at the crossroads and along comes a lower level player picking flowers. Your “gank” group leaps out and starts smacking him around when suddenly his allies who were just using him as bait teleport in and kill you and your team.
Just because you are a 3rd level character and you are killed by a 75th level character doesn’t mean you were ganked.
If you walked up and smacked the 75th level character and he turned around and killed you just by raising his eyebrow, you were pwned. If you were wandering around in an area of the game mean for characters of that level and one of them popped your head off as he rode by, you were pwned. You should know better in these cases. You deserved to get beaten. You brought it on yourself. Did you really expect thing to happen differently?
-Now for my answers to the 5 situation questions:
1. You have a group of high level players hiding out at the crossroads and along comes a lower level player picking flowers. Your “gank” group leaps out and starts smacking him around when suddenly his allies who were just using him as bait teleport in and kill you and your team.
You’re expectation was that there would be a fight. You instigated the fight, you just didn’t realize they were not only expecting it as well, they were also better prepared. You were pwned.2. You sneak into the other team’s tower and go to grab their flag when 6 opponents who were hiding behind the door fill you full of holes.
An even more complicated example of that situation happened to me in WoW last month. I was on an alternate low level character grinding through some quest mobs when a character of my level that was flagged for PvP kept trying to steal my mobs. Because we are on a PvE server he can’t attack me because I am not flagged for PvP until I attack him.
Now, I’m not a complete idiot and I knew he was just doing it to bait me into attacking him. And eventually when I was finished I thought I would toss a fireball his way before running off. I didn’t want to waste time fighting him, just wanted to have the last word so to speak. As soon as that fireball hit him his friend, the high level rogue, popped out of hiding and sends me to the graveyard.
Now I felt like I was ganked. He was definitely baiting me. But it was my fault. I knew he was baiting me, I knew that the way he was baiting me was specifically against the rules but I took the bait and I got pwned.
You are in the other team’s tower. Again your expectation is that there is going to be a fight. You may have hopped to avoid it by sneaking in, but you failed. You were pwned.3. You are tooling around in the game when you wife walks by wearing that skimpy outfit she wore on the honeymoon. You chase her off into the bedroom and return to the keyboard 3 minutes later to find you were killed.
You weren’t at the computer. Your expectations have much more to do with the bird and bees than with the game. This one is a very grey area. Because you left the computer with your character in a place where he could be attacked and killed, your expectation should have been that you could be in for a fight. But I am going to say you were ganked but you deserved it.4. You are dueling another player when suddenly he does something that causes the game to bug out and kill you.
This one may seem like a grey area. Obviously your expectation is for a fight by the fact that you are dueling. But taking advantage of a bug is an exploit and not only completely unfair but should get the other player suspended or banned from the game. Exploits are outside of your expectation of the game. You were ganked.5. A game master is in the game doing a story event of some sort. You decide to attack him with your meteor showers of instant death. But it doesn’t have any effect on his character and he turns and kills you with a developer command.
What did you think would happen? You attacked a GM. You were attempting to disrupt an in game event. You expectation should have been that you were going to get pwned and you were.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Ganked versus Pwned
After last E3 it became clear to me that way to many people don’t know the difference between being “ganked” and being “pwned.” These are two completely different ways of getting your butt kicked online, they do not mean the same thing.
For example in my upcoming game Fury, we advertise there is no “ganking.” But that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to get “pwned.” So let’s see if we can straighten this out.
First off let me preface this by say that for the purpose of this discussion I don’t care about the origin of the terms, who is credited with first coining them or what other uses they have besides how they are applied to gaming. I just want to stop them from blurring together and becoming synonymous when applied to being defeated.
That being said lets look at ganked and pwned on Urban Dictionary. You can kind of see the difference in the two words but there is way to much signal to noise on that site.
So now let’s try Wikipedia where we find ganked and pwned. Those are much better definitions.
Do you see the difference?
“Ganking” is when a player or players use a massive and unfair advantage to defeat another player. The defeated player wasn’t expecting to be in a fight and didn’t really stand a chance.
“Pwned” is soundly defeating a prepared opponent. The loser may have been caught by a surprise tactic, he may not really have stood a chance against the better player that defeated him, but he knew he would be in for a fight and got beat bad.
Examples of being Ganked: (Edited after I put up next post)
• You are jumped and killed and killed by a much more powerful character in a place where you thought you were safe from PvP.
• You are defeated while AFK (edit: very grey area, if you left your character somewhere he was vulnerable and that means you don't have the 'unexpected' excuse. But killing somebody who is AFK is pretty lame so I'll go ahead and say you were ganked. You deserved it though.)
• You opponent takes advantage of a exploit to defeat you
• You are attacked by surprise and caught completely unprepared and are defeated before you even knew what was going on
• You are tricked into performing what the game thinks is a hostile action in an area where NPCs will kill you if you do hostile actions
• You are attacked while you are already fighting another player or NPC and defeated
Examples of being Pwned:
• You duel somebody and they defeat you without taking much damage
• You jump out of the bushes in an attempt to gank a lower level player and he kills you instead
• You do something really stupid and your opponent defeats you.
• You talk a lot of smack about how you are going to defeat your opponent and he beats you
I guess it is important to mention some examples that are neither ganked or pwned. These are just cases where you won and dancing around saying pwned them will just make you look stupid and if he starts whining that you ganked him makes him an idiot:
• You are dueling somebody and beat them but not by a lot nor by any superior playing on your part
• You are fighting another player and defeat him by accident caused by some advantage that neither of you was aware of
• You defeat a more powerful opponent who was already just about dead from another fight
Now let’s have a quiz.
1. You have a group of high level players hiding out at the crossroads and along comes a lower level player picking flowers. Your “gank” group leaps out and starts smacking him around when suddenly his allies who were just using him as bait teleport in and kill you and your team. Were you ganked or pwned?
2. You sneak into the other team’s tower and go to grab their flag when 6 opponents who were hiding behind the door fill you full of holes. Were you ganked or pwned?
3. You are tooling around in the game when you wife walks by wearing that skimpy outfit she wore on the honeymoon. You chase her off into the bedroom and return to the keyboard 3 minutes later to find you were killed. Were you ganked or pwned?
4. You are dueling another player when suddenly he does something that causes the game to bug out and kill you. Were you ganked or pwned?
5. A game master is in the game doing a story event of some sort. You decide to attack him with your meteor showers of instant death. But it doesn’t have any effect on his character and he turns and kills you with a developer command. Were you ganked or pwned?
Post your answers in the comments.
For example in my upcoming game Fury, we advertise there is no “ganking.” But that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to get “pwned.” So let’s see if we can straighten this out.
First off let me preface this by say that for the purpose of this discussion I don’t care about the origin of the terms, who is credited with first coining them or what other uses they have besides how they are applied to gaming. I just want to stop them from blurring together and becoming synonymous when applied to being defeated.
That being said lets look at ganked and pwned on Urban Dictionary. You can kind of see the difference in the two words but there is way to much signal to noise on that site. So now let’s try Wikipedia where we find ganked and pwned. Those are much better definitions.
Do you see the difference?
“Ganking” is when a player or players use a massive and unfair advantage to defeat another player. The defeated player wasn’t expecting to be in a fight and didn’t really stand a chance.
“Pwned” is soundly defeating a prepared opponent. The loser may have been caught by a surprise tactic, he may not really have stood a chance against the better player that defeated him, but he knew he would be in for a fight and got beat bad.
Examples of being Ganked: (Edited after I put up next post)
• You are jumped and killed and killed by a much more powerful character in a place where you thought you were safe from PvP.
• You are defeated while AFK (edit: very grey area, if you left your character somewhere he was vulnerable and that means you don't have the 'unexpected' excuse. But killing somebody who is AFK is pretty lame so I'll go ahead and say you were ganked. You deserved it though.)
• You opponent takes advantage of a exploit to defeat you
• You are attacked by surprise and caught completely unprepared and are defeated before you even knew what was going on
• You are tricked into performing what the game thinks is a hostile action in an area where NPCs will kill you if you do hostile actions
• You are attacked while you are already fighting another player or NPC and defeated
Examples of being Pwned:
• You duel somebody and they defeat you without taking much damage
• You jump out of the bushes in an attempt to gank a lower level player and he kills you instead
• You do something really stupid and your opponent defeats you.
• You talk a lot of smack about how you are going to defeat your opponent and he beats you
I guess it is important to mention some examples that are neither ganked or pwned. These are just cases where you won and dancing around saying pwned them will just make you look stupid and if he starts whining that you ganked him makes him an idiot:
• You are dueling somebody and beat them but not by a lot nor by any superior playing on your part
• You are fighting another player and defeat him by accident caused by some advantage that neither of you was aware of
• You defeat a more powerful opponent who was already just about dead from another fight
Now let’s have a quiz.
1. You have a group of high level players hiding out at the crossroads and along comes a lower level player picking flowers. Your “gank” group leaps out and starts smacking him around when suddenly his allies who were just using him as bait teleport in and kill you and your team. Were you ganked or pwned?
2. You sneak into the other team’s tower and go to grab their flag when 6 opponents who were hiding behind the door fill you full of holes. Were you ganked or pwned?
3. You are tooling around in the game when you wife walks by wearing that skimpy outfit she wore on the honeymoon. You chase her off into the bedroom and return to the keyboard 3 minutes later to find you were killed. Were you ganked or pwned?
4. You are dueling another player when suddenly he does something that causes the game to bug out and kill you. Were you ganked or pwned?
5. A game master is in the game doing a story event of some sort. You decide to attack him with your meteor showers of instant death. But it doesn’t have any effect on his character and he turns and kills you with a developer command. Were you ganked or pwned?
Post your answers in the comments.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Various Stuff
The Warcry Network has a video interview with our lead designer, Adam Carpenter. It was done in the very tiny and cramped office we had at our booth at E3 and the audio is really bad with the loud clamor of E3 in the background.
I hung out yesterday with Anthony Costoro, aka Sunsword, who’s blog “Sunsword’s Edge" is linked over there on the right. Got to talk a lot about things going on in the industry and the people we know in common.
We also went and saw Superman Returns. FYI: Superman's costume is bullet proof but not Kryponite proof. Thumbs up though, I liked it.
George Hincapie took the yellow jersey after stage 1 yesterday so I am wearing my Team Discovery Channel bike team jersey to work today. People always give me funny looks when I wear bike team jerseys but people wear football (rugby or AFL downunder) jerseys and they all think that is fine! Well the Team Discovery Channel jersey isn’t as odd looking as the U.S. Postal Team’s Jersey. Having that big U.S. Postal logo on the front is kind of odd. When I bought my Trek 5200 I had the option of buying it as the Lance Armstrong special edition but I just couldn’t get over having all those U.S. Postal logos on it. It made me think I should be delivering the mail.
I hung out yesterday with Anthony Costoro, aka Sunsword, who’s blog “Sunsword’s Edge" is linked over there on the right. Got to talk a lot about things going on in the industry and the people we know in common.
We also went and saw Superman Returns. FYI: Superman's costume is bullet proof but not Kryponite proof. Thumbs up though, I liked it.
George Hincapie took the yellow jersey after stage 1 yesterday so I am wearing my Team Discovery Channel bike team jersey to work today. People always give me funny looks when I wear bike team jerseys but people wear football (rugby or AFL downunder) jerseys and they all think that is fine! Well the Team Discovery Channel jersey isn’t as odd looking as the U.S. Postal Team’s Jersey. Having that big U.S. Postal logo on the front is kind of odd. When I bought my Trek 5200 I had the option of buying it as the Lance Armstrong special edition but I just couldn’t get over having all those U.S. Postal logos on it. It made me think I should be delivering the mail.
2006 Tour de France
I just found out I had missed the prologue of the Tour de France. I had checked up on the Tour website last week but completely forgot that it started yesterday. I’m watching stage 1 live as I write this. In years past I was able to listen to the previous stages audio at work but last year the Outdoor Life Network (the US cable TV station that broadcasts the Tour) didn’t offer it. I’ll have to do some web surfing tomorrow to see if somebody is offering it this year.
Lance Armstrong isn’t racing anymore but I am going to stick with Team Discovery Channel, formerly the US Postal team. They were running a bunch of humorous commercials and webisodes of “The Race to Replace Lance” that lead up to their announcing the team makeup for this year’s race. George Hincapie who is an American and former main Lance Armstrong teammate is my favorite this year. He came in second in the prologue stage by .73 seconds. I like the idea that US riders have been doing so well in the tour.
The Tour website is offering a Tour De France video game. You play the part of team manager. I’d buy it if I thought I had any time to actually play it.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Fury's First Fan Site
Sorry to keep posting mostly Fury press stuff but honestly nothing much else is happening. Being the middle of Summer down under it is freezing and I spend most of my time shivering while wrapped in blankets and wishing my computers generated more heat.
RPGVault has a small post with a video of our game: Fury. The video shows two in game characters slugging it out. It really overly impressive as they are just standing there dishing out damage, but it shows off some of the effects in the game.
Firing Squad has an interview with Paul Whipp our producer.
I was reading through the comments on the MMORPG interview with our Lead Designer Adam Carpenter that I posted last week and found out that we have our first fan site: The Fury Sanctuary.
RPGVault has a small post with a video of our game: Fury. The video shows two in game characters slugging it out. It really overly impressive as they are just standing there dishing out damage, but it shows off some of the effects in the game.
Firing Squad has an interview with Paul Whipp our producer.
I was reading through the comments on the MMORPG interview with our Lead Designer Adam Carpenter that I posted last week and found out that we have our first fan site: The Fury Sanctuary.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Magic the Gathering Online Crap
Warning!!! Long Rambling Post!!! Warning!!!
So I decided to check out Magic the Gathering Online. They had their booth next to ours at E3 and were giving away copies of their retail box but by the time I was able to get over there they were all gone.
I found that I could just download the game from their site and didn’t need the box. Normally I like having a box because if I am going to shell out money I want something I can hold in my hands in return. But I’m slowly getting over that. It was the beginning of a lesson in how not to set up your game service.
Before I begin here is how their game works as far as money goes. You pay $9.99 for the account and then you can play for free but you have to buy the cards online. I believe once you are in the game you can buy the booster packs and pre-made decks from inside the client but since I haven’t gotten into the game I don’t know that for sure.
I also have to ask what kind of sign up system they were after when they designed this. I imagine what they wanted is a system where they can easily grab a casual player who is curious about the game and then hope to hook him into continue playing, pretty standard stuff. But what they have set up has way too many hoops. They aren’t really difficult hoops and you can’t expect a hoop free system, although that is possible if you design it right, but this one has annoyed me enough that I’ve decided to ramble on complaining about it. I hope your not bored enough to actually read this. Just so you know I probably won't be proof reading it either. You were warned...
First I downloaded the self extracting zip file. No problem there. I execute it and it unzips itself into its default directory and then launches the game. Now I don’t know what was in that zip file which was only 39mb in size but it wasn’t enough. The game spent over an hour patching. OVER AN HOUR!!! It might have even been two hours I didn't really pay attention to when I started.
Okay so now it has finally finished patching and the log in screen pops up. It does have an option for a free trial but I decide to just shell out the $9.99 and get an account. Now here is another big hoop: their online store. It isn’t built into the client it is a web page store. Now this is just a little thing, but remember we are trying to “grab a casual player”. I have to figure out what I’m buying which is the Magic the Gathering Account. Its kind of an esoteric concept that might lose Timmy’s dad who just bought little Timmy the game for his birthday.
But that isn’t it. I HAVE to fill out their little survey before I am allowed to buy this item. I am thinking okay this data is important to them I guess… but obviously not since it looks to have been several years since they update it. One of the final questions asks me what other online MMO games I play and none of the options are any game that has come out in the last two years. World of Warcraft isn’t mentioned, No Everquest II, etc.
Now I have bought an account. I don’t remember the exact steps here but I believe it sent me the account email at that point where I get my password. I am not sure though because when I look back at the text that I saved from the store it says:
Somewhere in the activation process I also had to detail how I got my account as either from a retail box, the online store purchase, or something else. I’m not sure why.
What ever it was I figured it out and tried to login to the game.
So then there is a this post in the announcement forum which I probably should have gone to first.
It basically says there is a one hour downtime on Thursday at 8 AM PDT. It is Thursday for me… but I’m way ahead of PDT and I don’t’ think its 8 AM yet. It also said it would last only and hour and I have been trying to log in for several hours.
I did get another email from them giving me a $9.99 credit in their store that can be used to buy cards.
Okay so now here is the how I would do it differently part.
The zip file should be updated. As long as it is under 1 gig that is fine for somebody who wants to download it. It would really piss me off if I had started to download before going to bed or something thinking when I got back to it I could just install and run it only to have to wait another 2 hours for it to update.
At best I would build the purchase of the account into the client at worse I would at least remove it from the web store. It could still be a web store behind the scenes but hide that part from the user. Just have a special page where he can enter his billing information and click for the one time purchase of the account. The selecting of the item to buy from the store and being force to take useless survey are just hurdles to them getting my money and getting me addicted to the game. Remember currently you can play the trial game without buying an account so having it set up so that I can be playing the trial and instantly click the "buy a full account" link inside the client would be the easist for the user.
When I create my account, THAT is when you send me the survey in email and tell me that if I fill it out you will give me the store credit.
The launcher needs lots of work. First you need a link to your website which should have an actual working server status display right there on the main page. Second a “help” link that takes you to the customer service web page. It should also have a little news announcement section that has links to the latest news and happenings. These are all the standard things you find on the current MMO launchers.
I would also update their title and launcher artwork as it is looking a little early 90’s.
Okay I am done rambling. Its 11:30 and I still can’t log into the game… well let me try… nope still can’t get in.
So I decided to check out Magic the Gathering Online. They had their booth next to ours at E3 and were giving away copies of their retail box but by the time I was able to get over there they were all gone.
I found that I could just download the game from their site and didn’t need the box. Normally I like having a box because if I am going to shell out money I want something I can hold in my hands in return. But I’m slowly getting over that. It was the beginning of a lesson in how not to set up your game service.
Before I begin here is how their game works as far as money goes. You pay $9.99 for the account and then you can play for free but you have to buy the cards online. I believe once you are in the game you can buy the booster packs and pre-made decks from inside the client but since I haven’t gotten into the game I don’t know that for sure.
I also have to ask what kind of sign up system they were after when they designed this. I imagine what they wanted is a system where they can easily grab a casual player who is curious about the game and then hope to hook him into continue playing, pretty standard stuff. But what they have set up has way too many hoops. They aren’t really difficult hoops and you can’t expect a hoop free system, although that is possible if you design it right, but this one has annoyed me enough that I’ve decided to ramble on complaining about it. I hope your not bored enough to actually read this. Just so you know I probably won't be proof reading it either. You were warned...
First I downloaded the self extracting zip file. No problem there. I execute it and it unzips itself into its default directory and then launches the game. Now I don’t know what was in that zip file which was only 39mb in size but it wasn’t enough. The game spent over an hour patching. OVER AN HOUR!!! It might have even been two hours I didn't really pay attention to when I started.
Okay so now it has finally finished patching and the log in screen pops up. It does have an option for a free trial but I decide to just shell out the $9.99 and get an account. Now here is another big hoop: their online store. It isn’t built into the client it is a web page store. Now this is just a little thing, but remember we are trying to “grab a casual player”. I have to figure out what I’m buying which is the Magic the Gathering Account. Its kind of an esoteric concept that might lose Timmy’s dad who just bought little Timmy the game for his birthday.
But that isn’t it. I HAVE to fill out their little survey before I am allowed to buy this item. I am thinking okay this data is important to them I guess… but obviously not since it looks to have been several years since they update it. One of the final questions asks me what other online MMO games I play and none of the options are any game that has come out in the last two years. World of Warcraft isn’t mentioned, No Everquest II, etc.
Now I have bought an account. I don’t remember the exact steps here but I believe it sent me the account email at that point where I get my password. I am not sure though because when I look back at the text that I saved from the store it says:
Congratulations, you are now a registered player of Magic: The Gathering Online. Launch your Magic Online program, enter the user name and password you created at the beginning of this process and click "Log In" to begin playing!I didn’t create a password at the beginning of the process. The password was sent to me in the email"
Thank you for requesting an account at the Magic Online Store. WithSystem generated password, not password I created. And do you see any problem with that link? The period is part of the link which brings you to a page not found.
thousands of creatures, ever-evolving strategies, and 24/7 access to
opponents, Magic Online is the ultimate online competition.
Now that your Login Name and Password are created, we need to complete your account setup. Listed below is your Login name and a system-generated password. For full, step-by-step instructions on account creation, please visit
http://magiconlinestore.wizards.com/help/start.asp.
Somewhere in the activation process I also had to detail how I got my account as either from a retail box, the online store purchase, or something else. I’m not sure why.
What ever it was I figured it out and tried to login to the game.
Cannot establish a connection to the server. Either the server is offline or you have lost your connection to the internet. If the server is offline, try again in a few minutes.My internet connection is fine. But I am wondering if the server is down or it needs me to open a port on my router. Now there isn’t a help or website link on their launcher. So I navigate back through their maze of Wizard of the Coasts website to the Magic the Gathering Online site not to be confused with the Magic the Gathering normal website. I find their forum and see a sticky thread on the top of the general forum list. Here is the first post by the Moderator WizO Jabberwock who uses a picture of Chuck Noris as his avatar:
Title: The “Is the Server Up?” Status ThreadYou get that? There was another thread, one that I gather had somewhere around 4000 posts was closed and this new one was started. I don’t know how many posts this one has but it is up to 27 pages already. Notice too that their “online status checker” is often wrong. I’d say what’s the point of having one then but since I can’t find any such thing on their page I guess it’s a moot point. If you find it please feel free to tell me where it is.
In an effort to help with the boards slow down and searching we have closed the old thread and starting a new one.
This thread is a running list to check and see if the server seems to be up or down.
Please remember that there is usually a planned downtime every Thursday and the server will be unavailable for a period of time.
Check the announcements forum for details on the planned downtimes.
Check this thread, usually the last couple of pages, and the dates of the posts to see if there are connection problems to the game server.
Edit:
Also note that the online status checker on the Magic Online page seems to be contradictory in many cases. This is likely caused because it reports whether the server itself is up. Even if the server itself is up, it may not be accepting user logins. So rule of thumb:
The status thing says down = down for everyone
The status thing says up = may be up but you can't log in, give it time
So then there is a this post in the announcement forum which I probably should have gone to first.
It basically says there is a one hour downtime on Thursday at 8 AM PDT. It is Thursday for me… but I’m way ahead of PDT and I don’t’ think its 8 AM yet. It also said it would last only and hour and I have been trying to log in for several hours.
I did get another email from them giving me a $9.99 credit in their store that can be used to buy cards.
Okay so now here is the how I would do it differently part.
The zip file should be updated. As long as it is under 1 gig that is fine for somebody who wants to download it. It would really piss me off if I had started to download before going to bed or something thinking when I got back to it I could just install and run it only to have to wait another 2 hours for it to update.
At best I would build the purchase of the account into the client at worse I would at least remove it from the web store. It could still be a web store behind the scenes but hide that part from the user. Just have a special page where he can enter his billing information and click for the one time purchase of the account. The selecting of the item to buy from the store and being force to take useless survey are just hurdles to them getting my money and getting me addicted to the game. Remember currently you can play the trial game without buying an account so having it set up so that I can be playing the trial and instantly click the "buy a full account" link inside the client would be the easist for the user.
When I create my account, THAT is when you send me the survey in email and tell me that if I fill it out you will give me the store credit.
The launcher needs lots of work. First you need a link to your website which should have an actual working server status display right there on the main page. Second a “help” link that takes you to the customer service web page. It should also have a little news announcement section that has links to the latest news and happenings. These are all the standard things you find on the current MMO launchers.
I would also update their title and launcher artwork as it is looking a little early 90’s.
Okay I am done rambling. Its 11:30 and I still can’t log into the game… well let me try… nope still can’t get in.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Another Interview and some footage from our Both at E3
RPG Vault has part 1 of an interview with Adam Carpenter, Paul Whipp and myself. It has been up for a few days now and I expect part 2 to follow pretty soon.
Warcry.com has 4 videos of our both from E3. They show lots of FURY game-play footage, our booth babes, and an occasional shot of me from behind or on the very edge of the frame. The first two are just general shorts and the next two are the 4 versus 4 finals and then the 1 versus 1 Grand Championship of the Show!
Warcry.com has 4 videos of our both from E3. They show lots of FURY game-play footage, our booth babes, and an occasional shot of me from behind or on the very edge of the frame. The first two are just general shorts and the next two are the 4 versus 4 finals and then the 1 versus 1 Grand Championship of the Show!
Friday, June 16, 2006
Australian Gamer
Just got back from my hair stylist (little trim fixing up those roots) and found another sneak-peak review of Fury over at Australian Gamer. It even has some shots of the Auran offices.
I mention the offices because Auran's lease is up at the end of the year. There has been some discussion about possibly moving. I know the people that own the building would probably love for us to go so they can convert the top floor into luxury apartments. The pictures on the site don't do the office the injustice it deserves. The place is old, dirty and impossible to heat or cool. However the location is great and a lot of people, me included, live within walking distance. I would like to see them move into new digs, but only if it is close by. Right now I live too close. Walking to work isn’t really a walk; it is shorter than the walk Bellagio hotel employees have to walk from the employee parking lot to various departments inside the casino. I wouldn’t mind a distance that would make riding my bike in worth it.
I mention the offices because Auran's lease is up at the end of the year. There has been some discussion about possibly moving. I know the people that own the building would probably love for us to go so they can convert the top floor into luxury apartments. The pictures on the site don't do the office the injustice it deserves. The place is old, dirty and impossible to heat or cool. However the location is great and a lot of people, me included, live within walking distance. I would like to see them move into new digs, but only if it is close by. Right now I live too close. Walking to work isn’t really a walk; it is shorter than the walk Bellagio hotel employees have to walk from the employee parking lot to various departments inside the casino. I wouldn’t mind a distance that would make riding my bike in worth it.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Fury Press
Two more sneak peak reviews of our upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online game FURY have popped up. A small one at Gamespy (on page two) and a more detailed one at MMORPG.COM.
Fury also got a really nice review in this month's PC PowerPlay. Though it is also the issue where they list the Top 100 PC games that you could boot up and play today. I mention this with sour derision as there are a few titles they should be shot for not including. Where is Eye of the Beholder? Where is The Secret of Monkey Island?
Share and enjoy.
Fury also got a really nice review in this month's PC PowerPlay. Though it is also the issue where they list the Top 100 PC games that you could boot up and play today. I mention this with sour derision as there are a few titles they should be shot for not including. Where is Eye of the Beholder? Where is The Secret of Monkey Island?
Share and enjoy.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Bob Saget Renaissance
I just saw a hilarious hardcore rap video about Bob Saget (NSFW). Yes that’s right, Mr. Bob – American’s Funniest Home Videos & Full House – Saget.
A few weeks ago I caught his guest appearance on the Showtime show Huff where he played an actor who is famous for being the Dad on American’s most loved family sitcom, only off the show he is a cokes up wacko who likes midget hookers. I say I caught it a few weeks ago as in I saw it here in Australia as part of their late night television and I have no idea how far that episode is behind the actual show on Showtime.
I also hear his version of ‘the joke’ in the movie The Aristocrats was great, but I haven’t seen it. If you haven’t heard of this movie, the set up is one hundred comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke--one shared privately by comedians since Vaudeville. I’m told it’s a standard joke told backstage as a warm up before comedians go on with the game being to drag it out as far as you can while making it as dirty as you can. Bob's version is supposedly not only the funniest but also the longest and dirtiest in the movie.
He had a small but shocking bit in the movie Half Baked where his line "I used to suck dick for coke" has become legendary.
He is also writing and directing a parody of March of the Penquins titled: Farce of the Penquins. It is the story of "one penguin's search for love while on a 70-mile (112-km) trek with his libidinous buddies on their way to a hedonistic mating ritual." The tag line being "What happens in Antarctica…stays in Antarctica"
Bob Saget started out in L.A.'s world famous Groundlings improv troupe! I am told his original stand-up routines were pretty hardcore and has never been the straight arrow those two shows painted him as. I don’t mean that in any sort of negative way. I’m just picturing what a rut he must have gotten into after those shows, though I'm sure the money was pretty good especially with them in syndication.
I don’t what’s going on now, if this sudden resurgence is some slick Hollywood PR firm doing an image make-over of he is just doing this on his own. I hope it works for him. I think there might be some really good entertainment in Saget that I would like to see.
Bob Saget - Wikipedia entry
A few weeks ago I caught his guest appearance on the Showtime show Huff where he played an actor who is famous for being the Dad on American’s most loved family sitcom, only off the show he is a cokes up wacko who likes midget hookers. I say I caught it a few weeks ago as in I saw it here in Australia as part of their late night television and I have no idea how far that episode is behind the actual show on Showtime.
I also hear his version of ‘the joke’ in the movie The Aristocrats was great, but I haven’t seen it. If you haven’t heard of this movie, the set up is one hundred comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke--one shared privately by comedians since Vaudeville. I’m told it’s a standard joke told backstage as a warm up before comedians go on with the game being to drag it out as far as you can while making it as dirty as you can. Bob's version is supposedly not only the funniest but also the longest and dirtiest in the movie.
He had a small but shocking bit in the movie Half Baked where his line "I used to suck dick for coke" has become legendary.
He is also writing and directing a parody of March of the Penquins titled: Farce of the Penquins. It is the story of "one penguin's search for love while on a 70-mile (112-km) trek with his libidinous buddies on their way to a hedonistic mating ritual." The tag line being "What happens in Antarctica…stays in Antarctica"
Bob Saget started out in L.A.'s world famous Groundlings improv troupe! I am told his original stand-up routines were pretty hardcore and has never been the straight arrow those two shows painted him as. I don’t mean that in any sort of negative way. I’m just picturing what a rut he must have gotten into after those shows, though I'm sure the money was pretty good especially with them in syndication.
I don’t what’s going on now, if this sudden resurgence is some slick Hollywood PR firm doing an image make-over of he is just doing this on his own. I hope it works for him. I think there might be some really good entertainment in Saget that I would like to see.
Bob Saget - Wikipedia entry
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
HTML Tinkering
It may have looked like I’ve been slacking and not doing anything with the blog, but the truth is I’ve been tinkering with the HTML. Thanks to the help of my friend Cameron if you view the blog in 1024x768 or smaller the content won’t be printed on top of the blue left border anymore.
There was a bit of a fight getting it to work in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. It looked like a fight we had lost but it would appear that we were just testing on an older version of IE at work because it all seems just fine from every other machine I’ve looked at it on.
The only thing still funky is that if you squish the window the “Working As Designed” logo shows that it is drawn on a white square. I think I can live with that since making it a .GIF file with a transparent background would limit the number of colors which in turn would make the subtle shading and drop shadow on the letters look like crap.
There was a bit of a fight getting it to work in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. It looked like a fight we had lost but it would appear that we were just testing on an older version of IE at work because it all seems just fine from every other machine I’ve looked at it on.
The only thing still funky is that if you squish the window the “Working As Designed” logo shows that it is drawn on a white square. I think I can live with that since making it a .GIF file with a transparent background would limit the number of colors which in turn would make the subtle shading and drop shadow on the letters look like crap.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Game Informer Leaks More Wii News
I started to title this "Game Informer leaks Wii" but it is amazing how quickly the Wii jokes are getting old.
Digital Battle is reporting that a leaked article from an upcoming issue of Game Informer details that the Nintendo Wii will include a Camera, Physics Processor, and Headset.
It goes on to mention that the built in camera is to allow you to take snapshots of yourself so you can put your own face on character models in the game. This is supported by a previous interview Shigeru Miyamoto did with MTV.
Digital Battle is reporting that a leaked article from an upcoming issue of Game Informer details that the Nintendo Wii will include a Camera, Physics Processor, and Headset.
It goes on to mention that the built in camera is to allow you to take snapshots of yourself so you can put your own face on character models in the game. This is supported by a previous interview Shigeru Miyamoto did with MTV.
I am involved in the "Wii Sports" series. Although these really aren't new characters so to speak, the "Wii Sports" series features these little models which you can put your own faces on ... and then you may start to see those characters, with faces you've created, appearing in different games on the Wii system.The post is only 4 paragraphs but does mention some other specs of the machine. I am not sure where the actual leaked article was posted but it would seem that it has been taken down.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Oh God Won't It Ever Stop?
I am sure you, my host of imaginary readers, are quite tired of nothing but post after post of Fury press links, but here are some more:
RPG Vault has their E3 First Impression of Fury and they should be doing a full write up very soon.
We have a two page spread in the Australian game magazine PC PowerPlay #127. Though I am going to have to have a little talk with them about their list of the 100 games that make gamers. They have a few odd choices, some that are obviously in the wrong spot, and some glaring omissions!
But the big scoop is Multi-Player Online Game List (MPOGL.COM) who got an interview with yours truly. Some of these other links I’ve posted where based on interviews with me, but they were just written as normal write-ups where this is the first that is done as an actual interview.
RPG Vault has their E3 First Impression of Fury and they should be doing a full write up very soon.
We have a two page spread in the Australian game magazine PC PowerPlay #127. Though I am going to have to have a little talk with them about their list of the 100 games that make gamers. They have a few odd choices, some that are obviously in the wrong spot, and some glaring omissions!
But the big scoop is Multi-Player Online Game List (MPOGL.COM) who got an interview with yours truly. Some of these other links I’ve posted where based on interviews with me, but they were just written as normal write-ups where this is the first that is done as an actual interview.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Would you believe... even more Fury links!
I have a few more E3 reviews about Fury:
The first is from The Game Feed which I believe is one of the interviews I personally did. I was really just working the floor and only did a few actual sit down interviews.
Gamebunny has a recap of various MMO’s (including Fury) at E3 though I believe Fury is rated the lowest in the list.
Warcry just has a little blurb, but it’s very tasty.
Society of Gamers has a good write up.
Somebody started a thread on the Beyond Unreal forum that talks about Fury. There are a number of harsh comments some of which may have merit but some are based on ignorance.
The first is from The Game Feed which I believe is one of the interviews I personally did. I was really just working the floor and only did a few actual sit down interviews.
Gamebunny has a recap of various MMO’s (including Fury) at E3 though I believe Fury is rated the lowest in the list.
Warcry just has a little blurb, but it’s very tasty.
Society of Gamers has a good write up.
Somebody started a thread on the Beyond Unreal forum that talks about Fury. There are a number of harsh comments some of which may have merit but some are based on ignorance.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
More FURY press
Going into E3, you are always wondering what will be the game that no one is hearing or talking about, but once you play it, all you can do is gasp at this hidden gem in front of you. Lo’ and behold, we found such a game when visiting Australian developer, Auran, for a look at their newest project in Fury.Thats from a nice little write up over at OMGN.
Here is a link to an interview with our producer Paul Whipp at My Gamer where you can harvest some more details about the game and see a few new screenshots.
There is also a little snippet over at MMOSite where our boss details what our goals were for E3, not really that interesting except there is a picture of Bob doing caricatures of two hot booth babes. Bob was incredible, he was working non-stop all three days, did an estimated 400 caricatures (some of which were duel caricatures, two people on one sheet) and went through 12 black markers.
I see now that we have updated the News page on the FURY site and that picture of Bob is there as well as a few more pictures of our booth (yes that is our booth babe Crystal playing the game, she also plays a warrior in WoW) and a team shot that we took after sneaking into the Conan booth.
You know one think I've noticed about the press this E3, they weren’t on top of it doing the minute by minute, blow by blow stuff this year like they had in previous years. I remember last year you could go to almost any of the big sites and get huge updates and reviews every hour during the show and big round-up posts after the show. This year a lot of the site's daily updates did nothing but tell us about all the great reviews they were going to post later and they are still trickling in over a week later and their nightly round-up posts did little more than tell us how tired they were from the show and how much their co-workers drank at the various parties. Was the big bang stuff just not generating enough traffic? I'm not complaining too much because having a few new things to read everyday does feel better than having it all shot-gunned at me at once.
I only bring it up because I am waiting on a few interviews that I did for various sites. These interviews went on for a decent amount of time, they grilled me with a host of questions about the game and they took copious amounts notes and yet nothing has appeared on their sites. What gives?
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A Fury over Wonder Woman's Rear End
Another review of FURY from E3 has popped up over at Gamers Info and Worth Playing has put a number of new screenshots. The interface shown in some of them are from the pre-E3 version of the game. They do however show some areas that wern't shown on the floor at E3.
On the pure entertainment side Ten Ton Hammer has an article about Wonder Woman being removed from the convention floor by E3 Security for showing too much ass. It is a hilarious must read.
On the pure entertainment side Ten Ton Hammer has an article about Wonder Woman being removed from the convention floor by E3 Security for showing too much ass. It is a hilarious must read.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
MMORPG.COM's E3 2006 Awards
MMORPG.com has their E3 2006 Awards up. Fury got the award for “Most Surprising” game of the show.
We also got honorable mention for “Best of Show” with this quote:
This category wasn't even close. If any game came out of left field to grab us, it was Auran's Fury. They're off to a good start.Fury also got honorable mention for “Best Graphics” though I can see why we didn't win if they are using that horrible screenshot. Our faces look much better than that now.
We also got honorable mention for “Best of Show” with this quote:
It just looks fun. There is no other way to describe it. Auran's entry at E3 2006 looks like a blast. It's visually appealing and further along then anyone expected. Auran may have a darkhorse hit on their hands here.Not too bad for a last minute show version thrown together for a game that is still over a year out.
iScrewed
My problem began when I realized the Australian version of the iTunes store sucks. It just doesn’t have the content that I want and can find at the American store. I had already downloaded two audio books by the time I figured out that the American store has a whole lot more of what I am looking for. For example the only George R. R. Martin book I can purchase is Skin Trade at the Australian store. Skin Trade is a short story published in Night Vision Vol. 5. While at the American store I can also get A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, the first two books in his series “A Song of Ice and Fire.”
I purchased A Game of Thrones from the American store for $51.95 USD. Looking up the book on Amazon.com I see the cassette unabridged* audio version lists for $54.95 USD but they are offering it for $34.62 USD plus shipping. Shipping, even shipping to Australia isn’t going to make this cost more than $50 bucks!
Now according to iTunes I am only purchasing the ability to download the book once and I can only authorize a maximum of 5 computers to play it. When I bought and downloaded the book I was using my laptop in a hotel in LA after signing up for another account using a credit card with a US billing address. Now let’s suppose something happened to my laptop between there and home, tough cookies. Granted if I had bought the book either in paperback ($3.99 USD from Amazon btw) or the cassette/CD audio version and had it stolen out of my suitcase (as was the case with CD audio version of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman my previous trip) I would also be screwed.
So what am I paying that extra money for then? Downloading the audio version of a book cost the publisher much less money than either the print or physical recording of the audio version.
Let’s break it down:
All versions of the story have the same basic costs to the publisher: producing, editing, author’s cut, etc. Once that is done you have a collection of words that make up this story. There is also the basic cost of paying an artist to do a cover and what ever money you spend on marketing. Again no mater what version of the story you are talking about these things are exactly the same.
The print version has the cost of actually printing it; ink, paper, binding and what ever cost are incurred by running the printing press itself.
Now for the Audio version of the book there is the additional cost of recording the reader. Money paid to the voice actor, recording studio, producer, and audio technicians. I am not so naive to think that you would get anywhere near the same quality by just having your friend read the book into a mic. There is a good deal of money to be spent doing that right, but that is a one time cost. Once that part is paid for it is done. No mater how many versions of the audio version you sell you never have to pay any of that again.
For the cassette and CD version you have to get the masters to a duplication company. I don’t know the difference between how much it costs to burn a CD, record and audio tape versus a printer. I do know that burning a CD is quicker and cost a hell of lot less than making cassette versions. Somewhere in here you do have to have a printer make your package and then assemble it with the CDs or cassettes.
Then there is the real costly part, shipping. The product is shipped from the printer/package assembler to the distributor and from there to all the stores across the world. Paper books are heavy and therefore cost more to ship than either CD or cassette version. Once at the store there is a slight mark up so that the store actually makes some money. Remember they have to pay rent for the store space, pay employees to stock the shelves, man the cash register, etc. I do believe that most of the cost of the paper version of the book is taken up by how much it has cost the publisher to get it from the printer to the store.
In general the CD or cassette audio version costs more than the print version because they sell more versions of the print version. Less profit per item more profit via volume. The publisher cannot afford to take as big a risk with the audio version and I understand that. If the publisher produces 1 million copies of the story on CD and sells only several thousand he is screwed. This will change if the audio versions increase in popularity.
But now let’s compare that to the download version of the story. Download version has no printing/duplication cost. Download version has no shipping cost. The two biggest chunks of the pie have been removed. Granted there is bandwidth cost which is hardly anything per download. All that cost has been removed and yet no reduction in cost has been made. That is just plain greed on the part of the publisher. I’m not against greed. I am a capitalist. But I can’t help but wonder if all the problems the music industry is having now isn’t all related to the bad karma they generated when they started selling CDs. They charged more for CDs even through records and cassettes cost more to produce.
So back to the audio book download. As the final consumer I am paying MORE for the digital download from iTunes than I would pay for the same audio version on cassette from Amazon including shipping which cost more to make than the same audio version on CD AND I have to put up with their terms on how I am allowed to listen to the story AND I can only play it on their iTunes or iPod player AND I have nothing physical to show for my purchase nor any guarantee that if something were to happen to my computer that they wouldn’t let me re-download it. They suggest I burn my own copy onto CD for backup which I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t have their own proprietary audio format and convoluted directory structure that prevents me from just copy files back and forth into the iTunes directory.
I bought the collector’s edition of the PC game Halflife 2. I got the book, the crappy tshirt and a physical CD. Now I have separate issues about how I have to have the CD in the drive as well as log into Steam to play the damn game, but I do have something physical in my hands. If their company goes away I still have the CD.
If Apples goes away how would I authorize another computer to play the stuff I have downloaded from them? What if the computer I want to authorize doesn’t have net access? What if I just said fuck you Apple and went to all the hack sites out there and did what I want with the items I have purchased.
This is all brought on by the fact that I wrote an email to iTunes customer support. I don’t want to have to keep my Australian iTunes account just to be able to play the two things I purchased from Australian store. Both those items are offered from the American store. I asked to have the authorization of those two items transferred to my American store account. The nicely copy and pasted response was more than happy to point me toward the web site with their terms of service. I disagree, I paid for it and I will do with it what I like which incidentally does not include letting other people copy it because I feel that is wrong.
*You can assume I am always talking about the unabridged version of audio books unless I say otherwise.
I purchased A Game of Thrones from the American store for $51.95 USD. Looking up the book on Amazon.com I see the cassette unabridged* audio version lists for $54.95 USD but they are offering it for $34.62 USD plus shipping. Shipping, even shipping to Australia isn’t going to make this cost more than $50 bucks!
Now according to iTunes I am only purchasing the ability to download the book once and I can only authorize a maximum of 5 computers to play it. When I bought and downloaded the book I was using my laptop in a hotel in LA after signing up for another account using a credit card with a US billing address. Now let’s suppose something happened to my laptop between there and home, tough cookies. Granted if I had bought the book either in paperback ($3.99 USD from Amazon btw) or the cassette/CD audio version and had it stolen out of my suitcase (as was the case with CD audio version of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman my previous trip) I would also be screwed.
So what am I paying that extra money for then? Downloading the audio version of a book cost the publisher much less money than either the print or physical recording of the audio version.
Let’s break it down:
All versions of the story have the same basic costs to the publisher: producing, editing, author’s cut, etc. Once that is done you have a collection of words that make up this story. There is also the basic cost of paying an artist to do a cover and what ever money you spend on marketing. Again no mater what version of the story you are talking about these things are exactly the same.
The print version has the cost of actually printing it; ink, paper, binding and what ever cost are incurred by running the printing press itself.
Now for the Audio version of the book there is the additional cost of recording the reader. Money paid to the voice actor, recording studio, producer, and audio technicians. I am not so naive to think that you would get anywhere near the same quality by just having your friend read the book into a mic. There is a good deal of money to be spent doing that right, but that is a one time cost. Once that part is paid for it is done. No mater how many versions of the audio version you sell you never have to pay any of that again.
For the cassette and CD version you have to get the masters to a duplication company. I don’t know the difference between how much it costs to burn a CD, record and audio tape versus a printer. I do know that burning a CD is quicker and cost a hell of lot less than making cassette versions. Somewhere in here you do have to have a printer make your package and then assemble it with the CDs or cassettes.
Then there is the real costly part, shipping. The product is shipped from the printer/package assembler to the distributor and from there to all the stores across the world. Paper books are heavy and therefore cost more to ship than either CD or cassette version. Once at the store there is a slight mark up so that the store actually makes some money. Remember they have to pay rent for the store space, pay employees to stock the shelves, man the cash register, etc. I do believe that most of the cost of the paper version of the book is taken up by how much it has cost the publisher to get it from the printer to the store.
In general the CD or cassette audio version costs more than the print version because they sell more versions of the print version. Less profit per item more profit via volume. The publisher cannot afford to take as big a risk with the audio version and I understand that. If the publisher produces 1 million copies of the story on CD and sells only several thousand he is screwed. This will change if the audio versions increase in popularity.
But now let’s compare that to the download version of the story. Download version has no printing/duplication cost. Download version has no shipping cost. The two biggest chunks of the pie have been removed. Granted there is bandwidth cost which is hardly anything per download. All that cost has been removed and yet no reduction in cost has been made. That is just plain greed on the part of the publisher. I’m not against greed. I am a capitalist. But I can’t help but wonder if all the problems the music industry is having now isn’t all related to the bad karma they generated when they started selling CDs. They charged more for CDs even through records and cassettes cost more to produce.
So back to the audio book download. As the final consumer I am paying MORE for the digital download from iTunes than I would pay for the same audio version on cassette from Amazon including shipping which cost more to make than the same audio version on CD AND I have to put up with their terms on how I am allowed to listen to the story AND I can only play it on their iTunes or iPod player AND I have nothing physical to show for my purchase nor any guarantee that if something were to happen to my computer that they wouldn’t let me re-download it. They suggest I burn my own copy onto CD for backup which I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t have their own proprietary audio format and convoluted directory structure that prevents me from just copy files back and forth into the iTunes directory.
I bought the collector’s edition of the PC game Halflife 2. I got the book, the crappy tshirt and a physical CD. Now I have separate issues about how I have to have the CD in the drive as well as log into Steam to play the damn game, but I do have something physical in my hands. If their company goes away I still have the CD.
If Apples goes away how would I authorize another computer to play the stuff I have downloaded from them? What if the computer I want to authorize doesn’t have net access? What if I just said fuck you Apple and went to all the hack sites out there and did what I want with the items I have purchased.
This is all brought on by the fact that I wrote an email to iTunes customer support. I don’t want to have to keep my Australian iTunes account just to be able to play the two things I purchased from Australian store. Both those items are offered from the American store. I asked to have the authorization of those two items transferred to my American store account. The nicely copy and pasted response was more than happy to point me toward the web site with their terms of service. I disagree, I paid for it and I will do with it what I like which incidentally does not include letting other people copy it because I feel that is wrong.
*You can assume I am always talking about the unabridged version of audio books unless I say otherwise.
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