Archive for June, 2008

Post-casting day

Posted by Rockjaw in MMO-related on June 30th, 2008

Ex-haus-ted.

Spent the day in London doing our casting. Saw 16 people – no wait, 17 – and gave the same little five-minute presentation explaining who we are, what we do, and why we want to cast people in these roles 17 times.

I think it was still pretty good, even on the 17th go-around….

Got a big post on the casting process coming, but I’m going to leave it until we officially announce why we’re casting, if that makes sense.

Being in London just reminds me why I left London. Also, got to say, the only thing worse than being stuck in a basement on a hot and sunny June day in London… is arriving and leaving during rush hour. Could have done without that.

Still, really useful and productive day. As always, all of prior expectations were overturned… but that’s a really good thing.

So what’s up with you guys? You’re quiet.

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Raph Koster on Richard Bartle

Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, MMO-related on June 29th, 2008

Raph Koster rather brilliantly sums up Richard Bartle’s point of view in this post. No idea if Richard agrees with him or not, but it’s such a good metaphor I’ve got to quote it here:

The fact that people can cite things like “big boss battles in a public zone” or “really rich badge profiles and player stat tracking” as truly differentiating features [in modern MMOGs] mostly speaks to how narrow the scope of the field has gotten in the public’s mind. This is like arguing over whether scalloped bracing in acoustic guitars is a defining characteristic for all of music, when in fact it has zero relevance to MIDI controllers. By analogy, Bartle, like many of us, is arguing from the perspective of all music — all virtual worlds. And his detractors are people who only listen to indie rock from the Athens, GA, area circa 1989. All Richard is asking for is for someone to please play some jazz.

Go read the whole thing. Very much worth it.

Raph’s in a particularly good place to support Richard’s arguments, of course, as he’s working on Metaplace – which may, if it turns out right, allow all of us to play whatever ‘music’ we want as we create our own virtual worlds.

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Things to look at, and read

Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others on June 29th, 2008

Links from the past, given to you in my future…

A slideshow gallery of Ralph McQuarrie paintings for Star Wars. (Link will go direct to a Flickr slideshow; click here if you’d rather see the set.)

If you like that, you’ll probably like Concept Ships, which is a blog all about… concept art. Of ships.

Superhero Nation: a website all about writing, and writing superheroes in particular. A lot of the advice seems aimed at a certain kind of superhero writing, but there’s good advice here regardless.

If you’re worried about the Watchmen movie, feel free to read this and see all your fears realised. Assuming you’re one of those people who basically feel that things should never be adapted, ever.

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This week, next week; and games

Posted by Rockjaw in Gamey, Personal on June 28th, 2008

This week’s been busy, and next week may well be busier.

This week was all “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be” and “Well, that won’t work, maybe this will” and “My brain can’t even cope with that” and “Sure, but who’s going to pay for it”.

Next week could be “Do we want taller?” and “Well you should have said so” and “I know, but we’ve got to get it done” and “Don’t bother me, I’m learning”.

This weekend is going to be “I can’t bowl to save my life” and “My booze tolerance is so low these days” and “Man, it feels like a week” and “At least it’s Monday tomorrow”.

In the middle of all this, I played a few games. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bartle vs blogosphere and, er, me

Posted by Rockjaw in MMO-related on June 28th, 2008

I’ll get back to the grovelling “Sorry I haven’t posted a lot recently, I’ve been busy” stuff in a second, but if I don’t say something about this, it’ll totally leave my head.

You may or may not know that Richard Bartle has been blog topic du jour a lot recently, all stemming from an interview he did with Massively in which he said:

“I’ve already played Warhammer [Online]. It was called World of Warcraft. “

Which apparently, is the Quote That Was Heard Around The World. Assuming your world consists of nothing except reading MMOG-focused blogs and then getting very upset that either:

(a) your new favourite (unreleased) MMOG is being ‘dissed’ or

(b) your old favourite (out right now and doing very well) MMOG is, er, also being ‘dissed’ or

(c) Someone has an opinion on either game.

A few days ago I might have tried to weigh in on the reaction to Richard’s comments, but better people have beaten me to it – read this very good summary by Alec Meer over at Rock Paper Shotgun if you want a good overall view (and read the comments too).

All I really wanted to say is, I’ve met Richard Bartle a couple of times, and very nice he is too.

Now, considering Richard seems to be ‘doing a Derek‘ and appearing at every blog that mentions his name, I should probably qualify even that statement. (And yes Richard, the Derek Smart reference is a joke.) Read the rest of this entry »

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