Archive for category Links of Others
Tagline is back, baby.
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, Personal on September 7th, 2009
On the off-chance that people who check in here don’t stalk me on Twitter or similar, I wanted to mention that Tagline, the on-again, off-again movie podcast that I do with my brother Alistair, is back ‘on the air’.
We’ve recorded two episodes recently (#28 and #29) which are both online now, and actually just did show #30 this evening, which will be online later this week.
In case you’ve never heard it, it’s 30-minutes or so (when we run to time) about movies, which we both know far too much about. That is, when we don’t forget names of movies, actors, actresses, directors, plots… ahem. We try to be funny. Perhaps that was an example of humour?
Anyway, take a listen if you like. I’m also still guesting on John’s Limited Edition podcast, which has a new format now, so feel free to check that out too. Oh and feel free to let me know your thoughts on either.
City of Heroes sketchbooks! Signed! Bid! Now!
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, Pimpin' on May 13th, 2009
Last year we (as in, the Creative Concepts team within NCsoft Europe headed by me) put together a limited edition City of Heroes Sketchbook, and very happy I was about it too, as you can tell from this picture taken with the first one.
Anyway, while I know many of you who attended cons we were at (particularly Bristol ‘08) probably already have a sketchbook, not many of you will have it signed by the artists whose work is inside the covers!
Well, now’s your chance to own one of ten sketchbooks that have been defaced by artists like Dave Gibbons, Doug Braithwaite, Mark Buckingham, Andie Tong, Phil Winslade, Bryan Talbot and many more! Oh also there are pictures.
All you have to do is bid on this charity auction, with all proceeds as ever going to EveryChild!
Seriously folks, this thing is lovely, with loads of sketches inside depicting the well-known signature characters from City of Heroes, including Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Ms Liberty, Sister Psyche, Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow and more. If you don’t believe me, click the image on the right to see some thumbnails of the imagery inside.
Considering the sketchbook was only available at a few UK conventions last year, and there’s only nine of the signed ones in existence, if you’re any kind of fan of City of Heroes you should really go make a bid! It’s for charity, after all.
Stay tuned for more hot auction items including original art from the sketchbook!
Variety gives me a gazil – okay, four more thoughts on Gazillion
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, MMO-related, Press on March 19th, 2009
While most of the gaming press pretty much shrugged and moved on regarding Gazillion (or in the case of some blogs, sneered – but hey, that’s what blogs usually do) Ben Fritz at Variety* did that crazy ‘journalism’ thing and got the right people on the phone to comment.
In the process, he discovered a whole bunch of new facts which are very interesting, and led me to some more thoughts. You absolutely should read the article, but I’ll pull out some corkers here:
1. Gazillion has eight ‘projects’ in the works.
Four we know about (LEGO Universe, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Marvel Universe, Slipgate Ironworks’ MMO) but that leaves four more they’re keeping under wraps. That’s pretty huge. Again to give you context, while at NCsoft there were usually half-a-dozen or more MMO projects in various stages of development in Korea, it was rare any of them were made public.
Right now, again by comparison, NCsoft has four MMOs in development that you know about (Guild Wars 2, Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Carbine Studios’ MMO, Blade & Soul) but I guarantee you more are under wraps.
Still, of those projects you’re aware of, some have been in development since 2005, and hey, you’ve known about others since 2006. With Gazillion’s announcement and lots of speculation that they’re releasing Marvel Super Hero Squad in 2010, they’re already ahead of the game. I have a sneaking suspicion other publishers may try to follow this ‘late breaking’ approach in future.
Garriott… innn… SPAAAACCE!!
We have blast-off. The first ever games designer… in spaaace… etc.
No, the date wasn’t ringed on my calendar. I vaguely remember being told he was going up in mid-October, but I never paid much attention to the exact date even at NCsoft, so thanks BBC. I hope he has a safe and successful flight, and that he feels it’s worth the THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS (approximately) that he paid for the privilege.
That’s a heck of a lot of money to follow in Dad’s footsteps. If he wanted to save money, he could have gone Virgin Galactic, who’ll be charging a lot less – but then Richard’s going to be up for ten days, not ten minutes.
In case you’re wondering, that eye-popping budget was never bandied around much at NCsoft when I was there – but not for the reason you might be thinking. See, it’s all Richard’s money. (Nope. I didn’t think Ultima was that big either.) Not a penny came from NCsoft. Which is good. Because otherwise right now you’d probably be wondering just what else that cash could have been spent on.
Instead of just thinking: “So how is this supposed to help Tabula Rasa, exactly?”
Limited Edition 3 of… a lot
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, Nerd Alert, Personal, Pimpin' on October 7th, 2008
Spent a very enjoyable couple of hours over the weekend blabbing about comic books, movies, games and so on with John and Matt for Limited Edition, episode 3.
Somehow John managed to cut our two hours of chat down into a relatively svelte 90 minutes, so if you fancy a listen head on over to the Limited Edition site for more info, and to download.
Lots of work related stuff happening right now – both in my actual work and in potential, possible work. When/if any of it breaks I’ll let you know.
In the interim, I’ll try to come up with a few more things to say around here, but honestly, life’s keepin’ me busy….
You said what?