“I don’t know how, but they found me.”
Who’d you think? Massively, who linked to me today* - I guess it was only a matter of time. Adrian Bott, the writer who put up the piece, was at the MiniCon and is apparently tracking me on Stalkbook too, as that’s the image he chose to use on the piece.
I seriously need to get my ‘official’ NCsoft picture** done.
Anyway, hi Adrian! And anyone else who’s randomly arrived here. Leave a comment, don’t be a stranger. Oh and by the way Adrian, why not subscribe to the podcast’s RSS feed so you get the story up when the thing releases. Not three days later. It’s the Internet people! Seconds matter! (Although yes, I do realise you may have done just that - and are at the mercy of editors.)
Also - via Massively - just read this interesting interview at TenTonHammer with Scott Jennings, AKA ‘Lum the Mad’ (whose blog you should read). Scott’s working on a Top Secret Game Project inside NCsoft in Austin right now, and has been since some time in 2006. In fact, that was when I was last over there (believe it or not) and I did have the chance to sit down and get his pitch on the game. At the time it was looking pretty damn cool in design form. Of course I can’t talk about it any more than Scott can, but suffice to say I think Scott’s a damn smart guy and I hope his game turns out as good as he hopes.
As well as being a smart designer Scott’s also a great industry pundit, so when asked, as he is in the interview, about the future of the industry he’s got loads of good stuff to say. I particularly liked his final answer though, which is practically a call to arms for gamers everywhere:
Be more demanding. Don’t accept mediocrity. Don’t accept games that try to deliver less polish. WoW has set the standards that we have to meet, and if games don’t meet it they will fail and deserve to fail. That standard has now been set and we have to meet it.
Amen, brother!
* Well kind of. It’s the usual Massively thing, one link amongst a billion others, some of which may lead to interesting places and many of which just lead back to Massively. It kind of drives me nuts.
** Which, I hereby promise, will look as close as possible like that existing picture. Except better quality.
