Eh, the delay between updates here is a little annoying to me. It’s annoying partially because I feel like I should update on a regular basis, but also because I know, in part, that I can’t update because I can’t tell you everything I’m doing - so even when I do say something, I might not be able to say everything. Sorry.
I’ve been busy, if that much isn’t obvious by the silence.
Here’s what I’d call a ‘non-spoiler’ update though, for those who are interested. Read More
As I’ve said many times in many an interview and to many people in person, City of Heroes was the reason I joined NCsoft.
In April or May 2004, I can’t recall, I was playing the game (on the US servers, natch) and enjoying it so much that I was considering starting a fansite about it, based around a twinned blog - one character based, one player based. A very good friend of mine said to me: “Instead of making all that effort for nothing, why not go and work for them instead?”
The rest is history. (Funny thing is, I never did get around to that blog idea.)
While I worked for NCsoft I never stopped playing City of Heroes (Well - not altogether), but of course I was privy to a lot of behind the scenes information. Which meant often, very little came as a complete and total surprise. (And if it did, it was often not a good surprise.)
Which is why it’s great, now, to start to look at the game from a genuine, uninformed player’s perspective again. Today the EU site is hosting a Developer Diary focusing on the Day Jobs system from Issue 13, and it makes for a very interesting read. Read More
Autumn’s here, and it’s not going to let you forget it.
After a brief respite last weekend, where I lay about on green grass near my house reading Piers Paul Read’s biography of Alec Guinness, the weather since has just gotten progressively worse. To the point where I didn’t even want to leave the house today. The fact that I was supposed to be going to the gym had nothing to do with it, you understand.
I did leave the house though, and I even made it to the gym. If I hadn’t though, I’d probably have stayed in and played games. Which is as good a segue as any, I suppose, to what I’m playing. Read More
I’ve known about the ‘power of Penny Arcade’ for years now - in fact, I’ve watched it grow. The ‘power’ in case you were wondering, is basically their ability to get a mass of consumers to go after one thing; usually a game. Obviously, that’s a power often wielded to get people to buy their own stuff (and why not) but often it’s used to push people towards products they might not have otherwise heard about.
When it’s aimed towards a web site, often The Power can crush web servers that are unprepared. People used to talk about ‘getting slashdotted’ (ie, getting linked to by Slashdot - or just /. if you’re an ubernerd), and then ‘Boing-Boinged’ but when you get hit by Penny Arcade, you get wanged. (Their term.) Read More
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 More
I found it interesting to read more than a few worried comments last week from movie commentators and analysts that Grand Theft Auto IV might actually affect the box office performance of Iron Man, given that GTA IV came out a few days ahead of Iron Man’s release, and that both of them are ostensibly aimed at the same audience.
With a nice round $100m opening weekend for Marvel’s first self-financed blockbuster, it’s fair to say that those predictions were absolutely bogus, although I never thought for a minute that GTA IV would do Iron Man any damage - and nor did the vice chairman of the studio releasing Iron Man, either:
”It’s crazy to think that young males can’t carve out two hours for Iron Man. It’s going to be a great week to be a young guy.”
Or even, erm, a not-so-young guy; this week has been a riot of new entertainment for me, between queuing for GTA IV outside Woolworths on Tuesday (Yep, there was a queue!) and sitting with my over-excited colleagues during Iron Man’s opening night. The idea that any of us were going to miss Iron Man to sit at home and play GTA IV was insane, even though I’m pretty sure every single one of us who saw the movie that night went home and played GTA IV afterwards. Read More
