Posts Tagged opinion
Phew.
Posted by Rockjaw in MMO-related on August 13th, 2008
Pretty damn tired, although not as much as on Tuesday – you can probably guess why.
Leipzig/Games Convention is just a steamroller right now that’s crushing everything in its path. No-one can really think much beyond it. I know I can’t. There’s still loads to do, with the show doors opening in a week. I found out today, to my half-surprise, that I’m ‘Floor Manager’ for the main consumer stand. Which is… nice.
In the very back of my mind though, the wheels are slowly turning in regards to Memorabilia this year, and bigger than that, next year’s MiniCon 2… Electric Boogaloo, or whatever we’re going to call it. Plans. Ideas. Hopes.
That’s just events though. What I really want to figure out is all the other stuff. There’s plenty of product-related stuff going on right now, plenty to get our teeth into, to create new and exciting ‘things’ for. I’m kind of not sure what to tackle first. I expect they might tackle me first instead.
Er, what else. Oh yeah: exclusive costume pieces at conventions? Guys, listen to GhostRaptor. Of course they’ll be given away at other events. Leipzig was just the first one on the calendar. Let me also point out the bleeding obvious: we give cool stuff away at events because we think it’s worth coming to those events, and the cool stuff is just an extra sweetener. You can either come, or not. It’s binary.
Oh what the hell – finally…. Rumours are rumours. Not everyone knows everything, even ‘well-placed sources’, and sometimes – heck, often – people get confused. Chinese whispers occur. So in other words, don’t believe everything you read.
Except here of course. I only speak the truth. Except when I don’t.
20 most influential people in MMOs, huh?
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, MMO-related on May 29th, 2008
I couldn’t possibly comment on this list from Beckett, who publish a print magazine (how quaint!) called Massive Online Gamer (I assume that’s not a cutting reference to one’s weight). It is apparently, a list of the 20 most influential people in the MMO industry. Like I said, I can’t comment.
But you can.
Discuss…. Read the rest of this entry »
Some random linkage
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others on May 20th, 2008
Few things that caught my eye recently…
Developers within NCsoft are working in Java, and more specifically something called the jMonkey Engine. Don’t ask me any more than that, I’m not a programmer! Anyway, using the JME, some of the Austin programmers have been creating world-building tools, and got to show them off at a recent Java conference. Joshua Slack posted the time-lapse video over on his blog, so go check it out; it’s pretty cool.
Quite a few people asked me at Comic Expo whether they could get trial keys for Tabula Rasa; the reason I didn’t have any is that we had a lot of trial deals about to hit… and now they have. (Although right now I can’t see where the TVG key offer is, myself. If I find it I’ll update.)
While we’re talking Tabula Rasa, this is a pretty good time to try the game as Deployment 8 just hit the live servers. (‘Deployment’ sounds so much better than ‘patch’, don’t it?) Final bit of random Tabula Rasa news… our interview with some of the DG folk is in the can for Episode 3 of the podcast. It’s a long ‘un… by the way, Episode ’2.5′ is coming really, really soon.
Finally, given that there’s more than a few MMOs in active development right now and pure Darwinian science says that not all will survive, it was interesting to read this ‘intervention’ over at Elder Game. Essentially it’s a checklist of ‘trouble ahead’ signs that any developer should be looking for. As a reveal of not-unheard-of practices in the games industry, it’s a bit depressing (especially if you’re an MMO developer who sees their own project in it) but interesting, nonetheless, especially considering the author, Eric Heimburg credits himself with being a systems designer on the ‘upcoming’ Star Trek Online. Hmmm.
Does raise an interesting point to finish on, though. As Eric points out, MMOs have really long development cycles, so why waste your life working on a bad one? Good question, but if you ask me, more applicable to your life in general. You don’t get much time on this earth, relatively speaking – so don’t spend too long doing stuff you hate.
Which leads me neatly to my task of the day – getting together a workable ‘breaking into the MMO industry’ presentation….
Richard Bartle lays the smackdown on games haters
Posted by Rockjaw in Links of Others, MMO-related on May 6th, 2008
From The Guardian – I think it was out last week but I only just read it today. It’s basically a counter-attack on everyone who likes to blame games for everything these days – and there’s a lot of it around right now, as hey, we’re all playing GTA so of course we’re all going to go out and murder passers-by.
Like all good retorts, Richard’s argument is simple but pretty hard to disagree with:
Half the UK population has grown up playing computer games. They aren’t addicted, they aren’t psychopathic killers, and they resent those boneheads – that’s you – who imply that they are addicted and are psychopathic killers.
Great stuff and quite stirring if you’ve ever thought “Hey wait a minute; you’re implying that I’m some sort of brainwashed zombie because I play games…?” when reading some idiotic news report or opinion piece. Bloody well done Richard.
This felt personalised today for a not-obvious reason – I met Richard in person over the weekend at The Guardian’s Gamecamp event. He was almost as vociferous in person as in print, but in a good way…!
You said what?