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July 23, 2008

17:47
Zynga gets money, buys Yoville
Zynga has raised a bunch of money to keep going after their target of building a network of more casual games — a sort of Internet version of a publisher. In fact, ex-EA Chief Creative Officer Bing Gordon has joined their board. Zynga CEO Mark Pincus says: He is super-involved in product strategy, brings the gaming DNA [...]
Source: Raph's Koster Website
Categories: Bloggers
06:02
Online Surveying Bleg
My workplace would like to do an online survey, but we do not have the capacity to recruit survey participants. We can write the survey, but putting it on Survey Monkey and asking around will not do it for us. I have taken surveys through Greenfield Online, but I have no idea what [...]
Source: KillTenRats - Ethic
Categories: Bloggers
06:00
Interview with Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett, creative director at Mythic Entertainment for the upcoming Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, gracefully agreed to be interviewed by me via e-mail. I sent him questions, and he replied to...
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers
02:53
From the other side…
DuoCenti: The Murloc’s Family This late in the evening, Mrgurlargl was the only one still awake. The others were curled around the campfire, full of wine and food and sleeping soundly. He couldn’t sleep, though, he was too proud, too excited to sleep. “Die murloc filth!” Loldude247’s assault was swift. His sword sang death even [...]
Source: Raph's Koster Website
Categories: Bloggers
01:04
Wordpress for iPhone
I am currently writing this on the new Wordpress for iPhone app that released today! It’s about time that I can blog on my iPhone without trying to load my Wordpress dashboard on the EDGE network. Now if only (1 year later) I could type on the touch keyboard well enough to make [...]
Source: Cuppycake
Categories: Bloggers
00:45
MAG-ic?
The idea of 256 players waging simultaneous war in an online action game is inherently interesting to a large number of people. Of course, any concept of that nature also raises many doubts: Will... [...]
Source: Aggro Me
Categories: Bloggers

July 22, 2008

20:03
Save the Middleman!
Rumor has it that The Middleman, probably the best SF/comedy on TV this season, is in danger! Not of cancellation, but of being restricted to just one season. Creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach writes on The Middleblog that despite stellar network support, ratings haven’t been great, and they have decided to end The Middleman at episode 12, [...]
Source: Tipa - West Karana
Categories: Bloggers
18:36
Graphicjam
The fat of this Blog has been rather savagely trimmed. No longer will you see entries here that serve as a sort of journal of what I've been playing lately. Not unless it's a game that I think...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
18:10
PlayCrafter: another snap-together game maker
PlayCrafter is launching open alpha, joining all the others: Sims Carnival, Gamebrix, Popfly… Looks to me like they lean heavily on Box2d. One of the things about all of these is that they almost force a game grammar approach to things, in a way.
Source: Raph's Koster Website
Categories: Bloggers
15:45
Star Wars Online done right?
Being on holiday I nearly missed the announcement from EA at E3 that yes, the unnamed Bioware MMO in the works is Knights of the Old Republic Online. Or maybe has a different name, but will certainly...
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers
15:16
WotLK beta update
Just a short update to let you know that I got a beta key now. I just need to wait until the European WotLK beta download page is up, it is currently just showing a 403 error message. The US beta is...
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers
06:52
Cosmiquik
Another little thing I threw together using Ableton Live and some sample loops. "Cosmiquik." It's not your typical beatbox rhythm (though it's largely hacked together out of included sample loops).
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:49
Grand Theft Shenmue
Grand Theft Auto 4 has created quite a bunch of hype, and I suppose that's relatively justified, as it is indeed a thoroughly entertaining game. However, contrary to it being a GTA thing, I'm...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:47
Darkstar Anticipation
The semester is not quite over yet, I'm down to a finals week and two fairly hefty assignments to finish before then. However, it seems I've some rather awesome games to play now and in the near...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:43
EVE Dev: "Real money trading is bad, mkay?"
Back when I used to hang around forums, I'd often get in disagreement with pundits who feel that Real Money Trade (the trading of in-game items for real money) is the way of the future. To an...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:41
Brain Games
Not everything I have to say is new. (In fact, I imagine that just about everything I've written is going to seem old to somebody.) However, a lot of what I write here are significant things in the...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:41
Sins of a Simplified Empire Game
For the most part, I'm enjoying Sins of a Solar Empire, but I can't help but notice that there's not all that much to it. Click To See Full Entry Your typical 4X Genre game is usually a game of...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:39
"Grow Games"
I ran across an interesting Internet phenomenon today: "Grow Games." Before I knew it, 2 1/2 hours of my life were gone. This solution video would rob you of the challenge if there was one. The...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:34
Virtual Obligation
An interesting tangent on a post I wrote up today lead to writing it into a Blog entry because, after all, truly interesting tangents are something I need more of around here. Here's the scenario:...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:34
Designing Real Life
Lately, if I give my mind sufficient idle cycles, it may meander over to matters of social commentary in ways that only high gas prices and an upcoming presidential election can. Considering how...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:33
"City of Heroes 2" Announced
Okay, it's actually called Champions Online, but it's functionally everything Cryptic wanted to do with City of Heroes if they were remaking it. From their features page: Click To See Full...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:32
Exposition abortion: An unfortunate disconnect
We're reading Writing for Multimedia and the Web in class, and suddenly it's all about computer games. Holy crap, I can hardly believe this, this well-rounded liberal education I'm paying for has...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:28
Dealing With Change: PC Gaming's "Demise"
Recently, I noticed that the PC Demo quantity had been drastically cut and thought that it was finally the PC gaming end times. After all, I had noticed earlier that there's few-to-no PC games in...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:26
Simple Sophistication
Yesterday, I downloaded MAGI, a shareware PC indy game. The premise is that you're an magic user strengthening yourself for a confrontation for the day when Death comes to claim you. The actual...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:22
No Room For Heroes
When the alt-a-holicism reaches such a fevered pitch that I can't even get a character to level 5 without feeling bored out of my skull, it is then that I know my City of Heroes burnout has reached...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:21
Hack Music
I decided to start a new segment of my Blog I call "hack music". I have purchased a copy of Ableton Live LE because it makes music creation easy enough that even a relative hack like me can put...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:20
Forum Theory
Looks like I'm going to enjoy my Monday classes, which span Digital Diversity and Electronic Literature subjects. Both classes have put me in a mood to avoid homework take Grimwell's advice and see...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:20
Player Influentialness In MMORPGs
So anyway, something that hit me the other day is that the primary reason I tend to stick with City of Heroes is that you can build heroes who are truly influential in battle. When I say "truly...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
06:12
World of Warcraft - The Adventure Game - Review
At the WWI 2008 I saw that Fantasy Flight Games had brought out a second WoW board game, called World of Warcraft - The Adventure Game, which is a lot smaller and easier to play than the huge World...
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers
05:55
Paying Attention
I suck at this. Maybe you do too. However, there's a lot more to it than I once thought. Full Entry Try counting from 0 to 10 to 0 again, slowly, with each count happening each time you breath out...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
03:52
Resurrected: Two Main Aspects Of A Good MMORPG
I've come to believe there are two main aspects to be found in a good Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game: Click To See Full Entry Aspect 1: A MMORPG has to be an entertaining game. This is a...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
02:49
Dr. Horrible: Dr. Disappointment
Let me preface this by saying I am a huge Joss Whedon fan. I think he’s one of the best character/dialogue writers in the business, and I have admired his work since the first days of Buffy. He’s also a great comic book author, bringing back Buffy and Angel, breathing new life into the X-Men, [...]
Source: Moorgard (Steve Danuser)
Categories: Bloggers
01:36
Blog abbreviated.
Real quick weekend notes here. Went to the Del Mar Racetrack on Saturday.  Luke insisted on betting $5.00 on a horse because the jockey was wearing “shocking pink”.  So, I followed suit and we both won like $200 dollars.  The horse was 43-1 and won.  Man, I love horse racing.  It’s the only gambling venue in [...]
Source: Cuppycake
Categories: Bloggers

July 21, 2008

22:55
A Sort of Homecoming
Later this week I will be making my first trip to San Diego since leaving SOE. I’m heading out with a few other people from 38 Studios to attend Comic-Con 2008. No, we won’t be spilling any beans on Copernicus (our MMO project), so those of you anxious to hear about the game will have to [...]
Source: Moorgard (Steve Danuser)
Categories: Bloggers
21:27
More on WebFlock
For those curious about the tech behind the Electric Sheep’s WebFlock platform, here’s a glimpse from a comment posted on Clickable Culture: …the avatars are typically created in Maya or Max but they are rendered into sprites. That doesn’t prevent avatars from being individually personalized, but we haven’t finished that capability yet in our feature set. You [...]
Source: Raph's Koster Website
Categories: Bloggers
19:15
Self-Improvement
A lot of people like to suggest that willpower is 100% mental and you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps in the worst condition. They're dead wrong. We're only mortal, and our our bodies are...
Source: Geldon
Categories: Bloggers
18:27
Coming Up: Margarita-Induced Coma
Hey, I’m on vacation all week, so nothing new this week.  Have fun!
Source: Amber Night
Categories: Bloggers
17:00
A Brief History Of Time
Going through old blog files I found this. I don’t think it really needs much of an explanation, do you? (Click it for ze full size)
Source: BrokenToys - Lum
Categories: Bloggers
16:15
Tor.com launches — many free books
Tor.com, the new website for Tor Books, has launched officially. And they’re offering up for free download the bunches of books that they were giving away to newsletter subscribers in their run-up to launch. Among the books you can grab in DRM-free formats: Old Man’s War, Spin, Farthing, Crystal Rain, and much more. Plus a zillion [...]
Source: Raph's Koster Website
Categories: Bloggers
15:53
CoH: Same stuff, different day, and the DCU trailer.
I tend to play City of Heroes/Villains in spurts. Months will go buy without anything, and then I’ll play for eight hours straight. I have lots of reasons not to play that much. Most of the game is in the character creator, which is justifiably awesome. Once I’ve made my character, she’s made and barring inventions [...]
Source: Tipa - West Karana
Categories: Bloggers
09:33
Wrath of the Lich King beta started
So the Wrath of the Lich King beta started, making it likely that the expansion will come out before christmas. If you haven't "opted in" to the beta yet, you should do that on your World of Warcraft...
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers
07:53
The Sunday Poem: Modus Ponens
This week’s poem is a meditation on good and evil and faith and logic via Principia Mathematica, based on the news this week that some genes for violent antisocial behavior have been identified. It turns out that up to one percent of the population may have these genes. But they do not always express, because nurture [...]
Source: Raph's Koster Website
Categories: Bloggers
07:15
KotOR MMO Fun
I've been playing a little game lately. When reading a mainstream article about a new MMO, I count how many sentences it takes before the author mentions WoW. For example, in this post, I linked to... [...]
Source: Aggro Me
Categories: Bloggers
06:49
Weekend Design Challenge: Forming a community
In this weekend's exercise, explain how you would build a community for an online game on a limited budget. My thoughts in the full article.
Source: Psychochild
Categories: Bloggers
06:39
Separated at birth
I was dinking around on Wizard 101, when I thought it would be really cool to see if I could take Tara from Wizard 101, and put her in City of Villains. It’s supposed to let you make near any costume, right? Well, turns out, first, CoV doesn’t do a great job of modeling children. Fine, [...]
Source: Tipa - West Karana
Categories: Bloggers

July 20, 2008

19:05
Open Sunday Thread
Sorry for being late with the open Sunday thread, but I was busy with holiday activities. Anyway, here it is, your thread to suggest subjects and talk about whatever you like.
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers
06:00
Playing football online
A note my American readers: This post is about online versions of what Europeans call football, which differs from American football in that it is actually played with the feet only. You might know...
Source: Tobold
Categories: Bloggers

July 19, 2008

22:04
Joss Whedon Commands You
See it for free while you still can. - Ethic
Source: KillTenRats - Ethic
Categories: Bloggers
13:05
EQ: A Night of Terror.
Terror — if you’re a dragon. Nostalgia the Guild set up a face-to-face for Naggy and Vox with old Veeshan, and I don’t think Queen Vee will be too happy with her progeny. We’ve been tracking Lord Nagafen all week to see that he remained up. And shockingly, the elder guilds with their twink brigades didn’t [...]
Source: Tipa - West Karana
Categories: Bloggers
11:59
Dr. Horrible act III.
W. T. F. I did not expect this.
Source: Tipa - West Karana
Categories: Bloggers