Category: General

From the FAQ to Earthrise, an MMO scheduled for next year:

I’ve never heard of Masthead Studios before – Who are you?
Masthead Studios is Bulgaria’s largest game development company, with a team consisting of young and enthusiastic artists, programmers and game designers with experience from numerous gaming projects. Earthrise is Masthead’s first project, and is likely Eastern Europe’s most ambitious so far.

I respect the chutzpah. Maybe Bulgaria has a game development industry, but they expect that statement to impress an English-speaking audience. The company has never made anything, but it is the largest. I guess they hired a lot of people, or maybe it is a big building.

For the game itself, it looks like it is cribbing heavily from EVE Online’s mechanics and adapting that to the standard avatar-based game, with a more standard PvP experience and no 0.0. Comments are open if you would like to speculate whether a company’s first game ever, an MMO, will be released on schedule.

: Zubon

H/T: Massively

Ok, apparently a Fist of the North Star “MMORPG” is about to go into beta. I say “MMORPG” in quotes because it really isn’t anymore a MMO than say, Quake or Unreal Tournament. Sure, gazillions of people can play, but not at the same time in the same universe. I’m beginning to wonder if the game industry even knows what a MMORPG is supposed to be anymore. I have already decided that the mass media has no clue (hell, those guys have even lost sight of what “news” is supposed to be).

For you younger folks, Fist of the North Star is old school manga/anime. You can see some graphics over here and a little more information here.

What is next? Ikea MMO? Ferris Bueller the MMORPG? or maybe “Speed Racer Online” and “One Tree Hill, the super fabulous MMORPG” (totally “next-generation” of course).

Yeah, I died a little inside when I saw this stuff. It seems like the industry is really trying to grasp at straws for “new” content by dregging up old properties. Even the few companies trying to do something original simply end up with chocobo racing omgmmorpgwtf!

I want something really original for a change.

The latest in our continuing series on “Hey, isn’t great how fast technology is advancing?”: “10 Incredible Old Computer Ads.” I apologize for that site’s being somewhat ad-laden.

I clearly remember a friend’s joy at finding an old modem advertising BLAZING 9600 speed. Or recall that scene in Hackers, where they are having quasi-sexual fantasies about a 22800?

: Zubon

Sweet and sour chicken, here we go. I stir fry it with no breading (I do not like breading), but it is still recognizably the same thing. Mix it with some peppers, onions, and sauce, and we are golden. I don’t have sweet and sour sauce right now, but this pad thai sauce will work in a pinch.

The chicken in the fridge is a bit old. How long ago did I defrost that? I would hate to throw a whole pound of chicken away. I probably should have cooked it sooner, but I had a busy weekend. I forgot to defrost something new before heading to work today, so we will just go with this. Add more sauce and spices, it will cover the taste.

Excellent, all done. The wife thinks it tastes a bit off, but she has always been picky. I’ll eat anything. See, this tastes fine. Okay, that bite was foul, I’ll admit. Maybe I got lucky with the first few pieces of chicken. The awful thing is, it was a big mouthful, and I have no idea which bit of chicken was bad. Now it’s all half-disgusting. Do I spit it out or quickly chew and swallow?

I’ll just start taking smaller bites. If I hit a slightly rancid bit, I can spit that out and try the next one. And these peppers, we just got them from the farmer’s market, these are fresh. Granted, I overcooked them to sautéed instead of stir-fried, so they are flaccid, but they’re still excellent peppers. I can enjoy this food, at least 90% of it is good. And I have a lot of leftovers, so I can make several meals of this.

: Zubon

A frequent problem we have is folks writing for the wrong medium. We have great stories that make lousy games. We have people who want to write the great American novel and are trying to insert it as NPC text. And so on with lousy movies made from books, lousy novelizations of great or lousy movies, etc. If you are writing for a game, it must contribute to the game, and if that stifles your artistic dreams, you should probably be writing for another medium.

I was reminded of this by the D&D website. They have a video answer of the day. To save you the time of watching it, the answer is “yes, but we’re not going into specifics yet.” For ten words of content, you want text, not a video of someone talking. On a broader note, I have gotten sick of logging into the various parts of that site to find content that might have been useful text a few months back, so please stop using all the fancy web toys someone sold you and just give us information.

Okay, I feel better.

: Zubon

Few things give me more irritation and grief than your common, garden-variety escort mission. Years ago I came to the personal realization that, well, I didn’t have to do them. I like to think my life has gotten better as a result of that. I can say that I’ve been reasonably free and clear for years.

Yes, every now and then I’m forced to take a hit and do one or two. But believe me, it’s not by choice. A designer somewhere had the idea of putting one of those in the middle of a primary quest line, or even worse as the necessary step to perform in order to progress into another area. That’s how it is. I hate them. With a passion. But sometimes we’re forced to do them. I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Just what is it about escort missions that make me feel as if I had eaten week-old meatloaf?

Continue reading Escort Service

With the latest brouhaha and folderol about how video games are polluting our nation’s bodily fluids, I am reminded that this is an election year. This is a link to the Video Game Voters Network. Each party has at least one primary candidate running against free expression. One ran ads against violent video games in her re-election campaign, while another is against free speech more generally. The leading anti-video game advocate, Senator Lieberman, is sitting out this election cycle so far, apart from endorsing Senator McCain.

People still burn books, you know.

This is not an open thread on the candidates, but if you would like to discuss their views on video games, free speech, or expression generally, feel free. Please be polite and on-topic, as if everyone (the candidates included) were in the room, rather than the standard internet political discussion. (We usually avoid politics, and I do not want to use the Mod Stick on the comments.)

: Zubon

You may have heard about this already…some psychologist (Cooper Lawrence, author of The Cult of Perfection) was on Fox News the other day talking about Mass Effect and using it as an example of how games objectify women, and how terrible that particular game is with full frontal nudity and explicit sex (marketed to young boys no doubt). Geoff Keighley was there to present the side of the game industry. You can see a clip of the segment (and the commentary by the “panel” afterwards over on Kotaku.

Ok, this is where things get fun. This woman has never played Mass Effect, she mentions some “research report” (if anyone can find a link to this let me know, I want to read it myself), her facts were all dismally wrong, and she actually called Geoff “darling”. Unbelievable.

Continue reading [[UPDATED]] Pot calls Kettle Black…gamers give author grief…