GGG

I shall do science to it

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:13:00 +0000

Fan Faire 2008 - Community Address

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:39:00 +0000

Friday evening, John Smedly gave his second annual community address. As usual, SOE put on a great show!

Zam.com and SOE announced a partnership to bring you some very cool updates to the Zam network including direct feeds from the EQII database to EQ2.Allakhazam.com! I can't wait until that's all in place. (And Allakhazam ans reportedly ditched IGN so no more worries about supporting plat sellers!)

Everquest & Everquest II expansions are coming out later this year. Dates were announced and we got to see trailers for both expansions. More information on the EQII expansion can be found on Ten Ton Hammer.

We got to see trailers and gameplay from Free Realms and DC Universe Online. I think Free Realms looks adorable!!!

Video of the entire presentation is uploaded to YouTube in 8 parts. You can watch the first part here!

Fan Faire 2008 - Day 2 afternoon - some wonderful announcements!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:08:00 +0000

Guild Halls!

After lunch and live questing it was time for Guild Halls!!!!! I got to the room a little early, found a good spot and opened up my laptop to take notes. I mean, it's guild halls!!! Right behind me was the guys from Stratics. We chatted a little bit before the session got started .. they're pretty fun.

Most of the pictures here were taken from the projected images .. so they're not the best quality. For a full list of details, check out the article by Nami Denmother on EQ2 Traders!! Nami's always a great source of information!

As for my thoughts .. ohhhhh .... this is going to be cool!! They are incredibly expensive though!! I got out of the panel and immediately found a spot to call my Guild Leader with details and instructions to start saving up!!! The Guild Halls will allow us to place tradeskill stations, writ givers, brokers, bankers and more! There's even the option of portals and a fun new tool called a Guild Strategist that allow you to place a banner in the world and your guild mates can port right to it! How cool is that?!

So what's the trick to guild halls? Well .. they're EXPENSIVE!!! And the stuff to go into it is expensive (Items are often costing plat and millions of status) and limited in how many of the guild "amenities" that you can have in the house. At guild level 30, you can have 15 amenities, and at guild level 80 you can have 30 amenities. The numbers approximately scale at the rate of 2 amenities for every 6 guild levels. That's not enough to get everything, so folks will have to pick and choose. There's also a bunch of decorations that are guild hall specific that don't take up any amenity slots but cost plat and status to get.

FanFaire 2008 Day 2 morning – Techie stuff and more!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:36:00 +0000

Day 2 started off with a semi early breakfast then I headed off to my morning seminars. Okay so I won’t bore you with too many of the details, but the Station Voice and Customer Service panels were cool …Well … if you’re a total geek like me.

Station Voice Presentation & Panel

The first session was all about Station Voice. I’ve played around with it for a little with the voice in EQII with my guild and it was pretty easy to use once I got it to recognize my mic when it was plugged in the front …Some of the cool things that are coming … voice integrated into the Station Launcher, Voice fonts (sound like an elf!), the ability to listen to multiple channels at the same time, ability to connect to chat channels via phone, direction and proximity modifiers on the sound … aka the character is standing on your left, you hear the voice on your left. All of it sounds very cool and the guys who are doing it seem really excited about it. All of it is coming Soon ™ …The biggest thing is to get people to setup their mics right!! The Record & playback was recommended to make sure you sound right …

Customer Support Panel

Customer support was my next panel … not necessarily the most exciting, but still pretty cool. SoE is starting on setting up a work-at-home GM program … very cool. They spent a fair amount of time on how they handle spammers … pretty much the same messages we’ve heard, don’t share your account and don’t use 3^rd party power-leveling or plat buying. They have a team called NUGIT (Norrathian Underground Gnomish Investigatory Team) that does a lot of in-game and out of game plat purchasing and farmer investigations. And they don’t just look at the one account, they actually dig further into the account and investigate related accounts … related by IP, credit account, address … so don’t room with a spammer!! On average, SOE bans about 2,000 accounts a day … a DAY!!!! Impressive. Those guys really seem to be enjoying the game and have interest in what they’re doing. Very cool.

Lunch & Live Quest Photos!

I picked up a yummy pasta salad for lunch and charged up my computer in the room for a bit .. then it was off to take photos!!

The guides were running the EQII Live Quest .. all dressed up and roleplay crazy!

FanFaire 2008 - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:46:00 +0000

I got to FanFaire on Thursday around lunch and discover that Vegas is all about lines. So I stood in lines to pay for the shuttle, to get on the shuttle, to check in, to get food, to …. To do just about everything. And there’s gambling machines and tables EVERYWHERE!! I can’t go from my hotel room to the convention center, or to food, without walking through or around the slots … there were even slots in the airport!

My Roommate and a bunch of other guides met up with me for lunch, not that great but expensive!! Heck a bottle of water is $3 minimum .. but then I guess it is the desert. We got all setup and checked in, I got to meet Brenlo (yay cool!). The Welcome reception was huge and really hard to hear Brenlo =/ but the little contests he did were pretty fun ….. someone can actually do a wookie roar!! He was pretty good too!! After the reception, we were off to Quark’s for drinks. It being Quark’s, I of course had to have a have a Warp Core Breach …. Only a mini one and it was HUGE!! Of course it was equal to about four drinks … maybe 3 … but considering the prices of drinks it was actually a pretty good deal. Tasty but really sweet. Someone else at the table had the Borg Cube and it apparently was yummy!

Off to bed and get ready for a day of seminars!

Road Trip!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:02:00 +0000

As some of you know, I recently got a job in California. Yeah, I know .. really narrows that down *grin*. I'd rather keep my job specific stuff out of the blog.

So ... about a week ago, we drove from Florida to California .. what a drive! With a lovely little Garmin nuvi 200 we managed to get here without any wrong turns!! How's that for almost 3000 miles?!

We passed through Vicksburg in some state or the other ... it was a long trip.

We spent a long, long time .. almost a day I think .. in Texas where we saw many oil rigs out in the middle of the fields. And where I got told that I had to fill out a

form to have a drink. Apparently in that part of Texas, out of state visitors need some id card to get a drink .. umm ... yeah ... no ....

And from Texas into New Mexico .. the Land of Enchainment! Ummm .. okay the mountains were pretty, and it was very nice to see mountains again, but ... enchantment?

So cool for the mesas .. but .. that's all there is in New Mexico. Really ... oh .. mesas and some faux Indian villages ...

And then we were into California!!! WOOT!!! Unfortunately I slept through a good portion of the entrance into California .. but I did drive enough for Chris to get a few pictures of the very cool trees on the drive!!

Aren't they cool? There was fields and fields of them!!

Spore!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:02:00 +0000

EA published their SPORE creature creator a few days ago and I finally got a chance to play with the free trial .. so cute!! I can't wait to get the full version of the game!

The options are varied and the ability to "paint" your creatures is good for getting a unique look. There aren't a whole lot of options with the free trial, but as you can see you can still create quite a few different creatures.

The program has built in screen shot and video capability!

So .. maybe I went a bit crazy ... although these guys are nothing compared to what some other folks have created!

Check out some of the other creations on the Flickr Spore Creatures Group and YouTube!

There's also a Facebook group for them!

Go and download your own free trial and make your creatures!

Witchblade movie poster and website teasers | The Girls Entertainment Network

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:03:00 +0000

Ohhh .....

Witchblade movie poster and website teasers

May 27, 2008 Author: whatistechnoagain | Filed under: Comics, Movies/Television
Platinum Studios has released a teaser poster and website for the recently announced Witchblade film, based on the successful Top Cow comic.

Witchblade, created in 1995, has inspired a TNT tv show in 2000 and an anime-styled show in Japan in 2006. In the comic series, a female from each generation is chosen to wield the Witchblade, a jewel-encrusted gauntlet “with immense destructive and protective powers.”

There’s still no word on who’s taking the lead role, but in the meantime the company put out the following poster and launched a teaser site for the movie, set to come to theaters next year. The site doesn’t really have anything on it yet, but you can sign up for email updates regarding the movie.

The live-action film apparently will follow a “more horror-based approach.”

Witchblade movie poster and website teasers | The Girls Entertainment Network

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video | Geek Gestalt - A blog by Daniel Terdiman - CNET News.com

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:43:00 +0000

Okay so the zoologist in me is dying for this to come out. So cool!!! hee hee ... making learning fun and adding a game to it all :)

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video

Posted by Daniel Terdiman

For those of us eagerly awaiting the release of Spore, from The Sims creator Will Wright and his Maxis studio, Tuesday was a day for whetting the appetite.

That's because Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, released a little crumb for us, a video from the cell-stage of Spore.

The game, as you may already know, is an evolution game: It tasks players with growing their characters from little spore-level creatures step-by-step up the ladder to the tribe level and then on to cities, whole civilizations, and eventually on to the galactic level.

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video | Geek Gestalt - A blog by Daniel Terdiman - CNET News.com

Extinct tiger gene resurrected in a mouse - LiveScience- msnbc.com

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:38:00 +0000

Extinct tiger gene resurrected in a mouse

Rodent expresses injected genetic material of Tasmanian Tiger

AFP - Getty Images

A two-week-old mouse fetus expresses the DNA of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger by developing cartilage, shown in blue.

DNA from an extinct creature has been resurrected in a live animal for the first time.

The genetic material, extracted from the extinct Tasmanian tiger, proved functional in mice.

Extinct tiger gene resurrected in a mouse - LiveScience- msnbc.com

Q&A: Stargate Worlds MMORPG team - PC News at GameSpot

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:59:00 +0000

Interesting article ... check it out!

Q&A: Stargate Worlds MMORPG team

Members of the team working on the upcoming online version of Stargate talk to GameSpot about when the game will be coming, what their favourite features are so far, and reveal that they will be announcing more games this summer.

By Emma Boyes, GameSpot UK

Posted May 15, 2008 9:39 am GMT

Q&A: Stargate Worlds MMORPG team - PC News at GameSpot

Real Money Transactions in Today's MMO Games

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:45:00 +0000

The practice of exchanging real money for virtual items, or Real Money Transactions (RMTs), is not a new concept for online multiplayer games, but it is becoming more prevalent. Depending on the game, the practice of RMTs can be considered acceptable with minimal impact on the player base, or they can be considered un-acceptable and have negative impacts on the player base. It all depends on how the game is structured.

Running a game costs money in servers, support and developers. To achieve the needed amount of revenue, gaming companies have adopted a number of different types of payment structures. Some of these payment structures support RMT but in all cases the idea is to provide the game publisher with enough funds to continue the game.

RMTs become an issue when the game is not structured to support these transactions but they still occur. In these games, such as Everquest, WOW, LOTRO and other subscription based games, the gaming companies generally lose money in support costs and in player frustration over the purchase of virtual items. Because they cannot get the items to sell from the gaming companies, many "black market" RMT companies will resort to "botting" or use of 3rd party software to run multiple characters. The presence of these activities results in higher support costs through a rise in player petitions for suspected "bots" as well as issues with the security of the transactions, investigations into un-acceptable play and banning of accounts. In addition to these direct costs, the gaming companies will often have to deal with the player base's reaction to the unacceptable behaviors as well as the reactions to the "unfairness" of some players being able to purchase items against the End User License Agreement while other players have to put in a lot of time for items. The costs, both direct and indirect, can be significant for companies that are not designed for RMT but where RMT is prevalent. Unfortunately, due to the desire of some players to get ahead without putting in the time, the market for black market RMT is profitable.

Subscription based games have used a variety of tactics to combat RMTs, all of which have significant cost. For instance, Blizzard is taking legal action against farmers and companies that create botting programs, and Sony Online Entertainment has created Exchange servers where RMTs are allowed and expected. Both of these actions, as well as the actions of many other gaming companies, have costs for the company, but help to reduce the significant cost for handling the black market RMT companies' actions.

These direct and indirect costs are significantly reduced for games that are designed for RMT. These games may be designed for optional subscriptions or micro-transactions for the purchase of items. In these games, it benefits the player and the gaming company to purchase items from the gaming company. For the players, the transactions are generally secure and there is a guarantee on the receipt of the goods; for the gaming company, they receive the profits from the transaction and have a lower level of petitions and investigations into illegal activity. In addition, these games do not generally have to deal with the negative community reaction to RMTs, as experienced by pure subscription based games, due to the fact that the community expects RMTs to occur.

The acceptance of RMTs, both by gaming companies and 3rd party companies, has been increasing as MMOs evolve and there is every indication that this acceptance will continue to increase. Gaming companies will need to design their games to adapt to these transactions. Some companies will continue the subscription models, and these games will need to have safeguards put in place to minimize black market RMT transactions and thus minimize the costs to the gaming company. Games that are designed for RMTs will continue to be built for secure and guaranteed transactions. Whatever pricing structure the gaming company selects for their game, the goal is to reduce the support costs for the game and maximize their profits. Managing the real money transactions is one way to accomplish this.

originally published in the Mary-Margret April 2008 Newsletter

Gas gone wild!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:11:00 +0000

Okay .. I know gas prices are rising .. but ... GAHHH! No wonder the price of everything is higher.

Image Source: Richard Masoner on Flickr

Check out this article on 6 Stupidly Simple Steps to Saving Billions of Gallons of Gas

City of Heroes/Villains players will be able to make their own content!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:09:00 +0000

I found this little tidbit of information over on Massively ...

City of Heroes lead designer announces player-generated content system by Michael Zenke Apr 28th 2008 @ 12:45PM Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Patches In an announcement coinciding with the game's fourth anniversary, City of Heroes Lead Designer Matt Miller has announced a bold new feature. Coming in a future update, players will be able to craft their own missions, objectives, and story arcs. The system, which sounds very similar to Nevrax's experimental Ryzom Ring project, will give players the tools they need to make their own City of Heroes adventures. Once they're completed, players can upload the scenarios to NCsoft's service, where they can be played by other players. Afterwards, participants will be able to rate their experiences with the content.

City of Heroes lead designer announces player-generated content system - Massively

What an awesome concept!! In Star Wars Galaxies, players can create events, including races and kill mob/pvp events, using the built in Storyteller items. This may be a similar thing, or it may take things to the next step .. it'll be interesting to see how the characters can benefit from running through the player made events. Can they get xp? currency? stuff?

It's definitely an interesting trend.

Conventions of Gameplay

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:56:00 +0000

Tabula Rasa just released information on their Veterans rewards. Veteran rewards .. what a concept.

I remember (yes it's a "back in my day" story) when people continued to play a game just for the fun! Sony Online Entertainment was the first company that I was aware of to offer Veterans rewards, but now everyone does. It's just the thing to do!

I remember when Star Wars Galaxies came out with their veterans rewards … at the time I had stopped playing SWG and logged back in to see what I got. They had a bug with the timing so that it counted from when your account was created and didn't discount any time when your account was inactive. *grin* I got lots of goodies, and continued to play on the Test server for a while after that.

But why offer the rewards? They give you neet and useful things like a port back to your bindspot, a cool house item, a minor bonus to a skill, your own shuttlecraft, in game titles … all fun and useful things, but nothing gamebreaking. Nothing that you say "I have to have this or I can't play". Nothing that you can't get similar rewards from quests, or tradeskills .. but usually not the exact same thing. So why offer them?

There's the cool factor .. you have something that not everyone else has, something to separate you from the newbies, something to show how long you've stayed with a game. They add conviencies, and fun, but not a whole lot of game advantage.

But over all .. they're pretty much just cool.

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:47:00 +0000

On auction at Christie's

See! Gaming isn't something new! LOL ... sooo coool.

A ROMAN GLASS GAMING DIE

Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period. Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used.

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:26:00 +0000

I found this on the Girls Entertainment Network blog ... made me smile.

the car is playing the Mario theme :)

And 4th Edition is on it's way!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:12:00 +0000

On June 6, Wizards of the Coast will officially roll out the fourth edition of the D&D franchise, as well as a new suite of digital tools, and the world-famous game will never be the same. (from C-Net)

Woot! Our core rule books are pre-ordered (yay for 5% discount from Amazon!)

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:55:00 +0000

WOOT!!

Greetings from Amazon.com.
We now have estimated delivery dates for the
Kindle order you placedon 3/10/08. We are now estimating
thatyour Kindle
will arrive between 4/17/2008 and 4/24/2008. We'll contact
youagain to let
you know when your order is shipped

Only another week or two to wait ... wee ...

I want my Kindle!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:57:00 +0000

So I ordered an Amazon Kindle 3 weeks ago and it's STILL back-ordered!

It was a tough choice between the Sony Reader and the Kindle but I ended up picking up the Kindle due to the reported PDF support and the fact that quite a few Sony Reader owners have moved to Kindles and are quite happy with the move. Also the Reader has a few challenges with PDFs and a lot of my stuff is on PDF!

So .. 3 weeks and no buyers remorse yet, so I think I made the right choice. We'll see when I get it. We're going to Oasis 21 in a little over a month, and hopefully it'll be here before then.

Do you have a kindle or eReader?

Gamasutra - IMGDC: Nick Fortugno On The Rise Of The Casual MMO

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:23:00 +0000

Check out this interesting analysis of Casual MMOs and why they are here to stay.

IMGDC: Nick Fortugno On The Rise Of The Casual MMO IMGDC: Nick Fortugno On The Rise Of The Casual MMO Nick Fortugno, co-founder of casual game company RebelMonkey, was originally supposed to address the audience at IMGDC on "What Your Mother and Your Ten Year-Old Can Teach you About MMOs." However, when he noted how "on the ball" the attendees of IMGDC seemed, he decided to diverge a bit.

Gamasutra - IMGDC: Nick Fortugno On The Rise Of The Casual MMO

YouTube - Boston Dynamics Big Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:28:00 +0000

Check this out .. it's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

The AT-AT to be!

Writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 - Yahoo! News

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Not much more to say ...

Writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90

By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who co-wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey" and won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday, an aide said. He was 90.

Writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 - Yahoo! News

Everquest 9th Anniversary Video

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:49:00 +0000

Bringing back memories ....

The Lord Of The Rings Online™: Mines Of Moria™

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:10:00 +0000

The first expansion of LOTRO is coming out!

For more info, check out the press release linked below.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE™: Mines of Moria™ Unveiled at Connect 08

Volume II of the 2007 PC Game of the Year Expected to Arrive at Retail This Fall

The Lord Of The Rings Online™: Mines Of Moria™ Unveiled At Connect 08 - The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™ Forums