You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2007.
Yes
, sadly, like everyone else we’re not going to make our original release date. We were aiming for a late summer open beta but instead we’re looking at a late fall open beta I think. It’s never fun to go over budget but my god is it worth it. If you had showed us a year ago what Earth Eternal was going to look like in terms of our tech (which is the main hold-up) we would have told you you’re smoking crack. We were aiming for “one step above Runescape” but have blown way, way past that target.
We told ourselves in the beginning that the #1 rule we would follow would be never to let the quality bar rise (as raising it costs money and we’re on a tight budget) but that is really hard to avoid doing if you’ve got any passion for what you’re creating, and so it’s happened in spades. Thank goodness we let it happen as though it’s costing us extra raising that bar is really looking like it’s going to be worth it.
Stomping down on feature/quality creep is truly difficult I have to say. Every day we find something new we can do with the platform we’re building but at this point we have to just grit our teeth and file the idea away in the “sometime post-release” category.
I can’t wait until I can post screenshots openly. In the meantime if you want you can search the ‘Game Design’ section of the Earth Eternal forums at for some prototype shots.
This is interesting stuff. Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals talks, fairly off-handedly, about issues involving virtual worlds. What’s troublesome to me is that Judge Kozinski has a reputation for being a tech-savvy judge, but he’s clearly got very little clue about virtual worlds. Still, I have to say I’m impressed by the fact that he’s apparently engaged in RMT on behalf of his kids, without having any clear conception of what it was he was buying or selling.
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Brian Green has a post up asking “How Low Can You Go?” talking about the minimum amount it takes to make an MMORPG. He’s commenting on a post on a very new blog that claims a new MMORPG (that isn’t trying to compete with the giants) could be made for $2 million and take 2 years doing it. Brian raises the stakes and claims it would take $3-$3.5 million, though he allows that some savings could be made by trading equity for salary.
Note: Brian has since clarified that he’s not asserting it would take 3-3.5 million to make a moderately successful MMORPG. He was asserting that it would take 3-3.5 million to make an MMORPG with the salary figures that the author of MOGBlog was giving. I’m going to leave the post up anyway though as I have little doubt many out there do think it takes millions to turn out an MMORPG.
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There are many things wrong with the United States but sometimes the (relative) sanity of the court system shines as a bright spot. As Gamasutra reports, a US District Judge has ordered the state of Louisiana to pay the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) $91,000 in restitution for its backwards and wrong-headed attempt to censor video games (the law was drafted by Jack Thompson, everyone’s favorite clown) and the resulting legal bills that the ESA incurred in its successful attempt to overturn the law, which was eventually ruled unconstitutional.
This follows on the footheels of of a similar case in Michigan in which an anti-video-games law was ruled unconstitutional and the state was ordered to pay the ESA $182,349. I hope voters are paying attention. These legislators (who clearly hate the Constitution) are doing nothing but wasting taxpayer money when they pass laws that are pretty blatantly unconstitutional.
Movies are not government-regulated (barring child porn…the movie ratings you see are assigned by a private industry group that’s quite monopolistically abusive but it’s not the government). Music is not government-regulated (the warning stickers on albums in the US are put there by the RIAA, not the government). Books are not government-regulated. Paintings are not government-regulated. Why do some continue to believe that there’s a case to be made for censorship of video games when time after time the courts have affirmed Constitutional protection for the all of the other major mediums of creative content?
This tidbit from Pacific Epoch caught my eye.
“One 11-year-old player of Netease’s (Nasdaq: NTES) MMORPG Fantasy Westward Journey told Beijing Morning Post that he has been virtually married three times to other players in the game. A survey taken at the player’s school showed that 14 percent of his primary school classmates have married in online games at least twice.”
Naturally I had to buy GH2 for the 360 the day it came out last week. I’ve already got 1 and 2 for the PS2 but the prospect of downloadable songs sealed the deal.
Today, the first downloadable songs (a pack of three of them from the first Guitar Hero) was made available and I, dear friends, am not as happy as I hoped to be. The price for the downloadable songs? Over $2/song. At that price, buying all the songs from Guitar Hero 1 (which many of us have already bought once) would cost about $97, or over twice what the original game cost and that doesn’t get you an extra guitar!
I’m annoyed and frustrated at this attempt to bleed those of us addicted to Guitar Hero like this. You can’t even pick and choose which songs you want either. You’ve got to buy them in pre-configured packs of three that may include songs you have no interest in.
Having said that I will, of course, be buying/downloading them all because I’m a sucker.
I love being both lead designer and CEO sometimes (other times I wish there were two of me to fill what are really two full-time roles).
As I mentioned a week ago, I decided to hold a contest for Earth Eternal where we take submissions from users out of which we’ll pick the 14th race for Earth Eternal. We got a few hundred submissions and as I went through them realized that there were a lot of requests for reptiles and amphibians. There were also a few submissions for boars, and as any long-time player of Achaea knows, I love boars. There’s an 800 pound big black boar roaming around the Saoghal Valley that is loyal to me, in fact. Even though I’m not really visibly active in Achaea any more (though I’m there a lot invisible to all but the producers), woe be to the player that slays my boar! He’s even item/NPC #17, which is my favorite number. (All items/NPCs have a number unique to themselves in our and many other text MUDs.)
When I’m working (which is most of the time I’m not sleeping) I sometimes put recorded tv shows/movies that I’ve already seen on in the background, particularly in the evening. I work from a home office, as do the other dozen-or-so employees in Iron Realms, and I think just hearing some voices while I’m working makes me feel as if I’m not actually slaving away 12+ hours a day.
For anyone interested, here’s the ‘case management’ plan for how the WoWGlider case (MDY Industries/Michael Donnelly vs. Blizzard, though there’s actually one lawsuit and one countersuit that will be handled simultaneously) I’ve talked about here and here will be handled in court. It also includes a handy summary of the position of each side in the case.
Eileen
and I were at the Marin Farmer’s Market this morning having breakfast, and while waiting in line for a crepe at the crepe stand and I overheard a soccer mom-looking woman talking to another couple about a “game that took over his[her son’s] life.” I assumed she was probably talking about Runescape at first but after listening a bit more it became clear it was WoW she was on about.
I am no fan of DRM as a consumer but support intellectual property owner’s rights to control how their property is distributed. While I think the RIAA are a bunch of antiquated goofs they’ve got the right to destroy their business as they please as far as I’m concerned.
This morning of course, Apple and EMI announced that the entire EMI catalogue, minus their biggest act - the Beatles - would be made available, DRM-free and at 256 kbps (most iTunes downloads are at an irritating 128 kbps, which has noticeably inferior fidelity vs. a CD, for instance). They’ll cost $1.29/song rather than 99 cents/song, but I know I’ll happily pay that premium. I’ve refused to buy anything but one-hit-wonder-type songs off iTunes thus far because of the low fidelity of their music but this will certainly make iTunes my preferred method of obtaining new music.
This has been a tumultuous week in my tv-viewing!
First and foremost, of course, HBO’s Rome ended. This two-season long drama was one of the most expensive shows in history and one of the finest period dramas ever put on TV. It was an astounding effort that leaves me grieving over its departure.
Second, the season finale of Battlestar was…awesome. Just awesome. Battlestar almost lost me during three poorly-executed and pointless episodes late in the season. It started to come back 2 episodes ago, continued to regain its glory last episode and tonight (which was last week’s episode that we hadn’t watched until tonight…bless you Tivo) achieved full-on Galactica Glory! I won’t give any spoilers for the three of you that haven’t seen it already but it was everything you expect from a season finale.
Finally, Showtime, who clearly has people who watched a lot of Rome, debuted The Tudors tonight. It’s another dramatic period piece, this time taking place during Henry VIII’s lifetime, with the soccer coach from Bend it Like Beckham as an exceptionally horny Henry. The dude has game, even for a King. The opening episode was surprisingly good for a pilot and I’m cautiously excited about the possibilities going forward. The conflict with the Roman Catholic Church is already nicely foreshadowed in the opening episode.
Here at Iron Realms we’re constantly beseiged by fans. I literally cannot go to the grocery store without someone approaching me and telling me how our games have altered their lives in the most fundamental of ways. Groupies are everywhere and prominent world statesmen seek our advice on the most serious of issues!!
None of that is true of course but we do have a small base of fans who are willing to check out whatever we develop. On Earth Eternal we’ve really tried to involve these fans in some of our core decisions. We’ve done things from expose multiple pieces of concept art for the same asset to fans on our forums and let their feedback dictate our choices to polling them for their opinions on how the basic server/shard model should work.
As an example, one of the Beast races I didn’t anticipate any demand for and thus didn’t plan for was Longtails (rat-people). I personally am not a huge fan of rats as animals and as such I lacked the ability to pick which piece of concept art to go with to represent Longtails for the modelers/texture artists. I turned to the fans on our forums and got immediate, quality feedback, and everyone seems excited about the final result.
We announced a contest tonight that, while I’ll admit is mainly a promotional stunt, is still going to be interesting I think. We’re letting fans submit a proposal for our 14th and final (for release) player race. I’ll work with the winner to accomodate as closely as possible his/her vision regarding what animal the race is based on, what the race’s name is, and I’ll incorporate some of the winner’s wishes when working the race into the history of Earth Eternal (can’t let the winner dictate it for obvious reasons).