Monthly Archive

I intend on writing a more complete review later but I wanted to add some comments while my first experience with Halo 3 is fresh in my mind. To provide a little personal context, I loved the first Halo. I played the campaign all the way through three times, mainly on split-screen co-op, and different individual parts of it many more than three. I’ve never played a campaign mode in any game all the way through more than once, much less three times. Beyond that, since there was no online play my friend Rodney used to drag his Xbox over a lot and we’d play 1v1 on system link, on two TVs, taking somewhat extreme measures to ensure we didn’t get any audio clues from each other’s games (we had the tvs in the same room): I wore headphones with the volume turned way up and we had an industrial fan going to create enough white noise that we could guarantee neither one of us was getting an unfair advantage by hearing what his opponent was up to.

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There is absolutely no point to this post other than to celebrate my excitement over the imminent release of Halo 3 tonight at midnight. We don’t take the day off for silly American holidays like Columbus Day, but you bet your ass we’re taking the day off for Halo 3.

Most exciting feature: 4 player co-op play.

Biggest Fear: Getting the red ring of death just as I fire up Master Chiefy goodness tomorrow morning.

Metaplace (the product from Areae) just launched at TechCrunch 40. Good luck Raph!

I don’t much care for social networks. I use LinkedIn (profile here if you’re interested) very lightly, and not at all for ’social’ reasons. There’s little value for me in MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, or any of the other countless platforms as I am simply not interested in the collecting “friends” mechanic on a personal level. Obviously, there’s no disputing that millions of people find social networks very useful. I’m just not one of them. I also dislike cell phones and rarely carry mine (of course, I also work from a home office, making it less useful than it might otherwise be) because I’m not a fan of feeling like I’m always on a leash that anyone can yank. I often leave my IM status set to ‘away’ for the same reason, as people don’t get offended when I ignore non-essential IMs that way.

Today though, a friend pointed me at a new network focused on being unsocial called NOSO. From their FAQ:

“NOSO is a real-world platform for temporary disengagement from social networking environments. The NOSO experience offers a unique opportunity to create NO Connections by scheduling NO Events with other NO Friends.

These “NO” events, called NOSOs, take place in designated cafes, parks, libraries, bookstores, and other public spaces. Participants - whose identities remain unknown to one another - agree to arrive at an assigned time and remain alone, quiet and un-connected, while at the same time knowing that another “Friend” is present in the space.

NOSOs are scheduled by users through the NOSO website. They last for a duration of 1 - 30 minutes, after which participants disperse and return to their regular activities.”

It is like they read my mind. I am all for participating in social events in which I don’t have to even acknowledge the presence of the other participants barring those I show up with (such as Eileen and, if it is a dog-friendly unsocial event, Nixon).

Here is a handy YouTube video-less video that will tell you more. It’s an interview with CBC up in the frozen north. I did create a profile on NOSO but I feel it’s most appropriate if I don’t provide anyone a link to it and if I never visit it again.

It’s a bit of a developers’ cliche that players will consume content faster than you imagined was reasonably possible. I bet that when the good folks at Blizzard were developing the Burning Crusade expansion for WoW they intended to create new content that would last months for your average player. Indeed, it probably does take months for your average player to get through it.

It must be annoying to then discover that someone has burned through the expansion in less than 24 hours.

On September 9, 1997, Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands, the first game from what would become Iron Realms Entertainment was launched (same month as Ultima Online!). We weren’t ready by any means but I opened it to the public because I was tired of working without player feedback.

People at the time told me I was crazy for opening a commercial MUD just as the first major graphical MMO was due to launch, but 10 years down the road I feel like I can convincingly say that those who felt text MUDs were going to fall over and die just because someone created a game with a graphical UI were very wrong. We’ve managed 10 consecutive years of double-digit growth in a medium that so many people were convinced was an absolute commercial dead-end.

A friend opined to me the other day that one of his big problems in his approach was that he wouldn’t let go of an idea. He felt it was in his nature to keep at an idea well past the point where other people might call it quits. I can see where he’s coming from, I suppose, but I’ve always viewed tenacity as a net positive. It may be cliche but the willingness to simply push on is what got me, at least, through the early and very lean years.

The teams running each of our text MUDs have been running events for the previous month, ramping up to tons of events this weekend. I logged onto Achaea tonight to be part of the festivities as the hour approached midnight GMT and was taken aback by the outpouring of more-than-just-friendly communication from players whom hadn’t seen me in the two years since I passed over direct control of Achaea to others.

It’s hard to describe what I feel about Achaea at this point. It’s a creative endeavor I worked on full-time from 1995 to 2005 and poured my soul into. It was difficult to pass on and it is a little painful to log in now and realize that the game-world has passed me by. I don’t know the details of the intricate plots going on any more and I don’t have my finger so directly on the pulse of the community, but I still feel incredibly connected to it. I essentially lived in Achaea for 8 or 9 years.

I’m extraordinarily grateful to a huge number of people at this point. All the players over the last ten years, the volunteers, and all the formal members of Iron Realms. Thank you. Let’s make the next 10 years as great as the last ten.

Incidentally, it is pronounced ah-KAY-ah. ‘Achaeans’ was the generic term for the Greeks that fought against Troy in the Trojan War, and there was an ‘Achaean League’ in real/more established ancient Grecian history as well. The Aetolian League defeated the Achaean League at one point.

Fun liveblog of the AGC panel on where the biggest opportunities in games are over at Virtual World News. Raph Koster, Erik Bethke, Mark Jacobs, and John Smedley go at it in a debate that basically turns into subscriptions vs. microtransactions and RMT.

Madeleine L’Engle has died at the age of 88.

I have nothing but great memories of the four books in her Time series, “A Wrinkle in Time“, “A Wind in the Door“, “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” and “Many Waters.” I suppose technically they’re children’s books but Minae, the producer for Achaea, just re-read them and said they hold up quite well. I’ve just ordered them from Amazon. What I remember about her books were the fairly metaphysical (not that I understood this at the time I first read them) themes running through them. They are very ‘adult’ children’s books if one wants to consider them children’s books. I think they may have been the first fantasy/sci-fi books I ever read, though I kind of hesitate to call them either. Go read them if you haven’t. Easy, short reads but well worth it.

I live in terror these days. Sheer, heart-stopping panic, unmitigated by reason. What, you ask, could terrify me so aside from the obvious (landsharks)?

The Red Ring of Death.

Those around me fall like wheat before the scythe, as a fourth close friend experienced the red ring of death that signals complete system failure for an Xbox 360. I don’t call too many people close friends so it is disturbing enough to know that the Reaper is stalking us. Still, I’m possessed of powerful Warranty Magic so the Reaper alone cannot chill my heart with this kind of foreboding.

Nay. The grim hand of dread that has gripped my soul this morning derives from the realization that were I to experience the foul Ring now, as did my CTO Chris last night, I would likely not get my console back until after September 25th. My god, just writing that has turned my muscles to jelly and is that a bit of wetness I feel dripping down my left leg?

Poor Chris (who went through four of the original Xboxs) has already resolved that he’ll need to purchase a new 360 because, “I will NOT wait to blast some motherfuckers with a Spartan Laser!”

So please, pray for me my friends. If there’s an ounce of humanity in you, pray that I am not marked by the red ring before the 25th. Pray to any God that will listen. (Try Hephaestus. His forges turn out quality stuff.)

And now, I am off to a local farm. There’ll be lamb’s blood on all the doors to stay the Reaper’s hand, and tonight Mr. Gates shall sup on a burnt offering of the finest organic, sustainably-raised Sonoma lamb.

This post has nothing to do with virtual worlds, games, or anything related so feel free to skip it.

(Little lesson on America’s electoral college system that is, I sincerely hope, only of benefit to citizens of other countries.) In 2000, George W. Bush won the Presidency by getting less votes than Al Gore (the first time this had officially happened since 1888. There is an argument to be made it happened in 1960 as well). On the other hand, because the US employs a system in which your vote for President simply does not count if you don’t vote for the winning candidate in your state, George W. Bush still won the election (granted, the courts had to get involved but that is how the legal system works and it worked properly, arguably). In 48 out of the 50 states, our system is “winner takes all.”

So, imagine that a state has, for the sake of argument, 1 million actual voters and there are only two candidates on the ballot for President. Candidate A gets 500,000 votes. Candidate B gets 499,999 votes. Since America always pitches itself as a democracy, one would think that this might mean that Candidate A just gained a whopping 1 vote advantage in the election. But no! What it actually means, effectively, is that Candidate A just gained all 1 million votes (in all states but Nebraska and Maine, both of which are very small and don’t have many votes to send anyway). I’m simplifying a bit insofar as what Candidate A actually gets is 100% of the electoral college votes from our hypothetical state, and the electoral college votes determine who becomes President. Though it’s never yet happened the system actually makes it possible for candidate A to win by an absolute landslide in terms of how many people voted for him/her, but still lose the election because candidate B got a plurality of votes in a few of the biggest states.

Seems a little absurd doesn’t it? Almost a little, dare I say, undemocratic? There are historical reasons why America does things this way, as well as legitimate-sounding arguments to keep the system as is, but I strongly believe that most Americans, if given a choice between 1:1 representation and the current system would overwhelmingly choose 1:1 representation (since that is actually the spirit of what we’re taught is the essence of democracy)…right up until it was explained that this might, short-term, lead to defeat for the political party they favor.

After the 2000 election, there was lots of muttering on the Democratic side about the unfairness of the electoral college system and how if it was actually “fair” Gore would have been President since a plurality of the country voted for him. I completely agree. America is no longer a collection of disparate States joining together for a common purpose (I am willing to bet that far more people self-identify as American before “Idahoan” or “Wisconsonian” or what have you). It is a State with small, less important states within it.

A serious debate has begun in California about reforming our system here to allow for somewhat proportional representation. It’s not a perfect proposal insofar as what it does is move the system in California down to the Congressional district level (so winner-take-all per district rather than true 1:1 representation) but it’s a hell of a lot better than what we have now.

Of course, since California has been voting Democratic for President lately, it is the Republicans pushing for this change. They know darn well that this change will result in a better chance of putting a Republican in the White House. Everybody sees this. It’s also a blatantly politically-timed move in an attempt to pass a bill before the ‘08 elections.

But so what? Shouldn’t conforming to the essence of what we tell our children democracy is outweigh “supporting the team”? The electoral college could use some reforming when it helps the Democrats, but not when it helps the Republicans? That is fundamentally corrupt thinking.

Principle should come before party and neither of those parties will ever get my vote, at least, until and unless they stop behaving as if winning the game rather than consistently sticking to principle is what matters. Not only is this unlikely but the winner-takes-all electoral college system makes it fundamentally very difficult for a third party to win or even make a showing since you get no electoral votes without winning a plurality in a state.

“One person one vote” is fair and democratic. The current system is not.

Warning: If you don’t want to read spoilers, don’t read this post!

I finished Bioshock this evening. I don’t finish too many games but this this one was pretty short overall. I’m not sure how long it took but it couldn’t have been more than 12 hours, which is fine with me. Took me 2 weeks to get those 12 hours in as it was.

The day I got the game, I wrote a very excited post about how much I was looking forward to playing through it after having logged a couple hours of play time. Unfortunately, my interest in the game declined pretty much linearly from that moment on. I simply do not understand why this game has been reviewed so well unless the reviewers only played the first hour or two of the game.

The pluses:

• A pretty game. Very, very nicely-done art in an attractive art deco-ish style. Not too many games use art deco, so that was refreshing. In fact, I think it was one of the things that initially suckered me into believing this was anything but a standard FPS wrapped in a huge hype ribbon.
• The writing was not offensively bad. That’s a big step up over most games (probably including my own). Compared to most games the writing was excellent, in fact, but that’s not a very high bar to leap over.
• Bug-free. Though I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience, mine was mercifully 100% free of bugs…just like all console games should be. Patching console games is lame. Still, this is the single 360 game I’ve played thus far for any length of time in which I didn’t notice any bugs.
• The first 2 minutes. Possibly the best opening I’ve ever seen in any video game in any format.

The minuses:

• The hype machine. I came into this with huge expectations. There was going to be this great storyline. There were going to be innovative gameplay mechanics. There were going to be real moral choices to make. All hype. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is still a great game. It’s just not an awesome one, to my taste.
• The story. I don’t tend to enjoy first person shooters, and pretty much the only way I’ll typically play one is if it allows for co-op play. Bioshock was pitched as having this engrossing story that shows games are art, blah blah blah, but if that’s art then pardon me, but big fucking deal. I mean the climax of the game is an absolutely standard battle against this larger-than-life guy who can throw fire, ice, and electricity. Call him a wizard or a super-villain and there are probably well over a 1000 games that culminated in essentially exactly this way. Big let-down.The other big letdown is that the story is almost entirely communicated to you by listening to tape recorders. Very little of what you actually do has any bearing whatsoever on the story. What you spend 99% of the game doing is shooting what amount to zombies, some of which throw fireballs, some of which leap at you, but all of which look more or less the same.
• The gameplay. In your right hand you wield a weapon (various types of guns/projectile weapons) to attack things with. It has limited ammo, aside from the basic melee weapon (a wrench). In your left hand you wield ‘plasmids’ which are flat-out D&D-type spells. Fireball, lightning bolt, etc etc. Then, you walk around shooting things. That is the extent of the gameplay barring a minigame that is used for everything from opening safes to disabling attacking security bots to hacking into security cameras. By the end of the game I truly loathed that stupid minigame, which feels very awkwardly stuffed into the game to me. The most valuable thing in the game for me ended up being auto-hacking tools since they allowed me to mainly avoid the minigame.
• The supposed moral choices. There was exactly one really meaningful choice to make in Bioshock, though you repeated that choice multiple times (perhaps 15 in all?). The choice is between killing these freakish little girls and getting X of a resource called ‘Adam’ (used to buy new spells or “plasmids” if you prefer) or not killing them and only getting X/2 of the resources. Of course, in the latter case you’re compensated after every 3 girls you rescue with gifts that more or less make up for what you lost. So in fact, the moral choice doesn’t even have any meaningful consequences for you, which makes it a trivial choice at best.
• The “social commentary.” Sorry, but criticizing objectivism (Ayn Rand’s economic/moral psuedo-philosophy) is like criticizing Scientology. Satire, not criticism, is where it’s at for ideas that are just patently not worth taking seriously. Bioshock took itself very seriously and I occasionally got the impression that the developers felt they were really making a philosophical statement by incorporating some of the basics of Rand’s “philosophy” into the ostensible bad guy.

I suspect that had I rented this rather than bought it (definitely does not pass my ‘buy’ test in retrospect) and had I not been seeing ratings like 9.9 out of 10 and 5/5, and had I not read all sorts of people putting forth the notion that Bioshock is a credible comeback to Ebert’s assertion that games are not art, I would have been reasonably positive about it. On the other hand, there’s an equal chance that after the first hour or two I would have just gotten bored and turned it off. Had I known what was in store for me, that’s exactly what I would have done. I just kept holding out for the payoff (like with Fable) that never came and when I was done I was mostly just glad to be done forever with it.

I don’t like to get involved in the “Are games art” debate in public because my opinions may offend my fellow developers, but I’ll say this: If you hold Bioshock up as an example of the best art that the games industry produces, then you’re essentially saying, to my ears, is, “Dawn of the Dead is the pinnacle of film.” (And that’s unfair to Dawn of the Dead, which is a pretty well-done satire on something very real: rampant consumerism.)

I don’t mean to criticize Irrational/2k Boston (the devs) either, or damn them with faint praise. Bioshock is absolutely one of the most polished game experiences I’ve had in awhile. I just felt quite misled by the hype preceding the game’s release as well as the first minute of the game (which is awesome and literally bears no relationship to the rest of the game).

Overall, I’d give Bioshock, say, a 9.1 rather than the 9.9s its been getting.