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Archives: July 2009

July 31, 2009

EA’s Infernal Marketing

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , , , — 3 Comments
Image representing Electronic Arts as depicted...
Image via CrunchBase

A while back, my friend Kelly from educational blog Unenlightened English linked me the very interesting story of EA‘s Dante’s Inferno game being protested against at E3 by a Christian group that actually turned out to be a guerrilla marketing team that EA brought in to hype the game. While there was much craziness that ensued over cleverly punned signs that said “Trade in your Playstation for a Playstation” and “Just say Infer-NO”, some actual ire from real Christian surfaced over EA’s stereotype of their faith.

There’s a certain bemusement I take in any time EA makes negative press, especially this particular time, as passionate anti-EA gamers often equate EA with Hell in some form or fashion. Although I still sting from EA’s takeover of Westwood, and their subsequent closure of two of my favorite Westwood projects (Command and Conquer: Renegade and Earth and Beyond), there honestly have been efforts by EA in order to clean up their image, whether it is from an admission from their CEO that they haven’t been up to snuff with their quality or their (mostly) non-interference policy with products like Mythic’s Warhammer Online or Bioware‘s upcoming SW: TOR.

I consider myself a practicing Roman Catholic, although I’m heavily influenced by the Jesuits, long since considered to be the liberals of the Catholic faith. In this respect, sure, it’s pretty bad that stereotypes happen to exist about religion, but people should understand that stereotypes also ring with it, at some small, miniscule level, an air of truth and fact. I won’t get into it any more, as religious debates have a potential to turn not-so-Overly-Positive, except to say that just like anyone, there’s an extreme wing of any religion that is going to end up making headlines and causing a stir. Before this was revealed to be a publicity stunt, there was certainly a debate over whether or not a protest like what happened for Dante’s Inferno was viable, or even worthwhile. Religion and games don’t cross too terribly often, so to see the discourse about it was definitely interesting.

Still, this is ultimately a plus in the EA Marketing book, as amoral as it sounds. It’s a good thing for EA because guerilla/viral marketing is designed to elicit in some way some kind of attention to the object of marketing, in a non-traditional way. There were tons of articles and many opinions posted about the protests and their eventual, fradulent reveal, and all of them mentioned the Dante’s Inferno game by name. Perhaps some, in their research to opine about it, clicked into the EA pages to read about Dante’s Inferno, too – something that might not have happened, were the staged protest had not been held. If Dante’s Inferno sells just a few more copies based upon the fact that this entire affair happened, then that’s considered mission accomplished for EA no matter how you slice it.

All that being said, though, you’d think EA Marketing couldn’t top themselves so soon after all the chaos from this stunt. Oh, how little did we know, that EA would next turn to booth babes and “acts of lust committed” to one-up themselves for Dante’s Inferno…but that, my dear, growing, tiny readership, is another positive post for another day.

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July 31, 2009

Do The Droid in TOR

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Star Wars: The Old Republic — Tags: , , , , — Leave a comment

Syp over at Bio Break had something to say about the possibility of playable Droids in Star Wars: The Old Republic, hoping against hope that everyone’s favorite robots would, ironcally, be actually playable by humans.

There are a couple of arguments against droids being an actual race, but perhaps the largest one would be the actual role of droids in the Star Wars Universe. Sadly, they’re mostly tools – tools that can talk and have a sort of programmed personality, but tools nonetheless. They’re usually seen in service to, well, “meatbags” as HK-47 will tell you, and even in the movies themselves they are relegated more to a supporting, sometimes comedic role (see: C3PO). So on one respect you might not expect them to shine brightly enough to be a race all on their own. Heck, you might not say that they are even a “race”, per se, but more of an entity.

But Droids, in their function, can serve plenty of roles in the Star Wars universe, and as a playable race can introduce a variety of elements in terms of Bioware’s vaunted Story focus. For example, a particular droid might start out serving one master over the course of their story quests, only to change to another. Droids themselves are, even in the role they played in the main films, iconic by their look and behavior. Who out there doesn’t know who R2-D2 is? For a droid that apparently speaks only in beeps and whistles, that’s something.

Bioware’s vast timeline of hundreds of years before the main films also leaves a lot of story to be filled in specifically about droids. It perhaps might not be too much of a stretch to imagine a slice of history in which droids rebelled, or became independent to the point of having a centralized presence on a particular planet. Even though he was a cyborg, General Greivous from Episode II of the movies shows that it isn’t too much of a stretch to have droids with some level of thought to do such things.

Overcoming the barrier in selecting classes, however, might only be done by restricting droids to particular, specific careers (as much as you all might want to see a Droid Bounty Hunter or Jedi/Sith, probably not happening). But here we might just see somewhat of a role that Droids can properly fill, and that is the unknown role of “healer” or “support”. Droids by their very depiction are suited to “utility” and can possibly be tweaked into a class that provides much needed buffs, engineer-like devices, or even medical attention in lieu of the magic of the Force.  Being only a droid might seem like a turn-off to many potential players, but to others, it is a chance to play a fairly unique role with a unique, distinct look that won’t span the other classes.

Time will tell if Droids come anywhere near a role that isn’t NPC or Companion in TOR. But like Syp, I’m hopeful that they won’t be just another R2-D2 or C3PO.

July 30, 2009

Overly Positive Thoughts: Convenient MMO Therapy

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Overly Positive Thoughts, Social Geekery — Tags: , , — 5 Comments
Therapy Couch in Therapy
Image by tomswift46 via Flickr

So, my good friend and fellow Warhammer Alliance worker Kristen pointed me out to something I just had to read to give the Overly Positive touch. The ever prolific Jim Sterling of Destructoid wrote about an interesting development in WoW that pretty much puts more cement on the foundation of WoW being not just a game, but a cultural phenomenon. Apparently, a psychiatrist, along with a few others, plan on getting into WoW and offering in-game therapy to those who are in need of it.

You know, I gotta say that I thought that Blizzard had done it all with the Mountain Dew offer, the endorsements from everyone from Mr. T to Ozzy Osbourne, and the amazing addition of Peggle, but this has to be the best thing yet. Imagine, if you will, in Ironforge, or in Orgrimmar, such a service. Thousands of players, angry over the fact that the guild officers above them who are sleeping with each other won’t give them raid loot, or depressed over getting ganked by min-max maniacs in Arena, would flock to the professional services of these few, brave souls. Sure, these people who play 60 hours a week and neglect their wives/husbands/significant others might, just maybe, have more issues than a simple messup with items made of pixels and data bits. But every little bit helps, right?

Just think of what good this could do for the WoW community when it comes to feedback. The WoW forums are currently a quagmire of “lol” and “I quit” and “this guy is tooooootallly exploting” posts, but imagine what some decent in-game therapy might do for them? Instead of whining on the forums about how the latest cookie cutter spec is “soooooo OP” and that their class “didn’t need a nerf ,wtf”, they’ll just do it to the in-game therapist. Who knows, maybe the therapist can get them to acknowledge that their issue with Yardak the Orc and his extermely epic sword goes back to a desire to sleep with their mother, creating an epiphany of epic proportions. Doesn’t that sound great?

Of course, the real heroes are the therapists themselves, who will soldier their way through many an emotional antisocial hermit in WoW’s faceless crowd. I mean, ok, they’ll probably have gear worse than a gold farmer, making remote house calls to psychologically disturbed raid groups who wipe 20 hours a week difficult, but they’ll manage. There could be the possibility of a few flubs here and there, too. Heck, if you were a therapist and the cute female night elf you thought you were counseling for bad bouts of PMS-induced rants was really a portly, effeminate dude, you’d probably feel discouraged and foolish too.

But seriously, the extra effort that these people will take to login to the game, dodge all the mailbox dancers and gold spammers, and sit in a single place just to listen to people whine has to be applauded. If for nothing else, it A)keeps all that high-pitched nerd raging off of the internet and B)makes for really, really good blogging material.

Thumbs up, online therapists – and good luck. You’ll need it.

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July 30, 2009

For TOR, The Devil Is In The Demo (Details)

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Star Wars: The Old Republic — Tags: , , — 1 Comment
Star Wars Republic Commando - Vode An, Brother...
Image by Thorsten Becker via Flickr

SWTORBlog.net posted their usual updates regarding dev quotes, and apparently, according to TOR Community Rep Sean Dahlberg, there isn’t going to be much coming out of the Bioware front for a few weeks. This means that Bioware’s relative silence about the game is going to get that much more apparent. But there’s always some little gem to be had in any “aw shucks” quote, and TOR doesn’t disappoint:

“After we get through these next few weeks, we have a lot of content in store for all of you. Our updates at the convention (and after them) will also include updates to the website for those of you who can’t join us there. And yes, there will be some new reveals as well as the Gameplay Demo Walkthrough video.”

This is an interesting development, to be sure. It’s nice that Bioware is getting ahead of the concerns from outside observers that the game’s details and gameplay have for the most part, been a closely guarded secret, the only demo having surfaced being a press demo of one of TOR’s quests. We saw some subtle details in the voicover vid, but not much else.

I don’t particularly remember any other MMO developer out there putting out an actual dedicated walkthrough of the gameplay, unless they were displaying a piece of their game at a convention, in an interview, or otherwise as a side note in a general reveal about the game. If Bioware’s pattern for Star Wars: The Old Republic is to be guessed so far, they’ll probably only put the details that are truly polished enough for public consumption/chainsawing/blending in forums and blogs like ours. Sure, that means that we won’t get to see everything, but let’s take what we can get, folks – it’s probably going to be eye-opening and allow the community to speculate even more on what could be included in TOR.

It does seem that Bioware is learning from the mistakes of MMO dev past as well. How many times have you seen people on forums complain that a game “didn’t meet their expectations” or that “they thought it would work like x but it actually turned out to be y”? You probably will see some people who will say that about The Old Republic, don’t get me wrong, but prominently displaying their gameplay like this can and should set expectations at a level that Bioware is comfortable with, making it easier to soothe the savage community beast. I for one, can’t wait to see the kinds of things that the Gameplay Demo Walkthrough video will bring with it, because I thinkw e’ve all been salivating over more meat and potatoes about SW:TOR.

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July 29, 2009

The War on Search Just Got Interesting

by Frank — Categories: Internet — Tags: , , , — Leave a comment
Image representing Yahoo! as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

Well, Yahoo has a lot to be all smiles about today.

In a bold move aimed at taking on Google,  the clear leader in search right now, Yahoo has decided to abandon its own search efforts and instead form an alliance with who else but Microsoft and their new engine, Bing.

The end of Yahoo search hits a particular pang with anyone who was online during the Internet’s infancy, like I was. Yahoo search used to be the defacto 500-lb gorilla of search engines. When there weren’t really any pages that heard of anything like Flash, PHP, or dynamic web content, Yahoo was there to index them all. With a comprehensive categorizing of popular genres, Yahoo search dominated the beginnings of what would become the World Wide Web.

But as the 21st century came and progressed, a simple little search engine with none of the bells and whistles of Yahoo’s offerings began to chink away at Yahoo’s armor, until it eventually dealt a near-fatal blow. Google’s simplicity, high relevance rating, and growing set of tools made it the search engine of choice for many a browser, and Yahoo retreated into its other multimedia offerings – messaging, email, and websites – all of which Google has also invaded.

So to stop the bleeding, Yahoo has decided to partner with the only other entity capable of taking on Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” love-fest, and that’s its antithesis, Microsoft. While this means that Yahoo search finally goes the way of the dodo, this creates a ton of other possibilities for Microsoft, whose release of the Bing engine has been met with skepticism and caution. Leveraging the Yahoo partnership will pay dividends, and Yahoo will benefit from juggernaut backup and ad sales that should keep it afloat.

A lot of people might be worried about an unholy matrimony of Yahoo and Microsoft creating an evil empire to take on Google’s free-wheeling thinktank, but honestly, the end user ultimately wins. There’s nothing like a little competition – legitimate, threatworthy competition – for creating some innovation and oneupsmanship in a bid to snag us, the customers. With all the offers, contests, advertising, and ideas that will be tossed between Micro-Yahoo and Google, we’ll ultimately see some return on whichever side we choose. Of course, you never know – you might see someone else step up to the plate and undercut both search engines in an amazing coup of innovation.

Good times are afoot for searching for your favorite things on the internet, folks. Hold on – it’s gonna be a wild ride.

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July 28, 2009

My Very Own TOR Companion

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Star Wars: The Old Republic — Tags: , , , — 1 Comment
Yuki ?s the prototype companion cube
Image by Don Solo via Flickr

Out of all the info that has surfaced about TOR so far (and you can get to Moon Over Endor if you want the full overview from Ayane as usual) the actual TOR Exhaustive Q&A from IGN is probably the best and most comprehensive of the limited information that Bioware is releasing right now about TOR. There’s a ton of info in it, but one of the things I wanted to cherry pick for today’s post was about “companions”, NPC characters who will join you on your journey through the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic:

“IGN: What can you say about companions right now?

Dallas Dickinson: I think what we’ve said thus far (apologies for this being cryptic because we haven’t talked in detail about the companions and how they work), is that if you’ve played BioWare games, you have some sense of how our companions are going to work. They’re going to become party members, they’re going to become people with special contributions to your story or your gameplay and you’re going to be able to make decisions that can influence them and their loyalty that will unlock some content or potentially close down some content for you. It’s going to make your experience unique, so you and I can both play as a smuggler and you will have a completely different experience, at least in part, because of how you treat your companions.”

This is an interesting development because we haven’t really heard this much detail about companion characters before. The thing that immediately comes to mind is how much easier this makes for an individual player to play solo through the campaign of the MMO. Many times the “pet” classes are the ones that have the added benefit of having something NPC-controlled that they direct. This seems to be a massive expansion on that concept, giving everyone the ability to have NPCs, but also bringing in the KOTOR-style consequences of making decisions and their attitude towards you. There’s a certain kind of appeal to having your own sort of crew, and a myriad of possibilities that open up with using your companion characters and your toon to talk to others with companions of their own.

In a sort of Dr. Who-like interaction, your companions will join with you and affect how you progress through the campaign. Considering the depth of the story that Bioware is currently marketing harder than any of their other features, it sure seems that it will be a welcome addition to the overall experience you’re going to be having. Imagine if you have a companion that sticks with you through thick and thin, who might save you or affect the choices available to you when interacting with certain NPCs. Or perhaps you might betray a companion, and ruthlessly close off an opportunity to advance their loyalty to you. With the supposedly constantly branching storyline in front of you, the game experience might change with repeated play, something which will be great for TOR’s longevity.

Companions seem to be the latest in the line of unique additions Bioware is making to their game that they are attempting to transplant from their previous successful single-player RPG franchises. Whether or not is a right or correct strategy will depend on the execution – but it’s no secret that the Companion mechanic has netted huge success in Bioware’s games of the past. MMOs are a different beast, but if this is any indication, this particular beast has more faces than just your own. It’s exciting stuff.

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July 27, 2009

The Zipping of Bioware Lips for TOR

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Star Wars: The Old Republic — Tags: , , , — 2 Comments
Mute Records
Image via Wikipedia

Today as I was browsing along in the Star Wars: The Old republic official forums I came upon a post by SpockO in page 9 of a TOR interview questions thread that talked about Bioware‘s communication with its potential players:

“Too many games have been ruined before they were even completed by early open betas, unkept promises from early interviews (even if they say “this may change before release”) and other forms of early leaked information. Just watch the swtor.com forums…There can be 100 page threads about 2 sentences of an interview. People way, way overreact to *everything*.

In the past, games didn’t take 5 years to make. But MMOs do. So there is all this build up time to fill. Bioware does a really professional job of keeping their mouth shut, while still giving out info they can talk about because they are sure it will go in.”

Even though Bioware is taking a lot of heat right now for not revealing the nitty-gritty details of the game, you have to wonder if their reticence is due to the fact that they are strategically withholding details to prevent the blender of the community from getting at things that aren’t final. This seems to be supported from the PCGamer UK interview a while back, where it was stated that they wouldn’t have been this confident to roll out a demo to the press if they weren’t absolutely sure it was polished and ready.

I think this same strategy applies to what they’ve got planned for the meat of the game. I think it’s no secret that beta is going to bring with it a variety of leaks, bugs, and impressions about TOR that could dictate player opinion. If by the time closed beta hits and these things come out that Bioware has a product they are confident can be leaked with impunity, they’ll have a good strategy of approaching things. This is, by the way, a familiar strategy – one that a certain company named after a winter storm employs – when it comes to communicating about what they are doing.

So while people fret about Bioware not revealing too much information about TOR, just consider what we already know, and how interesting and intriguing that is. How much more interesting will the real juicy info and mechanics be? Time will tell.

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July 27, 2009

Case of the Mondays Cure – DJ’s, Obama, and Neon

by Frank — Categories: Case Of The Mondays Cure — Tags: , , , — Leave a comment
scared of the thunder
Image by jypsygen via Flickr

Dog days of summer getting you down? Feeling like this is the start to another brutal week of the work grind? Not to worry, folks, because we’re here to give you a pick-me-up with some neato geekery news articles:

DJ Jazzy Jeff Joins Up With DJ Hero Cast (via Destructoid): With Guitar Hero and Rock Band currently on top of the rhythm game genre, you’d think there wasn’t room for anything more. But new entry DJ Hero is poised to carve its own niche into people burned out over being in a band with Fisher-Price instruments. The latest has Will Smith sidekick DJ Jazzy Jeff joining up with the list of contributors – so hey, it’s nice to see the guy can find more work and not feel like Alex Winter to Will Smith’s Keanu Reeves.

TOR’s Official Event Schedule Released (via the TOR Official site): Everyone out there looking forward to Bioware‘s new MMO would do well to check the schedule of where you can stalk meet the folks behind Star Wars: The Old Republic. From all impressions, the game appears to be progressing fairly well, so be sure to check out where they’ll be at and roll on over.

The ECA Wants You To Educate the President on Video Games (via Game Politics): US President Barack Obama has been known to offhand refer to games as a pasttime that is not particularly worthwhile. Well, the Entertainment Consumers Association is looking to change that impression by lobbying for a movement to tell the president about the value of gaming. This will be great for an industry much maligned for the worst of addiction and violence stories, and it’s nice to have such an organized effort behind it.

Tron Teaser Hits Comic-Con (via The Escapist): Yep, even though there are some franchises some people look upon with dread when it comes to getting to the big screen (they’re looking at you, GIJoe), Tron is one of those nuggets from the 80′s that people look at with fondness. The remake is apparently in the works, and a teaser hit Comic-Con this weekend. Break out the Neon, folks – it’s gonna be a wild ride.

That’s if for this Monday – enjoy!

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July 26, 2009

Developers – They’re Just Like Us, Really!

by Frank — Categories: Gaming, Warhammer Online — Tags: , — 3 Comments
Gen Con Indy 2008
Image by Brandy Shaul via Flickr

This weekend, for my work at Curse and Warhammer Alliance, I headed out to Games Day Chicago, which was obviously easy to travel to since I live in the city. During this affair, I was able to hook up with Mythic Entertainment, and became for all intents and purposes their native guide to all things Chicago.

While our site has a healthy relationship with Mythic, and is in constant contact with them online, it’s definitely another thing to meet game developers in person. I’ve done this quite a few times – at shows and at events, but as far as Mythic goes, this is the closest I’ve been to getting an insight into the games development industry.

The most important lesson I’ve learned so far? Mythic’s developers – and frankly developers in general, are actually people, too.

Shocking, right? But stick with me here. I’ve got a point to my Captain Obvious statement.

All too often, I think that the reason why players tend to be so acerbic on the internet towards game devs is because they’re not cognizant of the fact that like us, they have hopes, desires, failings, and successes. Developers – even the worst ones – don’t set out to make a game that doesn’t meet expectations or worse, falls flat on its face. The kinds of attitudes and ideas that many gamers have about good games are the same kinds of passions that developers have as well. You can see this when you actually talk to someone on the development team – not over chat, not over forums, but when you are standing there face-to-face with them. This weekend, for example, I jawed with someone from Mythic’s Dungeons and Encounters team. Every time we would chat about the kinds of things that he designed, you could see the same glint of passion that is in the most persistent of regular players like myself.

To players, developers are many times relegated to something that isn’t human – a bug, a crash, a class imbalance, and ultimately, a product. These are very non-human – heck, non-sentient things, objects if you will, and as is the case with objects, we don’t tend to treat them as well as we do a person – and why would we? It’s not like objects feel, or understand our various frustrations. But humans do. This is ultimately why whenever I’ve been critical of something, as I most certainly have for the products that are made by Mythic (DAoC, and now WAR), that I’m respectful, too. There’s a person on the other side of the keyboard reading what I write, and if I can get upset enough to write something in an enraged fit, they can get upset enough to affect them negatively as well – in which case, no one really wins in the end.

Note that I’m not really saying to walk on eggshells for fear of hurting feelings. I’ve never been afraid to put Mythic, or any other developer’s feet to the fire. I’m just saying you’ve got people doing a job, just like you, putting in their hours, just like you, and cutting a paycheck to pay their bills, just like you – but unlike you, they aren’t under constant scrutiny. In that respect, if you can’t level a criticism to someone that you would say in the same way to their face and not get punched for it, then you probably should think twice before posting it. Treat developers like they were human, give them feedback that humans can process, and you’ll probably get, unsurprisingly, responses and results that are human and will speak to your needs.

At the risk of seeming like I’m “going native”, Mythic’s people have been among the most personable and varied I’ve seen in my exposure to game developers, something I’d know even if I didn’t have a good relationship with them. It’s eerie to see how much their team has in common with actual players, from glee over certain geekery pasttimes, to the amount of time they play games (even their own – yes, they do play), to what kinds of things they might shake their head over in the industry at large. It’s almost a flaw – because in being so close to human, they’ve made a few kneejerk mistakes in WAR’s development in response to player concerns that have hurt them. But I’m betting that many development studios, and not just Mythic, are filled with people who care about making and playing a good game as you are about talking about it.

It’s no secret that WAR is in a fight to remain steady and soldier through the next few months, after taking a dip in subs, the loss of their long-time CEO/GM/VP and face of the company, and with new releases on the horizon. But if it does ultimately fail, it won’t be for lack of trying, desire, or passion on the part of the Mythic team. After all, that’s what humans have when they’re out to achieve a goal.

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July 25, 2009

You Know Games Are Mainstream Part 3….

by Frank — Categories: Gaming — Tags: , — Leave a comment
Wii Sports Resort - E3 2009
Image by Tanzen80 via Flickr

When you’re willing to fill sand and create a beach in the middle of a major city landmark (thanks Destructoid).

I mean, sure, this is the Wii, so I know that it might not actually count, but regardless of the company, who’s willing to do that these days?

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