Party!

If you know me in RL and you read this blog, then you're invited to my halloween party on Saturday. Drop me an email at home (not work) and let me know if you're coming and I'll send you the details. Halloween themed dress is essential.

GamerZ at UGC Edinburgh Free preview at 6pm

A Scottish movie about gamers, even if it is PnP. What could be more appropriate! Here's the blurb:

"GAMERZ is a new full length comedy movie from Scotland – an engaging love triangle with a strong twist of fantasy!

The hero is Ralph (Ross Finbow), a young nerd from a bad neighborhood who’s on his way to university for the first time. Ralph is completely downtrodden in life, but he escapes from a cruel reality that he can’t control by creating insanely detailed fantasy game worlds (as in fantasy games such as “Dungeons and Dragons” and “Tunnels and Trolls”), where he is firmly in charge, as “Game Keeper”.

When Ralph arrives at university he immediately takes over the fantasy role-playing society in a ruthless coup. His new players include neurotic risk management student Davy (Johnny Austin) metal-head theology student Hank (Ross Sutherland) and, most importantly, the beautiful Marlyn (Danielle Stewart), a crazy Goth chick who believes she is an elf. She’s the ultimate object of geek lust, and Ralph falls for her hard.

But there’s a fly in the ointment: Ralph’s old enemy from the hood, minor dope dealer Lennie (James Young) who has undergone a near-religious conversion to all things fantastical having watched a LORD OF THE RINGS triple bill while on acid. Now he’s desperate to take part in Ralph’s game. Under pain of violence Ralph agrees to let him play, but soon regrets it, when he notices a spark between Lennie and Marlyn. The seeds of a bitter love triangle are sown, and the story soon snowballs towards an inexorable apocalyptic explosion of freakish, geekish angst!"

There are still tickets! Get to the UGC in Edinburgh if you can.

CoV runs on dual PIII 733mhz

Props to NCsoft and Cryptic Studios. Their City of Villans beta works on the old dual PIII 733mhz system with a 128meg Ti4200 graphics card, 512megs of 133 SDRAM and not much else! Not bad considering the age of this particular PC's technology. It doesn't look as shiny as it does on the DX9 machine, and the game doesn't load as quickly between instances (I'm not a fan of instances) but nevertheless, its playable.

This is the holiday snap. Me, the missus and the pet ninja out at the beach. Just before we dissapeared down a Snake pit to take out the evil Snarsus, who apparently is giving some headaches to the evil gang of villans we are trying to impress. Could that be the Bass Rock in the background?

Civilisation IV out in a few days in the UK

Well, it's a good job I'm on holiday just now and that my computer is with me. I've got more than enough gaming to keep me going between all the other stuff getting packed in the day. To make things worse, Civilization IV is out very soon, and depending on where you purchase it, it could be in your hands by the weekend! Game have the release date listed as 4th November. Tesco (who can be quite cheap for games) and Play.com have indicated an earlier date - the 28th - and it's £10 cheaper on Play than Game. Taking free postage into account from Jersey, I'll be surprised if the game is with me by the weekend.

There are not enough hours in the day.

CoV revisited

OK - well, after downloading the 2.4gig "patch" for the second time - I manage to log in to City of Villans Open Beta.

My first impressions are that it's exceptionally similar to City of Heroes in almost every aspect. But that's no bad thing I guess, if you're a big fan of CoH, which I'm not.

The avatars are still bound by the same sort of rules for customisation as CoH but this time there is a "beast" option. So, see below for Mastermind Kroy as a beast. The grey guy behind him is Kroy's pet ninja.

I guess the game is kinda fun, but not enough to keep me paying the subscription, when Pay to Play comes in the next few days.

City of Villans Beta Disaster

Why did NCSoft decide to use a mailing list which I suspect was created from all the lapsed subscription accounts, to send out an invite to beta test their latest title, when they knew the log-in servers were down? The least loyal, most dissastisfied customers are met with the message that the password is not valid. So we think we've made a mistake, until shortly after I visit the forums to find the only thread that discusses the current issue has been locked by the forum mods. Gheesh - dishonest or lazy? If the servers are down - say that the servers are down. Don't accuse your beta testers that they have made a mistake with their password or username.

Way to go - this close to launch and the last wave of invites proves so popular that the server crashes. OOps. That doesn't bode well for release.

I'll check back on CoV sometime soon, but meanwhile the only test feedback I've given is that I can't log in.

mad as Hell about the video game industry

"Jack Thompson doesn't want your money. He isn't asking you to be a client. What he wants is for you to get up out of your chair because you're as mad as Hell about the video game industry's assault on our children and you're not going to take it anymore!

These people will not stop. They mentally molest minors for money, which is the root of all sorts of evil."

Errr, that'll be computer games then. The new rock and roll. More on this guy as I find it, there's plenty material out there. Look to http://www.stopkill.com/ for the original post.

Dark and Light MMORPG moves to open-beta/free trial

Interesting approach to launch a new game - make it sound like it is free but then confuse people with talk of pre-order keys. Or is it just a creative way to have people sign up to an open-beta test? Either way, it seems like the Dark and Light MMORPG title will be available to us all very soon!

Here's a quote from their newsletter:


November 2005, the first pionners will tread upon the land of Ganareth, choose their character, their Dark or Light

alignment, and begin the reconquest of territories in Ganareth...

You will be the first conquerors to reclaim Ganareth, also you will be the first to build the fortresses, and the first to obtain the titles of nobility...

8881, The settlers of Ganareth, the prelude of the great epic that is Dark and Light begins!

This Dark and Light prelude will be free to access. Also a limited number of Dark and Light game keys will be available from November via pre-ordering, and this will give access to an inevitable pack of features. Keep your eyes open, Dark and Light, the genesis, is on its way!

GET TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SETTLERS OF GANARETH

NOVEMBER 2005

8881, you are one of the few to know about the secrets of the Immortals. Your fight is coming to an end and the War is almost over thanks to your high deeds, already told in minstrels' songs.

Your name is about to enter legend, your decisions and actions will impact the future of the world, and people will follow your path. Dark or Light, your choice, will have an impact on it all. Do not hesitate to prove that your choice is right, and that your magic is immensely more powerful than the other one...<

You are among Gothar's chosen ones, you are the first to walk on the land of Ganareth,
- Not all kingdoms have been recaptured and pacified. Launch the recapture of Dark and Light kingdoms,
- Strategic tools bring a new tactical dimension to your fights,
- Travel the world of Ganareth and increase your knowledge and skills,
- A dedicated game management team in 5 languages

Online Profiles - Identity Theft/hacking?

Time for a real life cybercrime story - that happened to me!

Many moons ago, I played a game called Everquest Online Adventures. I happened back to check up on an old contact I made in the community... imagine my surprise when I find my good name (online anyways) had been dragged through the mud? Someone had compromised either my account or the server and started to abuse my admin powers there. Here's the original announcement:

"All.

I am sorry to have to announce this. However.

Since Kroy left Stonewatchers in my hands, I have endeavoured to keep it running with the minimum of intervention needed on my or the moderators part.

I have banned 2 people and both of those were for frequent misuse and at the behest of yourselves.

Now, I find today that not only does Kroy attempt to sell his accounts on here, which we originally frown upon, but he demotes me to USER level and bans Slam for his right to speak.

I have now demoted Kroy to user and established myself as Admin again. The only issue now is that we may lose the www.stonewatchers.com address, as it is owned and controlled by Kroy still. I am currently investigating whether this was Kroy or whether someone has hacked his account. I hope it wasnt as Kroy was a very nice guy.

To this end, if you still use this forum and know people that do, please add http://mercury.robustserver.com/~xfranc/stonewatchers/eqoa into your browsers."

Kinda spooky having someone tresspass on my account.

The post above is from a successful community set up initially by myself and handed over to Xfranc when I left the game. I guess it could have been worse, but still kinda worrying what people can do when they get hold of your password, even if it is only useful in a small (and old) part of your life.

Another web comic

Always good for the lunchtimes when you feel too lazy to go outside:

The Noob Comic

Thanks to Sorced for pointing me to that one.

Privacy Versus MMORPG security

Just spotted this interesting nugget of comment and "analysis" from someone who has been tinkering with WoW:

http://www.rootkit.com/blog.php?newsid=358

His comments are still in need of verification from other technical wizards, but the author suggests that 4.5 million copies of World of Warcraft contains spyware, which all users agree to install via the EULA.

Certainly the author doesn't say the information gathered by the Blizzard installed software is communicating with Blizzard, questionable if the software in question is spyware therefor, but he does have convincing proof that the little "security" programme is pretty invasive at the client side.

Certainly, as mentioned in earlier posts, there is a big debate about the affect of bots, macroers and other general cheaters, but does that warrant having a third party sniffing around your PC to see what other "nasties" it can pick up running in the background while you are playing a game?

There could be quite a nasty backlash against Blizzard if anything more sinister is found and this news travels past the blogosphere.

Managing MMORPG community perception

Never underestimate the power of the community forum - it can work for community owners and it can really rear up to bite them.

One thing that strikes me looking at numerous beta and pre-beta communities is that there will always be people bitching about everything. That's a given - no matter if the game is beta or gold. Perhaps the most common criticism directed to those managing a game's community (often the development studios themselves) is that when things "hit the fan" it's perfectly acceptable to ignore your community.

More often than not, if the online service is working, Dev's will not hear a peep from the majority, but it's when things go wrong... it's then the topics start to bulge with replies, ever-increasing in their angered criticisms. Despite more sensible authors appealing for calm, the momentum builds into a virtual lynch mob, braying for blood.

One thing I don't understand is why the people who bitch about delay in patch deployment, server upgrades or other new content or client versions seemingly sway the community managers more than those who bitch about the lack of communication.

Why is this?

I think it would be better for the community managers to come clean when things are delayed, or when they are broken in the first place. If it's a question of community perception - In most cases, and particularly true for MMORPGS - the community managers will find a significantly larger percentage of their community willing to support and vociferously defend them against anyone authoring another whining post about yet another delay or error.

There's surely more to lose by NOT keeping the community members in the loop and with quick follow up on posts - which can take only a few minutes! For many Devs it's probably the easiest way to buy themselves even MORE time and more love, from their community.

Other than that, I can't think of another reason why community managers don't post updates more regular and reliable updates when things are wrong. Many online community members will read this and shrug "Just sit back and wait" or "it's always been like this". But whether or not it's common place - it's just exceptionally bad practice from those whose income is solely derived from the community they support.

iMP Update

500 shows, 300 hours, 7 days of BBC programmes - right on my desktop. The BBCiMP (interactive media player) is looking like a good idea from first glances.

Ok, so you need to have IE 5.5+ and Windows Media player 9+ on your computer, but those services are used pretty transparently. Once the programme is opened and in your system tray, I closed IE and went back to Firefox usage without any complaints.

As I write this I've got last week's episode of spooks playing at a decent bitrate which I downloaded over a P2P network at around 750k/s. At full screen the quality visuals and sound is pretty good. It's not quite TV broadcast quality, but it's bloody impressive considering it's streaming at 1600*1200.

The DRM is some sort of downloaded license, probably managed by Windows Media.

More on iMP when I get to grips with it.

Cinema Advertising

After reading reports over on Technollama's blog, of evil pirates stealing the trade of the movie industry, I find a report from the cinema screen advertising company Carlton Screen Advertising which says that cinema attendance is up!

"Total cinema admissions in the UK reached 16.02m in July 2005, which was the strongest month of the year-to-date and the second highest for that month since 1995"

There were a few obvious hits in July this year to make it such a good month: War of the Worlds, Madagascar, and Fantastic Four. 1995 was bouyed by errr... well actually I'm not sure what was on in July 1995 that made it such a fantastic month. Batman Forever? Casper the Friendly Ghost? Babe didn't come out till December that year, so it couldn't have been that... anyways.... Statistics are curious things.

Carlton's research shows that as many, if not more people are going to the cinema in July of 2005 than in previous 9 years. Broadband and DVD writers have only been readily available in the past couple of years, so who is telling the truth about relationship between cinema attendance figures and the ebil pierats?

Carlton Screen Advertising must really hate the MPAA who do more to publicise how easy it is to get movies on the Internet than they probably realise.

Be worth watching these figures with the recent release of decent broadband (20 meg cable and 24meg ADSL 2+) in the UK.