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This month’s local game developer meeting (open to everyone!) promises to be a good one. I’ll have to see if I can come even though I have family out. The authors of Grand Theft Childhood will be presenting! The gathering will take place at The Skellig in Waltham on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 7:00PM. More info on the Boston Post Mortem website. [Link]

Video has been posted of the “All the World’s a Game” panel at Supernova from a few weeks back. (I previously blogged about a summary written by The UpTake Blog). Now you too can see the arguments over dorodango… [Link]

So I was all excited on Monday to order my Blizzard Authenticator (which are now sold out). I don’t know why I want one so bad, but an extra level of security is a good thing. If my account were ever hacked and stripped, I know I wouldn’t keep playing. I’ve spent too much time to lose it all. So, I placed an order for two authenticators (one for me and my boyfriend) on Monday, and got next-day shipping. I realized immediately after placing my order that it picked my billing address as my shipping address, and since I live … [Link]

At this point, everyone is talking about the Age of Conan issue with DPS. In short, they tied doing damage to a trigger in the animation sequence, which meant that slower animations would do damage at a different rate than faster ones. And all the female combat anims are slower, so all the female characters do less damage per second. From a game grammar point of view, this is a clear example of getting the wrong end of the stick. Recall the distinctions between the “salad” and the “dressing” of a game — the “salad” is the actual game, and … [Link]

This came through the letterbox today: I don't know what it is about Chinese Restaurants and naff names, but it's as if they choose them deliberately. If enough people consciously choose to play to a stereotype, is it still a stereotype? [Link]

I should have said "puncanny valley". [Link]

Greg LWe're very pleased to announce that Bruce Damer, a well-known virtual world pioneer who has been a guest author here (twice) has accepted our invitation to join us as a regular author. Below is a short bio about Bruce's past… [Link]

The excellent new Official Team Fortress 2 Blog discusses their class design process. Greg Spence reveals SOE San Diego’s “on-site brand new usability lab” and its role in testing EQ2’s new voice chat feature. (I am pretty sure that exactly nobody uses WoW’s recent voice chat feature, but as we all know, voice chat is THE FUTURE. Yeah! That guy from Vivox is the SIXTH most influential person in the industry! … Also, we can’t have other games having features we don’t.) (Actually, I’m actually kind of disappointed that I never hear kiddies using WoW’s voice chat in battlegrounds.) A … [Link]

© Jeff Freeman for Jeff Freeman, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us digg Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under Quickpost.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Language of origin please?", url: "http://mythicalblog.com/index~ }); [Link]

Two addendums to the latest podcast… First, we know there has been little to no meat in the podcasts so far. Now that we have our podcast legs, the next one will have some good stuff in it. Second, we left off the donation plea at the end! Thanks again to Genda, jason, Cyanbane, Nybling, and Nocte for donating! Find out how to donate to the podcast here. [Link]

[Just to be clear, this is satire, it has never happened exactly this way... yet] From: Disgruntled Player To: Unsuspecting Community Manager Sent: Last Saturday, at 3:27AM Subject: Problems with [A Department That is not Community Relations] Hey there [Community Manager]! I wanted to bring a serious problem to your attention about my recent interactions with… From: Disgruntled Player To: Unsuspecting Community [...] [Link]

I made a cute desktop using WoW Model Viewer and lots of Photoshopping. Basically, this is depicting me (in Tauren form) blaming me (in Tree of Life form) for killing Tertiary (my warrior boyfriend on the floor) in Karazhan. Tertiary dies a lot. Click to enlarge! [Link]

I know, it sounds wacky, but EA is considering taking The Sims… Online. A senior executive at Electronic Arts (EA), the company which owns the Sims franchise, said that in light of the popularity of virtual worlds and other computer games which allow players to compete with each other via the web, the Sims may soon become a multi-player game. In other news, EA’s DICE subsidiary also considering making the Battlefield franchise playable over the Internet. [Link]

It’s not often that a single post can be articulate, nerdy, informative, funny, and fascinating all at once, but James Wallis manages to hit every one of those marks in an article analyzing the virtual world of Azeroth from a scholarly perspective. As someone who designs the geography of game worlds, I enjoyed the data gathering aspects of this article. And as a writer who appreciates a tongue-in-cheek approach while sounding very serious, the post made me chuckle. You can also check out a video of Wallis’ live presentation here. (Note: The title for this article is drawn from one … [Link]

I see Desk Tops. From left to right: Linux, Mac, Keyboard & Mouse, Windows (Saitek joystick just off-camera to the right). So what, you’re wondering? So what? It’s what you’re not seeing that matters, thanks to this awesome little application: Synergy. Each monitor is plugged into a different computer, but Synergy allows me to use one mouse/keyboard to control [...] [Link]

Thomas MalabySo Age of Conan seems to have opened strong, and I'm eager to play it, I guess. I'm not a big fan of the Conan series, but I really miss gritty realism after so long in cartoony WoW, and everything… [Link]

Conan females do less DPS than males do because their special attack animations are longer. Even better, it would take too much artist time to fix anytime soon. Sara is on the case. [Link]

© Jeff Freeman for Jeff Freeman, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us digg Who's linking ? Technorati BlogPulse Google Want more on these topics ? Browse the archive of posts filed under Quickpost.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Get it?", url: "http://mythicalblog.com/index~ }); [Link]

I love the serendipity factor of the Internet. Right after I post the last post on whether players know what they want, I see that Richard at QBlog has a ranked list of survey results from players on what they said they wanted in their muds back in 1985. Here’s a sampling: Intelligent mobiles 25 Conversing with mobiles 22 Regularly improved 19 Messages to pick up later 15 Lots of rooms 14 Lots of players 11 Speed of response 10 Long textual descriptions 9 Never crashes 9 International game 6 Built-in adverts -3 Graphics -3 Check the link for the … [Link]

There has been a lot of criticism towards the game industry, accusing them of being unoriginal. Sequels, sequels, everywhere. Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, GTA 4, Halo 3, The Sims 3, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, not to mention the annual versions of various sports games. Why can’t game companies be more original? Because game companies are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, making the games that players want, and the players don’t want original games. — Tobold’s MMORPG Blog: Follow the money If I say to you, “do you want chocolate ice cream?” you probably say yes. … [Link]