Mayhaps Diablo III?

Okay okay. Blizzard are now officially masters of viral marketing, as if they weren’t before. In case you’ve been living under a rock, over the last few days, they’ve slowly been revealing a pair of glowing eyes in a sky surrounded by ice crystals. Here are the pictures thus far:

Included with all of this are images numbered with the LOST numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. I don’t watch LOST, and after seeing what the images reveal, I’m glad:

Looks like we’ve got ourselves an evil Penguin. Awesome. So now we’ve got two big glowing eyes, a bunch of Runes, and an evil Penguin. Several theories abound:

1. Diablo III. Everyone knows the eyes line up, whoop-dee-doo. The problem with this is that every inhuman character Blizzard has ever created has the SAME EXACT EYES. Check it:

   
   
   
   They all look alike. The only difference is the Wanderer’s eyes are orange. Big deal. If it IS Diablo III, it could be that hell has frozen over or something, which would explain the ice in the splash art. Also, I did a little snooping where no one has snooped yet, and have discovered that Blizzard bought out Diablo3.com. The fact that it was bought back in 1998 doesn’t surprise me. What IS interesting is that it was last updated on June 18th, just a little over a week ago. Obviously there’s nothing up there quite yet, but this means someone at Blizzard logged into the account and is getting the server space ready or somesuch. I still think Diablo III is a likely candidate, mostly based on Blizzard accessing the sever last Wednesday. Seems to me that accessing a server for the first time in 10 years has got to mean something.

2. Many people think it’s a Protoss Zealot, especially because of the Protoss rune located in the bottom left of the image. It’s an interesting theory, although it’d be a bit head-scratch worthy if it is. We all know StarCraft 2 is on the way. We don’t need a reminder. Especially not after all the nightmares I’ve had of Zerg rushes since the announcement.
3. Could also be the Death Knight from WOW, or even Arthas. This seems possible, although, again, a bit strange since we already know Wrath of the Lich King is on the way (a.k.a. Frozen Throne Part 2). However, after rewatching the ending to Frozen Throne, I’ve noticed a few things that make this very possible. In the beginning, there is a giant blue crack in the sky. At the end, Arthas is high up above the ground on the giant icicle, and his eyes glow blue and look exactly like every other pair of Blizzard eyes.

Final thoughts? Could be Diablo, could be Arthas. Most likely Arthas. The evil pengiuns are probably the equivalent of Murlocs up in Northrend. Murlocs, being repitilian, must be cold blooded and therefore would never survive. However, Northrend is obviously up North, and Penguins live in Antarctica, not the North Pole… but who gives a crap about that, right? I mean what else are they going to populate it with? Coca Cola has mixed penguins and polar bears together already. Long story short? It doesn’t have to make sense. It just is.

My personal theory about the eyes? It’s Rob Pardo giving an evil grin, laughing at us for being so gullible and thinking it was Diablo or Arthas (not far off, though. JK Rob).

Windows Shopping

I have a strange obsession with browsing around Steam and Man!festo Games, especially on Fridays for weekend deals, even though I know I’m most likely not going to buy anything. It’s not that I don’t want to. There’s so much I would if only I had the dinero. Bioshock for one (though I am hoping to win that in the fall from the ECA), Penny-Arcade Adventures, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R (Chernobyl and Clear Sky), etc. etc. I’m way behind on my gaming. In fact, apparently I am closing in on the end of Crisis Core, and Square Enix had the balls to tell me just that. It was basically like, “Hey asshole, guess what? You’ve only done 18% of the side missions and the game is ending in the next scene. I’d get on that if I were you.”

Meanwhile I am still yet to beat Max Payne 2, even though I am world champion of Poets of the Fall’s “Late Goodbye,” the theme to Max Payne 2, on Audiosurf (casual, pro, and elite). I’m at the part where you play as Mona and have to save Max. Am yet to memorize where all the bad guys are so I can snipe them.

Meanwhile, progress on Triwing continues. I have finished the Triwing model and am currently texturing it. I probably won’t put as much effort into most of the enemy ships (except the bosses). Am debating the 3D FMV’s, but they would be super cool. All depends on how much time I have for it. NightRise team will be here soon and I’m going to have to make a lot of time for that.

However, I also need to purchase Multimedia Fusion Developer 2 to develop Triwing, so buying any more games or music will have to wait in the meantime. And that makes me a sad panda.

Breathable Air

If there’s one thing that makes me love Boston a billion times more than Savannah, it’s that the air is clean up here. No swamps or paper mills to ruin the experience. We’re stuck in between the ocean and the mountains. It’s a perfect spot for a city (take note New Orleans).

It hasn’t been much of a vacation so far though. Have started work on a brand new board game, and now that my desktop has arrived (along with Stalin’s Stash in near perfect condition) I can start some work on Triwing. The NightRise team should be up here in about a month. It’s very exciting to know we’ll actually be working on it this summer.

Speaking of NightRise, I can’t remember how long it’s been since I thought about it. Stalin’s Stash completely took over my life and I forgot I was even making it. It’s going to be tough to get back into the swing of it. I’ll manage.

I was going to do another rant about the ESA, but it almost seems unnecessary. I’ll do one later if I’m drunk.

Off to Staples to go pick up supplies.

Home

I arrived back in Boston a couple days ago and it’s good to be home. The weather is much more acceptable than Savannah’s, and the food is delicious. Plus I’ve gotten to dive through my parent’s vinyl collection and discovered a bunch of Tull records: Stand Up, 2 Benefits, Aqualung, A Passion Play, Warchild, and Bursting Out, all in perfect condition. Stand Up even has the popup band picture. It is the awesomes.

At some point soon I have to go to Staples and pick up some stuff for some paper prototypes. Index cards, paper, pencils, ruler, tape, glue… mostly “back to school” stuff, interestingly enough. It’s weird that there is a correlation between developing a paper prototype and getting ready for Second Grade.

I also have to learn how to use Multimedia Fusion 2 when my computer gets here in a couple days. I doubt that will take me very long, though, and then I can get started on other projects.

For now, I’m just taking a few days maxing and relaxing all cool and all shooting some b-ball outside of school when a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started making trouble in our neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared she said “you’re moving in with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.”

Sudden Availability of Abandonware

I just noticed something very interesting up on Abandonia. With the departure of Vivendi, Lucasarts, and Activision from the ESA, their old games have now effectively become abandonware. Now this doesn’t seem like something I’m inclined to immediately believe. It seems to me that a copyright with the Library of Congress is enough to protect a work of art from being within the public domain, and you do not need an association to necessarily protect your art for you. That being said, let me get this out of the way:

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would seriously be excited to play some of my old favorites again. But what bugs me is that Lucasarts, Activision, and Vivendi most likely isn’t the end of companies leaving the ESA. It’s only a matter of time before other companies follow in suit, and when they do, that means their old games will become abandonware too. It’s like, imagine you make music, and you decide to go indie and sell all your stuff online like Nine Inch Nails, but in doing so, you’ve forfeited all rights to your old music and now anyone can download it for free.

So far these companies’ games are not downloadable. However, if they are made so, is it a conscious choice on the part of the developers? A punishment by the ESA for them leaving? Or is it just the internet’s way of finding loopholes as quickly as possible?

So Close… urgh

I didn’t make it into Applied Game Design because I was out getting Stalin’s Stash printed when it opened up to registration. This has thrown my entire next year off whack. Basically, I’m going to have to force myself to do my own version of Applied over the summer because there is only a very slim chance I’ll get in at this point. Julia has opted to take Studio 1 over so she can work more on her modeling, something she did not get to do in this Studio 1 class. I totally support that. That way we can take Studio 2 together. But we’ll still be working on NightRise over the summer so it’s all good yo.

I’m going to be working on more projects this summer than I ever have in a short period of time. First of all, there’s NightRise and a remake of Triwing in a fully-realized format. Those are my digital projects. Then there’s attempting to find a publisher for Stalin’s Stash, as well as doing a followup (you heard me; I am milking this Sociopolitical Economics theme), remaking a couple of my old games from childhood… I think I’d like to do a trading card game too, but that could be a bit of an undertaking. Really I just want to make a bunch of small, fun board games; one to two more strategic board games; one board game that’s really attention-grabbing; a card game or two; plus NightRise and Triwing. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

For now I leave you with a picture of Stalin’s Stash. Just a tease for now. We’re looking into publishers so keep your fingers crossed you see this on shelves by the end of this year.

Make Me ESA Boss!

With Activision and LucasArts leaving the ESA due to supposedly shoddy leadership (not my opinion, just their’s) I’ve decidedto throw my hat into the ring and oppose Mike Wilson’s nomination for ESA Boss by nominating myself. What makes me qualified to be ESA boss? Check out this AWESOME bullet-point list:

• I likes to play the video games.
• I likes to MAKE the video games.
• My hands fit the original XBox Controller, and you know what they say about guys with hands that fit the original XBox Controller!
• I still say Dreamcast is the best console EVAR.
• I people person.
• I support the rotting of children’s minds.
• I support tax breaks for anyone who owns an Arcade machine (10% video game, 15% physical game [like Crane Game or Skeeball), 25% pinball [26% if it's Addam's Family Pinball])
• I will make E3 awesome again by reintroducing booth babes and bringing back live music and no volume restrictions.
• I support legalization of playing imported games on a Region 1 consoles via modding.

So since November is coming up quickly upon us, I urge all of you to vote for ME when Mike Gallagher’s spot opens up. I will make video games more awesome and brutal than they have ever been before!

The Next Big Thing

I was once told, “Make a game you love, because nobody will love your game if you don’t.” Whenever I start making a game, or even while I’m making a game, I always ask myself two questions:

1. Do I love this game?
2. Will anyone else love this game?

The first is an easy enough question to answer. Very often, your answer will be yes, simply because you think your game is going to be the next big thing, but don’t jump ahead of yourself and use your assumptions to answer question number two.

The second question can be easily answered by someone with way too much confidence, only to find out that, in fact, no one likes their game. You must keep in mind that while you may be developing a great game, it is not the next big thing until it actually becomes The Next Big Thing. Getting the game done is the first priority, and there’s only one way to make sure people love it: playtest with you in the other room. If you can plop your game down in front of friends or total strangers and have them play it successfully, you have a working game. To have them leave the game smiling is the accomplishment you want to aim for.

So you’ve got your game and you’ve nailed down the mechanics and rules and people can understand it by skimming through the manual or mucking with the controller for a couple minutes. So how exactly do you make this game The Next Big Thing?

Controversy.

Every time a bell rings, an angel earns its wings, and every time you hear the words “Grand Theft Auto IV” on CNN or Fox News, a thousand more copies get sold. Controversy is the cheapest form of advertisement, because you get people who are pissed off at you to inadvertently sell your game. Usually it’s because the people criticizing your game come speak in such an uncivilized and uneducated tone as to alienate themselves from the general public. This is what you want. This is what moves product. This is why GTA4 has raked in over $500 million. They don’t even really need to advertise. Honestly, Rockstar should just cut out their advertising department entirely and let the reporters, concerned mothers, and lawyers do all the selling for them. Just for another example, I’m currently developing a game about Stalin. Do you think I’m not going to put Stalin’s face all over it just because he ruled with an iron fist over Russia for several decades? Hell no. Stalin is the selling point,

Remember that scene in Adaptation after the screenwriting seminar when Nick Cage/Charlie Kaufman is talking to Brian Cox about how he is making a movie only about flowers and wants to show the beauty of flowers, etc. etc. to which Brian Cox responds, “That’s not a movie.” If you’re only making a game about flowers, well, that’s not a game. Not in the public’s eye. A niche market? Cult following? Sure. Will it be the next WoW? God no. It might be a great game. It might be the game you’ve always wanted to make, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to love it as much as you.

Probably one of the greatest examples of controversy in a game is one Julia is designing. I’m not going to give it away but I’ll just say that every time it comes up, my jaw drops and I crack up at the same time. And it’s not even the same brand of controversy as GTA4. It’s really much more twisted.

So in closing this post, my suggestion to all of you who read this blog (all two of you) is to never be afraid to shock people to sell your game. That’s what free speech is for. The more people you anger, the better your game is going to do. Granted, you can take subtler routes to your controversy as well, if you don’t want to deal with as much hatemail. But when it comes down to it, if you want your game to be The Next Big Thing, you better show us why.

Early Morning Learning Experience

So after much trial and error tonight I have FINALLY figured out all the kinks of Monty’s renderfarm. This is the first year I’ve really had to use it. The computers are working much faster tonight now that there aren’t 50,000 people accessing the server all at once. They were unbearable this morning. But all is well now, and my project is rendering nicely on the renderfarm. Will probably take a while, though, and then it’s on to Shake.

Ah Shake, Apple’s dumbest invention since iMovie. Is it powerful? Yes, I’ll admit that. But whoever thought that actually having to shake nodes violently to detach them from other nodes is a good idea should go to hell and burn eternally. That and this whole arbitrary number of nodes a node can be attached to. A lot of it really doesn’t make any sense. How I miss using Photoshop for everything.

What sucks is once my Luminance Depth layer has finished rendering, I have to boot into Linux to use Shake and finish up this project… well, that’s not entirely true. First I get to animate these stills in After Effects. THEN it’s onto Shake. Then finish the compositing, bring it back into After Effects for the name plate, and finally submit this project that has been giving me nightmares for two weeks. Is it my best work? Definitely not. I unfortunately phoned this one in so I’d get a C. The depth of field fog will help the horrible forest texture in the background. At least the trees are good. But I’ll be amazed if I get a B. I’m redoing my first two projects next week anyway.

Ok well my luminance renders are done so I’m off to animate.

Further and Further Into Debt

This game is very slowly bankrupting me, and that doesn’t take much for a college student. So far I’ve dropped about $73 on this game, with more expenses on the way. Granted, to develop any game for under $100 is a feat (although I’m not sure how much Julia has spent) but what with me already being basically FLAT BROKE already this is kind of hurting.

However, I’ve already got another idea for the next game in the Commie Series so keep an eye out for that this summer.

I really have no idea how I’m going to be able to afford to continue making board games. Hopefully most of what we used can be used again, like the spray paint and such. Luckily the boards and boxes are cheap enough, it’s just a matter of affording everything else. But I planned for this earlier this year. I knew this would happen and so there’s really only one logical path you can take:

Publication.

Those of you who know me know I hate publishers. I’ve had bad experiences with them in the past and so if we’re going to get these games published they have to be with a company run by people I can trust and who aren’t going to just keep all the money for themselves. It’s a risky endeavor but it’s the only way to make back what we spent making it.

Luckily I know some places up in Boston that would probably love to carry it. I just need to get in touch with them once we have our game finished. Then we show it to them and get an idea of interest, then bring that and the game to a publisher, get it printed, and see how it does.

I’m going to go set up a Board Games section of the DeviateSoft website. Expect to see that up tonight.