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This is a really great list!
My favorite of the bunch:
Angel
The first few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer were sublime. A lot of that had to do with the endlessly frustrating eternal soul connection between Buffy, who killed vampires, and Angel, who was one. But by the end of Season 3, there was little ground left to cover in their relationship. Since Whedon fans, being Whedon fans, weren’t ready to say good-bye to the character yet, David Boreanaz got a series of his own — in which, for the most part, he tries to redeem all the bad he’s done in the world as a private detective in Los Angeles. It was a weird concept, and the first season was bumpy, but somehow it worked out.
Now that most of the “video games cause violence” people have been debunked and discredited, I guess the anti-video game freaks had to crank things up a notch.
Playing the rape card: “Media psychiatrist” ratchets up anti-videogame rhetoric
Pundits and legislators have been attacking the gaming industry for decades now, pinning the blame for tragic events like the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech on violent videogames. This week, self-described “media psychiatrist” Carole Lieberman took that war of words one step further, claiming that explicit games trigger rapes.
“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in videogames,” Lieberman told Fox News in an article, sensationally headlined “Is Bulletstorm the Worst Videogame in the World?” The story discusses the violence and sexual innuendo in developer Epic Games’ upcoming first-person shooter.
Though extremists like Jack Thompson have attacked violent videogames on multiple fronts in the past, this is the first time we’ve heard anyone link gaming to sexual aggression. By playing the rape card, Lieberman ratcheted up the rhetoric in the crusade against violent videogames — and whipped up fury among gamers, who attacked her remarks in online forums (and even bombed her books with negative reviews on Amazon.com).
Despite the seriousness of Lieberman’s allegations, when asked by Wired.com multiple times to clarify her comments, she failed to cite a single study, statistic, or piece of evidence that proved her point.
Perhaps it’s because such studies simply don’t exist.
I really hope this woman’s career and reputation are rapidly destroyed for making such asinine and potentially destructive claims.
This is the $64,000 question in the big time MMO industry. Can SWTOR compete with WoW, and if so, by doing what?
Star Wars vs. Azeroth: Blizzard and Bioware talk competition
What do you think? Can SWTOR compete? If so, how? And more interestingly, what is your prediction?
 Is anyone here playing DCUO or have you heard anything about it?
Here is the Bright Hub Review of DCUO. That review is a mixed reaction. I’d love to hear from other people who may have played it.
This is one of the most delicate things in game design. When is it ok to force players to do something they otherwise would not want to do? To what extent is it acceptable to do this, and to what extent is it not?
I am going to start with the premise that it is ok to do this SOMETIMES. Some people may feel it is never acceptable to do this to players, and I’d be happy to hear arguments to that effect.
It you continue from my belief that it is ever acceptable, the question then is how often and when. As a developer, figure out your motivation in forcing a player to do this thing – whether its raiding, questing, PvP, or some other game feature.
Why do you want the player to do this thing? Is it a type of gameplay you really want them to experience? Is it to prepare them for some aspect of the game in the future? Are you just being butthurt that players don’t like something you created, and thus you want to force them to do it because gosh darnit they’re going to learn to love it?
If you are forcing players to do something to prepare them for a later, important aspect of the game, that’s a good reason.
If you are forcing players to do something because you honestly believe they will enjoy it if they give it a shot, that’s a pretty good reason. But if it turns out they still hate it, then you better be willing to revisit the idea and remove the requirement.
If you are forcing players to do something because you are upset they aren’t choosing to do it already, then you need to check yourself and cut it out.
There are a lot of things in MMOs that players consider annoying that are important for immersion. Travel times. Regeneration times. Downtime in general. Etc.
But how do you strike a balance that maintains immersion without being needlessly annoying?
 In a recent issue of PC Gamer, Desslock wrote a column wherein the salient point was we should appreciate the bad animations in Fallout: New Vegas because the developers instead spent that time working on the content. I think that is a point well taken – especially for RPGs.
Why then is this same attitude not taken towards MMORPGs in the press?
I can tell you that I honestly believe PLAYERS take this attitude, as there are a wealth of games that have been enormous successes despite mediocre graphics.
Runescape, Farmville, even WoW have all been panned for their graphics.
Were they a success despite their “weak” graphics, or because of them? And because of them, I mean because the focus was not put on graphics.
I think the answer is not that simple. I think there are two reasons those games were still a success despite the graphics:
1) Gameplay. They all had gameplay that resonate with a huge number of users who loved the game despite it not being a graphical marvel.
2) Art. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter how many polygons your game is pushing. What matters is what you do with them. Having a consistent, appealing art style can be (and usually is) far more important. People love to bash WoW’s cartoony style graphics, but to a lot of people that stylized, unrealistic art style helps maintain the fantasy feel. Farmville’s cutesy style appealed to a wide base of customers.
I’ll go even further back. Diablo II. That game launched with a max resolution of 640×480 which was ancient even then. But the game had such great art direction, it didn’t matter.
How important are graphics to you in your enjoyment of a game? I ask because in the same issue of PC Gamer, a game developer wrote in another column that without a visceral light show of uber graphics he finds the experience “shallow.” I thought that was itself a pretty shallow way to look at games, but hey, that’s me.
 I sure hope so. I would love to have the freedom to pop into a number of different MMOs here and there, casually, without having to be completely beholden to one. The subscription system means I can basically only justify playing one MMO at a time, and that’s really a bummer. The subscription system also makes it unduly hard for new MMOs to get business, since the subscription itself is a huge deterrent to players trying out a new game.
News articles like this are definitely a nail in the coffin of the subscription model: Turbine: Lord of the Rings Online Revenues Tripled As Free-To-Play Game.
It is a shame that SW:ToR decided to go with a subscription model. I remember early on in its development there were rumors they were going to be F2P/micros. I really wish they’d stuck with that. I think that would have given them a huge advantage over WoW once they released. Instead, they are now going to have to compete with WoW head-to-head for subscribers. I wish them luck.
 This seems like a moderately huge disaster for Frogster, makers of Runes of Magic, a free to play MMO with ~4 million players.
The short version is this. Some group of people claim to have obtained the login details of just about the entire customer base of Frogster’s games (not just Runes of Magic). They have been making demands that Frogster improve various things about their games.
Putting aside what a PR and business disaster this is for Frogster, I wonder about this:
1) What if this is successful? What if Frogster has to cave and make some or all of the fixes demanded by this group. Is that basically “negotiating with the terrorists”? And will that encourage more people to do such things?
2) How long until a group like this decides “wow, if it can happen to Frogster, maybe we can hit WoW.” Or heck, what if this group decides to one up themselves and go after WoW.
3) What can MMO developers do to guard against this? I haven’t read anything yet that implied Frogster did anything particularly sloppy in its security measures.
Dana Carvey will be back on SNL for an episode. WOOT! I might actually watch.
CBS: “We have a high level of concern” about Charlie Sheen. Really? About time CBS started to admit they have a serious problem with Sheen.
Hannah Montana ends with a whimper. Thank god. Now can Miley Cyrus’s career please go into a whole like that of her one hit wonder, Achy Breaky dad. My daughter has always hated Hannah Montana. I’m so proud.
Tricia Helfer is going to be on No Ordinary Family. For those of you that follow her… well, career.
House creator hopes Olivia Wilde will return full time to House. Man, I sure don’t. The show is so much better with Amber Tamblyn. Its a shame she’s leaving. Thirteen has always been so cliched and blah. Although this season we her best as a character, so perhaps they can build on that rather than the boring, hackneyed “I’m bisexual” thing.
Joe Theisman accidentally says “Danny Woodcock” instead of Danny Woodhead, and Deion Sanders nearly dies laughing.
 For a number of reasons, I will probably never play WoW again. I ended with Burning Crusade. But I still like to keep up with it, and hear about what has changed and what has not.
One of my writers recently wrote this article about the Carbonite Add On for WoW. The part that struck me is the quest tracker information. It sounds like quests continue to be dumbed down as a form of content, and have become less about story and more about following an arrow like a rat in a maze seeking cheese.
Years ago, I wrote that a quest grind in quest based advancement is no different (and in many ways worse) than a mob grind. It would appear that nothing has changed.
So, am I right or am I wrong?
Watson, the IBM SuperComputer that plays Jeopardy is getting a lot of attention lately. In the practice match, it apparently beat Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, Jeopardy’s two biggest champions of all time.
Watch Ken Jennings Get Beaten in ‘Jeopardy!’ By a Computer
In Warmup Match, Jeopardy All-Stars Defeated By IBM’s Supercomputer Watson
I was disappointed to learn that Watson is not doing voice recognition. The question is fed to the computer in real time. This means the computer gets an automatic huge time advantage, in my opinion, by having the full question completely in its memory right away. Human beings have to deal with issues like not hearing the question right, getting confused by the cadence of how it is asked, etc.
While this is a very interesting experiment, I think until it includes voice recognition it is not as interesting or exciting as it could be.
Direct video link:
watch?v=12rNbGf2Wwo
I have no idea why they are dragging this out and pretending January 25, 2011 is when this goes live. Anyone who wants to can be in the “beta” of free to play. How in the heck there’s a beta for that I have no idea.
This F2P maneuver by CO is one of the most laughably absurd attempts at changing from subscription to F2P I have ever seen. They have locked F2P players out of the USP (Unique Selling Point) of the game which is character customization. F2P players have to choose rigid classes, whereas everyone else gets the “real game” which has an open power selection system. You would think having Bill Roper on their staff for a year or so would have given them the institutional knowledge that segregating your players like that is a recipe for failure.
I predict this will be a total failure. I leave you with this (click on it for full size)
 This is a question that I raised in the blog section on Bright Hub, but I’ll ask it here as well.
What do you think? Has Cataclysm been an overall improvement to WoW or not? Please explain why!
 Feel free to share your predictions for 2011’s MMO industy. I will start with a few of mine.
1) People will be relatively bored/done with Cataclysm in about half as much time as WotLK. It seems to me that WotLK was the big pro-casual innovation, and this expansion really did not add much. I also think the gear grind gameplay and the daily quest grind that feels like clocking in at the coal mine will continue to wear thing with people.
2) Warhammer Online will finally close up shop or at a bare minimum go F2P. It has been hanging on by a thread for quite a while, mainly because EA did not really have another big MMO to fill their coffers. Once they have SW:TOR out, there will be no reason to keep WAR going. Caveat: If for some reason SW:TOR does not launch in 2011, or launches super late, then delay this prediction to ~6 months after SW:TOR’s release in 2011.
3) Someone will finally announce the development of an adult oriented MMO. I mean something more than just Age of Conan’s topless women. I mean emotes and other game functionality to cater to people who want a little more action in their cybersex. This announcement will generate a ton of publicity for the MMO industry that bloggers will decry as negative. They will forget the quote often attributed to P.T. Barnum: “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.”
4) Champions Online will reverse their brain dead decision to shut out F2P players from the full power customization feature that is the primary USP of their game. F2P players will no longer be forced to play “classes” and will instead be able to pick and choose powers like everyone else. This will be too little too late as the game will continue to have embarassingly low usage.
5) Neverwinter, the next game from Cryptic will slip from its 2011 release date. If it doesn’t, then it will be another abject failure for Cryptic.
6) Blizzard will continue to piss in the face of their customers by not releasing player housing.
That’s it for me. Let me know what you think of my predictions, and lets hear some of your own!
A number of major MMOs switched from subscription to free to play in 2010. Inspired by the game saving transition made by Dungeons and Dragons Online, and watching free-to-play games get all the users (aside from WoW of course), a number of major companies decided to change gears and give it a shot. Do you think it was the right move? Do you think they did it right?
Lord of the Rings Online: I think it was a wise move to do it before it seemed desperate. All available information pointed to LOTRO doing pretty well with subs, but Turbine must have been inspired by the success they had with their own game, DDO, and went for it. Doing it before it smells desperate is smart. I don’t know much about the implementation, but would love to hear from LOTRO fans if they feel the implementation was good.
Everquest 2: I will defer to one of my writers here. Everquest II Extended Review: Is This Free-to-Play MMO Worth Playing? It seems to me that with EQ’s legacy as a pioneer of the subscription MMO, this was not as smart of a move. It just felt more desperate and that’s never good for an MMO’s population.
Champions Online: I agree with the move, since the game was bleeding users at such a rapid rate. But their implementation was absolutely moronic. They basically followed the failed Hellgate model where you create a caste system between haves and have-nots. The paid subscribers get to play the real game. The free players do not even get to use the core mechanic of the game – open character customization. Instead, they are forced into ham handedly designed “classes” that were never designed to be part of the game. It is quite possibly the worst F2P implementation I have ever heard of. This is a typical Cryptic Studios decision that bears a striking resemblance to the failure that was the Champions Online C-Store.
So what do you think? Right move? Right time? Right implementation? And do you have any predictions for MMOs that might switch to F2P in 2011?
 How many programmers are reading this? Those of you who program either professionally or as a hobby, have you ever had a near disaster that you averted at the last minute? Have you ever nearly done a “rm -rf *” that you stopped before you realized you were in the wrong directory? Have you ever remembered to make a backup and then lost everything (besides the backup) soon after?
I averted a minor disaster last night. I was adding some code to Primordiax’s ability daemon that would allow every damage ability in the game to have a main stat, and then apply that stat to the damage formula. I tested it and was about to consider it done, when I gave the code a quick look over. I noticed that one of the variables I was querying might not return a result for some abilities. That would be no big deal at first glance, because it simply meant that ability didn’t have a main stat, and thus no bonus would be applied to the damage. But 50 or so lines later in the code, the stat value gets divided by the sizeof() the returned stat array. Well, if that stat array was empty, the sizeof() would be 0. And dividing by…. yeah… you got it. I would have had division by 0 at runtime! The universe would have been destroyed as we know it.
I put a condition in the code to prevent that from happening, and as a result life continues. You’re welcome.
Any stories you want to share?
 We’ll try this as an occasional blog post. Links to interesting TV news items.
Christina Hendricks wants to play wonder woman. I find it very hard to object to that. She seems a worthy successor to Linda Carter.
FCC approves Comcast-Universal merger. But only if “With that in mind, the proposed conditions on FCC approval include requirements that would attempt to prevent Comcast from favoring its own content versus that of its rivals, both on its systems and in online operations, agency officials said. There will also likely be conditions that would make it difficult for Comcast to withhold its own content from rival distributors and platforms.” Oh wow, great. I’m sure that will NEVER happen. Why are we allowing these mergers? They do nothing good for the consumer or the economy.
Taryn Manning likely off Hawaii Five-0. Thank god. Her character was a complete disaster on an otherwise great show.
Theater owners are fighting a movie studio plan to release movies in the home sooner. Basically, theater owners want their terrible product to be artificially propped up. They don’t want to set prices at a reasonable level, or improve the experience to attract movie goers, so instead they want the movie studios to artificially preserve their broken business model. What is also funny is that the movie studios think people will pay $30 to watch the movie at home. LOL. This is how these morons create such a huge pirate market.
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