Penny Arcade

I can read an entire comic book without really looking at the art.  This is a process that horrifies Gabriel - imagine his eyes growing wider as, with each swift turn of the page, his craft is obliterated.  By contrast, my cohort holds strong opinions on the topic of visual stimuli.  I imagine this is part of the reason we’re able to maintain our chaste union: like the gods of old, we keep to our dominions.

I gather that "Jim Lee" is something of a "man about town" in the world of…  drawing things, whatever their people call it.  I’m told that young aspirants to the comic arts must traverse a Jim Lee Phase before they emerge from Plagiara - "The Valley Of The Shadow Of Theft," tempered thus by his iconic renderings.  I have seen pictures that he has drawn, and I was able to tell which ones were and which ones were not Batman.  That’s pretty much all I’m looking for. 

How Gabriel must have suffered, how it burned to hear that his one-time idol had joined forces with Sony Online Entertainment, his gravest enemy.  I don’t know how to describe his expression. 

I might say that the news strangled his heart.

I might also say that if you managed to screw up a Star Wars MMO, then for fuck’s sake maybe you don’t get any more major franchises. 

Chris Kohler (author of "Power Up," among other things) had a chance to see Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion during what was probably the last big media push, with a product that is probably very similar to the final version.  He came back with a slightly different story than many others did, or at any rate a different emphasis - presenting in direct language his issues with geometry pop-in and so forth.  With all the talk of shills that has gone on lately, this seemed like an instructive exercise.

Check the comment thread over there, if you like, and recall that more often than not we as gamers do that sort of work for free. 

(CW)TB out.

ask yourself a question

I didn’t really mention it when I tried out SWG a few months ago. After they completely changed the game I thought I should take a look and see if they changed it to something I’d like. Within the first 10 minutes I had met Han Solo and Chewy and I was shooting down Tie fighters from the Goddamned Millenium Falcon. Listen guys, I know it’s a fucking Star Wars game. I don’t need to be best friends with Luke Skywalker before I’m level 2. It’s a huge universe and shoving me into encounters with my “favorite heroes from the films” just feels manipulative.

Obviously I don’t have high hopes for the DC MMO. If it plays out anything like Galaxies I can tell you exactly how it will go. You will create your character and then spawn in the center of the Fortress of Solitude. Super Man will fly up to you and tell you that Lex Luther and the Joker are fighting Batman and he needs your help. He’ll scoop you up and fly you to Gotham via Metropolis (Hey look, it’s the Daily Planet) where you will meet up with the rest of the Justice League and they will make you an honorary member. After a crazy battle involving everyone from Wonder Woman to Krypto the super dog, you’ll end up in some filthy ally shooting rats with your heat vision.

Okay so this is the part of the post where I tell you what my dream DCO game would look like and then you mail me and tell me what a fucking idiot I am. Ready? Go! I think DCO should look like the old animated Superfriends cartoon. I know you think I’m crazy but honestly I think SOE should pull their character designs right from the old school Alex Toth stuff.

Plus if the entire world is cell shaded think about how much shit they could pack into these cities. Metropolis could be mile after virtual mile of art deco inspired skyscrapers. The sidewalks could be packed with citizens and the roads jammed with cars. Everything could be interacted with and affected by your ridiculous superhero fights. You could have instances where some super villain is literally leveling entire city blocks all around you. Punch a guy with your super strength and he goes through three buildings before he stops.

I know my dream of a retro loking DCO will never happen. I’m sure there’s no way they could sell that look to kids today. With that said though they could probably sell them something that looked like Batman the animated series or even the new and extremely good The Batman cartoon. It just doesn’t need to look like EQ and Star Wars for Gods sakes. Please give it some fucking style. Understand that Clone Wars is the best Goddamn thing to happen to Star Wars since Industrial Automaton invented the Astromech droid. This is SOE’s chance to take the DC license and make something really unique and interesting. It doesn’t have to look like anything I described here but it should look unique. You’ve got Wildstorm, some of the best artists in the industry. Please please please let them create something special.

-Gabe out

There was a drawing for a Metroid Hunters Crystal Thing at the press event yesterday, and Robert actually won it.  Behold:



I will talk about the game itself later, but I just found this object impressive.  It’s three dimensional, tiny bubbles like "voxels" (remember those?) describe the entire image.  These objects (along with their black case/purple velvet interior) were given to the developers when they completed First Hunt for the DS launch.  So owning it makes me feel a little like a fraud, but then I gaze into its tranquil depths and the world (with all its troubles) disappears.

(CW)TB

I’ve had a couple people mail me and tell me that the word among the Austin dev community is that the DCO team is hemorrhaging people. I’ve heard a few stories but they all seem to agree that people are jumping ship in frustration. I don’t know how true it is but Gamasutra has a job posting from SOE looking for a creative director for DCO.

I’ve been told that creative people simply don’t last long at SOE. I’ve heard so many horror stories from people in the industry who used to work at SOE or still languish there. The place comes off sounding like some kind of elephant graveyard where creative people go to die.

With that said I have to admit that those sons of bitches have a sense of humor. Smedley sent me an email this morning that just said he’d sent me a package. I assumed it was a bomb but just a few minutes ago a man showed up and proclaimed that he “had our donuts”. That’s not something I expected to hear today. We followed him out to his truck where he showed us our 1,200 freshly baked Krispy Kreme donuts.

Well played SOE…well played indeed.

-Gabe out

Just an update on the 1,200 donuts situation. We were able to give all the donuts away. We gave some to the other businesses here in our office building. We also sent a few hundred over to the Seattle Children’s hospital for the staff there. Then we let our PAX enforcers come by and dig in.

A few people have made the comment to me that it was nice of SOE to send us one donut for every subscriber they have. The other funny remark I heard was that this is the best product SOE has ever shipped. You guys are mean.

-Gabe out