The last time we saw Force Unleashed, and this would have been quite awhile ago, it was essentially a tech demo for the new development methodology at Lucasarts - one that would rely heavily on procedural systems. Using Havok for physics, Euphoria to give their A.I. an awareness of those physics, and Digital Molecular Matter to simulate world materials, I think the idea was that they could create spaces where players could do whatever they felt like doing, and the world would oblige them in a way that was consistent and convincing.

I know it's hard to believe but it's time to start thinking about PAX 2008. We've opened up pre-registration for those of you who'd like to get your tickets early. If you do decide to take advantage of the early bird special you'll pay $40 for your 3 day pass. That price is good up until March 31st.

Pax last year was incredible. I don't think Tycho was exaggerating when during one of our panels he called it "the greatest gaming convention in the entire fucking universe".


Wil Wheaton delivered a Keynote speech that I still hear people talking about. I was standing back stage during his keynote and when he finished and stepped back behind the curtain all I could do was hug the guy.

With that gigantic PC behind me - a PC I have begun to call the Night Engine - we finally have a machine in here that can run Crysis, and run it well. Reasonably well. Not at max resolution, by any means. The sweet spot is around 1440x900 here, a point at which he performance and gameplay have reached an uneasy truce. They'll be showing off a console version of their engine at the next GDC, which was inevitable, but they'll also be revealing a "six hundred dollar machine" that will run Crysis well. That must be the comedy portion of the act.

My heart went out to the woman in the recent clip for Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach. At one point, a green face is shown. Maybe it was a jade face. Anyway, it looked like it was entrance to a dungeon that I had no interest in raiding for ancient wealth. Your dungeon entrance says something about you as a subterranean civilization, and this one said that I could avoid it altogether, and not miss much.

The actual writing of this strip was fairly quick, but there's an extended tangent about The Club that lends heft.  You can download the podcast for today's comic here, and (as always) get a jump on the official announcements by subscribing to our tender feed. 

(CW)TB
 

You might have heard that NASA was trying to gin up an MMO.  We just received a mail from a human being involved in the project, someone  who wants to make sure they collect the best ideas from the best people.  Naturally, she thought of the readership here.  Her mail follows:

I know how incredibly unpleasant this could end up being if we don't
have the right minds behind it, and would just like the chance to get it
in front of as many potentially talented people as possible.  Would you
guys consider posting a sentence on this in the news section soon?

"The purpose of this RFI is to solicit information from organizations
with proven immersive synthetic environments expertise who are
interested in potentially forming a MMO platform development partnership
with NASA. We are currently targeting releasing a Request for Proposal
in March 2008."

Here's a couple of run-downs in English from people outside NASA:

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/nasa-seeks-inpu.html
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/would-you-play.html#previouspost

And the NASA sites:
http://procurement.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=128415
http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/submit.html

NASA gets surprisingly tiny amounts of money (about $17B/yr) to go to
freakin' space and do a whole lot of discovering of various
humanity-impacting things.  And a lot of people just don't know the
amount of awesomeness we do for that.  We're working on many things to
try and communicate to people better about what we do (that's part of
our forming mandates, actually), and this is one initiative.

And I think it would be cool if it wasn't a big mess, or even just an
"eh" thing.  I'd like to see it be *good*.

For the space program, guys?

Oh, but darling:  you had us at immersive synthetic environments.

(CW)TB

Hopefully you had time to grab the new Devil May Cry demo, taking an opportunity to put the new Devil Bringer to use. The purpose of the Devil Bringer is, we believe, self-evident. We played the demo on the 360, almost purely for novelty purposes, but since the game began life as a Playstation 3 exclusive the two are likely to be identical.

It's gotten to the point where we're considering placing Chinese-style hard limits on our own World of Warcraft play. Ordinarily, we do not consider the Chinese Government a model for emulation.  In this case, they may be onto something.

Pokemon League is tonight. Congrats to everyone that got their first gym badge at the last meeting. We're starting a new season tonight so I hope everyone worked on getting any illegal cards out of their decks. You can find the current modified legal card list here. I believe we're entering the Pastoria City season which means we'll all be playing for our Fen badges. If you have not registered on Go-Pokemon.com yet, be sure and do that so you can start earning points towards your badge. We'll try to get the matches started as close to six as possible. If you'd like to show up early to trade feel free. See you all tonight.

-Gabe out

I know we don't talk about our game much. We really don't want to beat you guys over the head with it. Honestly we handle most of our big projects that way. We try to make coming here "easy" and I don't want you guys to feel like you're constantly being pitched something. Balancing that against the fact that if we don't tell you about things like new shirts and books you are less likely to purchase them is tricky. another reason for the lack of coverage is that we really weren't sure the game was going to be any good. We're doing a lot of the art and all the writing but the reality is that this was a collaboration with the Hothead guys and until very recently I wasn't convinced making the game was a good idea.

Tycho said it best in a couple interviews "games look like shit until they look awesome." it's really more than that though because they also play like shit until they are fun. I remember getting the first build months ago and telling Tycho we should scrap the entire thing. The builds kept coming though and they kept getting better and better. I understand now that that's just how game development works. It wasn't until the most recent build that I finally saw something genuinely fun. The Hothead guys obviously knew what they were making but for me it was like looking at a sketch and not understanding how it could ever be a finished painting.

I've played through it multiple times now and I can tell you truthfully that it's funny and it's fun to play. If you like PA I believe you will enjoy it. If you don't know about PA I think you will still laugh and If you hate us you'll hate our game. The game just hit beta and Hothead is polishing it more and more every day. I can tell you that what I see right now I'm honestly proud of. Tycho has written some of his best stuff for this game. Like me, he hates himself and hates the things he makes so he would never link you to this, but I feel like he deserves it. A while back Tycho spent a week at the Hothead studio writing non stop for the game. Ron Gilbert was up there as well and he posted this on his blog shortly after.

"Jerry from PA is up here as well doing the writing and it's a thrill to see him work.  He's a top-shelf writer, right up there with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman."

I'm sure when Tycho sees I linked that he'll go right for his wrists, but it's true.

An early build of the game recently made its way through the media digestive system.  The result is that you will see coverage of it popping up at many of your favorite game news sites. Everything I've seen so far has been very positive but I guess that's the way it is with previews. I think the best place to go is Gametrailers as they simply post high quality video of the game being played. You can make your own decisions based on what you see. If you want more you can watch the 1up show where a narcoleptic Jedi will tell you that the game is "like not really like PA but also like totally like PA." Maybe that's helpful to someone? The Gamelife blog over at Wired also has a very complete write up of the game if you want more than just raw footage.

It's funny, before the game I never would have thought twice about calling someone a narcoleptic Jedi. After I had typed it out though I paused. Am I Derek Smart now? Will this effect our PR persons relationship with 1Up and other media outlets? Will they savage us in their review and will that hurt sales? Should I not talk about the coverage at all?

Even if all of that is true should I care?

Obviously the answer is no.

-Gabe out

There's really no trick: Endless Ocean is a game about swimming forever. It's not a game for our people, and it need not be plugged into the apparatus. You swim and swim and swim. Sometimes you pet penguins on the deck, or talk to a hydrophobe that you know. You can even dive cooperatively online, which is, like, Finally.

The writing process for today's comic was recorded in its entirety, and we have uploaded this harrowing process as a podcast.  If these 'casts are something you enjoy, you can probably get them earlier than the official announcements by subscribing to our ridiculously convenient feed. 

(CW)TB
 

There are those who find something to love in the character of Div, persons who feel that our strip needs more drunken, mechanical bigot. His origin as a disgruntled Divx player is most likely lost to time, particularly since Divx means something very different now.

A while back we had a run in with a local radio host. The whole story isn't worth re-telling but the end result was that you all started contacting the shows advertisers. That got me a late night phone call from the station director. This guy was fucking livid, he told me he was going to sue and blah blah blah. I realized from that whole thing that attacking these radio guys directly is worthless. Attacking someone like Kevin just gives him material for his show and his handful of listeners. Now attacking his advertisers, that would actually piss him off.

I was ready to suggest that if you really wanted to hurt this guy you should contact his sponsors. That was until I started looking for his sponsors. It turns out he's only on two stations and they are both Christian stations. They only had six or seven sponsors at most and they were almost all churches or local mortgage companies. You really can't contact his sponsors because the guy just doesn't have any. The biggest thing he seems to be involved in is the Townhall.com site. He's one of a hundred or so columnists there but really that's just like Blogspot for nut jobs. I really didn't understand just how right we were with this comic until I started doing more research on him. This guy is a nobody. This blow up with gamers is the most attention he's ever had, and is ever likely to get.

-Gabe out

On Monday, I mentioned an article by the irrelevant Kevin McCullough entitled "The 'Sex-Box' Race For President," a poorly titled, poorly sourced, and generally just poor piece of journalism. As the game has now been available for months without attracting his attention, I can only assume that his flailing response was based on this other report, itself already far removed from Mass Effect, the game which is ostensibly being described.

Gabe had to watch the other Gabe today, so we made the comic a day in advance.  It's about the guy who wrote that ridiculous Mass Effect article.  We decided to put it up a day early because, just as we predicted in the strip, he's taken a swipe at gamers.  The young man quoted in his piece did not represent our community well, but locking horns with a professional liar would bring out the worst in anyone. 

(CW)TB