GGG

What's a Gamer to Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:11:00 +0000

Game lethargy and over-stimulation … all at the same time.

I should start out with describing what type of a gamer I am … umm … okay it’s not that easy J I’ve been described as a dedicated casual MMO player. I started out in Everquest, got into the raiding scene a bit .. played every day for 4+ hours during the week and pretty much all weekend. Time, jobs and priorities grew and my play time became less. My other hobbies also grew into taking more time. Now I spin, crochet, knit, weave, and game … and participate in a number of different forums (mostly crafting … gaming forums can get scary). I have discovered that I can spin during downtime in MMOs, so there is some overlap in my crafting and gaming, but usually it’s one or the other.

Now I have a job with a 50 minute commute each way … I’m getting more reading done, but it’s hard to game without a connection. Even a 3G connection won’t help as halfway through the trip I lose all connectivity on my iPhone for about 30 seconds. No 3G, no E, no nothing.

So I play for a few hours on weekends, and occasionally a couple hours in the evening … maybe once or twice every couple of weeks. It makes for slow progression, which leads to me getting bored with the characters. I’ll occasionally pick up an “old” MMO and play through the first 10 or so levels just so I can have something different.

I still have EQII and WoW accounts … and I still play them occasionally, but I’m looking for more.

Aion just came out and the folks in the office seem to be enjoying it. Star Wars: The Old Republic is coming out and looks fun. Alganon just got reviewed in MMOZine #15 and is looking interesting. But will they fill the void? Will I ever find a game that captures me like Everquest did … or should I just realize that I’ll never regain that “first time” experience?

There’s so many options, but what to choose? Maybe I’ll just stick to free-to-play stuff (DDO-Unlimited recently came out) and see how that goes ….

SOE FanFaire Costume Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:30:00 +0000

This year was my second FanFaire ... and what a hoot! It was great to hang out with the friends I made last year and to make new friends!

One of the highlights of the weekend is the costume contest .. check it out! You get a "from the seats" view :)

Darth is Da Bomb!

SOE FanFaire 2009 - Smedley's Address online

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:03:00 +0000

I'm so happy to be going to FanFaire again. I had a blast last year and the Community Address was really fun.

If you can't make it to FanFaire, you can still catch the Community Address. Check out http://forums.station.sony.com/station/posts/list.m?topic_id=11500014043 for more information on how to view the address.

Jumpgate Evolution E3 Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:34:00 +0000

Okay ... wow ... now this is a trailer.

Ohhh .. I want to play!!!
Click the link to check it out!

Exclusive Jumpgate Evolution E3 Trailer in High Definition – G4tv.com

Housing in MMOs

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:03:00 +0000

Wizard 101 recently released housing for their players. Free users get a basic house, and then you can pay for bigger and better housing. Many MMOs provide housing: EQII, LOTRO, SWG, and now Wizards 101. Most interestingly, WoW does not.

The question always comes up … what does player housing give us? In SWG, the reasons are obvious … the only way that you can sell items is through a vendor in a player built and owned building. You can also use the housing as a place to gather, entertain and use the building for extra storage. But what about, for example, LOTRO? Game mechanics wise, storage is it. EQII is in the middle, the game allows you to craft and sell from your house (as well as from public areas), and you also get extra storage.

I’m sure there are more games that have, or don’t have, player housing, but those are the ones that I’m familiar with.

So, the game mechanics vary from game to game with a few consistent things … player housing adds more storage, and you can decorate it. In the games I’m familiar with, you can also invite other people into your house. It’s this last item that makes player housing such a huge thing in many games, for many people. If you like role-playing, there’s nothing quite like hosting a party in your own place, decorated with trophies from around the world .. crafted, purchased and looted. Just look at what people have done in EQ2, SWG and LOTRO.

Another interesting dynamic to housing is the fact that game companies can now use house items as rewards for quests, card games, and as micro transaction items. These house items are not game breaking, but are enjoyed by many of the players ... and can often be sold on the market or broker for coin for those who don't enjoy them. This gives the game company easy rewards.

In addition, players can use crafts or tradeskills to create items for the houses as well, thereby assisting the in-game economy.

Without the human ego and desire to display what we have created or purchased, housing would be limited to a few role players and those who need extra storage .. but even this is valid in game as they provide a money sink and further stimulate the in-game economy.

Personally, I prefer housing in game and enjoy decorating it for myself.

So let there be housing!

Now this is retro geek!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:05:00 +0000

Hi from Multitouch Barcelona on Vimeo.

Taking Computer Gaming to the Stage!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:55:00 +0000

You know gaming is now mainstream when folks are actually making stage plays around games. Can you believe it! Hopefully it'll tour and come to a stage near you!

Adventure Quest Brings 80s Gaming To The Stage

This summer The Brick Theater in Brooklyn, New York will debut Adventure Quest – a play built around PC adventure gaming of the 80s and early 90s.

The production projects vintage game graphics onto the stage, uses 8-bit era music and an EGA color palette theme for set pieces and costumes. The story is about a generic Hero type who goes out to fight the dreaded Octopus Cult and win the love of a Peasant Girl.

Tiny Invisibility Cloak Constructed

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:20:00 +0000

From InsideTech.com ... it's not just Star Trek technology that can come to life :)

Tiny Invisibility Cloak Constructed - InsideTech.com: "‘A tiny invisibility cloak has been developed, combining silicon and a carpet-like design.’ -

A tiny, unique cloak has been developed, demonstrating how silicon and a carpet-like design can take scientists even further in their explorations of invisibility."

Taking text to new heights

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:25:00 +0000

Check out the video below. Students were challenged to create a text based game for their final project.

Here's what some of them came up with ...

The many uses for Metaplace

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Metaplace is getting closer and closer to being public. It's a very interesting model and gives individuals a lot of great tools .. both drag and drop and more complicated scripting.

With the increased awareness about virtual worlds and these new tools to create your own virtual world .. and even make money off of them .. we shall see where this all goes.

Meanwhile .. enjoy Nikita's 12 uses for Metaplace.

Anjel Syndicate � Blog Archive � Metaplace Magic

Personal documents now cost more on Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:19:00 +0000

I suppose it was only a matter of time, but the Amazon Kindle Whispernet service is now more expensive for personal documents. At least if you use their conversion service to send files to your Kindle. Amazon is now charging by file size .. $0.15/MB or part thereof. It's still a pretty good deal, and no word about charging for using the Kindle to access the web, but I'm sure it's coming.

To avoid the charges you can use the free conversion service (email to accountname@free.kindle.com ) or do the conversion on your own using MobiPocket. Download the files to your Kindle via the USB cable and avoid fees!

Kindle Blog ...

Electronic Arts Releases DRM Reversal Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:23:00 +0000

Who whould have thougth that it would ever happen? Can they actually learn?!

Gamasutra - News - Electronic Arts Releases DRM Reversal Tool: "Electronic Arts’s change in policy regarding anti-piracy measures has seen the publisher release a “De-authorization Management Tool” (DMT) to reset existing game installation authorizations."

OnLive - Streaming games

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:56:00 +0000

It's amazing what technolgy people come up with. I have no idea if thies will work ... and there are many who should know who say that it won't ... but maybe .. just maybe ... someone has found a way.

Gamers can only hope.

OnLive could threaten Xbox, PS3, and Wii | Gaming and Culture - CNET News

Thundercats Movie Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Totally fan made .. this is quite good and very entertaining!

What's your Dewey Decimal Section?

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:29:00 +0000

victoria's Dewey Decimal Section:

013 [Unassigned]

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

I shall do science to it

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:13:00 +0000

Fan Faire 2008 - Community Address

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:39:00 +0000

Friday evening, John Smedly gave his second annual community address. As usual, SOE put on a great show!

Zam.com and SOE announced a partnership to bring you some very cool updates to the Zam network including direct feeds from the EQII database to EQ2.Allakhazam.com! I can't wait until that's all in place. (And Allakhazam ans reportedly ditched IGN so no more worries about supporting plat sellers!)

Everquest & Everquest II expansions are coming out later this year. Dates were announced and we got to see trailers for both expansions. More information on the EQII expansion can be found on Ten Ton Hammer.

We got to see trailers and gameplay from Free Realms and DC Universe Online. I think Free Realms looks adorable!!!

Video of the entire presentation is uploaded to YouTube in 8 parts. You can watch the first part here!

Fan Faire 2008 - Day 2 afternoon - some wonderful announcements!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:08:00 +0000

Guild Halls!

After lunch and live questing it was time for Guild Halls!!!!! I got to the room a little early, found a good spot and opened up my laptop to take notes. I mean, it's guild halls!!! Right behind me was the guys from Stratics. We chatted a little bit before the session got started .. they're pretty fun.

Most of the pictures here were taken from the projected images .. so they're not the best quality. For a full list of details, check out the article by Nami Denmother on EQ2 Traders!! Nami's always a great source of information!

As for my thoughts .. ohhhhh .... this is going to be cool!! They are incredibly expensive though!! I got out of the panel and immediately found a spot to call my Guild Leader with details and instructions to start saving up!!! The Guild Halls will allow us to place tradeskill stations, writ givers, brokers, bankers and more! There's even the option of portals and a fun new tool called a Guild Strategist that allow you to place a banner in the world and your guild mates can port right to it! How cool is that?!

So what's the trick to guild halls? Well .. they're EXPENSIVE!!! And the stuff to go into it is expensive (Items are often costing plat and millions of status) and limited in how many of the guild "amenities" that you can have in the house. At guild level 30, you can have 15 amenities, and at guild level 80 you can have 30 amenities. The numbers approximately scale at the rate of 2 amenities for every 6 guild levels. That's not enough to get everything, so folks will have to pick and choose. There's also a bunch of decorations that are guild hall specific that don't take up any amenity slots but cost plat and status to get.

FanFaire 2008 Day 2 morning – Techie stuff and more!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:36:00 +0000

Day 2 started off with a semi early breakfast then I headed off to my morning seminars. Okay so I won’t bore you with too many of the details, but the Station Voice and Customer Service panels were cool …Well … if you’re a total geek like me.

Station Voice Presentation & Panel

The first session was all about Station Voice. I’ve played around with it for a little with the voice in EQII with my guild and it was pretty easy to use once I got it to recognize my mic when it was plugged in the front …Some of the cool things that are coming … voice integrated into the Station Launcher, Voice fonts (sound like an elf!), the ability to listen to multiple channels at the same time, ability to connect to chat channels via phone, direction and proximity modifiers on the sound … aka the character is standing on your left, you hear the voice on your left. All of it sounds very cool and the guys who are doing it seem really excited about it. All of it is coming Soon ™ …The biggest thing is to get people to setup their mics right!! The Record & playback was recommended to make sure you sound right …

Customer Support Panel

Customer support was my next panel … not necessarily the most exciting, but still pretty cool. SoE is starting on setting up a work-at-home GM program … very cool. They spent a fair amount of time on how they handle spammers … pretty much the same messages we’ve heard, don’t share your account and don’t use 3^rd party power-leveling or plat buying. They have a team called NUGIT (Norrathian Underground Gnomish Investigatory Team) that does a lot of in-game and out of game plat purchasing and farmer investigations. And they don’t just look at the one account, they actually dig further into the account and investigate related accounts … related by IP, credit account, address … so don’t room with a spammer!! On average, SOE bans about 2,000 accounts a day … a DAY!!!! Impressive. Those guys really seem to be enjoying the game and have interest in what they’re doing. Very cool.

Lunch & Live Quest Photos!

I picked up a yummy pasta salad for lunch and charged up my computer in the room for a bit .. then it was off to take photos!!

The guides were running the EQII Live Quest .. all dressed up and roleplay crazy!

FanFaire 2008 - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:46:00 +0000

I got to FanFaire on Thursday around lunch and discover that Vegas is all about lines. So I stood in lines to pay for the shuttle, to get on the shuttle, to check in, to get food, to …. To do just about everything. And there’s gambling machines and tables EVERYWHERE!! I can’t go from my hotel room to the convention center, or to food, without walking through or around the slots … there were even slots in the airport!

My Roommate and a bunch of other guides met up with me for lunch, not that great but expensive!! Heck a bottle of water is $3 minimum .. but then I guess it is the desert. We got all setup and checked in, I got to meet Brenlo (yay cool!). The Welcome reception was huge and really hard to hear Brenlo =/ but the little contests he did were pretty fun ….. someone can actually do a wookie roar!! He was pretty good too!! After the reception, we were off to Quark’s for drinks. It being Quark’s, I of course had to have a have a Warp Core Breach …. Only a mini one and it was HUGE!! Of course it was equal to about four drinks … maybe 3 … but considering the prices of drinks it was actually a pretty good deal. Tasty but really sweet. Someone else at the table had the Borg Cube and it apparently was yummy!

Off to bed and get ready for a day of seminars!

Road Trip!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:02:00 +0000

As some of you know, I recently got a job in California. Yeah, I know .. really narrows that down *grin*. I'd rather keep my job specific stuff out of the blog.

So ... about a week ago, we drove from Florida to California .. what a drive! With a lovely little Garmin nuvi 200 we managed to get here without any wrong turns!! How's that for almost 3000 miles?!

We passed through Vicksburg in some state or the other ... it was a long trip.

We spent a long, long time .. almost a day I think .. in Texas where we saw many oil rigs out in the middle of the fields. And where I got told that I had to fill out a

form to have a drink. Apparently in that part of Texas, out of state visitors need some id card to get a drink .. umm ... yeah ... no ....

And from Texas into New Mexico .. the Land of Enchainment! Ummm .. okay the mountains were pretty, and it was very nice to see mountains again, but ... enchantment?

So cool for the mesas .. but .. that's all there is in New Mexico. Really ... oh .. mesas and some faux Indian villages ...

And then we were into California!!! WOOT!!! Unfortunately I slept through a good portion of the entrance into California .. but I did drive enough for Chris to get a few pictures of the very cool trees on the drive!!

Aren't they cool? There was fields and fields of them!!

Spore!

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:02:00 +0000

EA published their SPORE creature creator a few days ago and I finally got a chance to play with the free trial .. so cute!! I can't wait to get the full version of the game!

The options are varied and the ability to "paint" your creatures is good for getting a unique look. There aren't a whole lot of options with the free trial, but as you can see you can still create quite a few different creatures.

The program has built in screen shot and video capability!

So .. maybe I went a bit crazy ... although these guys are nothing compared to what some other folks have created!

Check out some of the other creations on the Flickr Spore Creatures Group and YouTube!

There's also a Facebook group for them!

Go and download your own free trial and make your creatures!

Witchblade movie poster and website teasers | The Girls Entertainment Network

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:03:00 +0000

Ohhh .....

Witchblade movie poster and website teasers

May 27, 2008 Author: whatistechnoagain | Filed under: Comics, Movies/Television
Platinum Studios has released a teaser poster and website for the recently announced Witchblade film, based on the successful Top Cow comic.

Witchblade, created in 1995, has inspired a TNT tv show in 2000 and an anime-styled show in Japan in 2006. In the comic series, a female from each generation is chosen to wield the Witchblade, a jewel-encrusted gauntlet “with immense destructive and protective powers.”

There’s still no word on who’s taking the lead role, but in the meantime the company put out the following poster and launched a teaser site for the movie, set to come to theaters next year. The site doesn’t really have anything on it yet, but you can sign up for email updates regarding the movie.

The live-action film apparently will follow a “more horror-based approach.”

Witchblade movie poster and website teasers | The Girls Entertainment Network

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video | Geek Gestalt - A blog by Daniel Terdiman - CNET News.com

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Sun, 25 May 2008 23:43:00 +0000

Okay so the zoologist in me is dying for this to come out. So cool!!! hee hee ... making learning fun and adding a game to it all :)

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video

Posted by Daniel Terdiman

For those of us eagerly awaiting the release of Spore, from The Sims creator Will Wright and his Maxis studio, Tuesday was a day for whetting the appetite.

That's because Maxis, an Electronic Arts studio, released a little crumb for us, a video from the cell-stage of Spore.

The game, as you may already know, is an evolution game: It tasks players with growing their characters from little spore-level creatures step-by-step up the ladder to the tribe level and then on to cities, whole civilizations, and eventually on to the galactic level.

Maxis releases 'Spore' cell-stage video | Geek Gestalt - A blog by Daniel Terdiman - CNET News.com

Extinct tiger gene resurrected in a mouse - LiveScience- msnbc.com

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria) — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:38:00 +0000

Extinct tiger gene resurrected in a mouse

Rodent expresses injected genetic material of Tasmanian Tiger

AFP - Getty Images

A two-week-old mouse fetus expresses the DNA of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger by developing cartilage, shown in blue.

DNA from an extinct creature has been resurrected in a live animal for the first time.

The genetic material, extracted from the extinct Tasmanian tiger, proved functional in mice.

Extinct tiger gene resurrected in a mouse - LiveScience- msnbc.com