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What do we want? wow power levelingPosted on 2010-Mar-5 at 10:24 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkWhat do we want? wow power levelingSo I'm writing this while I still have time before GDC's massive gathering of developers. That godly mess was both inspiring and humbling last year. You realize how little one person can be in that crowd of thousands, and I cannot even imagine the numbers that do not or cannot attend. But you also realize how many people share your passion for games, whether seeking fame, fortune, or something more. I volunteered last year and I am doing the same this year. Last year nbmishini I traveled from Boston and crashed in a friend's apartment for a few hours each night. This year I am living across the bay in Berkeley. Last year I attended a few different parties and got to talk to people who had roused my spirits at the Indie Games Summit (such as Jonatan "Cactus" S?derstr?m, who was quiet and told me he was totally disgusted by realistic violence, which made me contemplate the difference between his violent unrealistic games and those oh-so-violent mainstream AAA realistic titles). This year I plan on attending as many parties. There was one thing in last year's events that stood out to me more than any other occurrence. I do not know how many people noticed it, but Todd Howard, the director of Fallout 3, upon receiving the award for Game of the Year, talked about how he once again missed his family vacation with his growing children. His wife had asked, as he was finishing the game for release and she was leaving with the children for vacation, if it was worth it. Then he held up the award and walked off the stage with his team. I was so struck by that moment. I still cannot say how he felt, but it seemed the most bittersweet moment to me. Viral game companies are not sexy. Their brands wow power leveling and core values are wow power leveling generic brands that nobody wants to date and values that are entirely based on commercialism of a short term opportunity. The only people who find viral game companies sexy wow power leveling are the investment community and startup news sites like Mashable because of the earnings and valuation speculation. To be sexy in games means going to the edges of wow power leveling mainstream experience and finding something that brings interested people along for the ride. Games Workshop has been at the edge of the board and war gaming industry for a long time by cleaving to a dark style and a compelling game world, and their audience is loyal enough to spend hundreds of pounds per year on lead figurines. Blizzard has been at the edge of videogames by laying down a stamp of "done when it's done" messaging to development and forming a distinctive character to every game they do. They've been so successful that World of Warcraft by itself is often held responsible for sucking all the money out of PC retail games. Zynga has no sex appeal. They make generic games with generic names (Restaurant/ Cafe/ Bistro/ Hospital/ Farm/ Monster Town/Ville /City /Village /Country / Story/ Wars) wow power leveling and un-ambitious vision. Their games are neither inherently memorable nor compelling. For most players, they’re just something to pass the time. Their challenge, therefore, is to take what they have learned so far wow power leveling and invest in the future. If Facebook are making deep changes to their platform and handing the opt-out power back to players, then Zynga cannot survive by just looking for another way to trick and spam players back into FarmVille. They need to take their $180m investment and use it to build a real following. Even a game with a horrible plot like Ninja Gaiden can employ cut scenes as a nice visual pleasing break form wow power leveling the intense action. If, however, cut scenes are executed poorly gamers will find themselves frantically pressing buttons to pass by the garbage and get back to having fun. The same theory of poor execution can be tied to in-game-story-telling. When done right this technique improves player immersion and character development. I don’t believe any of the games that I mentioned early would have had the same impact without in-game-story-telling. What are we doing with our lives? What do we want from our lives? Is our drive to create the masterpieces that shape the world? Do AAA titles redefine who we are? Do indie games affect us immeasurably? Is that what we want? Is it more important than the people in our lives? Are the people we care most about, are they the men "in the trenches" and cubicles beside us? I do not know the answer to these questions, and I know each person would answer differently. But I am thankful that in my development career so far, the people I have worked with and under have recognized the importance of our lives beyond games and encouraged my other sides. Games drive us, but they cannot take us everywhere. And with that extra mile beyond the limits of games, we have that much more under the hood when we get back on the road of development. ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Related Article: wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Is there a place for MMO magazines? wow goldPosted on 2010-Mar-5 at 10:17 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkIs there a place for MMO magazines? wow goldIn the vein of the World of Warcraft magazine, Massively reports that NCSoft has announced a magazine for the MMORPG Aion. Unlike the quarterly World of Warcraft magazine, the Aion magazine will be digital-only and come out every four weeks, or roughly every month. The Aion magazine also features bonus in-game items for players who pre-order, such as armor dyes and consumables. The magazine announcement actually begs the question about whether there's much sense in publishing magazines for an MMO, a constantly evolving and growing game. I subscribed to the World of Warcraft magazine mostly out of a love for the print medium, even though nbmishini I'm well aware that the information published therein could be made obsolete by a single patch or hotfix. Working for WoW.com, I understand the value of online content which can be updated very quickly and frequently. Best of all, most online magazines (as opposed to Aion's digital format) are free. That said, the World of Warcraft magazine looked gorgeous from the previews and from an artistic standpoint, I always believed there was value in a well-made and laid out publication. Nintendo platforms had a commanding wow gold presence on NPD Group's U.S. retail wow gold top 20 video game software sales chart for December, made available to Gamasutra this morning. Seven of the top 20 games were available wow gold on Nintendo Wii, while six were for Nintendo DS, for a total of 13 Nintendo wow gold platform games on the list. Four Xbox 360 games and three PlayStation 3 games made the list. Nintendo was the publisher with the most titles to break into the top 20, leading the way wow gold with nine games. Ubisoft and Electronic Arts followed with three, and Sega and Activision Blizzard with two each. According to Wedbush wow gold Morgan's Michael Pachter, 114 titles sold over 100,000 units in December 2009, so all games wow gold in December's top 20 sold significantly more than 100,000 units -- although NPD Group only provided exact sales figures for the top 10. I'll have a better idea of what to think when my magazine actually arrives. That's the other thing. Aion's digital-only magazine will presumably be available for download, giving instant gratification. Online magazines are just one web browser away. The World of Warcraft magazine, on the other hand, was due to come out in the 4th quarter last year but encountered a few bumps along the road and was pushed back ever so slightly. When we learned that it finally started shipping early this year, I was pretty stoked to get my hands on one. But it's now March and nothing has arrived in the mail, so that's a big minus for print subscriptions right there. Sure, I live in Asia, but I paid my $69.95 just like everybody else. I'd almost forgotten about it, actually, but Massively's post about Aion's mag reminded me and got me more than a little upset that I haven't gotten my copy two months after folks started getting theirs. Kwurky can only keep me amused for so long, after all. ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Related Article: wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ If not properly executed wow goldPosted on 2010-Mar-5 at 10:17 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkIf not properly executed wow goldThe moveset is a nebulous term that encompasses all of the player character's abilities and properties. These include the standard run and jump, but also other mechanics such as sliding, and the rules of various behaviours, e.g., how much time does it take to accelerate to a maximum velocity, how does the character react when he's hit, etc. Temporary powerups such as Mario's Starman and permanent modifiers like Mega Man's boss weapons also fall under this umbrella. So what makes a great moveset? Well, let's start at the beginning. First of all -- and it's hard to believe nbmishini that this needs to be explicitly stated -- the moveset should be very clear and accurate. There's nothing worse than running over a collectible and not picking it up. Well, unless it's getting hit by an enemy that's clearly not touching you. This kind of stuff is incredibly frustrating, and it makes the player feel cheated by the game. As soon as we're sure that we're not actively pissing off the audience, we can build a connection between the player and the game itself. To start off, the interface needs to be quick and responsive. Input should have an immediate effect on the character in order to foster a sense of full control. Granularity and different control techniques, i.e., pressing, tapping and holding, are also important as they provide a level of precision to the movement. It's important to note that the majority of 8-bit and 16-bit games actually ran at 60 frames-per-second. Sure, many of the animations were composed of only 2-5 frames, but the actual motion of the sprites was very smooth. This not only aided the physics, but also created a very dynamic sense of movement. Stories and games go hand in hand. Duh wow gold what about wow gold Tetris? Yes. There are exceptions smart ass, but the majority of games wow gold attempt to tell a story. How the plot is presented has been a popular discussion amongst the gaming community for both developers and consumers. Reading various articles from Gamasutra.com, and to a lesser extent sites wow gold like Kotaku, IGN, and 1UP, I’ve seen two popular sides emerge. On one end of the table is the traditional cut-scene. These usually occur wow gold before or after a major event in the story or level. The player loses control of their character(s), and the game swings into a presentation that mimics film. These scenes are often enhanced with improved wow gold graphics, and scenarios that can not be experienced through normal gameplay. Examples of games with cut scenes are numerous: Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Halo, Red Alert, Final Fantasy, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Mario, Zelda—the list goes on and on. Sitting on the opposite end of the table are those in favor of in-game-story-telling. This method delivers all dialogue and major wow gold events in game. The player usually has some control of their character(s) the entire time. A popular example of this mechanic is Half-Life 2. Other games that employ this technique are Bioshock, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, L4D, COD: Modern Warfare, and Splinter Cell. Now precision in platformers is often associated with pixel-perfect leaps that -- if not properly executed -- result in game death. While that is sometimes the case, precision is an ever-present facet of these titles that's experienced at virtually all times, e.g., jumping up to a moving platform, dashing through a tight tunnel, firing shots at floating enemies, etc. So how do we actually make the moveset fun? Well, there's something to be said for vicariously living through a speedy, agile ninja that performs maneuvers one would not likely do in real life. However, what I consider even more important to the "fun factor" is the integration of the moveset with the various facets of level design itself. ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Related Article: wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ How do I know what qualifies? wow power levelingPosted on 2010-Mar-5 at 10:00 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkHow do I know what qualifies? wow power levelingMost game developers spend their time developing new and novel games, and few have teams of accountants and lawyers studying every aspect of the tax code for them. As a result, most software/game developers pay more taxes than they should. Considering the expensive and rapidly rising costs of software development, the current nbmishini video game development cycle has become increasingly difficult to sustain. Many gaming companies, feeling trapped by rising overhead, have begun outsourcing their development in order to cope. The recent economic downturn has only made things worse for companies struggling to grow or get by. With the economy struggling to recover and costs continuing to rise, it is crucial for every company to be prudent and make sure they are claiming all of the tax credits to which they are entitled. One of the largest credits available to software developers – and one that is often overlooked – is the Research and Development Tax Credit. Square Enix's Kingdom wow power leveling Hearts: Birth by Sleep for PSP wow power leveling overtook the dominant New Super Mario Bros. Wii in Japanese sales for wow power leveling the week ended January 10, Media Create said Thursday. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep wow power leveling sold 446,000 units, the tracking firm said--a figure reached in just two days on the Japanese market. The game is a prequel to wow power leveling the 2002 PlayStation 2 game Kingdom Hearts, which launched the RPG series that mixes Disney and Square Enix characters. New Super Mario Bros. Wii has been hovering at or near the top of the wow power leveling weekly Japanese charts since its debut on December 3, 2009. The game sold 2.9 million units in the region through January 10, Media Create said. The week-sold title still had a strong showing this most recent week, selling 159,000 units. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep was the only wow power leveling new game to break Media Create's top 10 list, which remained relatively static. The only game to fall off of the charts from the prior week was Level 5's Professor Layton and the Flute of Malevolent Destiny for Nintendo DS. So, what is the R&D tax credit, and how do I know what qualifies? The R&D credit is a reward for taxpayers that perform qualified research activities domestically. The credit is not new: it was created in the 1980s during a similar recession, with the goal of keeping high-paying technical jobs in the U.S. Throughout the last thirty years, the credit has constantly been extended and expanded. In the current market environment, the R&D tax credit acts much like a job credit, as employers can recover portions of the costs paid to employees who conduct qualified research activities. Lowering the true cost of employees can help companies fight layoffs or even put them in a position to hire more people. To be considered “Qualified Research” for the R&D tax credit, research activities generally must satisfy four requirements or “tests.” The first test is that you have to be developing new or improved software for a qualified purpose; the second test is that the work must be based on a hard science (such as computer science, electrical engineering, or mechanical engineering); third, some uncertainty must exist before or during development; and finally, developers must attempt to eliminate the uncertainties through a process of experimentation. To help you relate this credit to your own development efforts, let’s look at how one of our firm’s clients passed the four-part test. The example we will use is a game developer that specializes in online, multiplayer strategy games. Like most game developers, this company employed teams of programmers and engineers to design and develop components such as a graphics engine, network infrastructure, and robust AI within the game. In addition, they employed QA specialists, a dedicated build team, and design directors who supervised the development tasks associated with each project. ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Related Article: wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ They are more enjoyable wow goldPosted on 2010-Mar-5 at 09:59 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkThey are more enjoyable wow goldThis is the first in a series of blog articles I intend to write. In this series I hope to examine a curious aspect of my own gaming habits: playing old games and loving them much more than new ones. Is it because I don't want to shell out cash for new games? No, although I'm not going to lie that my current economic status makes it a lot more tempting to pick up a great classic off my shelf than spending lots of money for gas to drive to the store to then spend $60, or equally expensive digital downloads. The main reason I'm going back to old games is simply put: they are more enjoyable. To start off the series I'm going to examine one of my top favorites: Final Fantasy VII. FF7 has impacted nbmishini and inspired many game developers other than myself and it remains as a huge landmark in gaming history. The current title that I am developing at my company, Matreya Studios, is strongly inspired by FF7. I have finished another play-through of FF7 since its re-release to the PSN store where I bought it to play on my PSP. I still own a working original CD copy of the game and PS1 and PS2 that will play it. The moment the game was released for PSN I had to buy it again, download and play it. Why is a game this old still so exciting to me? I think one of the key reasons is the same as it was over a decade ago when the game was first released: the cinematic appeal. There has been a change in what excites me though. Back in '97 so many people ogled over the pre-rendered cutscenes that made the game only fit on three discs. FF7 set the de-facto standard that console JPRGs must have multiple discs or else no one bought them because they were assumed to be bad. Maybe the game really was good, but no game consumer would believe it unless you had 2-4 discs. But these things don't excite me as much today. I can't say that they aren't high quality and I don't enjoy Squaresoft's masterfully rendered story, but there's something else about it that didn't continue beyond the PS1 era like canned cut-scenes did. The cinematic appeal of the game during gameplay. They could build a portal, independent from wow gold Facebook, or even a competing wow gold social network to become their own platform. Alternatively they could invest in larger, better games or more complex and complete virtual worlds. They could broaden wow gold out to smaller, more indie and creatively-oriented developers and become an aggregator or partner network. Such a strategy would result in better and more diverse content. Realistically though, I think they plan to do none of those things. I think what they will actually do is spend the $180m on trying to replicate wow gold their previous viral success through increased advertising spend. Maybe Zynga can figure out a way to leverage Facebook’s own ads to target to players as reminders. That would be much more in-character for a company as competitive and in-the-now as Zynga has proven itself to be. Zynga’s coffers are deep, as are Playdom and Playfish’s, but at the heart of their model are some deep weaknesses that are going to let a lot of wow gold the air out of their Fast Food business models. The audience expectations are going to shift, the key factors enabling the business model likewise, and while it’s been a great short term success this year, viral gaming doesn’t seem to have any more easy wins left. Now comes the hard part. Diversification, experimentation and deep design wow gold breeding interesting ideas do not grow on trees and companies need to commit to them to see them through. Right now that’s not the Zynga way. Twelve months from now it will be the companies that have managed to diversify, build strong followings and create real value that will be the new wow gold darlings of the scene. Those that do not adapt will still be there but their story will be one of difficulty. As social games come to the end of their beginning, Zynga is increasingly look like an Atari-era publisher leading the charge but unlikely to capitalise in the longer term because they’re too busy thinking they’re in the burger business. I am attempting to put my finger on the “Je ne sais quoi” that makes FF7 so enjoyable and so revolutionary for so many people. Technological limitation and artistic visions merged in a way that would only allow environments as flat sprites, with a little animation from time to time. What was then a restraint should be brought back now as a conscious game-design decision. For reference here, I'm referring specially to navigating through a town or dungeon in the game. What you will see here is real cinematic appeal in a realtime game situation. Let me explain. Let's say you are exploring Midgar, a large and central city in the world of FF7. When you move your character to the edge of the screen it switches to a new screen that is a different camera shot. What you get is a fluid navigation of cuts from shot to shot that vary like they do in cinema and create a better understanding (or intentional mystery) of the scene without making the player think or care about the camera. If I have to move the camera myself as a player, the game is not cinematic. A good director will show you visually what you need to see a lot better and easier than you ever could on your own. Getting back to how masterfully FF7 executes this, we see a variety of shots fluidly while retaining control of the gameplay. The player will see wide establishing shots, closeups, mid range, bird's eye view, worm's eye view, various angles. Together when directed correctly they make a cinematographic experience. ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Related Article: wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ An ideal way of wow power levelingPosted on 2010-Mar-5 at 09:59 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkAn ideal way of wow power levelingI'll try to collect these random thoughts in my mind to depict what is currently going on behind the scenes in designing MMOs. But first, what is an MMO? should we assume we already know how an MMO would look like? Should we assume we would know how to play throughout its contents: the mission and crafting system, the PvE or PvP, the reputation system? Many game elements are assumed as de facto in MMO design without thinking on the potential issues that will arise as insurmountable barriers for new players. One thing that no MMO has yet achieved (not even WoW), is an ideal way of displaying nbmishini the myriad of info pieces -as the interface or game mechanics- in a gradual fashion so that players don't get burdened for having to learn too much in a too short time. Someone will say that this ain't much of a problem, as a player will further learn almost all the stuff on his own, or that he will find a correct answer on the internet thanks to the community... and I would diligently agree with both arguments, even I would deem it a flaw of the game mechanics planning no to provide a reasonable answer within the same game context. Where two years ago everyone was talking wow power leveling about 'casual' games, now they're all wow power leveling talking about 'social' games. Key developers have recently attracted some very big numbers. This article is not really about Zynga itself, but rather examining what underpins their business model, the likely wow power leveling threats to which it must adapt and how Zynga – as standard bearer of the social game community – will likely fare in the coming year. As Zynga goes, so the rest of the social game market tends to follow. The first thing to say is that the people running Zynga are both wow power leveling very smart and competitive. They have streaked ahead of all of their competition by applying a relatively simple strategy of picking up on gaming trends, copying them quickly and then maximising every avenue of Facebook to spread their message thoroughly. Zynga currently has 4 times as many monthly active players in their games as their next closest rival. To look at the distribution of players on an Appdata.com chart, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was an error in the metric reportage, such is the disparity. It's also important to understand something wow power leveling about 'social games': Most of them are not social. They tend to be single or multi-player games that use social networks (mostly Facebook) as an easy way to drive player adoption. What the industry is calling 'social games' are more accurately described as 'viral games'. The focus of most viral game developers is maximising trends. Trends rise and fall quickly wow power leveling in response to player boredom, retention is king, and developers spend much of their time reminding players to play, to invite their friends, to post stories from the game to their profiles, and other activity designed essentially to not let the player forget to come and play. Viral gaming relies a lot on ways to grab or nudge players’ attention. Like any third party game publisher they are reliant on the benevolence of their platform holders (primarily Facebook) and the market conditions that their platform has engendered. This has resulted in predominantly short-term thinking. Viral game development is a battleground wow power leveling of very simple and usually cloned games, interruption marketing tactics, push-to-the-limit tactics to jog players into returning to play, and a lot of scrambling to be on the next trends as fast as possible. Viral game developers, such as Zynga, have little or no commitment to developing deep or rich game experiences because the market has not really rewarded that kind of activity. However that lack of depth is precisely the reason why viral gaming is showing signs of weakness typical in any runaway success. What's a reasonable answer within the game context? It's providing contextual help in a non-intrusive, easy way to grasp so it doesn't let the player behind if he found stuck in some point of the gameplay. Working in this 'prevention' mechanics it's a tough thing per se, as it means the designer must look at the game with a fresh mind each time, without the inevitable burden of having played MMOs for years. What would the player feel at this very same moment? Would he find his way when searching for an specific item in the inventory? Would he understand what all these gauges and meters mean? And these acronyms: RP, MP, INT? How would he better assimilate all the instructions he's given so he can cope with them without being overwhelmed? ≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ Related Article: wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow power leveling |
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