This year I had the luxury of attending the SOE Fan Faire along with a number of friends from my guild Revelry and Honor (Guk). If you haven't been to a Fan Faire before, I highly recommend it. It's a great opportunity to get out and meet your 'friends', rub shoulders with the developers, and just generally get involved in the community. By far the biggest hoot of the weekend was hanging out with my guildmates. They were all really funny, high quality peeps. It was a blast getting to know them a bit out of game.
Our guild leader, Karen, from Journeys with Jaye, was one of the winners of the SOE Backstage Bloggers contest and was doing a bunch of work with the community members over the weekend. I tagged along a bit and it seemed like every time I turned around I was shaking hands with another dev or community fixture... Calthine, Amnerys, Kiara, Frizznik, Feldon (EQ2Wire), Adam (Epic Slant) and yeah... Smedley. Well at least we think that was him chilling at the bar while we did our 8 am shots of Patron.
'Jace' Hall was the MC for the event. You may know him from his work on the web based Jace Hall Show or the television series 'V'. I'm going to say that although 'Jace' may aspire to be a gamer, he was a bit out of his element hosting Fan Faire. I'm not sure he ever garnered the respect of the audience. Perhaps that was just part of the shtick. Linda Carlson AKA 'Brasse' really stole the show up on stage. She was great! SOE, next year skip the fancy shmacy MC and just have Brasse do the whole thing!
I participated in the EQ2 contest which involved running a group through Zraxth's Unseen Arcanum. This zone will be released in one of the future expansions and it was challenging for us. The group had 30 minutes to go as far as we could and received points for each named kill among other things. We had a great time doing this, but network problems kept this event from going off as smoothly as it should have. One suggestion SOE for next year... Put up a leaderboard where all teams can monitor results. Use a large LCD panel and let everyone see how they scored compared to the other participants. There were a lot of people clogging up the contest area, trying to figure out how they did. It would also be cool to see who was in each group (i.e. class and/or guild). Roll this up into a web app that references player profiles fromo EQ2Players! Better yet, give us devs more access to XML from EQ2Players and the EQ2 environment and I'll do it for ya =)
I attended a couple of the EQ2 panels including EQNext and thre Class Mechanics panel. While EQNext looks interesting I wasn't really impressed with how SOE presented this over the weekend. I really got the impression that there wasn't a lot of vision or innovation going on. Smed and the devs spent about 10 minutes talking about the game at the beginning of the panel and then just opened it up for questions and comments. This really made the whole thing feel like a phishing session. 'We really don't have much yet and were hoping you could give us some ideas'. It felt like a 'design-by committee' approach. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just seemed like it lacked mojo. Some things I didn't like hearing about... classes, raid sizes, instances.. Again, not a lot of apparent innovation from the outset. Do something... I don't know... different. Everyone else has raids, but you have: 'fill in this space with your really cool new features' The screenshots did look nice and I have my fingers crossed but there certainly will be a lot of competition for this game when it finally appears (Guild Wars 2, Rift, and new Blizzard mmo).
The Class Mechanics panel clearly illustrated three things for me. First the players are still really passionate about this game. They know their stuff. Second, if you ask a silly question during this panel in front of 500 people, they will reinforce my first observation with you. (i.e. 'You suck!' or 'Learn to play your class!') Third, the development team is really loaded with stuff to do. I sympathize with what they are up against. Ouch. Hopefully they are able to get through with their reduced workload after the layoffs this spring.
I'll try to get some more of my notes from the EQNext and Class Mechanics panels up later this week.
For now, I'm out!
Jose
8/16/10
4/24/10
"Back when I was your age..."
...I used to walk backward, barefoot, and uphill both ways to school. Uh... Right.
It's that whole older generation telling the new generation just how much easier they have it. Sure, I'll admit that when it comes to gaming, this current generation has it pretty good. But when I read this I shed a tear. It's not that I'm against being environmentally friendly. Far from it. I'm just against the concept of breaking up the traditional packaging format for PC games. It's the whole iTunes revolution all over again, but I'll get to that in a bit.
The days of driving to the store to pick up that boxed game product are rapidly coming to an end. Ubisoft's move is another sign of the things to come in the future. And while I can appreciate the total convenience of electronic distribrution (Yeah! I'm pointing at you Steam!), part of me is going to miss getting my grubby mitts on the boxed deliverables.
For me, half of the experience with new games is thumbing through a thick manual full of stats, spells, class information, lore, etc, etc. In recent years many publishers have cut way back on this content, but it was still something I liked about picking up the boxed product. Nothing beat the smell of freshly printed color manuals... Ahhh printing chemicals! And honestly, an RPG manual with a phat section of spells... Heaven!
Let's get back to the iTunes thread... When is the last time you actually bought an album and LOOKED at the art and liner notes that the artist put together. This used to be a big deal for me. With the convenience of digitally distributed music, I rarely buy entire albums from the store. In fact, I can't remember the last time that I did. But I definitely have less connection to the artists these days. I know the songs that I hear but that's about it. This really 'depersonalizes' the relationship consumers have with their products.
So while I think we've gained a bit in terms of the convenience, we're losing touch of that tangible relationship we used to build with our music and our games. I expect in the not too distant future some writer somewhere will lament the loss of that quirky little thing called the US Postal service.. After all, who needs paper based mail delivery when you have email??
Back when I was your age, I had to DRIVE to the store, buy the game, and then read through the manual 4 times before playing. Boy times are changin; fast.
Jose
It's that whole older generation telling the new generation just how much easier they have it. Sure, I'll admit that when it comes to gaming, this current generation has it pretty good. But when I read this I shed a tear. It's not that I'm against being environmentally friendly. Far from it. I'm just against the concept of breaking up the traditional packaging format for PC games. It's the whole iTunes revolution all over again, but I'll get to that in a bit.
The days of driving to the store to pick up that boxed game product are rapidly coming to an end. Ubisoft's move is another sign of the things to come in the future. And while I can appreciate the total convenience of electronic distribrution (Yeah! I'm pointing at you Steam!), part of me is going to miss getting my grubby mitts on the boxed deliverables.
For me, half of the experience with new games is thumbing through a thick manual full of stats, spells, class information, lore, etc, etc. In recent years many publishers have cut way back on this content, but it was still something I liked about picking up the boxed product. Nothing beat the smell of freshly printed color manuals... Ahhh printing chemicals! And honestly, an RPG manual with a phat section of spells... Heaven!
Let's get back to the iTunes thread... When is the last time you actually bought an album and LOOKED at the art and liner notes that the artist put together. This used to be a big deal for me. With the convenience of digitally distributed music, I rarely buy entire albums from the store. In fact, I can't remember the last time that I did. But I definitely have less connection to the artists these days. I know the songs that I hear but that's about it. This really 'depersonalizes' the relationship consumers have with their products.
So while I think we've gained a bit in terms of the convenience, we're losing touch of that tangible relationship we used to build with our music and our games. I expect in the not too distant future some writer somewhere will lament the loss of that quirky little thing called the US Postal service.. After all, who needs paper based mail delivery when you have email??
Back when I was your age, I had to DRIVE to the store, buy the game, and then read through the manual 4 times before playing. Boy times are changin; fast.
Jose
4/13/10
Props to my guildie!
4/10/10
Life Imitating Art, Imitating Life
Had to chuckle over this one... The HR department at the company I work for just announced a revamped promotion plan. The previous promotion plan had only six levels for employees to progress through. This was described as too flat. So... The logical thing to do was to increase the level cap and now there are seventeen levels for us to grind through on our way to unlocking the CIO achievement =). Yay! Have to wonder when they are going to offer bonus XP week next.
In all seriousness, most of my colleagues seemed to like the fact that they had a clearer career path progression; even if those promotions were tied to smaller pay/title increases. In the end I think it really speaks to the need for people to feel like they have a goal to work towards, whether in game or in their careers.
Somewhat connected to the topic of games and work... I came across this post at the Are We New At This Blog.
- Plan successful raids, player vs. player battles, roleplaying sessions, and contests
- Deal with problem players and keep a lid on guild-fracturing drama
- Solve loot issues and choose the best loot system for your guild
- Boost your guild’s morale, reputation, and server presence
- Promote and motivate an effective officer corps
- Organize fun and safe real-world guild meetings and events
Run this through the corporate speak blender for a quality mash-up:
- Plan successful hostile takeovers, employee vs. employee conflict resolution, dealing with weirdos in the workplace, and how to run an NCAA pool from you cubicle
- Deal with problem employees and keep a lid on team breaking drama
- Solve pay issues and choose the best compensation system for your corporation
- Boost your teams morale, e-peen, and breaking into the S&P 500
- Promote and motivate an effective leadership
- Out of office socializing best avoided for most workplaces. See any episode of 'The Office'
I think it fits. With a quick find-and-replace, and some very minor editing, this book could be the next 'One Minute Manager' for the up and coming generation of gamers about to launch into careers.
So yeah... I do see a lot of Life Imitating Art, Imitating Life here. Lots of the same topics, some silly, some serious. All connected by the people who drive them.
Jose
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
