post-mortem
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Industry happy with E3 2009's rebirth
Initial reaction to the rebirth of E3 has been quite positive. GI.biz spoke with representatives of several major publishers and they all seemed to have supportive things to say about the event. Take-Two CEO Ben Feder even said the company "couldn't be happier" thanks to the show's "unbelievable" energy.We can add that from company reps we talked with during the show that almost everyone seemed pleased with the format and scale. A couple folks even said that the ESA could open the tap for E3 2010 just "a little more." Next year's show is set for June 15-17, but we still have plenty more E3 stuff to post and coverage from last week's activities, so stay tuned.
Post mortems for Uru Live and Auto Assault relive the pain
An interesting piece at 1Up talks about the effects of closing down an under-performing MMO, both on the players and the developers. Getting the "don't look back in anger" treatment are Cyan Worlds's Uru Live and NCsoft's Auto Assault. Containing snippets of quotes from the creators of both games, there are lessons here for upcoming MMO devs that should be heeded.Interestingly, there is mention of an indie MMO being developed by some of the Auto Assault team called Apokalypsos, apparently featuring a post-apocalyptic setting. Combining FPS gameplay with vehicular combat, this sounds like Mad Max for the massively multiplayer crowd. We'll keep an eye open for further developments.
Joshua Linden's post-1.18.5 server deployment post-mortem
Joshua Linden of Linden Lab has posted a comprehensive post-mortem of the issues involving the 1.18.5 server release on the Second Life grid. Yes, the viewer itself is only up to version 1.18.4. A previous effort called 'Message Liberation' has provided the first steps in allowing different server and viewer versions to coexist with each-other. For those people who've ever managed or been involved with large-scale grid deployments, you'll probably sit back and chuckle ruefully, having experienced similar things first-hand yourself, or even accidentally caused them.
