Kevin Kelly
Articles by Kevin Kelly
Joystiq is at PAX 2009
Joystiq has invaded the city known for Starbucks, Kurt Cobain, the Space Needle and, most importantly, the Penny Arcade Expo 2009! We hit the ground running last night with a pre-PAX Activision event (they aren't officially at the show), and got our hands on some games -- we'll tell you more later. Stay tuned for a lot more as we march through the halls, pausing only to record silly videos. %Gallery-71780%
PAX 2009: Blur gets Twitter support
Bizarre Creation's arcade-style racer, Blur, has received a nitrous-level boost of social networking. Initially, the social component of the game was limited to mock text messages and emails sent from AI racers in the game, who you build love/hate relationships with over the course of your races against each other. Additionally, Blur features faux social networking sites like "Inner Tube" (a Bizarre version of YouTube). Today, real Twitter support has been confirmed for the game, although current details can be summed up in less than 140 characters.Here we go: Twitter apparently working in both 360 and PS3 versions of Blur. Update example: "I just won 1st place at Hackney!" etc.So, will we be tweeting from our existing accounts? Is the Xbox 360 version's integration independent of the Xbox Live partnership? Can we see tweeted replies in-game? Can we post Twitpics of our victories? Will the Fail Whale be drivable? We want answers -- and we shall get them!
Gaming underwear for the truly hardcore
digg_url = 'http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/02/gaming-underwear-for-the-truly-hardcore/'; Been shopping at Target lately? Did you know they have an entire rack devoted to video game underwear? Yes, you read that right: Video. Game. Underwear. Included in the bunch are Halo, Atari, both Rock Band and Guitar Hero brands, and PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers, all available for $9.99 in themed tins. Although the truly hardcore don't rock any underwear at all, right? Just like Wii players, commando is the order of the day. Sadly, we neglected to check the women's side to see if there are female counterparts to these underpants and, secretly, we'd really love to rock a Rock Band thong. Update: we sent a secret shopper on a mission to Target and she's reported back: No gaming underwear for the ladies. You call this progress, gaming industry?
Nintendo announces new Wiimote, DSi colors for North America
Nintendo just announced that you'll finally be able to get a new color for your Wii ... mote. Black. This holiday season the company will be making a black Wiimote bundle available with the Wiimote and Wii MotionPlus, including a black Wii jacket, which is very slimming. However, you'll have to buy your black Nunchuk as a standalone, also available Holiday 2009.According to the presser, "The Black bundle is the first new color for the Wii Remote and Wii MotionPlus," so let's hope this means a rainbow of colors coming down the pipeline next year. Right now this has nothing to go with, especially since the Wii won't be available in black over here, only in Japan. No mention of new console colors, nor of the blue Wiimote, seen recently at the World Hobby Fair. Will this be a case of having to chase down colors and accessories in different regions?Nintendo is also bringing new DSi colors to North America, in the form of pink and white, available starting September 13. So we'll now have black, blue, white, and pink DSi ... why no funky colors like Japan? They get all the cool stuff.%Gallery-71345%
Leo & Kevin - Page 2
Diablo has never officially supported modding although they haven't really banned it. Is there any thought towards modding going into this or even map editing? Have you guys thought about including a map editor?Leo: We talked about it early on and we considered it but the way we put together our maps and the fact that it's random ... it's very artistic-centric. And, on top of that, the fact that it's so random it's like, would people just change the random number generator? You know what I mean? [laughs] I suppose not, if It's already random. We did look at including a map editor and ... we didn't feel it was necessary. Leo: We don't hand-build our dungeons anyways, but the way we build our maps kind of makes that prohibitive. But we're always looking at what the end users might want so we did look at including a map editor and we just said that it's never been a big part of Diablo. So we didn't feel it was necessary. Kevin: We're certainly not opposed to modding it.Leo: Yeah, we're not going to put in things that, "Oh my God, you can never mod this!" If somebody comes along and makes this great editor and makes this great mod...Kevin: At this point, we're knee-deep in just making the game. That's sort of at the periphery of our discussions at this point. So regarding the new loot drop system. If I'm understanding this correctly, if you're playing in a party, when you see drops, you see the items on the ground, that's what you can pick up. The other characters in your party won't see that. But you can pick it up and drop it again for someone else.Leo: Yes. Kevin: That's right.Does it actually have to enter your inventory or can you just immediately pick it up, you know, when you have your inventory open, you have the option of kind of, "Alright, I'm just going to drag it over here." Leo: I believe, as it stands right now in the demo, you pick it up into your inventory and then drop it. But we'll figure out the easiest way for people to do that is if they want to share. We'll try to make that as fast as possible. In the character selection screen, the female Monk is not available. Is that just because she's not finished yet, the female? There will be a female monk?Leo: That's right. Kevin: All of our classes will have gender choices. In the demo that's playable here, have you guys hidden anything, any Easter Eggs?Kevin: There's some Easter Eggs. Leo: Yeah, there's something hidden in there. It's just fun stuff. It's nothing that the people are going to be like, "Oh my God, I found this thing. I found the fifth class!" Nothing like that. It's just fun little jokes here and there. The Monk has a very limited weapon set. In the demo, nearly every weapon the Monk picked up had a big red X on it because he can't use it. Is that how he will be in the final game?Leo: Not quite as limited as it is now but yeah. Right now the staff he comes with is the only thing I've been able to use.Leo: He's got fist weapons too, like fist knives, pretty cool-looking stuff. Kevin: But it's just not all done yet. So we wanted to make sure what we did have on the demo is of the same quality as the other classes. We had to limit that. Leo: And the difference between him and the other characters is that his stuff will probably take a lot longer to percolate into the game because his skills are very much based on his weapon choices, kind of like how the Assassin in D2 was very much defined by her weaponry. That's kind of how he is. When he has a staff, he has a lot of skills available to him. If you've picked them and bought them I guess, they're very sweeping. Whereas if he has fist weapons, his skills are based on quick hits and stuff. So that's kind of the way we're going with him. So as you can imagine, it's not as easy as just putting a sword in a character's hand that disappears when he does all his skills and stuff. With the caveat, of course, that if we decide that's not the way we're going to go, we're going to give him 20 weapons, you know. [laughs]With the whole martial arts influence on the monk, has it been tempting to throw in like a Bruce Lee cry when he goes nuts in there? We're trying to kind of combine an Eastern European Monk with the Asian feel. Leo: No, we're trying to kind of combine an Eastern European Monk with the Asian feel. We don't want to go one way or another. It's been a difficult balancing process, and my artists looked pretty perplexed when I first approached them and said, "No, he's got to be kind of more European" and they're like, "What do you mean?" [laughs] So it was a little bit of a balancing act but I think we're getting that feel. We're really trying to do something that has its own little niche. It feels a little bit like he's got some of that Asian influence, you know, in some kind of a weird combination, so we probably wouldn't want to throw that in there. But who knows? It could be that down the road we think that's a great idea. Kevin: It is martial arts fantasy fulfillment but with a twist. We wanted to do something creative with him. We like what we did. #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } << BACK COMMENT NEXT >>
Blizzard interview: Leo Boyarsky and Kevin Martens on Diablo 3
We know that we've been fire-hosing Diablo 3 information on you, but keep those raincoats zipped because there's more incoming. In fact, we sat down with Leon Boyasrsky, lead world designer, and Kevin Martens, lead content artist, at BlizzCon. While they didn't drop any deafening secrets on us like ZOMG what the final class will be, they did go into further detail about the game.Read on through for the full interview, and imagine what it'll be like if Martens gets his dream wish and they stick a Sideshow Collectibles Barbarian statue inside the Collector's Edition of the game. The chances of that actually happening are pretty much zero, but still ... we can dream.%Gallery-70687%
Leo & Kevin - Page 3
The only negative reaction we've heard so far is that the Monk introduction cinematic was choppy in a few places, it looked a little rough. You know, usually Blizzard's cinematics are so gorgeous and everything looks like it's out of a CGI movie. Was that put together in-game? How did you guys create that?Leo: Yeah, that's an in-game done by our AV team. We have two different ways of doing them. A lot of times when they announce patches for World of Warcraft, you'll notice that they'll do in-game ones as opposed to full-on cinematic ones. That's what that one was. Same with our Wizard one last time. They were developing that as we were developing a lot of his skills. I think they did a really good job with the limited tools that we allowed them to have at the time. [laughs] But I thought it was really cool, myself. But I know what you're saying.Yeah, there was a few times where you were like, "Oh, it's a little choppy" or some of the characters in the background looked all the same, you know. They're facing the same way, moving the same way. Kevin: They didn't get the assets very early; they didn't have more time. Leo: We'll take full responsibility for that. [laughs]. Without knowing how much of the game still needs to be developed, what's been the most sort of challenging facet? I've never had this much fun testing a game that's still in development as I've had with this demo. Kevin: You know I've been really happy to get the amount of quests and adventures in that we got for this demo. There's a ton of them and they're random and their placement is random and some of them have multiple endings and everything. Seeing that all come together in an area this big – it's much bigger than anyone can finish in 15 minutes of game play. You know, that was a lot of hard work and I'm happy that we got there. Now I'm really anxious to see people's feedback on this. So that's my personal one. Leo: Yeah, it's just right now I think probably, because me and Kevin worked a lot on that stuff for the demo, it's probably where we're most focused right now. If you asked Jay or any of the guys, they'll probably talk more about the systems stuff because that's probably what they're focused on. Kevin: Another thing I think to mention is co-op. Co-op is getting much more fun all the time. I've never had this much fun testing a game that's still in development as I've had with this demo.So the Monk's backstory. Will our Monk in the game encounter other Monks? Will there be a lot of lore given about where they've been, what they do?Leo: Yeah, I don't know if you'll be encountering other Monks unless they're playing other player characters. That still remains to be seen with story details and all that. But yeah, with all of our characters we want a very rich backstory and we want the world to somewhat react to who you are, where you've been and what you've done. So yeah, I mean that's our goal with this game, is to very much make your character a distinct personality with his own kind of story or her own story so you feel like this is a person in the world. Kevin: Yeah, the Monk is not a generic tough-guy. He comes from an interesting place. This type of person is known throughout the world and is somewhat notorious, both respected and feared for their martial prowess and there's sort of the mystique about him. So I think there will be reactions to him that will be different than if you play a Barbarian or Wizard type. And then the last thing. If there was no limit for a Diablo 3 collector's edition, what would you guys like to put in there?Kevin: Somehow working in a Murloc. Somehow. [laughter]Well yeah, you've got to have the crossover reciprocation.Leo: Some really cool Diablo action figures, I guess, because I would love to get those. I'm sure I will anyways but, you know, I'm sure the fans would love that. I don't know, you know. Kevin: Did you see the new Barbarian statue?Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Leo: One of those, an art book...Kevin: Like in the box.Just so you can have the biggest box on the shelf. Well, thank you guys for your time.Leo: Thanks a lot. Kevin: Thanks, go play it some more! #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } << BACK COMMENT
Samwise Didier - Page 2
Will you go entirely back to the drawing board completely with the next expansion? Yeah, but the thing that is kind of fun about it is, it is going to let us take a break from the typical Terran grit and grime and chunky heavy metal kind of stuff. We are going to be able to embrace this more fluid, organic, spiky kind of horrific-looking vibe. Now who knows where Kerrigan will be standing watching the news if that is even part of it. But we can go from a TV screen that is all infested over or something that is more organic. It is still kind of open. I am kind of looking forward to jamming on those ideas and seeing what we can come up with. We really don't have a lot of that done right now. We have ideas, but it is a lot cooler to just kind of wait until we are ready to start jamming on that than to start working on something and then it either gets put in and everyone is like, "Oh yeah, we have a better idea," so that was kind of wasted. I want to focus all the guys, what they are working on now, on getting out the Wings of Liberty. If we have three more weeks, then I want three more weeks of art put into the single player missions to make planet Kastenar that much more different than Valhalla and Altheon and stuff like that.So when the delay was announced officially, were you glad to have more time to put into it? You are not going to say, "Oh yeah. I remember that game was delayed for X amount of months." You know at the end of all this, it doesn't matter. Well it matters, but whether Starcraft 2 comes out now or six months from now, three years from now when you are playing the game still, you are not going to say, "Oh yeah. I remember that game was delayed for X amount of months." You are just going to be going, "God, this game kicks butt!" Right? It is the same with a lot of our games. People have had to wait for our games, but it seems that is the way to do it, because you are going to keep playing them, right? I mean people are still playing the original Starcraft, still playing Diablo, still playing WoW. And WoW originally came out, what, almost five years ago? I mean we have expansions and stuff, but by waiting, by making these games good, it is worth the wait. You are going to come back to it. It is like you go to a restaurant and there is a 45 minute wait, but if you get the best chow in the world there you are going to keep going there. You aren't going to go to some place that sucks. Our games can't suck. They got to be awesome.So what was you background before you came to Blizzard?I studied in the halls of the of the Orange mall movie theater. I drew Conan on the back of the bathroom check logs, swept up popcorn, and cleaned up Coke spills. All that led to me opening for Ozzy. I started thinking, "I can be playing for Ozzy instead of doing this." And that was the start of everything. How long have you been at Blizzard?Since '91.So quite a while.Yeah, the Jurassic period.So what do you tend to play if you are not working? I know you guys are busting your butts right now, but do you play games at all on your own?Yeah, yeah. I haven't played WoW in a couple weeks or a month just because I haven't had a lot of time. I just got done playing Prototype, which was really fun. It had a lot of the elements of GTA, which I love, combined with the Spawn character type things; awesome.And an Activision title, we might add.Oh, that is right! Yeah, it was fun. And I have been actually goofing around on the ... god, here is another plug, the Warcraft Peggle.Peggle is addictive. I sit in front of the computer and I go, "Well I can either be playing Left 4 Dead again ... or I could be drawing." I never really played Peggle before, right? Love, absolutely love Left 4 Dead. Can't wait for the new one to come out. Other than that it has just mostly been ... now when I come home, because I finished up some games, I mostly draw now. It is nice. I sit in front of the computer and I go, "Well I can either be playing Left 4 Dead again or whatever ... Peggle, or I could be drawing."Are you a pen and paper guy or do you use a Wacom tablet and a computer?You know it just depends on where I am at. When I am hanging out with the kids or whatever, I am drawing on a big sketch pad and I will scan that in later and either color it or leave it pencil and paper. Or if I am up in the computer area with all the people hanging out, I will just start coloring on something that I had started or sketch something. Yeah, it just kind of depends. I really love pencil and paper because it has that feel. But otherwise I will just do something in Photoshop for fun.Cool. Well, thanks man, and break a leg or a larynx or whatever tonight.Thanks! #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } << BACK COMMENT
Blizzard interview: Samwise Didier talks Starcraft 2
These days Samwise Didier is better known as the lead singer for Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, but he's been a Blizzard employee since 1991, and has been churning out artwork (like the above Starcraft logos) for years. He also has the dubious title of the creator of the Pandaren race.You can check out a huge chunk of his artwork in the gallery on the Sons of the Storm website. He has a massive head of metal hair, apparently never wears pants, and is overseeing the artwork on Starcraft 2. We sat down with him at BlizzCon not long before L80ETC opened for Ozzy Osbourne, and chatted him up about his job. Read on for the full interview.
BlizzCon 2009: A hoard of Diablo 3 info
Blizzard's playable Diablo 3 demo at this year's BlizzCon felt like a step backwards from last year's, mostly because the Rune system was removed completely. It'll be in the final game, but since Blizzard is still working on the Skills that the Runes enhance / rely on, the company said it didn't make sense to have the Runes in this time around. Bummer. It makes sense, but we still missed the bouncing, flaming skulls the Witch Doctor once issued.Also, last year's area included a lot more dialogue, and had moodier lighting. This time we were smack dab in the middle of a giant desert, which didn't offer many chances to encounter spooky, candlelit chambers. There were a couple of dungeons you could drop down into this year, via swirling sands, but for the most part you were hoofing it around under the bright sun.%Gallery-70687%
BlizzCon 2009: Martial arts secrets of Diablo 3's Monk
When you think hardcore-fantasy, swords-and-sorcery killing machine, you think "monk," right? At BlizzCon, Diablo 3's new character class, the Monk, was unlocked, supposedly having been inspired by pen-and-paper RPGs. According to Jay Wilson, almost all of Blizzard's characters are meant to hearken back to the "golden age of RPG gaming." The Monk is designed to be a fragile, melee-based character that performs some amazingly agile moves. With skills like the "Seven-Sided Strike" and "Way of the Hundred Fists," we'd say he's stripped from a different golden age -- from the reels of 1960s and '70s Kung Fu serials. The only detail that's missing are the Bruce Lee yips.%Gallery-70687%
BlizzCon 2009: The new Battle.Net
Blizzard finally unveiled the much-hyped new version of Battle.Net at BlizzCon and, as expected, it's a huge leap forward from the service that was first introduced with Diablo in 1996. Although, in typical Blizzard fashion, this is still a work in progress and could change by the time it eventually comes out. In 2013. (We kid, we kid.)Everything shown was modeled from inside of Starcraft 2, which Blizzard is calling the Battle.Net 2.0 launch title. The developer will be working to expand it to older titles, possibly including legacy games like the original Starcraft and Warcraft. It's also safe to say that Blizzard must be working on a client-only version of Battle.Net, so you don't have to be inside a game to see when your friends are on.Check out the gallery below, and you can read about all the new details of what Blizzard wants to be the "premiere matchmaking service out there," after the break.%Gallery-70705%
BlizzCon 2009: The soundalike contest
Besides the panels, the costumes, and all the game-playing, one of the highlights of BlizzCon's opening night is the bizarre soundalike contest, where contestants jump up on stage to try and win prizes by imitating voices or sounds from the games in the Blizzard universe. The slightly NSFW video after the break capsulizes that experience ... and captures some surprisingly decent comedy. The guy with the 1-900 sex number bit initially looked like he'd cause groans, but he wasn't bad. Plus, is it just us or does the demon hunter impersonator share some buddy-comedy chops with Jay Mohr? There might be a straight-to USA Network movie in the making here.But enough yakkin'. Head beyond the break to see for yourselves.
BlizzCon 2009: Ozzy Osbourne closes show down, injures no bats
Blizzard fittingly chose Ozzy Osbourne to close down BlizzCon last night, since he's been in a fairly funny World of Warcraft commercial arguing about who is the true Prince of Darkness. He put on a fairly deafening, rocktastic show -- some of his setlist was appropriately composed of tracks off his 1980 "Blizzard of Ozz" album -- though he did stumble a bit through the words to "Iron Man." However, he made up for that by maniacally turning a hose on the audience, and I kid you not -- some women actually threw their panties on stage.Opening up for him was Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, although they've now changed their name in protest over their own name changes to a familiar Prince-esque symbol, or The Artists Formerly Known As Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain (TAFKAL80ETC). They put on a good show as well, although they really need to write some new songs. Browse the Ozzrific gallery below, and you can also check out one of Ozzy's classics below without the need for earplugs and a raincoat. Even though the show is over, we'll have more BlizzCon news soon. All aboard!
BlizzCon 2009: Chris Metzen talks about casting Tricia Helfer
We snagged a couple of minutes with Blizzard's Chris Metzen as he strolled across the BlizzCon floor in search of fresh air and daylight, and we asked him about the voice casting of Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer as Sarah Kerrigan in the upcoming Starcraft 2, and both expansions as well. They're going to keep her around for awhile. "For the road that Kerrigan will be set upon for the arc of the storyline, I just felt that Tricia had the right depth and emotional resonance that would work one to one," Metzen explained.Metzen himself has done a couple of voices as well, including the "Battlecruiser operational" line from the original Starcraft, and as Thrall in several Warcraft games. Listen to the rest of the audio interview right below, where he talks more about Helfer, and obliges us by doing some of the voices.
BlizzCon 2009: StarCraft Ghost lives on (in spirit)
During the StarCraft 2 gameplay panel at BlizzCon, Dustin Browder spent much of the time talking abut the upcoming map editor that ships with SC2. If he's to be believed, it's the most powerful piece of software on the planet. Which might be a slight exaggeration. Those developers all have bias running in their veins.However, we were fairly impressed when they showed us that the editor allows first-person game creation. What?! Yes, that even includes details as far down as UI manipulation and an inventory system. That's a lot more than you'd expect from a simple "map editor." One employee-created game was an FPS featuring a very familiar, bouncing-ponytailed Ghost that was created in just a few days.Blizzard officially put StarCraft: Ghost on indefinite hold back in 2006, and they've been telling us here that it's still the case. Although some enterprising modder/mapper out there might just want create their own version.
BlizzCon 2009: The Costumes
With the jam-packed costume contest taking place at BlizzCon in the evening, people spent all of yesterday parading around in their ginormous costumes in preparation. That's some dedication right there! Check out our massive gallery just below, and be sure to watch a video of the contest winners right after the break. The rogue above was one of the finalists, but she was ultimately robbed (robbed, we say!) of the top prize.Stay tuned for more images -- BlizzCon ain't over yet!%Gallery-70721%
BlizzCon 2009: Diablo 3 not yet ruled out for consoles
Blizzard COO Paul Sams mentioned at BlizzCon that they haven't yet ruled out Diablo 3 for consoles. "We've met with the major manufacturers, and they've made some pretty compelling arguments," Sams said. We can safely assume he means Sony and Microsoft, because it's nearly impossible to imagine this game running on the Wii. Sure, it's what Blizzard says about all of its projects as they relate to consoles and yet, here we are, with nary a Blizzard console game in sight. But Sams did reiterate Blizz's interest saying that we will be seeing its games on consoles in the future. "Whether that's three years from now, five years, I can't say," Sams noted. "But I have no doubt that we'll be making games for consoles."
Joystiq at BlizzCon 2009
We're here inside BlizzCon 2009 in Anaheim, California, having survived the massive onslaught of people desperate to sprint and knock people over in the Quest for the Perfect Seats. The opening ceremonies start soon, and promise to reveal ... something. Will it be World of Warcraft's newest rumored expansion, Cataclysm? We're also holding out for news on Blizzard's mystery MMO, more Diablo 3 information (go Wizard! go Monk!), and, finally, something concrete about Battle.Net. Oh, and we guess there's that Starcraft 2 game everyone's been yapping about ...If you're hungry for WoW info, head over to our sister site WoW.com. Like, the entire website is about that game.%Gallery-70671%
Dustin Browder - Page 5
Can we expect easter eggs and jokes in the finished game? Oh yeah. We're going to hide some more, I'm sure, before we're done. It's definitely something we like to do is have little things on the ship. We've talked about lots of things we haven't implemented yet, and I don't know ever will be implemented. We've talked about if you hit a button or something on the Battlecruiser, setting the modifiers off by accident, and the whole ship goes to red alert and you can see a shot going off into the distance. Horner says something snotty about it, like, "Be careful where you put your drink, Jim." I don't know. We'll see what we get to and what we don't get to, and what we decide will be fun at the time. I just wish we could see an actual transforming planetary center. The Terra-Tron. How long does it take to make something like that that's complete bullshit? If it's complete bullshit, it's not that long. That doesn't even work in the game at all. That's totally hacked together. Yeah? It looks pretty slick. Yeah, but you can't control or do anything with it. You can only play the animation in that environment, doing that thing. If you've set up the ends perfectly, then it works. If you try to move anything around, it doesn't work at all. It's literally just the animation playing in the environment. That's pretty quick for some of the artists. That's a couple of hours for one of our artists to bang it together. The audio took a little bit longer, but it was all sort of ninja'd in. To make it work in game is a lot more work, so we'll see if that happens or not. So is the StarCraft team working on Battle.Net, or is there a Battle.Net team? It's not just a question of somewhere you push a button and a different app launches and there's Battle.Net. It's the integrated experience that we're working together on. It is Battle.Net. It's really going to be an experience. We're talking ... you're going to log in, and then you're going to play StarCraft, right? So it's not just a question of somewhere you push a button and a different app launches and there's Battle.Net. Like it's the integrated experience that we're working together on. But there's a whole team and they're working pretty hard on it. Have you guys thought about, you know, linking that out to social media? Like say you hit a certain level on a single play or something and it sends something to your Twitter feed. No, no, I haven't been part of that discussion if it has happened. We've definitely looked at those sites and their success at creating social networks which is core to the way we deal with Battle.Net or WoW. We've definitely looked to their success and said, "How do lessons learned from their success apply to our business?" But I don't think I've ever heard specifically about having a Facebook app that simply pops out. Although I've got some on my Facebook, actually, but they're not made by us. That's why we were asking about like a Battle.Net client, because you kind of want something running on your machine to say, like, "Oh, my buddies are playing. I want to jump into their game." Yeah, no. I agree. It's thin, and easy to run, and yeah, it keeps running all the time. At BlizzCon last year we were told that Blizzard may be trying to find a way to monetize Battle.Net. Jay ... Jay Wilson. We know who said it. Like buying your own Battle.Net email domain or something like that. Is that still ... I mean, right now it sounds you guys just want to get it to work. If you buy a box of StarCraft, it'll be free to play. Have you read all the things people are saying about LAN in StarCraft 2? "We're going to hack it, so LAN will work on it." There's a lot of stuff simply doesn't work without Battle.Net. And it's all very, you know, technical and bizarre. Yeah, they may. And ultimately we can't win all those fights. I'm sure they'll do that and they'll do whatever they want to do. That's very different from us, you know, saying right on the box. The other thing, too, is there are actually a lot of problems with it, you know, in terms of technology. We build such an integrated experience, and we are in the process of building such an integrated experience, there's a lot of stuff simply doesn't work without Battle Net. And it's all very, you know, technical and bizarre, but like right now our score screens are handed down from Battle.Net. And we do this so that games like Defense of the Ancients can have their own custom score screen. So our game has no concept of a score screen, only Battle.Net knows about the score screens. In regular Battle.Net you don't get a score screen. That's so strange. But it all does make sense if you're thinking about it supporting a mod community. So for us then to have LAN support a score screen would cause us to reduplicate all of that work all over again. And that's a bunch of work we'd kind of rather not do. So there's a bunch of things that would be a little bit more challenging if they decide to duplicate it. I think it might be a little bit more challenging than they imagine, because it was more challenging that we thought it should be. But you know, I'm sure they'll do it. Well, I think that's about everything. We'd better leave so you guys can get back to work. Cool, man. Well, thanks for coming in. Thanks for inviting us. #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } << BACK COMMENT