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Arden brings BBQ indoors thanks to 'smoke elimination' technology
FirstBuild, a product innovation lab backed by GE Appliances, has built an indoor smoker that burns wood pellets and captures the smoke so it's safe to use in your kitchen.
A hacker stole and leaked the Xbox Series X graphics source code
AMD has been having a particularly rough few months, apparently. The chip designer has revealed that a hacker stole test files for a "subset" of current and upcoming graphics hardware, some of which had been posted online before they were taken down. While AMD was shy on details, the claimed intruder told TorrentFreak that the material included source code for Navi 10 (think Radeon RX 5700 series), the future Navi 21 and the Arden GPU inside the Xbox Series X.
Edward Castronova reveals lessons learned from Arden
As you may recall, Edward Castronova, professor at Indiana University and researcher of virtual world economics, had been developing a Shakespeare-based MMO, only to close it down because, in his words, 'It's no fun. We failed to design a gripping experience.'In the current issue of Wired, Castronova offers his '5 tips for making games that don't suck', based on his experience. To summarize:
Curtain falls on "Shakespeare World"
You may never have heard of Arden, the brain child of Edward Castronova and now you never really will. The project was ambitious, aiming to create a MMORPG that also educated the players in the world and works of someone regarded by many as the greatest wordsmith the English language has ever seen.According to this report in Technology Review, the virtual world failed because whilst it was crammed with educational content, no one went there because "it was no fun" and they forgot to include the puzzles and the monsters and the game-play elements. The work was supported by a $250,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation's digital learning programme. Whilst this is pretty big money in educational grant terms, particularly in the humanities, it's a drop in the ocean when compared to the millions of dollars that go into creating the online MMORPGs that we normally review.It is a lesson well worth remembering for everyone creating educational games, you need the educational content AND the game content. A hard balance to strike - I speak from personal experience here.
Arden released to the public
Arden, the MMO supposedly based around "the world of William Shakespeare," has been released... kind of. I've been waiting for this one for a while-- who wouldn't want to walk the halls of Kronborg Castle with Hamlet, or visit Banquo's banquet with MacBeth? But unfortunately, "released" is a little strong a word here-- the "game" consists of a Neverwinter Nights module, so you've got to have the NWN toolset up and running to even check it out, and even then, I'm not sure it quite makes the definition of an MMO.I'm hesitant to actually call Arden vaporware, but I don't see how a Neverwinter Nights module can help "test political and social theories." Over on Terra Nova, Edward Castronova (who's running the project), admits that they didn't make it fun, and laments that testers wanted "monsters" to turn the thing into a game. So he's planning Arden II: Electric Boogaloo London Burning, a game that is designed to be fun from the beginning.I take a little issue with the fact that he thinks only "monsters" can make a "gripping game experience," but seeing as I don't have NWN installed at the moment, I'll have to leave my analysis at that. If you get a chance to check out Arden, let us know what it's like. I'm sure there is a lot of interest in a "gripping" virtual world full of references to Shakespeare, but by the creator's own admission, it seems that Arden probably isn't it.
Shakespeare: The MMOG
As Civilization is to history, Arden: The World of Shakespeare will be to the Bard of Avon. CNET reports that Associate Professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University, Edward Castranova, is receiving a $240,000 grant to develop an MMOG around Shakespeare's plays.Unlike World of Warcraft or EverQuest, the academic Arden will be not-for-profit. No word yet on how the ambitious project will sustain itself financially beyond the grant.The game will be built around the play Richard III, because of all the conflict during the 16th century War of the Roses. There is no real explanation on how all the other plays will be incorporated into the world. If they can figure how to make one cohesive Shakespearean world, the game might be worth a try and a great educational tool. As long as there is a translator into modern language for those who avoided Shakespeare because of his pesky "smrt" 16th century English.
