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The World of Warcraft in numbers
Business Management has a really interesting graphic up (that they say came partly from Eurogamer.net, but I didn't see it over there) that breaks down WoW "by the numbers." It features an interesting series of stats about the game, in what I call an Oatmeal-style format, everything from number of players and items (30,000) to number of locations (1400) and the most commonly looted item every day (Frostweave). I think these stats all came from a few different places -- from a talk given at Austin GDC last year, to the toplist over on the official WoW site (of course, that chart is constantly updated, so Onyxia wasn't always the deadliest mob, and Frostweave wasn't always the most looted. But it is cool to see all of the numbers stacked up in a row in such a stylish way. And 3.6 million pieces of Saronite Ore turned into 3 million Saronite bars? If that's true, why am I paying so much for it at the AH? 192 quests completed per second is pretty wild, too. That's like three entire Oracles reputation grinds (give or take a few dailies), all completed in this second. And this one. And this one.
Turbine: Easier to develop MMOs on the Xbox 360 than the PS3
Craig Alexander, Turbine's vp of product development, spoke at Austin GDC today in a panel called "MMOs to Consoles", which is no surprise since Turbine is working on a console MMO. It's investing heavily in the MMO console arena, and their current title, which remains unannounced, is in "active development."However, he did spend a lot of time pointing out how difficult it is to develop games on the PS3 vs. the Xbox 360. Duck your head as the fanboys go to it.Here's the logic: The Blu-ray drive on the PS3 is actually slower in seek and access time than the DVD drive on the Xbox 360. Once the Blu-ray gets up to speed, it can handle large amount of data. Just not in seeking and accessing, which is a pain for streaming when you're playing something like an MMO. The memory architecture is different. When you're dealing with main memory, you work with "256ish MB" on the PS3 vs "512ish MB" on the 360. The tools aren't as friendly on the PS3. That includes the performance monitor tools, the debugger tools ... everything. Migrating a project from the Xbox 360 to the PS3 is much harder than moving from the PS3 to the 360. Alexander recommends starting on the PS3 to get all of the heavy lifting done first, but using his same logic it sounds like developers will have a frustrating time during that process. Don't happy tools make happy workers? Gamers already feel like some titles suffer because they have to be developed for both platforms. Is this going to affect MMOs coming to both platforms?There's more. Read on, Macduff.%Gallery-73468%
Listen to Blizzard's "Universe Behind World of Warcraft" keynote from Austin GDC
If you're wondering what the internal goings-on at Blizzard consist of, grab yourself something to eat and kick back. We've got the entire hour-long keynote speech at the Austin Game Developer's Conference down below. Blizzard's J. Allen Brack and Frank Pearce were on-hand to walk a slightly hungover crowd through the way they make things work and how their teams are organized.Click below for the full audio, or for those of you on the go, download it here.
A look at Blizzard's canceled squad-based sci-fi RPG: Nomad
At this morning's Austin Game Developer's Conference keynote, J. Allen Brack and Frank Pearce of Blizzard took the stage to talk about the inner workings of Blizzard. Most of what they covered was stats and trvia. Did you know the Blizzard bug team is currently tracking over 179,484 bugs? Now you do. There are 7,650 quests in WoW since Wrath of the Lich King! Consider yourself informed. Some of the trivia was actually pretty interesting, like the fact that when Blizzard releases a patch, almost half of that data is audio. Pearce also mentioned that BlizzCon is operated "at a substantial loss for Blizzard," but the value is that it's a huge marketing/PR opportunity for them. Considering how many tickets they sell (in only eight minutes), that's around $3.5 million that's written off. Plus whatever Blizzard spends above and beyond that. No wonder Blizzard employees have to buy their own tickets.However, the most interesting part of the keynote was when they briefly spoke about Nomad, the canceled squad-based sci-fi game. Ten years ago, Blizzard put a lot of work in on the game, but eventually looked at it and said "Is this really the game we want to be working on right now? The answer ended up being "no," and the team went on to start work on World of Warcraft. Here we are ten years later with WoW going strong, and no Nomad in sight.They'd mentioned this canceled game, along with a slew of others, at last year's DICE summit, but without any other information. Sadly, the only thing they had to show were pieces of concept art, including some by "The Bourbon Cowboy," Chris Metzen. The art itself isn't that exciting (the best one is above and there's a couple more in the gallery below), but the words "squad-based sci-fi RPG" are exciting. Could this be Blizzard's next game? Possibly mutated into MMO form? Who knows when we'll find out, since one of the stats they flashed onscreen this morning was "Number of Unannounced MMOs: 1." %Gallery-73341%
PSP minis lack network features for fast approval time
Speaking at Austin GDC, Justin Cooney from Sony Computer Entertainment spoke about the upcoming PSP minis program to a crowd of developers eager to start creating games and applications for the system. They promise an extremely fast process to get onto the PlayStation Network: no stage one or two approvals, and very light Q&A. They're hoping to average three to five days for approvals, which contrasts with up to two weeks for normal-sized PSP games.The minis program is also fairly limited. You can't develop network or online features for it (goodbye multiplayer), it doesn't support DLC, and you can't use it to work with peripherals. Developers will also have to have their game approved by the ESRB, which costs money. You can also release your titles in all three territories, but you need to sign agreements with each territory (North America, Japan, Europe) in order to do so.Sony is definitely taking an iPhone App Store approach to this process, and Cooney himself dropped the iPhone name a few times. We're wondering if they've considered that there are over 20k games now on the App Store, and if they've prepared themselves for the onslaught and how they'll be devoting a lot of time to minis approvals. So, look for PSPFart to be available for download sometime soon.%Gallery-73355%
Online gaming on Google's Lively to take on "corporate mentality"
Kevin Hanna, creative director of Google's Lively, said at AGDC that he hopes that Lively will become an online gaming platform that will challenge the status quo in a game industry he says is currently dominated by a "corporate mentality" that is "sucking the life out of what should be the most creative and innovative medium out there."He said that game developers and publishers seem eager to be "first to be second." That is, they have no interest in creating anything genuinely new. They just want to capitalize on ideas that have already been proven. His hope is that Lively will lower the barrier to entry so would-be developers ("passionate startups and kids in college") can experiment with new ideas with less risk.So far, the aspects of Google's vision for Lively as a game development platform that we've seen have looked like a greatly scaled back, poor man's version of MetaPlace; just the tools for creating simple arcade-like games, without any of the loftier purpose. But Hanna's comments suggest that at least some folks on the Lively team have grander ambitions after all.
The debatable concept of ownership in virtual spaces
Game security news and analysis site PlayNoEvil recently looked at the concept of ownership in the virtual space, in an article called "The Quixotic Quest for Avatar Rights." It explores the question that's been around since the very beginning of virtual interactions: Does the player who invests his or her time into finding, creating, and using an item 'own' it, or is it really just server data that's company property? For most game and virtual world operations, there's little room for debate. They create the environment and everything in it, right down to a gamer's or user's avatar. However one view expressed at an Austin GDC panel is that while companies work to ensure their legal claim to virtual property, they also foster the illusion that the player has some degree of ownership. While the mindset of the industry isn't likely to change any time soon, there are those involved on the development and business end that would like to see changes regarding 'avatar rights.' Others are pushing for an improved EULA which would ensure the continued growth of virtual worlds, where users have greater control over their own created content. What's your view on this? Do companies have any responsibility to their subscribers or users to relinquish control over player-created content? Are gamers and virtual worlds users unreasonable in thinking the situation should change?
AGDC: The Bruce Sterling keynote - The Future of Entertainment
Bruce Sterling is a science fiction author, a futurist, and one of the founders of cyberpunk. He provided the tent-pole keynote for the Austin Game Developers Conference, although in all honesty it seemed more like a run through of a new short story draft. Several developers were walking out, scratching their heads and going "Wha... huh?" afterward. The topic was "Computer Entertainment 35 Years from Today," and Sterling came out not as Sterling, but as a time traveler from 35 years in the future and a graduate student of Dr. Sterling's. He provided visual demonstrations of nanotech networks and fiber-based computers, much to the amusement of the audience, and told us how the future might seem surprising to us at first, but it's old hat to someone like him. He bastardized a quote from Sir Arthur Clarke and said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from garbage." Words to live by.Read the full text of the keynote after the break. It'll be interesting if web surfers in the future look back on this post and laugh.
AGDC: Blazing The Trail For Hot Game Dialogue
The Austin GDC is focusing on audio and writing in games this year. While technology has made audio more and more important in making an immersive game experience, good writing has always been key to making a great game. Just travel back in time and ask the guys at Infocom, who had entire games consisting of nothing but writing.The "Blazing the Trail" panel was meant to provide game writers with the tools that they would need to construct good game dialogue, although it quickly turned into a one-woman show. DB Cooper (not the famous hijacker) is a voice-over artist, actor and producer, and she's also quite a personality. You know the kind of person who could fill an airplane hangar with their voice? That's her. She was joined onstage by Maryanne Krawczyk who has written for television and video games, including God of War, God of War 2, and Area 51. She's also working on the upcoming God of War 3, but she vanished into the ether after the panel so we couldn't quiz her about it.After the break you'll find out how the panel went, and get plenty of tips and tricks for aspiring game writers. Read on, Macduff!
AGDC08: The Psychology of the MMO Gamer
The first panel we attended at Austin GDC was entitled "The Psychology of the MMO Gamer," which seemed to hold a mythical amount of promise. Sure enough, once the panel began it was clear that these people had gathered a couple of days before and said, "So hey... what can we talk about?" It was a bit disorganized, but some good stuff came out of it, particularly finding out how a six-year old can grief you with pudding. Read on to find out how you too can learn this devious and delicious skill.
Joystiq @ the Austin Game Developers Conference
What, you thought GDC only happened in San Francisco? Well, so did we. But we've invaded the land of BBQ, music, and Shiner Bock to bring you the latest from the development-heavy Austin Game Developers Conference. This year the focus is on writing and game audio, so we'll bring you the best of the fest as we sit in on panels and talk to people in the game industry. Austin is fast establishing itself as a mini-mecca of gaming companies; already places like Activision Blizzard, NCSoft, Vigil, and Sony Online have offices here, with more opening all the time. Texas Governor Rick Perry announced this summer at E3 that Austin would be heavily pursuing game companies and offering them tax incentives to set up shop here, so if you're wanting to work in the industry, you might consider a move.
Spacetime Studios releases fast-paced Blackstar video
Sci-fi MMO fans received some bad news when Spacetime Studios recently announced that their Blackstar IP was in jeopardy, due to needing a publisher for the title. Surprisingly, selling a publisher on the IP -- where action occurs both in space and on the ground -- has been a challenge. While they may be on the ropes, Spacetime Studios is far from throwing in the towel with Blackstar. They've announced that they will be meeting with people at the Austin Game Developers Conference in September, and are inviting business inquiries about the title. While we wait and hope a publisher will step up and make the title a reality for gamers, Spacetime Studios has given us a new video of pre-production footage of Blackstar. Check out the fast-paced video footage below the cut, for a look at what may yet be.
Sci-fi author Bruce Sterling to keynote, predict future at Austin GDC
Famous for groundbreaking science fiction novels such as Schizmatrix and Heavy Weather, author Bruce Sterling is also regarded as one of the world's leading futurists. That is, he's really good at predicting where everything from media to industry to consumer technology will be at in the near future. Now he's going to do the same with video games ... and what they will be like in the year 2043.Sterling will deliver his keynote address, "Computer Entertainment 35 Years from Today," at the upcoming Austin Game Developers Conference being held September 15-17. It will certainly be intriguing to hear what one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement has to say about the future of our shared hobby, especially given the recent introduction of technology such as Wii MotionPlus. We also have to wonder if he's seen Sony's famous "PS9" commercial.
Screenshot confirms that Diablo III is "Hydra"
Reader Oleg was kind enough to send along this Diablo III screenshot, which he found over on Blizzard's main site about the new game they announced this weekend. As you can see up in the corner, the game's internal code name apparently was Hydra, so that answers the question we posted way back in September of last year about someone overhearing the name "Hydra" being bounced around the Austin GDC.And we also know now, of course, that Diablo III isn't an MMO, which means that Blizzard still has at least one secret project running: that next-gen MMO that we've been told about via job listings. Unfortunately, we probably won't hear much about it for a while -- unless Blizzard wants to ramp up their production, three titles at once is a lot for them to work on, and even at BlizzCon later this year, we don't really expect to see a new game announcement (although they might use the occasion, if Wrath really is released by then, to announce the next planned expansion).Still, that's one mystery solved. Maybe we'll overhear another codename this year in Anaheim, and the rumor wheel can start spinning up yet again.
AGDC: How to rule the World (of Warcraft)
I'm attending the Austin Game Developers Conference this week, and today's big event is a keynote by Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. Titled How to Rule the World (of Warcraft): Ten Lessons, I doubt it covers guild management, PvP tactics, or farming for gold -- but I'm certainly interested in Morhaime's thoughts on the operation and administration of the Warcraft universe. Keep reading for a play-by-play of the keynote!9:25 AM CST: The ballroom is filling up, and everyone is waiting for the show to get started.9:36 AM CST: The ballroom is working its way towards full, all of us waiting on the man of the hour to show.
