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Windows Phone Starter Kit for Wordpress hopes to lure developers, beef up marketplace offerings
There's nothing worse than that "womp womp" moment for Windows Phone users when they find out a favorite website doesn't have an optimized mobile app. Seriously. It's proven. Now, however, Wordpress aficionados can spread the love with the Windows Phone Starter Kit -- a package that promises quick and easy development for Microsoft's mobile marketplace. With the included skeleton code, admins only need to replace one line, insert the blog URL and tweak some settings in the CMS until presto -- the app's finito. Like other Wordpress dev kits, this one allows users to view posts and moderate comments. Hopefully, the promise of a super simple platform will be enough to entice developers to sit at Ballmer's table and fatten up the app store, particularly with Mango positioned as the next course.
Breakfast Topic: Do you blog about WoW?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Have you ever noticed that a search for tips about WoW brings up about a million blogs on the subject? Blogs can be found on nearly every aspect of WoW -- you can find lore blogs, class blogs, race blogs, profession blogs ... You name it, there's a blog on it. I personally maintained a blog for raiding mages for a while, but I had to let it go when my raiding group went on hiatus and I simply couldn't fit any of the other raiding groups into my schedule. I'd like to get back to it. It was a lot of fun, and I also noticed that since I was trying to pay really close attention to mechanics so that I could pass the information on to other mages, it made me a better raider. My husband currently writes a blog about being a dad who games. I know that there are a bunch of those out there too, but it's fun for him to discuss situations that come up in his daily life with other people who understand completely. What about you? Do you blog about WoW or gaming in general? What's your specific topic of expertise? Do you feel like you have a lot to contribute on the subject? Have you thought about starting a blog but just haven't found your niche yet? Do have any specific blogs about WoW that you really like?
Darkfall blog update teases new dungeon video
Another Darkfall update, another letdown in terms of a release window for Darkfall 2.0. Aventurine updated its blog over the weekend and acknowledged fan anticipation for the sweeping revamp, but remained coy on the timeframe. "We're in a better position to estimate but we haven't concluded our discussions with our partners yet," wrote producer Tasos Flambouras. If the new video that accompanies the blog update is any indication, we're a ways off from release since the clip is described as an "alpha version." What's in the video? It's basically a quick look at the new Niflheim dungeon, and there are a lot of yetis running around as well as a lot of bloodspray courtesy of the newly implemented splatter system. You can also see a few of the dynamic elements that make the dungeon more challenging than its old-world Darkfall predecessor, and there's even a paragraph related to the lore behind the lair. Check out the clip after the cut and head to the official Darkfall website for more.
Funcom's Craig Morrison on background, story, and immersion
It's been a while since we checked up on Age of Conan game director Craig Morrison's personal blog, and the latest update is a lengthy morsel designed to get gamers thinking about MMO story as something more than a marketing bullet point. Along the way, we get a glimpse of Morrison's thoughts on games ranging from MMOs, to Brink, to id Software's forthcoming RAGE. While you might think that story is all about narrative and characterization, Morrison opines that a sense of place and attention to world-building details like societal structures are equally important. Quest text can be crucial too, and while gameplay is obviously a big deal, Morrison says that it's only part of the equation. "Sure, a game can be good on its own mechanical merits, and first and foremost a game must be a compelling gameplay experience... but those truly great games? Those are the games that also create a sense of place for the player. A world they can believe in," he writes.
The Game Archaeologist uncovers Shadowbane: The battle-scarred blogger
I've long since enjoyed doing this column because, to me, it feels like the next best thing to having been there back in the day, playing these games. No one MMO player can occupy all titles at once, so experiences are bound to pass us by. Fortunately, the gamers who were there have long memories and are often more than willing to share a story or two if given half the chance. After last week's initial foray into our Shadowbane retrospective, I fished around for a hearty veteran of the minotaur wars who was willing to step up and answer a few questions without succumbing to post-traumatic stress disorder. Within a minute, my good friend Grimnir bit into the topic, and I reeled him in as he flopped and gasped for air. At some point, this metaphor got away from me, but no worries. Hit that jump and let's cast our nets down memory river and see what we can dredge up!
TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Tumblr
Tumblr is, of course, the blogging platform that's taken off lately, featuring an easy way to quickly post a lot of different kinds of media, as well as share it across friends and networks. Tumblr's iPhone app has been serviceable since it came out, but it hasn't always been the best option for posting to the service. Still, a 2.0 complete rewrite has helped a little bit, so if you're a Tumblr user who wants to post more while mobile, it's worth another look. The new update brings a brand new interface to handling multiple blogs, as well as improvements to posting and the main dashboard. You can now read and reply to messages on the service from right in the app, and if you're new to Tumblr, you can sign up right from the iPhone app, too. The service is free, and so the app is too. Power users will probably still find some issues with the app, which makes sense -- posting blog posts from the iPhone is probably never going to be quite as easy as doing it from a PC. But for those times when you're out and about and want to do a quick Tumblr post, the app should serve you just fine.
TERA day in the life blog from QA Senior Tester Patrick Sun
Everyone seems to think that working in quality assurance at a game company is a walk in the park, playing video games all day and loving every second of it. Well, En Masse's Patrick Sun is here to put you in your plac -- What's that? "Best. Job. Ever."? Oh. Well. Nevermind then. But as he's quick to point out in the most recent post on TERA's blog, QA testers' jobs don't entail just playing TERA while looking for bugs and other issues of that ilk, but also ensuring that the game's localization is going smoothly. He offers one example about the Korean idiom, "A mute person who's eaten honey," which refers to someone who keeps silent about a secret in spite of others' suffering. Of course! I mean, who couldn't figure that one out? For more information on what the QA workers over on TERA keep busy with, check out the official post.
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler discusses the number of player abilities
In his continuing conversational blog series Dev Watercooler, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street (lead systems designer) muses about the number of abilities players have, what the sweet spot is in terms of quantity, the need for all classes to have a viable AoE rotation, and the difference between rotational abilities and situational abilities. From a game design perspective, this might be the coolest Dev Watercooler yet. Read this full Dev Watercooler after the break, or check out the other Dev Watercoolers with Ghostcrawler: Dev Watercooler: Expertise and hit for tanking Dev Watercooler: Interrupts Dev Watercooler: Critical hits
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler talks critical hits (and misses)
The Dev Watercooler, Ghostcrawler's conversational community blog series, continues with a look at the theories behind critical hits. After a bit on the history of critical strikes in WoW, Ghostcrawler gets down to business with an awesome discussion about the homogenization of classes, the issue with healer critical hits, and the pros and cons of homogenizing critical hits across the board.
GamersFirst gearing up for more APB testing invites, looking toward open beta
Open beta time is approaching for APB Reloaded, and GamersFirst's Bjorn Book-Larsson is back with his weekly blog post to give us all the juicy details. It seems that GamersFirst devs are working overtime to squash a number of pesky bugs in the 1.5.0 version of the game. As soon as they're finished, 1.5.0 will be made available to the game's 25,000 closed beta testers, followed by subsequent releases for the EU servers, a mass invite for another 25,000 closed beta testers, and then an invite for the remainder of closed beta applicants. If all of this goes off without a hitch, testers will be granted a temporary premium account to poke and prod at its associated functionality, after which GamersFirst will enable monetized content. After that, "if there are still no major issues, then we will open up the floodgates and formally go into open beta," Book-Larsson explains. While that's a lot of "ifs," the takeaway is that APB Reloaded's official release is drawing steadily closer. Book-Larsson notes that the team expects to "be in monetized open beta until August" and will be iterating on quite a bit of new content throughout the process.
EVE Online Alliance Tournament IX experiments with new format, banning mechanic
June is just around the corner, and if you're an EVE Online fan, you probably know that the annual Alliance Tournament isn't far behind. This year's event looks to be bigger and badder than ever before, and it has a couple of new wrinkles to boot. As Mindstar writes on the newest EVE dev blog, CCP used "a highly secret blend of player feedback, meeting room shenanigans, and just a dash of beer [to] come up with some new stuff that will spice things up a bit." The newness includes a format tweak that owes a bit of inspiration to FIFA World Cup (i.e., a 32-team group competition), and there's also a new banning mechanic that is sure to cause a few chuckles. Prior to the start of each match, captains will have the option to disqualify a single pilot from the opposing group, and you can almost hear the evil cackling resounding in the CCP offices as Mindstar explains the details. Check them out on the official EVE website.
Guild Wars 2 dev blog exposes the Commando
April Fools! There is no Commando class in Guild Wars 2! Wait, you already knew that was a joke? OK, well, did you know that Cinematics Lead Horia Dociu posted up an article outlining his inspiration for the whole practical joke? ArenaNet developers take not only their work but their fun very seriously. Dociu explains that his work at Valve and his love for games like Metal Gear Solid and Rogue Spear were part of the inspiration behind this April Fools' hit. He was able to get a bunch of developers involved in the project because they believed it would be fun for the fans. In today's ANet blog entry, he tells us that "the key was starting early, so that people could work on this fun stuff whenever they had free time. I also made sure not to involve any designers in hooking up actual game play, since that would have put a major dent in their schedules." If you'd like to find out more about the good times at ArenaNet, check out the rest of the dev blog and the Commando class page.
Zapd iOS app creates your next website in seconds flat, seriously (video)
Sure, the end result looks like a highly styled Tumblr, but let's repeat this: it's created on your phone. For those who are flat terrified of coding (or simply don't have the time to stay on top of a so-called "blog"), PressPlane has created Zapd -- a free iOS app that allows the creation of picture-led sites in seconds flat. The app truly is as streamlined as the company advertises it to be; load up a few images (or take a few), select a website style, find a decent web connection, and watch as things are published and shared with your pals on Facebook and Twitter. Enough chatter -- peek the video below to see where we're coming from, and give that iTunes link a look if you're hoping to join what's next. You know, now that your honeymoon with Color is thoroughly over.
ESPN Front Row blog shows behind the scenes at the sports giant
Like most sports lovers with HDTVs, we watch a lot of ESPN, and on a few occasions have gotten to check out the inner workings of how it brings all that sports news to life, but today the network turns the camera inward by launching ESPN Front Row. This site aims to give a look at the day to day operations of the network and all the people behind the scenes. The launch event is a 24 hour series of photos that started at midnight this morning. Check out the intro video starring Kenny Mayne above, or click the read link below for a few more snaps of the campus in Bristol.
Ghostcrawler chats about interrupts at the Dev Watercooler
Ghostcrawler (WoW lead systems designer) is blogging up a storm over at the WoW community site, with a new series called Dev Watercooler. The aim of this new column is to have candid chats with the community discussing game mechanics and pose questions that relate to the ongoing development of World of Warcraft. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that this is pretty cool. In his first Dev Watercooler, Ghostcrawler talks about interrupts, where interrupt mechanics are going, and what he hopes they can look like over time.
APB Reloaded blog details the matchmaking makeover
This week's APB Reloaded blog entry is a pretty lengthy one, and Bjorn Book-Larsson has a lot to say about the game's matchmaking system as well as a warning for the hackers who have showed up in the free-to-play title's closed beta. Matchmaking is a huge issue for GamersFirst's APB redesign, and Book-Larsson relates that "it was a bit of a shocker to discover that in spite of relying almost exclusively on computer-generated matchmaking... no real thought was made to create a decent skill rating system to feed those matchmaking decisions." Book-Larsson also provides some insight into how GamersFirst is tackling the problem, illustrating several approaches to matchmaking including algorithms founded on Chess ratings, Glicko, and Microsoft's TrueSkill system. Read all about these topics and more on the official APB Reloaded blog.
iPads can now see WordPress blogs in an optimized view
WordPress is the world's most popular blogging tool, with over 25 million users. The iPad is the world's most popular tablet device, with over 17 million shipped in 2010. What happens when you get these two popular kids together? Magic. Automattic Inc, the company behind WordPress, announced a new iPad-optimized view for all WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs. The company has developed a new plug-in in cooperation with Onswipe that provides iPad users with a special experience, featuring touch controls that provide navigation of WordPress blogs through swiping, rotation and other gestures. The plug-in even knows how to properly format content based on the orientation of the iPad. As you can see in the screenshot at right, the iPad-optimized view displays posts in a visual grid, with individual posts readable with a tap. The plug-in is entirely HTML5-compliant, and it can be customized from the WordPress Dashboard to create a magazine-like cover page, display a logo on the cover and choose from nine different skins to match the overall theme of your site. For WordPress.com users, the plug-in is available with a touch. Self-hosted WordPress users just need to install the Onswipe plug-in available here. Automattic notes that WordPress.com is already seeing about 750,000 page views a day from iPad visitors, with the numbers rising rapidly.
APB Reloaded prepping for open beta
The beta train for APB Reloaded is rolling right along, according to the latest dev blog update. As of March 20th, GamersFirst has welcomed 25,000 testers to the title's closed beta, with 250,000 waiting in the wings -- and apparently champing at the bit. GamersFirst is also looking to the future, and Bjorn Book-Larsson writes that "the dev, design and art teams are still working on a few minor tweaks in [closed beta], but are mostly now focused on the open beta build that's coming up." While there's no word on an open beta date as of yet, we're not anticipating a lengthy wait given the speed at which GamersFirst is powering through updates and the enthusiasm permeating the entire enterprise. Book-Larsson also gives fans an update on the European closed beta, which has suffered a slight delay thanks to a pair of crucial networking components that were held up by EU customs. He notes that at least 25,000 testers will be needed when the EU servers are up and running, and "anyone already playing closed beta in the US can also play on the EU location, just for the heck of it."
Breakfast Topic: How has reading WoW Insider changed your game experience?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Long, long ago, there was a time when I didn't read WoW Insider. When I started playing the game in vanilla WoW, I didn't read anything -- I didn't even know there were WoW sites on the Internet. I got all of my information by word of mouth, and when someone finally told me about Thottbot, it was a game-changer for me. It wasn't until late BC, however, that I even heard about this blog, and I don't think I read it regularly until Wrath. Keeping track of World of Warcraft news and changes has completely changed how I play the game. Rather than wandering through the world until I come across something interesting, I get a heads-up about new reputation factions, daily quests, mount drops, and craftable items that I can then go searching for. I've learned more about my class, become a better player on my alts, and been assured that it's not just me who hates heroic Grim Batol. I even have an auction addon now, and though I don't play the auctioneer game, I am impressed by those who do. When did you first start reading WoW Insider? Has the game changed for you as a result? What have you learned about here that you never knew before?
Guild Wars 2's Norn week starts Monday
You know you've got a surefire hit MMORPG on your hands when you're confident enough to put out a press release about a press release. NCsoft and ArenaNet have done just that by announcing that the Norn-flavored followup to the wildly successful Human Week is on its way. It doesn't start until Monday, though, so the best we can tell you at this point is that Norn Week is the second in an ongoing series of race reveals for Guild Wars 2, and the focus will be moving away from humans and toward the shape-shifting half-giants called Norn in short order. Norn Week will bring new dev insights regarding the game's lore, new art assets, and a new video. That's a lot of new, but unfortunately you'll have to wait a few more days. In the meantime, head to the ArenaNet blog for the latest official news and views from the world of Tyria.
