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In-game advertising headed to CoX
Double Fusion just announced that they will be providing contextual advertising within the City of Heroes universe. The above photos are only samples, as no deals have been struck with individual advertisers yet.Before your "DOOM Meter" shoots immediately into the red... take a deep breath and relax. First, the sky is not falling. Second, any advertising will be - say it with us now - optional. So really, there is no reason for anyone to go ballistic over this. However, this is the gaming industry. As such NCsoft anticipated an intense reaction. Brian Clayton, General Manager for the NorCal NCsoft studio, simultaneously released a very detailed and reassuring statement to the community regarding this very touchy subject. This is not an off the cuff decision. In fact, it's something NCsoft has considered since the initial release of City of Heroes way back in 2004.
April Fools' in CoX
Holy highway robbery!NCsoft NorCal "announced" today that they're dropping a new feature into their superly duperly costumed heroes and villains game. Visual Sounds are cool words that pop up on the screen (both in games and famous caped crusading TV shows) based on the old school comic book technique known as onomatopoeia. It's the use of a word to replace a sound. The upcoming Issue 12, which has been renamed "Issue 12: Pow, Biff, Boom, Bam!" will include this all new system. Brian Clayton, Executive Producer and head of the NCsoft NorCal office, said all their research shows that many gamers are building their own computers now, and sometimes they forget to buy speakers or headphones. This is their small way of helping those forgetful types. Matt "Positron" Miller, the Lead Designer on the CoX titles, is a big advocate of the theater of the mind and likened this to reading a book where you give the characters their own voices. Literally.While players will be able to disable Visual Sounds... they shouldn't. Why? In order to make room for the visual sound files all actual in-game sounds are being removed from the players' hard drives. DOH!
