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The Game Archaeologist and the Kesmai legacy
Most studios would be overjoyed to have pioneered one significant advancement in video game history, but then again, most studios aren't Kesmai. While it's not a household name today, it's reasonable to say that without the heavy lifting and backbreaking coding that this company shouldered in the '80s and '90s, the MMO genre would've turned out very different indeed. Last week we met two enterprising designers, Kelton Flinn and John Taylor, who recognized that multiplayer was the name of the future and put their careers on the line to see an idea through to completion. That idea was Island of Kesmai, an ancestor of the modern MMO that used crude ASCII graphics and CompuServe's network to provide an interactive, cooperative online roleplaying experience. It wasn't the first MMO, but it was the first one published commercially, and sometimes that makes all the difference. Flinn and Taylor's Kesmai didn't stop with being the first to bring MMOs to the big time, however. Flush with cash and success, Kesmai turned its attention to the next big multiplayer challenge: 3-D graphics and real-time combat. Unlike the fantasy land of Island of Kesmai, this title would take to the skies in aerial dogfighting and prove even more popular than the team's previous project.
California stops automatic phone book delivery following pressure from Verizon
We've long known paper books are on the decline, but now we're seeing the first death knell for the fattest of them all. California's public utilities commission has ruled that it will no longer deliver doorstops residential phone books unless folks specifically ask for it -- a move that's expected to prevent 1,870 tons of material from entering the state's waste stream. Californians, like everyone else, can search the White Pages online, but they'll still be able to request a paper copy or CD-ROM if they're feeling old-fashioned. For now, though, the state will continue to ship government White Pages and the Yellow Pages for local business listings (in a post-Yelp world, that seems antiquated). What's especially fascinating about all this is that the pressure to cease automatic phone book deliveries came from none other than Verizon, which mounted a case back in October, citing the enormous human and natural resources required to get updated phone books into people's hands each year. Of course, the estimated 1,870 tons of averted waste is a fraction of the 660,000 tons BanthePhoneBook.org says these tomes create every year, but here's hoping it'll be enough to make other states take note.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Burn baby burn
Dear Aunt TUAW, Is iTunes slowly encouraging the death of CDs? The burn icon at the bottom of the interface has disappeared as you can see in this screen shot. Concerned, Your nephew Sean
Wrath of the Lich King will ship on DVD only
One of the most annoying things about installing World of Warcraft is that chances are your installer discs are in CD format, hence it's "discs" instead of "disc." That means you do a lot of swapping CDs out while installing the game. Okay, so that's obviously not a deal breaker, but it's still annoying. We have good news: both the Collector's and regular editions of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will ship on DVD. Hurray! We already knew this about the Collector's Edition, but that the regular edition will too is good news.Here's the bad news: they'll only ship on DVD. So if you're got a really, really old computer (and WoW will run on really, really old computers so you might), you'll be scat outta luck. That is, until a digital download version comes out. Inevitably it will, of course, but it probably won't be on day one. No Death Knight for you!Thankfully, this is not 1997, so we imagine that only a very tiny minority of WoW players will be bothered. And if you are affected, go buy a DVD drive for 20 bucks, you cheapskate! We thought we'd give you the heads up just in case.
VC Monday Madness: Cybernator, Alien Storm, Monster Lair
It's Monday, which means we celebrate the release of new titles on the Wii's Virtual Console. This week has three new titles, each of which has an 800 Wii Point price tag. And, even better, we get a nice variety of titles from a variety of consoles. Variety, we love it!This week's Virtual Console releases are: Cybernator (SNES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Alien Storm (Sega Genesis, 1 - 2 players, 800 Wii Points) Monster Lair (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 -2 players, 800 Wii Points) And, do be sure to stop back later tonight, when we'll have our video wrap-up posted.
VC Monday Madness: Wrecking Crew, Air Zonk and Sonic 3D Blast [update]
Update: Sorry, folks. I overlooked that Gates of Thunder was the first TG16 CD game to release, not Super Air Zonk. Silly me, I also made a huge mental error in stating Working Crew was releasing. This week's Virtual Console update shows the release of the first a new TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM game in the United States. Rejoice! Along with that game, come two more, so we get our usual triple dose of downloadables. Those with a keen eye will know a similar game released some time ago.Virtual Console releases for November 19th are: Wrecking Crew (NES, 1 - 2 players, 500 Wii Points) Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Super Air Zonk (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) As usual, keep an eye on Wii Fanboy as we'll be bringing you our video wrap-up later on today.
Plextor announces Plexeraser destruct-o-drive
Plextor has announced a new CD/DVD drive that you'll want to keep safely out of reach of unsuspecting friends and family members, 'cause its sole purpose is to destroy whatever optical media you feed it. The Plexeraser appears to use the same technology that's been available in some previous Plextor drives, but this looks to be the first standalone model, and also the only one to come in a stylish orange color scheme -- no doubt intended to further emphasize the danger. Unfortunately, the Plexeraser takes a full six minutes to permanently wipe out all the data on a disc, making it about five minutes and fifty seconds slower than some other data destruction methods we can think of, and a lot less fun.[Thanks, Benjamin]
