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GDC Online 2012: Age of Wushu's wide-open world
There are two thoughts that most people have when coming across Age of Wushu. The first is, boy that looks pretty. The second is, but is it just another forgettable Asian grindfest with a glossy coat of paint? Snail Games Associate Producer Colin Miller agrees with the first but not the second. At GDC Online, Miller sat down with us to pitch why Age of Wushu deserves your full, undivided attention -- and eventual patronage. Age of Wushu is a martial arts sandbox MMO that takes place in gorgeous ancient China. If you've ever seen a period piece from that country, you already know how graceful these stylized fights can be; now you'll see them in an online game. Developed in China, Age of Wushu is ready to stun Western audiences with the help of Snail Games and its crack dev team.
GDC Online 2012: SWTOR's Damion Schubert dissects story as a mechanic
Damion Schubert remains a well-respected member of the online development community. He can tell tales of his time working on Meridian 59 and Shadowbane. His latest project allowed him to build many of the integral systems of Star Wars: The Old Republic, arguably his most successful work to date. He also writes regularly for Game Developer Magazine and speaks at GDC Online and many other game development conferences nearly every year. When it comes to developers who have shaped mulitiplayer online games, Schubert is one of the originals. At the Game Developers Conference in Austin, Texas, this week, Schubert spent an hour explaining the thought process and development woes of taking an element like BioWare storytelling and making it work in a massively multiplayer setting. This being the first GDC Online since the launch of SWTOR, Schubert spoke frankly and openly about many of the struggles his team had to overcome to make the gaming systems work. Some of the ideas worked out well; others, not so well. As an avid player of SWTOR, I saw new light. As I listened to Schubert speak, I began to understand why many players are frustrated with elements of the existing game. I also began to understand that if some of the systems and thought processes has been changed early on, players might have received the game better. That said, I also believe that Schubert's team prevented a lot of issues that could have popped up had certain elements been implemented in the way they were originally conceived.
MacTech announces Walt Disney Animation Studios tour, filling up fast
Registration is currently underway for the 2012 MacTech Conference here in Los Angeles (October 17-19), and MacTech publisher Neil Ticktin has sent along some new information about what's going on at the conference this year, and it sounds amazing. In addition to the previously announced sessions from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and keynote speaker Matt Drance, MacTech will also take attendees over to the Walt Disney Animation Studios for a special behind-the-scenes tour, and have a special exhibit of "Hollywood treasures" for attendees to check out. There have also been some post-conference events added, including some interesting technical panels as well as some official Apple Certification Exams. This conference is always a great time, and in addition to all of the fun, MacTech also offers up two solid presentation tracks, one for developers and the other for IT professionals. You can register for the conference right now -- Ticktin tells us it's filling up quick, so hurry over and sign up if you're interested. MacTech 2012 will run from Wednesday to Friday October 17-19, 2012 at the Sheraton Universal in Los Angeles. TUAW will be in attendance as well -- we hope to see you there!
GDC Europe 2012: Funcom's Morrison says focus on the why, not the what
MMOs as a rule tend to have a focus on providing content for us, the players. It makes sense; they want us to play their games, so they give us as much stuff to do as possible so that we'll keep playing. But why do we want to do that stuff in the first place? Craig Morrison, creative director at Funcom Montreal, posed that question at his GDC Europe talk, saying that MMO design needs to shift to consider that option. Gamasutra covered what he has to say: "Everytime a player logs in, they need a 'why'," noted Morrison. "What we really need to be thinking about is the why -- it's the bit that we don't really consider enough. Players need a reason to be playing it. What is motivating them?" Referencing both Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Simon Simek's work on motivation, Morrison's talk ranged from discussing how games go wrong by focusing on only one kind of player to encouraging the development and fostering of community. "Unless you expose the players to the community and encourage community interactions, there's not that much difference between your game and a single-player game," he opined.
GDC Europe 2012: Designer says American gamers can't handle failure
Game designer Don Daglow turned a few heads while participating in a GDC Europe panel this week. The industry veteran and co-designer of AOL's 1991 Neverwinter Nights MMORPG said that Americans don't deal well with failure, particularly in gaming. "The idea of failure has been dramatically reduced," Daglow said, before going on to opine that this stems from an educational system where failure has been removed from the curriculum. He also said that many gamers blame their failures on the game itself instead of analyzing their mistakes and trying again.
GDC Europe 2012: F2P developers should expect 70 percent initial user drop
Batting .300 is the gold standard for free-to-play games, according to former Empire: Total War designer Jan van der Crabben. He told listeners at a GDC Europe keynote that free-to-play developers should expect to lose 70 percent of their initial registered users. He said that player retention is the key issue facing the new business model, and despite the fact that most players leave F2P titles shortly after registering, those who stick around for a few days will usually keep playing. Van der Crabben, who is currently designing browser-based F2P games at Travian, pointed to World of Warcraft as a model, noting its mechanical effectiveness at retaining users by presenting them with cyclical gameplay. This amounts to "kill[ing] stuff to get better to get more abilities to kill more stuff," he said.
SIGGRAPH 2012 wrap-up
Considering that SIGGRAPH focuses on visual content creation and display, there was no shortage of interesting elements to gawk at on the show floor. From motion capture demos to 3D objects printed for Hollywood productions, there was plenty of entertainment at the Los Angeles Convention Center this year. Major product introductions included ARM's Mali-T604 GPU and a handful of high-end graphics cards from AMD, but the highlight of the show was the Emerging Technologies wing, which played host to a variety of concept demonstrations, gathering top researchers from institutions like the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and MIT. The exhibition has come to a close for the year, but you can catch up with the show floor action in the gallery below, then click on past the break for links to all of our hands-on coverage, direct from LA.%Gallery-162185%
MacTech conference returning to LA in October
I've been to the MacTech Mac and IT consultants conference a few years in a row now, and I have to say: If you do any Apple consulting or development, it's a great show to see. The Sheraton Universal here in Los Angeles is a great setting, and MacTech publisher Neil Ticktin always puts an excellent event together, filling the three day schedule with great speakers, lots of opportunities to network and talk with other pros (over excellent food and drink), and even some nice offsite trips, like parties at Universal Studios and special events at places like the famous Griffith Observatory. MacTech has just announced details for this year's flagship conference in Los Angeles, and as you can see, there will be some very big names and faces showing up at the Sheraton from October 17-19 this year. The joint sessions will be run by two department heads from the Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Mac luminaries like Andy Ihnatko, Andy Lee, and Kyle Kinkade will host sessions along with lots of other good folks from the community around the world. Registration is open now -- early bird pricing is $999 ($300 off of regular pricing) and ends on August 31. MacTech is always a great time every year, and this year promises to be no different. If you have an interest in this show, be sure to get your tickets as soon as possible. TUAW is a media sponsor of this event, and has worked with MacTech on event coverage in the past.
We're live from SIGGRAPH 2012 in Los Angeles!
Most of us experience the Los Angeles Convention Center during one of its most chaotic weeks of the year, when tens of thousands of gaming industry manufacturers, video game designers and consumers descend upon downtown LA for the annual E3 expo, booth-babe radar tweaked to 11. There's a hint of graphics prowess amid the halls this week, too, albeit on a vastly smaller scale, and with a heavy heap of civility. SIGGRAPH is a trade event through and through, with attendees demonstrating their latest tech, taking in a handful of seminars or hunting for networking opportunities, in search of employment and partnerships. It's often also a venue for product launches, which is what's brought us out, along with the usual bounty of kooky creations that serve to entertain and lighten the mood. As always, we'll be bringing you a little bit of everything over the next few days, letting you sample the best of SIGGRAPH from the comfort of your own device -- head over to our SIGGRAPH 2012 tag to follow along.
Macworld | iWorld Asia event begins in Beijing
The second annual Macworld | iWorld Asia event has begun in Beijing this week. IDG has hosted the conference twice now to serve the growing number of Mac, iPhone, and iPad users in China. It sounds a lot like San Francisco's version of Macworld | iWorld, with dev conferences, a big keynote event, and an open exhibition floor, with exhibitors like LaCie, Macally, and Logitech showing their wares. One thing San Francisco doesn't have that Macworld | iWorld Asia does is a "Macworld Girl" beauty contest, which apparently is a common happening at conferences in China and that area. But other than that, the event sounds just about as popular as the one in San Francisco, with about the same stuff to see. Macworld | iWorld Asia, in case you're there or want to go over there (good luck with that), continues through August 5. [via TNW]
Apple delivers Black Hat talk to mediocre reception
CNET's posted a strange writeup for Apple's first talk at the Black Hat security conference, and though the piece is short on details, the theme is clear: There wasn't a lot of groundbreaking news shown off to attendees. Manager of Platform Security Dallas De Atley basically gave a quick rundown of the security measures built in to the architecture of iOS, and didn't give much more. Any hackers looking for Apple to speak in person about vulnerabilities or work being done for the future of the Mac or iOS platforms were apparently turned away disappointed. But I would argue that Apple just showing up at the Black Hat conference is the beginning of a good public dialogue with the company on security. Apple has been quiet to say the least in the past, preferring instead to just close its doors and windows where security is concerned, and release hotfixes and updates on its own schedule. Just an appearance at the Black Hat conference, then, is a gesture by Apple that it recognizes the values of hackers and their culture. As CNET's writer says, maybe next year Apple will have a more satisfying presentation.
Defcon 20 badges meld hieroglyphs, circuitry and cryptography for hacker scavenger hunt
Every year, the world's hacker population descends upon Las Vegas to trade notes, sit in on informational talks and compete in friendly contests -- all in the name of Defcon. But this time out, it's the conference's ever-evolving smart badges that've caught our eye, owing mostly to what lurks beneath. Designed by Ryan Clarke -- the mastermind behind the gathering's Mystery Box challenge -- these hackable IDs, issued according to status (Press, Human, Goons, vendors, etc), come embedded with an LED, a multi-core processor, IR transmitter and accompanying hieroglyphic graphic. But that's not all that makes these high-tech tags so special. Turns out, each one contains a game, buried within its open source software, that's encoded with several cryptographic, linguistic and mathematical layers. Shying away from hardware-focused hacks of the past, Clarke built this year's scavenger hunt-like game to be more inclusive of attendee skills, as it'll force conference-goers interested in cracking its code to break down social barriers and collaborate with other highly-specialized nerds. What's the end game, you ask? Well, according to Clarke, the puzzle is a continuation of last year's secret agent story (played out by a real-life actor) involving "a [mysterious] society of computer elites." It's not the sort of payoff we'd be after -- something greener and covered with a certain Ben Franklin's face would suffice -- but it sounds intriguing enough. Click on the source below to read more about the makings of this geek sport. And may the pastiest neckbeard win!
GDC Online announces John Smedley for keynote
John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, has been named for the Game Developers' Conference Online's business and marketing track keynote. In light of SOE's recent paradigm shift to focus on the free-to-play model, Smedley will be talking about how F2P is the future of online gaming. He'll run through how SOE managed to transition its games, how that transition has led to record highs in numbers of players and revenue growth, and what's in store for the future of F2P design. Other track's keynote speakers have yet to be announced, but details of other talks are slowly but surely being filled in. More details, including a schedule builder and an up-to-date list of speakers, are available on the GDC Online website.
Apple to present at Black Hat conference for first time, talk about iOS' padlocks
Apple is taking a different, more cautious tack when it comes to security these days. That doesn't make it any less surprising that the company is planning to give a presentation at the Black Hat conference: the company will have someone on stage for the first time and won't just socialize in the corridors. When he takes to the podium on July 26th, platform security manager Dallas De Atley will go into detail regarding iOS' security measures in front of an audience used to finding a way around them. The company hasn't said whether that involves current or future technology; we suspect that Apple may be eager to show what iOS 6 brings to the table, however. If it all goes down like Black Hat general manager Trey Ford says it will, Apple may both open up a bit on security and set more of the agenda this week -- instead of letting conference goers set it themselves.
Google I/O 2012 app unveiled for Android, keeps attendees and outsiders looped in
Hardly any self-respecting conference can do without a companion app these days and Google has pulled out all the stops with an updated app for I/O 2012. Now available on Google Play, this year's iteration is formatted to work equally well on phones and tablets, and allows users to easily sync events with their calendars and find sessions they're interested in, as well as share them on Google+ or in other apps. The social integration doesn't stop there, as a Google+ stream of the #io2012 hashtag is built right in. The app reaches all the way back to Froyo devices, but there are advanced features like I/O Live session video streams (Honeycomb and above), and automatic synching of schedules / NFC beaming (Android 4.0+). Of course, even if you're just going to observe the event from afar, a few eagle eyed users are already wondering if one of the screenshots (above, left) is giving an early peek at the next version Android, Jelly Bean, due to the oddly styled search box. Whatever the case is, we'll find out for sure June 27th, hit the source link below to grab the app and get ready.
NintendoLand is a virtual theme park on your Wii U
Nintendo has announced a set of minigames called NintendoLand for the Wii U, which uses various Nintendo characters to show off the capabilities of the new systems. There will be 12 different "attractions" in the game, with five them being shown off at E3 this year. From the demo being shown on stage, NintendoLand seemingly collects last year's Wii U demo minigames and expands on them.The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest, Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, DK's Crash Course, and Takamaru's Ninja Castle were the attractions mentioned in the presentation, all of which highlight a certain feature of Nintendo's newest console. Sounds an awful lot like the PlayStation Vita's "Welcome Park" application if you ask us!Nintendo compared the mini-game collection to Wii Sports, the pack-in title for the original Wii. NintendoLand launches alongside the Wii U this holiday.
Hulu Plus, Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Instant Video coming to the WiiU
It's not all that surprising, considering that most of these video streaming services run on anything with a computer chip in it these days. But Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed at Nintendo's E3 press conference that the WiiU will be compatible with the usual streaming hookups, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and Amazon's Instant Video service.Of course, the Wii Pad should make for some interesting setups around watching video – will we be able to stream video from the console to the pad itself? Stay tuned, we'll be sure to ask as we get our hands on the new system this week here at the show.
Hacker pod2g to speak and run hacking workshop at JailbreakCon's WWJC
While WWJC's already got a healthy list of special guests to address fellow iOS hackers, word has it that pod2g -- a well-known and good-looking contributor to the iDevice jailbreak scene -- will be the latest guest to join JailbreakCon's show on September 29th. Better still, the self-professed iOS security researcher will be both speaking and running a workshop there, making it all worthwhile for attendees traveling all the way to San Francisco. For those who want to familiarize yourselves with pod2g, hit the Redmond Pie link below to see his interview by JailbreakCon's Craig Fox. Or, you know, you can head over to WWJC to meet the man up close and personal -- just make sure you get a ticket first before it's too late!
Archive of Jobs videos makes iTunes go all things Steve
The mark that Steve Jobs left on the industry is a deep one, indeed. But aside from regular product announcements, we didn't see all that much of the Apple founder. Jobs's appearances at the All Things Digital conference certainly do a little to remedy the late-executive's notoriously private nature, and now you can watch them all from the comfort of your own Apple-branded media player. All Things D has released Jobs's six lengthy interviews in video and audio format via iTunes.
Google's Sundar Pichai confirms that offline Google Drive 'coming in five weeks,' hints at ad-supported Chromebook
During the closing session here at D10 in California, Google's on Senior Vice President of Chrome & Apps Sundar Pichai was joined by Susan Wojcicki (SVP of Advertising at Google) at Walt Mossberg. Sundar was able to drive the majority of the conversation in the realm of Chrome and Chrome OS, and quite a few interesting nuggets were dropped. For one, he made an offhand comment that "offline Google Drive [is] coming in five weeks," a clue that it'll be revealed and launched in full at Google I/O next month. On the topic of Chrome's browser market share, he reckoned that around a third of the world's desktop browser use is now done on Chrome, noting that percentages are far, far higher in the consumer realm as compared to enterprise, where lots of companies mandate that employees still use Internet Explorer at work. Oh, and Sundar also stated that it's "not lost on [Google] that it can use advertising to provide better value propositions [for Chromebooks] as well. In other words, Google's at least evaluating an ad-supported Chromebook. Looking for more? A fair amount of the back-and-forth is transcribed after the break.
