memories
Latest
Daily iPhone App: Posterity lets you remember the cute things your kids say
Parents, you know what it's like. Your child says the cutest thing and by the time you find a piece of paper to jot it down, you've forgotten half of what he or she said. Instead of rushing for a pen, you should grab your iPhone and launch Posterity. Posterity is a step up from your average note-taking app because it's organized for a family. You can create an album of quotes for each child, which is extremely helpful if you have more than one offspring. You can also share quotes with family and friends via email or Facebook. Posterity is efficient, too. You can create a quote, assign it to a child and store it within a few taps. The app appends the date and even lets you add a photo to remember the event behind the quote. If you want to recall a favorite quote, you can search each album by keyword or date. There's also an import/export feature that lets you backup your data using iTunes in case your iPhone is lost, stolen or replaced with a newer model. For an app that's meant to store priceless memories, any data backup feature, even iTunes, is indispensable. The biggest feature that's missing from Posterity is the ability to record video. Photos and text are great, but sometimes it's not what your children say, but how they say it that you want to remember. I would love to store a quote of my 2 year old saying "hi" to his little brother whose name is William. He can't say William, so he says something that sounds like Weyoun. I do have a random video of him stored on my NAS, but it would be nice to have the clip stored in one app along with his other precious quotes. This is a feature the developer will add in a future version. Even without video, I still recommend Posterity to parents who want a running log of the adorable things their kids say. I wish it was around when my oldest (now 10-years-old) was a toddler. All those memories I could have saved. If you're hesitant, don't be. In a year or two from now, you'll be glad you bought the app and started saving these memorable moments. Posterity: The Family Quote Book is available from the iOS App Store for US$1.99.
Sony to add photo editing to PlayStation 3's repertoire this week?
Limber up those thumbs gaming gurus, because a new challenge may be on its way to your PlayStation 3 console: photo editing. PCWorld is reporting that Sony will be rolling out some new "photo editing software" for the PS3 early this week. Tweaking photos aside, the software's ultimate purpose will be to provide access to and allow the sharing of digital stills through the company's PlayMemories Online (and your other Sony portable media devices), which is set to launch later this year. The report states that the software will be on sale here in the US on Tuesday and carry a price tag of $18 -- a 30-day trial will also be available. What say you PlayStation Legion? Are you ready to retouch your stills with a D-pad?
Star Wars Galaxies bequeaths a memory book to fans
Still in mourning and/or shock over Star Wars Galaxies' sunset? Kicking yourself in your rear for never checking out the game while it was still alive? Then Sony Online Entertainment has one last gift for you: a Star Wars Galaxies memory book packed with the game's legacy. And this isn't a brief "So long and thanks for all the fish" pamphlet, either. The memory book is a whopping 253 pages of information and screenshots documenting the title's eight-year run. Former players and MMO historians can expect to read up on the game's timeline, planet, species, professions, space, ships, housing, cities, the Galactic Senate, the trading card game, the Galactic Civil War, and "The End." The book immortalizes the near-total Rebel victory in the game with these parting words: The explosions marking the Empire's end could be seen across the galaxy in the skies above the planets, and the celebrations that followed were unmatched. Peace reigned as Star Destroyers and dark lords became memories of another era, of a time long past, of galaxies long gone. Gone, but not forgotten. You can view or download the entire PDF on the official site.
Massively Exclusive: Elsword developer Q&A, final round
That's right, Elsword fans, it's time for the final installment of the ongoing Elsword dev diaries. This last episode includes only a lone pair of questions, both of which focus on the developers' favorite things about the game -- particularly, their favorite bosses and best and worst moments while playing the game. What boss would the developers most like to see as a playable character? What have been the best and worst moments in their Elsword gaming career? For the developers' answers to these questions, including a rather amusing anecdote regarding having one's face smashed in by an elementary school kid, head on past the cut.
The Game Archaeologist uncovers Shadowbane: Your journeys
Every time I tackle a new game for this column, I keep rediscovering a key truth: that there are the bare facts of an MMO that you can research and process, and there are the memories and experiences that transcend the features bullet points on the back of the box. It's always terrific to see players come out of the woodwork and say things like, "You know what really made this game special...?" Shadowbane is proving an interesting case study as well. Because it flew so very low on my personal radar during the entirety of its operation, I naturally assumed it wasn't that good for the few souls who did play it. It turns out that I was wrong, considering just how many testimonies we've had from people who admit that if you could get past the graphical limitations and technical issues, there was a helluva game experience waiting for you. So to follow up from last week's interview with a blogger, this week we're going to hear from Massively readers who took the time to send in their favorite memories of Shadowbane so that they could be preserved in the hallowed Game Archaeologist vaults. Let's do it!
Lost Pages of Taborea: What just happened?
There are always plenty of memories to make and share with others, as MMOs tend to be never-ending playgrounds for us to romp around in. And after recalling major events for Runes of Magic's second birthday, I've been stuck in fond-memory mode. Two years of playing RoM is a lot of time to build up memories, too. I've gone through many a server, guild and character since I started, and I've both made memories with friends and remembered events the game itself created. Sometimes a developer forgets to turn off a light switch, a new bug appears, or a new patch brings unintended changes. I remember a handful of times some pretty interesting things have happened. Mysterious statues popping up, bosses appearing in houses, and other anomalies await after the break.
Enzyme found to make fading memories fresher, old wounds painful again
There's something of a saying that you can only remember the things you try to forget, but if you'd prefer to hang on to those photographic moments from Thunder Mountain back in 1991, a gaggle of gurus from the Weizmann Institute of Science just might have the magic elixir you've been yearning for. According to a newly published study on long-term memory revitalization, Reut Shema and colleagues found that boosting the amount of PKMzeta could potentially help one recall memories that were on the brink of being forgotten. In testing, lowering the levels of PKMzeta caused rats to lose track of memories more quickly, but the zany part is that boosting levels on a specific day helped animals recall memories from days prior -- days where they weren't having PKMzeta jacked into their system. Heaven help our legal system should this ever get FDA approval for use in humans.
Breakfast Topic: What's your favorite dungeon or raid memory?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Ah, Karazhan ... Remember when it first appeared in game, and it was new and shiny and you actually had to try? I do. I hit 70 shortly after The Burning Crusade was released, and my guild could not wait to get into Karazhan. Our first several attempts were rather uneventful. We got eaten alive by The Curator on more than one occasion. We were so proud of ourselves the first time we finished the opera event. It was a weekly thing. We would log on. My fellow alchemists and I would get all the potions and elixirs and flasks ready. Everyone would get a few last-minute dailies done so they would have enough gold for the inevitable repair bills that would follow another wipe on some boss we hadn't quite gotten our strategy figured out on. Over time, we got the hang of it. There was more cheering over Vent than there was yelling in frustration. I will never forget one night our raid team was in there, though. We had just completed the chess event, when suddenly our shaman healer ran straight into a wall and aggroed the next several mobs. We got the mobs off of him and killed them with little effort. The shaman healer spent the entire time running in circles. We finally managed to get him back on Vent, where we found out he had dropped his keyboard and mouse and now was stuck running in circles because of stuck keys. We thought it spelled certain doom, especially for the Shade of Aran fight. It ended up being the most fun we had in a raid. There is nothing funnier than watching a shaman run in circles and still managing to keep everyone alive. He deserves a medal for that run! What is your most cherished dungeon or raid memory? Is it a funny moment you remember most, or is your favorite memory a more serious recollection?
Breakfast Topic: Do you save stuff for nostalgic reasons?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Nostalgia is a funny thing; it often lets us remember only the good and forget the bad. We look back with rose-colored glasses on the past, thinking how awesome it was. In real life, people hang on to odd souvenirs as memory triggers, and sometimes it is the same in game. There are old drops that took us a long time to get or signified a first kill of a boss in a previous expansion, things we just cannot seem to vendor or throw away because it feels like cheating on the memory. So we hold on to these items, allowing them to clog up bank slots so that whenever we go digging through them for an obscure item we currently need, we get that pleasant flashback. For the longest time, I was a borderline hoarder of nostalgic items. I had my full Stormrage set in the bank from vanilla, my tier 6 and my SSC trash staff from BC, and a few other random pieces, even including a Wildheart helm. I used them to not only remember the old raids and guilds, but friends who left WoW or switched factions or servers. However, it would be a quick, wistful moment -- then I would grab whatever I needed and close my bank back up. The trouble was, the amount of items and the randomness in which they were fit into my bank created chaos, and as I was collecting tabards for my 25 tabard achievement and gear sets for achievements, I simply ran out of room. So I purged my bank, selling any and everything with a cash value. It was a little tough, but I moved on. Do you have items in your bank purely for nostalgic reasons? If so, what items did you keep and why? Have you ever had to purge your bank when it began to fill up?
Wings Over Atreia: The ties that bind
Flaws. Bugs. Annoyances -- like a level 45 slaughtering you while your little level 18 self is quietly going about gathering Lumesia. Moments that just make you want to find a dev and toss him off the nearest high rise; all games have them, no one denies this -- not even Aion players (although they usually don't feel the need to discuss them with those who don't play). So why is it we stay in games that, at times, make us want to rip our hair out by the fistfuls? With such a plethora of games catering to a wide variety of play styles, how do we stay faithful to a particular one over the long haul, even when we know it isn't perfect? No, it isn't because we are all secretly masochistic. Or because we detest our barber/hairdresser. Looking around me in games both past and present, watching those who could be considered die-hards stay in (and enjoy) games long after the masses have fled, I found themes that mirrored some of my own reasons -- because, alternately, there are the moments that make it worth it. Not the art, the features, or the wittiness of the quest dialog. Rather, the ties that bind us: Friendships, epic memories, and just plain stubbornness. Charge across the bridge and we'll delve into my top reasons for sticking with a title, even in the face of the raging malcontents.
Beautiful retro handset base for the iPhone
It's the weekend, which seems like the perfect time for a groovy retro item like this one. The iRetrofone is a handset base for the iPhone that brings an old-school aesthetic to your new-school touchscreen cell phone. We've seen cool handsets before, but this one goes all the way. Any iPhone can sit firmly in that space where the rotary dial would be, you can pick up a dialer app from the App Store, and then there's room for the dock to get plugged in, and the handset itself plugs into the headphone jack. "But Mike," you may say, "there's no actual value to that. All it does is make the slim and trim iPhone into a bulky mass of resin." And you'd be right. But the shape of that bulky mass of resin happens to bring back some excellent memories for me, of cradling a handset while chatting with friends and family, and hanging the phone back up when it had fallen off the hook, and carrying the base with me while pacing during an important call. While the item on Etsy is now sold out, if it was there, $15 would be a small price to I'd happily pay* to revisit those memories. [via TDW] Update: Whoops, $15 is the shipping -- the handset is $195, which seems much more reasonable for a custom-shaped piece of resin wired and ready to go. That's not such a small price, but the memories are still powerful.
The Road to Mordor: Happy 3rd anniversary LotRO!
Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis. Three years ago, I was leafing through a computer gaming magazine and found myself intrigued at a multi-page spread for a new MMORPG called Lord of the Rings Online. The very thing that pulled at me was that LotRO, as they described, was blissfully low magic in a way that World of Warcraft's glitzy shinies was not. Instead, here was a world that was a little more realistic in scope, a lot more beautiful, and connected to a killer IP to boot. I was hooked. As we celebrate LotRO's third anniversary this week -- don't forget to log on to get your Writ of Virtue -- it's amazing to reflect on just how far this game has come. It may not be the multi-million subscriber hit that some had hoped for, but it's more than respectable in player numbers, community growth and general respect in the field of MMOs. Two expansions and several content patches later, we've walked with the Fellowship of the Ring from Bag End to Weathertop, down the long road to Rivendell, through the dangerous Mines of Moria, and out into the beauty of Lothlórien. We've experienced two new classes, housing, fishing, the skirmish system, crafting dungeons, a new player experience overhaul, the Lone-lands revamp, several major holidays, and the successful reestablishment of the Shire's postal service.
Nothing was stirring, not even these mice
Wired's Gadget Lab points to this great Flickr gallery by raneko of Apple mice throughout the years, from the blocky one-button behemoths of years past up to the smooth and slick Mighty and Magic mice of today. Laid all in a row like that, it's interesting to see just how much care went into the look of these things, and how the different iterations, across years of work, built upon the basic idea. Wired says that Apple mice have never been its strong point, and they're pretty right about that -- even the current mouse, while beautiful and well-designed, doesn't have the functionality or ergonomic design that you'll find in most other brands of mice. But nevertheless, these still look great, and for the Apple fan, they'll probably bring back a flood of memories all the way back to the Macintosh. Great gallery.
Breakfast Topic: Five years
Today is November 23rd, and that means it's the fifth anniversary of the release of World of Warcraft. That's a long time! Especially in the high-risk world of MMOs, where a bad launch can mean your whole game is doomed, or a sudden change in gameplay can make your whole audience rear up on its hind legs at you. Thankfully, Blizzard has made WoW a living, breathing document, a world that constantly changes and evolves to match its players, which is what makes it so accessible. Throughout dozens of patches, tiers upon tiers of raid bosses, waves of dailies, faction grinds and honor grinds, legendaries and greens, WoW has managed to keep growing and growing along with its subscriber count. And of course, you've been there, too. Maybe not for the whole five years like some of us, but everyone's experienced the game in their own way. So what about you? How long have you been with the game? What's your favorite memory of "growing up" in WoW? Will you keep playing for another five years? Happy anniversary, everybody. Here's to five more!
Mad scientists figure out how to write memories to brains, take over Earth
Call us crazy, but we're guessing one Gero Miesenböck of the University of Oxford has been watching just a wee bit too much Fringe. Gero here, along with a few of his over-anxious colleagues, has seemingly figured out a way to actually write memories onto a fruit fly's brain using only a laser pen and three-fourths of a Ouija board. We know what you're thinking, and we're thinking the same. But all terrifying thoughts aside, what if boffins could burn memories of hard lessons learned into our minds without us having to suffer through them first? You know, like upgrading to Snow Leopard.
Panasonic justifies Blu-ray recorder cost by asking "How much are memories worth to you?"
Apparently blissfully unaware of how much the Engadget staff has paid for the events of the last CES to be forgotten, Panasonic is promoting the UK launch of its FreeSat+ compatible series of Blu-ray recorders (£999 for the 500GB DMR-BS850) by promising to archive ones most valuable memories. Is that enough for you to navigate the various copy protection flags towards Blu-ray disc archival, or will you risk the family Christmas video (worth £542) on something less than a 50GB Blu-ray disc?
WoW Moviewatch: Dead Memories - Ulduar
Dead Memories - Ulduar was created by Endac to display Ulduar to those who have not seen it, or maybe to show off his guild's skills in dominating the raid instance. He created his video with a twist, however. Dead Memories - Ulduar is shot through the perspective of a single visitor, who's plagued by nightmares and dreams about the place.Endac says he doesn't think his video is "super fancy," but I actually think that's fine. His movie is straddling a line between machinima techniques and raid video techniques. I like the sense of wonder and (sometimes) horror his main character emotes to the audience, even while navigating through the terrific battles inside Ulduar.The music choices make sense to me, even if they aren't necessarily my favorite bands ever. Your mileage will vary, of course, but I think Ulduar deserves a metal soundtrack. If you're particularly opposed to metal, you might find the soundtrack distracting.Ultimately, I think Endac's video is pretty neat. I'd encourage him to take his storytelling to the next level, though, as he and his guild explore new content.Edit: The initial link was broken -- it has now been fixed. Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.
The Daily Grind: We had to grind uphill, both ways!
One of the things that our new webcomic Grinders brought to mind were some of the things that used to drive us absolutely bonkers about the old-school MMOs we used to play. Speaking personally, I could list a whole bunch of things from original EverQuest; having to stare at the wall or the floor to cast heals for my party otherwise the spell effects caused my poor old computer to lag unbearably; the idea that you had to regenerate mana by staring at your spellbook for well on 5 minutes; dying, losing a level, and then running back naked and alone. There's a whole bunch more, but this morning we thought we'd ask you - what are some of the old-school things you remember as being totally normal and expected from your early MMO experience that just make you shake your head now?
Four years of World of Warcraft
Yes, as you know from the little Blizzard Bear in your mailbox, yesterday was the fourth anniversary of our favorite game, World of Warcraft. It's been a huge four years -- we've seen Blizzard develop and change massively multiplayer games as we know them, and gaming as a whole in some ways. We've grown our own characters up all the way from level one to 30 and 60 and 70 and beyond, and we've gone through two expansions, eight endgames, countless patches and class changes, endless guild achievements and breakups and many, many "dings" and "grats."We at WoW Insider would like to congratulate Blizzard on four years of World of Warcraft -- it's been an amazing ride so far, and it's not over yet. After the break, some of our writers have posted their own thoughts and memories on the game's anniversary, and please add your own in the comments below.It could seem silly to celebrate the anniversary of a videogame, especially one that, if you've been playing since day one, you've spent over $800 and countless hours on. But then again, look at what this game has given back: groups and guilds full of friends (and some spouses), weeknights full of gear upgrades and XP gains, Saturday afternoons spent slaying dragons and Sunday evenings spent picking herbs in the Swamp of Sorrows or admiring the sunsets in Hinterlands. We've played this game for four years, and for most of us, it's been worth every quest. Here's to many, many more.
PlanetSide veteran remembers the Battle of Forseral
PlanetSide doesn't get much attention these days. It didn't get much attention when it was fresh on the market either. It has always seemed like a clunky, not-quite-right prototype for what a massively-multiplayer-first-person-shooter could be. But some folks remember their time spent there quite fondly, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Quintin Smith.A few days ago he wrote up an article about how veterans of the game fondly share war stories, and then provided his own epic tale. It's a great story that shows how players with good humor can turn a game-crushing bug into the gaming experience of a lifetime.The story resembles the Battle of Thermopylae; one nation is forced (by a bug) to the brink of annihilation. It's interesting because it's presumably the one time any faction in PlanetSide was faced with the possibility of complete and final loss of a war that's rigged to be impossible to lose (or win). We recently brought up the question of stakes in PvP, so this new RPS article is topical! Amusingly, the article is also not entirely dissimilar to our own PlanetSide experience.
