This week we’ll talk about Anime Con Carne, Portal, and all the crazy Nintendo news that dropped this week. Anime on Carne was a blast, Oizys won a prize. We support the effort totally and are going to rock that stuff out hardcore next year. Nintendo news!~ Sonic vs. Mario?! Finally?! Games games games?! Miyamoto’d all over us. Lasty but not leasty, we fanboy over Portal, a masterfully crafted game. Come drool with us.
EndgameRadio Prime: Episode 176
Published on October 10, 2007 by Tom Mannino | 0 commentsCategories: News, Reviews, Raves, Endgameradio Prime, Wii, PC, Asian, Cosplay, Conventions, First Person Shooters, Psychology, Local Events
EVE Updates
Published on September 17, 2007 by Aaron Matthew | 0 commentsCategories: News, Rants, Journal, MMOs, Statistics, Ludology, PvP, EVE Online
I have begun to follow EVE Online much closer now that I have delved into it personally. In pure internet synchronicity, the news temperature surrounding the game has spiked in recent weeks.
First, September 3 housed their highest peak user count record to date. While 35,000 doesn’t seem like a lot of users in the post-WoW newsworld, when put in context the achievement is actually substantial. World of Warcraft has millions of players split into sharded servers of smaller population. The average US WoW Server has about 20,000 accounts (not all online at once - probably only a few thousand online at once during peak). Under this light 35,000 sharing one world and economy is an impressive endeavour (and no record breaking is possible without a little database record scratch sound effect).
In other news, the first report from CCP’s own in-house economist was posted. It contains the kind of qualitative analysis that makes my mouth water and makes drool come out of my eyes (er.. I think the other way around). Look for more awesome totally SFW graphs and charts soon.
Lastly, Shacknews released the second part of their ongoing series on EVE - primarily covering the GoonSwarm alliance and the drone bay worth of political intrigue swarming their frothy hull. This story covers the rocky formation of the alliance and some amazing PVP tactics.
It’s a good time to be a pilot. If you want to hop in for 14 days via the buddy program, just let me know, I can hook you up and show you around (read: I’m actually really a n00b but I think I’m hot shit).
Calamity Game
Published on June 20, 2007 by Tom Mannino | 0 commentsCategories: News, Science, User Generated Content
Q. What is Calamity Game?
A. The Calamity Game is a flash sandbox where you can set up scenes that unfold based on some simple laws of physics acting on a rag doll.
Here’s what we made:
yggr, Stuck in the middle with you
OKSHOW #70
Published on June 19, 2007 by pen | 2 comments »Categories: OKSHOW, Controversy, Psychology
LOL OKSHOW HAS REACHED LEVEL 70, LOLOLOL.
Today we will talk about insensitivity and the internet. Do they go hand in hand? Does anonymity really change the way we look at things? Has Pen turned into a giant prick? Are we all being numbed by violence and media? Do we all think tree hugging hippies should just jump off a bridge?
EndgameRadio Prime: Episode 159
Published on June 13, 2007 by Tom Mannino | 0 commentsCategories: News, Audio, Endgameradio Prime, MMOs, Real Roleplaying, Science, User Generated Content
We dedicate this show to the memory of Mr Wizard, rest in peace. Blog like it’s the end of the world: Today was this day, where you blog like the world is under Zombie attack. This sparks a long discussion about games and the degree of player control allowed/given by the games themselves. Collaborative storytelling is as old as storytelling itself, so we take a look at various forms of it, including some of the conventions like user-driven rule enforcement. We come up with some examples of ‘live action’ gaming, like environments or amusement parks that set up scenarios you could play in. Imagine playing a reality game set in a broken down amusement park in the Halflife 2 setting. I also found the new 4400 ad campaign, where they set up some ‘in world’ or ‘in-lore’ blogs where they are studying plot elements of the shows universe. Very well done. Lastly we chat a bit about creating systems where your players are assigned random abilities vs. letting them choose their strengths and weaknesses.
Google is in your base, griefing your dudes
Published on May 14, 2007 by Aaron Matthew | 0 commentsCategories: News, Ludology, Psychology, Google, Cyberpunk
Uh oh. Google overlords may just spot the next dangerous level-designers before the cops do. Google, you are walking the line between awesome [ludology] and awesome [dystopian cyberpunk world that sucks to live in but is awesome to think about].
More interesting Ludology news
Published on April 8, 2007 by Aaron Matthew | 0 commentsCategories: ?, Machinima, Ludology
Stanford gets a collection of 25,000 games: If only this kind of focus on archiving and preservation were around during the creation of the motion picture most of the originals might be in a similar archive. But what about non commercial games? There are some groups working on archiving architectural spaces (levels and such) of game worlds from old to new, and some others who work on a particular game lineage (rogue-like games for example), but I’m sure there are some old MUDs forever lost to humanity if no one speaks up about them.
Machinima School: I can’t wait until the throngs of amateur machinima-based theses (plural thesis for those who think that’s a typo) and school dramas with bad unreal models or warcraft characters dancing to the tune of really bad music. Oh, wait… If anything this is probably a good introduction, especially as a medium of expansion for the oh-so-awesome Experimental Animation degree.
Procrastination Formula
Published on March 14, 2007 by Aaron Matthew | 0 commentsCategories: Theories, Psychology
U=EV/ID
Where: Desire to Complete Task (U) = Expectation of Success (E) * Value of Completion (V) / Immediacy of Task (I) * Personal Sensitivity to Delay (D)
Not my theory, but I’ll buy it. This theory comes from a psychologist who’s spent 10 years studying procrastination (or maybe 10 years putting off his eventual study and thesis on the subject, and a month working on it). “Real” Science doesn’t look much more professional than my style of Phở Science.
Boing Boing: Science of procrastination or go directly to Procrastination Central
P.S. You may notice this article is from January. I guess I just kept putting off posting this.
Yet another 4chan jackpot
Published on February 21, 2007 by Aaron Matthew | 0 commentsCategories: News, Second Life, Psychology, Fan Fiction
I seriously can’t make this shit up (well, I could but that would be dangerously close to FAN FICTION).
The summary is: Second Life seems to be exciting the Netherlands’ Ban Hammer. While virtual child porn is already banned, virtual sex with virtual children is not (adult players acting through child-like avatars) but this is looking to change fast. A prosecutor with the real name Kitty Nooij will start bringing cases to the court to set precendence.
So uh, what’s the “Time until Kitty” when someone takes on that name or persona as a Second Life avatar? I see penii in the near future. Also, Dutch psychologists are calling Second Life “by definition a school for paedophiles”. Funny, I thought that was called Elementary School.
Maybe it’s my warped way of seeing things, but after reading this article I immediately thought of an alternate reality episode of “Saved By the Bell” meets “Doug” where they’re all in middle school, and some furry cereal-box-top character named Kitty comes to warn them of the dangers of the 2006-real-world version of Screech. If someone re-enacts this episode in Second Life, I want royalties.
Shit, so much for narrowly avoiding the Fan Fiction tag.
Spexercise
Published on February 17, 2007 by Aaron Matthew | 2 comments »Categories: Journal, MMOs, World of Warcraft, Theories, Exergaming, Addiction, Vocabulary, Psychology
spex·er·cise [spehks-er-size]
–noun .
- Doing a repeated activity that is painful or tedious with the intent of building up skill or attributes, on a virtual character
- Exercise for your specs, ’speccing out’
Example: “I’m going to see how many whelps I can kill in 1 hour… starting now.. and GO”
Example: “Anyone here going to hit the raid (gym)? I need someone to spot me.”
Example: Murloc villages may not have much variety, but they make for good spexercise
[Origin: 2000+, ’specs’ + ‘pectorals’ + ‘exercise’]