4. http://www.changedetection.com/ (Many alternatives available.)
Another great site for monitoring website updates. It highlights what specific entries have been added or removed, and it's great for monitoring small website adjustments or and seeing what text specifically changed. Unfortunately, it only monitors the site once per day and at a certain time, so you won't know about the many other possible changes have happen throughout the day (like if the website is undergoing maintenance or text corrections so you may miss some important tidbits.)
It is very useful though for getting advanced Press Releases before they are automatically emailed out, finding out recruiting changes (if positions are filled) or new recruiting jobs available, website changes like when Rockstar redirected all of their domains (which in turn indicated a major shakeup within the company), monitoring old comments or forum posts for changes, monitoring specific accounts (old forum accounts) for changes, watching Gaming Publisher sites for new changes (or "hidden upgrades"), etc.
5. Special Announcements
Speaking of monitoring Press Releases, you should also sign up on publisher websites to automatically receive new Press Releases or Special Announcements. This guarantees that you'll be aware of new information before anyone else (most gaming news sites and blogs already do this, but it takes them longer to get the information out). You should also sign up for news & events on the Investor Relations sites.
The Press Release pages should also be monitored, because occasionally there will be new updates, but automated emails are not sent out. :)
6. Trademarks - USPTO.GOV
Great for finding out game titles months in advance of release or announcement.
Unfortunately, this can't be automated (unless through scripting) so you have to manually search the database for new information.
Outside of Google Alerts, this would be your other bread and butter. Typically, most video game registrations are made in the US first (where the publisher is based.) The Mexican, Australian, Canadian, and European Trademark Search Databases are useless, they lag behind the American based system by weeks or months (and they're missing many US trademarks) so there's no point in using those as a source of information. And, the UK one is just terrible.
The Korean TM Database is a pretty good one, though.
When using USPTO.GOV, if you don't want to specifically search for an Owner (e.g. "Blizzard Entertainment") you could do an "ALL" Search for the keywords "Computer game" or "Computer Software" to see all new Trademark registrations.
This is actually a very fun way of finding out new game titles. You'll have to comb through all of the titles, or look for specific wording like a new Pokemon reference for example. (Make sure you confirm on Google, though, to ensure that no one else has already reported on it though. It might be old information.)
Trademark owners may also have patterns to their registrations. For example, I've found that a lot of trademark registrations happen between May and September. And then things are quiet between mid October and February of the following year. It depends on the TM owner though, and it's something you have to monitor.
If you were a blogger back in 2005-2008 and knew about trademark database searches, you would have been viewed as a GOD knowing all of the new and upcoming game titles months in advance. It wasn't actually until late 2008 and 2009 that people started cluing into TM and Patent offices being a great source of this useful information.
* UPDATE:
Here are some Keyword Searches that you can do yourself under Search Marks > Basic Word > Field: Owner Name and Address
blizzard entertainment
electronic arts
activision
take two
ubisoft
zenimax
bethesda softworks
nintendo
sony
sega
thq
microsoft
square enix
valve corporation (careful with this one, you'll get other companies)
konami
capcom
namco
atlus
When searching for new updates, just keep a mental record of the total Record counts. For example, "Blizzard Entertainment" has 83 records. Whenever that number changes, that's when I scan manually for any new changes. This way, you can go through as many companies as possible. (Keep using the back button to return to the search box.)
7. Copyright Searches & Ratings Approval Boards
This information is farther behind trademark registrations, but it can give you more information about what's in the game.
British Board of Film Classification (BBFC)
Search specifically: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/search/?searchwhere=db&q=blizzard+entertainment
Search all video games: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/search/?searchwhere=db&q=digitalmedia
And here are some others to help you out:
Australian Classification Board
All of the most recent Australian entries (very useful)
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
US Classification and Rating Administration
US Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB)
Pan-European Games Information
Singapore's Media Development Authority
8. Recruiting Practices
You can sometimes get a good sense of a game by the types of art a recruiter is interested in. For example; Kenny Carvalho, the Blizzard Titan recruiter, stated that:
At least for me (Blizzard), I look at portfolios before I ever open a Resume. If I see something that looks impressive or shows potential, I will then look at the Resume to see if my analysis of the portfolio makes sense. I wouldn't worry about what game(s) or companies you are or have worked at. Keep your personal portfolio moving forward and you will be fine.So the first thing he looked at was their portfolio, before even reading the resume. And who specifically did he apply this method to? The following artists who were hired to work on Titan.
Matt "Empty" Taylor
Michael "Orb" Vicente
Laurel "Tully" Austin
Rory "Rory_M" McMahon
Travis "Darkrusader" Castillo
Joshua "Moof" Anderson
Matthew "mheyman" Heyman
Philip "PhilipK" Klevestav
Joshua "Moof" Anderson
Artem "X-Convict" Volchik
Paul "Autodestruct" Richards
Vadim "Slipgate" Bakhlychev
Martin Holmberg
Bram "Peris" Eulaers
Nick Carver
Vitaliy Naymushin aka Rawkstar
Renaud “Guntharf” Galand
If you search their art and portfolios, you may notice a recurring trend from all of the artists. Of all potential artists out there who applied for a job with Blizzard and with all of the different styles, he selected the portfolios that had scifi, armor, robots, ancient cities, and dinosaurs. They must have seemed like a good fit for the Titan project?
It's sort of like information research. If you start working on a new game, and then suddenly the company is researching World War 2 era information or hiring historical experts on related subject matter, chances are that it's a WW2 style game.
9. Other Sources of Information
When searching through resumes, keep in mind that most employees are well aware of keeping confidential information off their public profiles. However, contractors aren't so careful. Search for resumes belonging to Voice and Body actors and for smaller developers they often outsource graphics and audio work to outside contractors as well.
Many resume searches can't be found through Google, so you need to find professional Job Search Databases where you can search through resumes as a potential employer. Target the Actors Jobs databases in particular.
Look for voice actors in other countries, the ones who provide language translations. This is a highly untapped market, and if there is voice acting in Titan for example, you should see multiple voice acting jobs in other countries (China specifically) appear as the game gets closer to the heavy content/lore build out stage. (Unfortunately, by posting this tip Blizzard might be better prepared now.)
Listen to Shareholders calls very carefully, get a recording, and try to obtain the transcript. They often contain a lot of information that are missed by gaming news sites. I've seen it happen MANY times: they only report on official News Releases, but they don't pay attention to little bits of information stated during financial calls. They rely on you and smaller blogs for that type of information. You need to know your subject matter first to know what to listen for.. so try not to look for leaks on too many games, only do it for the developers or games that you love to play.
Will continue to add on to this, there are some other approaches but I just need to decide which to share or not. :)
Question was brought up during the 2nd Day WOW Q&A.
Gregg Street mentioned that they've been talking about this particular question, and one of their ideas is to still have the maximum cap of number of characters, but allow the players to distribute them to whatever specific realm they want. (So, 50 toons on one realm.)
No promises though, it's still being discussed.
I think it's something unavoidable though.
Apparently, several Blizzcon live stream listeners overhead a private conversation between Kat Hunter and Geoff Keighley. They weren't aware that their mics were still on, and they were discussing what now is considered a Warcraft IV leak.
This just comes one day after they were talking about how they were surprised there were no leaks. :) It looks like the audio has been cut out (so it wasn't just a rehearsal of something they were going to say) from the stream if you try to rewind now, but I'm hunting around to see if anyone had recorded it.
Here are some pieces of what was discussed:
* Kat Hunter was singing and cursing about her ear piece.
* Kat complaining about Metzen, he was pissed at her for leaking Warcraft 4.
Geoff: "I can't believe you leaked Warcraft 4."
Geoff: "Chris Metzen is pissed about you breaking the news."
Kat?: "Yeah, there was no leaks until Kat Hunter was here"
Sources: 1 2
There a lot of talk on twitter about it too.
Here's a transcript of the conversation, care of Mascotte who still had the conversation cached:
K: Look at those great razer headsetsSounds like Kat was imitating Chris Metzen, "I can't believe she leaked Warcraft 4." It was related to a conversation from the previous day with Michael Morhaime where she accidentally asked about WC4 but received no denial (i.e, "All RTS resources currently focused on SC2"). This added conversation, however, does confirm that they know it was an accidental leak.
G: I know
G: Fansy
G: Hello everybody, welcome to our live set
G: (Responding to an unheard question): Yeah
G: (Responding to an unheard question): Right..
(Music playing now, hard to hear anything besides it)
K: Yes thank you
(Someone eating an apple or something)
K: *Coughing*
K: *eating microphone it sounds*
K, now on phone: I need you to do me a favor, you dont have to do it but i need someone to do it this morning, i need you to take the camera in the office, its in the red box by the desk to the left, i need to document every shelf on the store on the backside
(This really isnt interesting at all, just typing this for completion sake)
K: And if someone can take pictures of the front of hall and display cases which is estimated at 4:30
K: And if security stops you say that you have authorization from (full name of someone, not posting since it doesn't add anything) to photograph the art store ony.
K: Thank you, bye.
(couple of seconds of nothing ness)
G(Talking to unknown third person): So am i sure you understand this euh.. Cool.
G: Is there sounds up here or we dont know?
G: OMG they are here! (Reacting to people walking in it seems)
G: For the hordee.., For the hordee
K: Why are they running?
G: For the hordee.., For the hordee
K: Yeah they are coming in.
G: Go go gooo
K: (Awkward laugh)
G: Omg they got warcraft 4 overhere (directed towards the people entering)
K: *Laughing* Yeah..
G: Yes Kat, Kat broke the news yesterday of warcraft 4 (This are his exact words, not MoP, not WoW, Warcraft 4)
K: There are no *Interrupted by G*
G: Metzen was pissed about that.
K: There are no leaks untill Kat Hunter got on stage.
G: I know!
G: Metzen was like how fucking will you..
K: Yeah couldn't believe she (talking in third person now) leaked warcraft 4.
G: Couldn't believe it either!
G: Sow how late was it last night?
K: Didnt get done until 11:30 (This is where the conversation shifts towards what time she ended up going to bed etc so im stopping right here).
(I'm still digging up more information, will update as this progresses. But it looks like folks can still record the conversation if it was precached.)
Here we go, this is an audio recording of the WC4 specific conversation towards the end. Even if it was an accident, it shouldn't have been that big of a deal. But Kat sounds very upset about the whole ordeal, Geoff is making fun of her, Metzen is pissed with her, and Blizzard edited the audio stream to remove the conversation. Normally I would just ignore it (ie, the accident from yesterday), but the serious response to the "leak" tells me it was, in fact, a leak. :)
And, here's the full recording, thanks to Mascotte.
Kat made a Twitter response regarding Warcraft 4. It looks like it was posted about 1 hour before her new leak. Poor Kat. Geoff was being a pain in the ass, and she sounded very uncomfortable and maybe a little scared about the whole thing.. but it definitely didn't sound like sarcasm to me.
22 OctNice cover. So, Kat Hunter, Licensing Project Manager at Blizzard for almost 3 years, prior Frag Doll, professional gamer, and avid World of Warcraft player was confused about the difference between WoW Mists of Pandaria and Warcraft IV. Uh huh.. sure. :)
@kathunter haha, that was icky! we also heard you talk about warcraft 4...oops? ;P
@AmehSweet seriously there is no Warcraft 4. It is a joke from yesterday :)
22 Oct
@kathunter why did you talk about warcraft4 before preshow today but we never heard of it again
@Linkie1987 because Geoff and I were making fun of the misunderstanding the day before. We thought it was funny.
Kat Hunter would never.. EVER.. confuse World of Warcraft's "4th Expansion Pack" with "Warcraft 4". A lot of users are attributing her mistake to not understanding the difference, which isn't true.
I wonder if she's talking about the "first mistake" or "second mistake" though, before the confidential conversation with Geoff?
* UPDATE:
If anyone has a virtual pass, would you mind recording the other Kat mention of Warcraft 4? Virtual ticket holders need to goto the WoW Class Talent System panel from day 1, and jump to the end. Then keep jumping forwards until you reach the in-between panel with Geoff and Kat. A YouTube link would be greatly appreciated. :) Apparently, she wasn't joking when she said she spoke to Metzen and other Blizzard developers and they said "Warcraft 4 is coming down the line". It was made distinct from the X4 expansion pack too (she said it was in addition to X4/MoP coming out, so it appears there's a lore integration being made).
There were a total of 3 conversations held regarding Warcraft 4. Only 2 of them were captured and posted publicly unfortunately. The first was with Kat and Metzen (which Blizzard deleted immediately from the stream) where she asked Metzen about WC4 and how she was talking to developers who were working on it, and he became visibily upset (she was definitely not talking to the dev team about MOP though). The second video, which is on YouTube, has Kat trying to cover it. And the third video is when Geoff is making fun of her, while both are trying to play it off as an accident.
During that Pre-Show coverage, Geoff Keighley & Kat Hunter were saying that there "Haven't been a lot of leaks" and the first time they haven't had any major leaks. :)
Yeah, right. Guess that's the benefit of having a smaller blog.. a lot of things go unnoticed.
I'll have some thoughts put up later on those other new developments that were announced. The "WOW Annual Pass" thing seemed kind of new and rushed, maybe it was to make up for the missing Diablo 3 release announcement. Things are just way too busy right now, and I've barely had a chance to use the PC. Sunday should be better.
* UPDATE (10/22/11 5:21 AM):
Okay, something SERIOUSLY WTF just happened. I was looking at the imgur link again and the "Posting Date" suddenly changed to "Saturday, October 22 at 10:53 GMT". As of right now it's saying it was uploaded "1 HOUR AGO" which is incorrect. I used IMGUR for this exact reason, so that it could be timestamped. I'll investigate to figure out what happened.
* UPDATE (10/22/11 5:57 AM):
Here's a comparison page you can use. This was posted around the same time as the original (so no weird /r/Diablo restructuring.)
Direct Link: http://i.imgur.com/FAp8v.png
Info Page: http://imgur.com/FAp8v
The reason those pages exist were because they were part of a puzzle on the "Important Notices" page.
Here's the specific entry:
* Research research research! If you find new information, share it. It's very important to read everything on the site from beginning to end. It helps many future blogposts make more sense. This blog covers many different topics, and important secrets or hidden gems and puzzles can be found anywhere. Keep your eyes open, investigate, and read..If you noticed, there was discoloration of certain characters, and if you did a mouse-over you would have discovered "hidden" hyperlinks on the characters.
Each of the hyperlinks went here:
http://i.imgur.com/FAp8v.png - How to piece together the puzzle together
http://pastebin.com/RFUi5Mzz -> The letters "TM" and "Case Sensitive"
http://pastehtml.com/view/b47z32u7o.txt -> a link to Youtube where the letters were "r."
http://tinypaste.com/865cd -> The letters "5Q"
(There are info pages on each of those too showing when they were first uploaded, or when the Youtube comment was first made. I wanted to make sure everything had undeniable evidence, but I didn't anticipate this imgur.com quirk.)
They all combined to make: http://i.imgur.com/ TM 5Q r. png
And I found comments about the puzzle (and specific Blizzcon reveals) here, here, here, and here (this is a page with that Blogspot missing comments problem, but hopefully should be fixed soon.)
I can't believe I have to go through this nonsense. It was just supposed to be cut and dry.
* FINAL UPDATE
Ahh here we go! It's a stupid Reddit feature and just temporary. If you view the "embed codes" on the post, you can see the original posting date: http://imgur.com/TM5Qr?tags
The original is still there. Reddit changed info for some reason whenever it gets linked back. So now you can't flame me anymore assholes.
Have you seen the trailer for the new movie CHRONICLE? It looks pretty awesome, check it out:
Plot Outline: Three high school students make an incredible discovery, leading to their developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.
From the trailer, it looks like some real thought went into it.. ie, how people would really behave if the same thing happened to them.
Can't wait to see it when it comes out. Release date is Feb 3, 2012. I hope it's a sleeper hit.
This is much more difficult now than it used be. Corporations are wising up, they know all the tricks, and their employees are much more prepared and careful. A lot of it is just learning by example too.. when someones blog or resume is exposed, everyone else in the industry reads all about it so they try not to make the same mistakes.
Most gaming developer veterans are careful what they write about, but the best information comes from new hires, interns, and egotistical braggarts.
You can call these "leaks" if you want to.. but they're more like discoveries. Leaks would be something that you confirm from an inside source and usually it's very specific information that's supposed to be confidential.
With all of the recent gaming and information leaks, I figured I would share how some kinds of video game related leaks are discovered. The internet sleuthing site "Supererogatory", for example, made EXTENSIVE use of these techniques for pretty much all of his posts.
1. At the top of your arsenal will be Google Alerts.
Starting out, let's say you want to find some older information on Google. You would use very specific searches like the following:
inurl:resume "Blizzard Entertainment" - the URL has the word "resume" in, and Blizzard Entertainment is a keyword on the page.
Useful for finding those unknown www.brandonsmith.com/resume.html specific sites.
site:cghub.com "David Grexton" - for searching specific sites, especially forums, for any posts that contain this users name.
filetype:pdf resume "Bethesda Softworks" 2011 - for finding PDF or DOC files (typically resumes) with specific information for recent dates.
There are also specific keyword searches, like "Blizzard Entertainment" "Unannounced MMO" or "Blizzard Entertainment" "Next Gen MMO" but these can give you a lot of information that are too many to filter.
Now, most of the historical Google information has already been found or discovered by others. But, what's so great about Google Alerts is that it will automatically email you as soon as a NEW Google entry is made. So, if someone adds a new resume with specific keywords, as soon as Google crawlers capture it, you're notified. Google Alerts is an awesome tool for finding new information, especially when you're filtering by document types or specific keywords.
If you have a Google Alert for just "unannounced game" for example, you'll get too many Google Alerts daily.. so you want to make your alerts as specific as possible.
2. Another great tool is www.LinkedIn.com.
If you want to do any useful searches, you need to sign up with an account.
Google used to be a great search engine for LinkedIn, but they've changed their system and have severely restricted Google crawlers now. For example, you could create Google Alerts like site:linkedin.com "Blizzard Entertainment" and you would be notified immediately when a new account was created with Blizzard in their credentials. You can't do that anymore now. :(
Now, you have to manually search LinkedIn and just keep track of employee names yourself. If you search for "unannounced mmo" blizzard or "next gen" for example, you can find all of the Blizzard employees who are working on the game or have worked on previous unannounced titles. You also need to be creative with your keywords: unannounced, untitled, unnamed, *titled, *announced, next gen, nextgen mmo, secret, project, etc.
If you want to get invited to see more information about a user, all you need is a 3rd degree of separation. There are TONS of employees, industry contacts, and especially recruiters who have a "Will Accept All Invites" policy. Create yourself a name and account, and then do a search for recruiters or keywords like "accepts invites", "all invites", etc. In a couple days, you could quickly generate 100 contacts on your LinkedIn account, with 3rd party connections to all major game developers. This gives you open access to their LinkedIn accounts, and you can typically see more information than what would be available in their public profiles.
3. http://whois.domaintools.com
What's great about this site is that it creates an individual Google-searchable page every time a new domain is registered.
If you type, site:whois.domaintools.com blizzard you can see most domain names with Blizzard within it's title or description.
It's not the most reliable website for historical webpages, but it's great when you create a new Google Alert using the site:whois.domaintools.com command. You can be alerted any time a new domain registration is created within whatever parameters you set.
Sometimes you need to get a little creative.. don't use "Blizzard Entertainment" for example, but rather search using their Administrator or Technical Contact names. Or, have active searches for "DomainsByProxy" or other Proxy companies that hold domains for private entities like many of your favorite game publishers.
More to come..
Anyone getting the impression that the SWTOR Beta NDA isn't going to be lifted until just a couple weeks before retail or maybe even not at all? (ie, once retail hits, then everyone is free to post their reviews.)
I always figured that NDA's were probably lifted late, on purpose, if the developer/publisher knew that the reviews might do poorly. And companies like Blizzard that make great games would typically lift their NDAs much longer before the actual release date.
So, I looked back at some of the major releases over the past few years for comparison:
Age of Conan - NDA lifted May 1 2008, Released May 20 2008 (PVP specific NDA was lifted on Apr 19, but the General/Technical beta remained intact.)
RIFT - NDA lifted Dec 22 2010, Released Mar 1 2011
Earthrise - NDA lifted Jan 25, Released Feb 4 2011
Warhammer Online - NDA lifted Aug 19 2008, Released Sep 18 2008
Hellgate London - NDA lifted Oct 19 2007, Released Oct 31 2007
Matrix Online - NDA lifted Feb 14 2005, Released Mar 22 2005
Tabula Rasa - NDA lifted Sep 7 2007, Released Nov 2 2007 (Early Rls: Oct 30 2007)
Darkfall Online - NDA lifted Feb 18, 2009, Released Feb 25, 2009
DC Universe Online - NDA lifted Dec 6 2010, Released Jan 11 2011
Fallen Earth - NDA lifted Aug 18 2009, Released Sep 22 2009
Champions Online - NDA lifted Aug 17, 2009, Released Sep 1 2009
COD Elite - NDA lifted Aug 16 2011, Released Nov 8 2011
Cataclysm - NDA lifted Jun 30 2010, Released Dec 7 2010
Wrath of the Lich King - NDA lifted Jul 18 2008, Released Nov 13 2008
Starcraft 2 - NDA lifted Aug 17 2009, Released Jul 27 2010
DOTA 2 - NDA lifted Sep 22 2011, TBA 2012 Release Date
Diablo 3 - NDA lifted Aug 1 2011, TBA 2012 Release Date
(I would have liked to include Aion Online, but that game had multiple release dates, name changes, and NDAs for different geographies and it was just too weird.)
Are you beginning to see a pattern? Games that have done poorly (bad reviews) typically had very short periods of time between NDA lift and release (1 month or less). Average games would be about 2 months. And games that the publisher knew would do very well have their NDAs lifted 6+ months in advance.
NDA vs Release Date timing is a very good indicator of how much trust a company has in their game and a good determining factor of success.
It's sort of like preview trailers. If they show more pre-rendered videos and bullet point features than actual gameplay, it's not a very good sign.
If you can think of any other online or MMO games to add to the list, let me know.
- I actually managed to sit through the entire 01x05 Terra Nova episode. Very family and touchy feely, and I don't think it's going to get any more interesting than it has already been. I going to place my bets on the mole to be that adult female actor pretending to be a teenager who lives with Taylor and is Josh's new love interest. I have no idea what her name or character's name is, nor do I care to learn..
- Once Blizzcon is over (and they announce ticket sales and virtual attendee numbers at their next shareholders meeting), I'll write something up along the lines of that old "Blizzcon Revenue and Costs" post. Should be rather interesting considering the price hikes.
- Blizzard is entering into a new agreement with AsiaSoft (in Thailand) to distribute their games in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. This is sort of a weird Gamasutra post too. They make it sound like Blizzard games weren't already available in those countries: "AsiaSoft will make these titles available in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, although the company did not indicate when the first games will be available." However, World of Warcraft is already played by many people in those countries (as well as other Blizzard titles.) Most of the players just connect to the Philippines servers for reduced lag, so this agreement might be mostly beneficial in that it would be bringing servers closer to the players. I don't think these new territories are going to have a major boost to subscriber numbers though, but I think it will encourage some new gamers to start playing.
- Those Blizzard Blade Servers just went up for auction. Apparently, there are a lot of folks who seem to think there's something of value they can extract from the servers.. I guess they're not aware that these don't have any hard drives in them, and it just has a plaque instead. These are the same ones that Blizzard had a silent auction for last year at Blizzcon 2010. But, they're even much older than that. I guess they've been pretty much sitting on a shelf for years now, and they have added the new plaques within the past few months.
- And finally, here are some classic reads from Blizzard that you might find entertaining. I guess some things change.. belief systems, morality, apparently laws...
Selling In-Game Content for Real Money | 1/12/2005
Not only do we believe that it is illegal, but it also has the potential to damage the game economy and overall experience for the many thousands of others who play World of Warcraft for fun.
So, back then it was:
If you are found to be selling in-game property (such as coins, items, or characters), for real money, you will lose your characters and accounts, and Blizzard Entertainment reserves its right to pursue legal action against you as well.
"If you buy an item, that's ILLEGAL. You're breaking the law and it damages the economy and overall experience! If you do this, we'll call the cyber police on you.. consequences will never be the same!"
Nothing has really changed, but now the attitude is:
"Well, TCG Loot card mounts have been sold for a long time now, and we've been able to tell it hasn't had any adverse impacts to the game or economy - despite them selling sometimes for astronomical amounts of gold.
It's no big deal. We're just providing alternative ways for players who don't want to spend real money on these items."
I'm disappointed that they would change so radically and even try to justify it.
And there was also these old posts:
The difference in patch types
"For World of Warcraft, we will also be adding new content on a regular basis, thus ensuring that there will always be new adventures, new locations, new creatures, and new items to discover."
Content patches were officially supposed to be delivered on a monthly basis (like what Sony announced for DCUO). Within a 6 month period, Blizzard had already delivered 4 major updates and 9 minor (content) updates.
What is contained in a regular content patch?
"Each content update will also bring new quests, items, professions recipes, and continued class improvements."
Just broken promises.. no big deal.
- I entered another Path of Exile beta key contest where I had a 90% chance of winning. I still lost. :)
- Apparently, it looks like those stupid Blogspot.com issues have been going on for possibly over a month now. I never noticed it until just last week though.
Some comments had vanished, and there are certain pages/posts where users can leave comments on. There's no way to even tell that though as there's no mechanism that really monitors this sort of stuff.
For the most part they're not that intrusive, but it's annoying that some of the comment conversations are gone. I have no idea when they're going to be resolved either. - I've added a couple other service providers to my "do not trust" list. XS.TO is up at the top, and now I'm adding Pastebin.com and Pastehtml.com. I had put up some stuff on them a few months ago, but I guess someone clicked "Report Abuse" even though they weren't spam and just 2 letter words. I had set them to "Never Expire", but I guess they don't even review complaints, and just go ahead and delete them.
- And, you know prescription medication where there's an extremely rare probability (less than 1% chance) to get certain unwelcome side effects? Yeah, I got the side effects.
- Oh, I just got a jury summons too.
I'm finding that investigating new information on the net is getting pretty hard to come by. Unfortunately, there are a lot of tighter controls and internal policies now on how employees are allowed to act or what they are allowed to publish online (small things that they didn't consider before). It wasn't like this 2+ years ago. :)
With all of the exclusive Google sleuthing, I'm also seeing ways in which the search engine can be significantly improved so that casual searchers can get better information. I might write something up on that subject sometime in the future.
Anyways, with most gaming leak information drying up, I'm creating a new post all about finding gaming leaks yourself. And, how anyone can do it themselves with just some simple automated tools.
I'm also trying to finish up a bunch of other stuff, since we'll all be pretty busy this entire weekend and I probably won't be able to post anything new until after the weekend. Other than Blizzcon, I also have a ton of other real life stuff going on this weekend (so I'm going to be missing the second half of the Blizzcon streams on both days unfortunately).
I'm not really expecting much, though. We all pretty much know by now what's going to be happening at Blizzcon:
- Mists of Pandaria video during the opening ceremonies part providing all of the expansion pack details, the non-hero class, and a playable demo. (I can already hear that same Cataclysm narrator saying: "Azeroth has been shattered, but meanwhile within the MISTS there lurks a new evil..")
- SC2: Heart of the Swarm video and game details (players will see new units, gameplay sequences, and be able to play the HOTS expansion pack)
- Diablo 3 (stations setup for playing, new details, more Beta Keys given away)
- I'm hoping for a little surprise though, like the new D3 release date. After all, the original Blizzcon 2011 plan was to have a big Christmas surprise (i.e. late November D3 release date) announcement.
- I can see the whole event almost being identical to Blizzcon 2009 actually. Metzen introducing SC2 units, talk about rumor and speculation, and then the big MoP reveal.
- Mike Morhaime making nervous and unfunny jokes in the beginning before Metzen is brought in. Recap of the "amazing" Blizzcon 2010, and then a recap of Blizzcon 2011 during the closing ceremonies (ugh).
But, you know.. there is this little thing that kind of started a little while ago. Enjoy. :)
I was thinking about going back and updating this old "Leaks, leaks, and More Leaks" post by the Original Daeity.
With all of the recent game leaks happening, it's too hard to pass up keeping that list going. I'm also writing up a bunch of other information leak posts that you'll find very interesting, and I'm trying to pump out all of my drafts and posts as quickly as possible before this weekend when things get really busy for all of us. :)
Here's what I have so far:
Battlefield 3 PC - Leaked Oct 16, Release Date: Oct 25
Gears of War 3 XBOX360 - Leaked Jul 2, Release Date: Sep 20
Batman: Arkham City XBOX360 - Leaked Oct 13, Release Date: Nov 21
RAGE XBOX360 / PS3 - Leaked Sep 30, Release Date: Oct 4
Deus Ex: Human Revolution X360 / PS3 - Leaked Aug 18, Release Date: Aug 23 (Retailer broke street date.)
Resistance 3 PS3 - Leaked Aug 20, Release Date: Sep 6
The Witcher 2 PC - Leaked May 8, Release Date: May 17
Am I missing any other big game leaks?
I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but I made a quick update to The Original Daeity's old "Profit from Blizzard Authenticators?" post a while back.
I found an official investment-related document that proved everything he wrote was completely accurate. :)
The "Vasco Data Security International" 2006 document is here.
In it, Vasco (the manufacturer of the Blizzard Authenticator GoPass 6 line) detailed that in 2004, their cost per token was ~$3.50. In 2005, it was ~$3.00 each. And in 2006, it cost ~$2.00 each per token. You can imagine how much they probably cost now, especially with their significantly higher sales figures, bulk purchasing, and new technologies. It would be perfectly fair, though, to state that they cost no more than $2 each.
This document was also for the entire Digipass line, and the Blizzard Authenticator models are what you would call, the "bottom of the barrel." So those "Costs Per Token" also included their more expensive (on average) tokens. :)
Very interesting insight into the company though, for those who are completely convinced that tokens cost $10-20 to manufacture. There are tokens out there that can cost $1 to make, and then wholesalers/resellers put them up for $30-60 each.
If people only knew how much everyday ordinary items REALLY cost to manufacture and ship... :) Corporations need to keep all of this information highly confidential (oil, cars, paper products, food, electricity) or else there would be public outrage.
I've been seeing a lot of recent excitement on the Diablo 3 forums about user operated gambling, the most popular of these being the Arena / PVP Gambling.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3341759283
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3393349439
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3123032773
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3195920425
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3182738500
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/2690982214
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27810240878
It's no surprise that a lot of players are highly supportive of gambling within the game and all of this was bound to happen. They're already talking ideas on how to do it, rules, and making initial preparations well in advance of the game's release.
My favorite part was when a user said that placing a wage on an arena fight was not illegal or gambling because their actions are skills-based and there's no luck involved. I love hearing all of these justifications. :)
What's interesting about these forum posts, though, is that they're not being told NOT to do this. These forums are moderated, and when players start talking about gambling, cheating, exploitation, or discrimination in WOW forums, for example, they are reprimanded and censored.
All of this reminds me of classic internet libel cases. Companies are much more "protected" if their forums are left unmoderated because they have no control over what users post. The logic goes something like this; if you have a forum that is unmoderated, it's like a library where users can write libelous material in their books. They don't know about it, and hence can't be held responsible for it. However, if you have complete control over all subject matter and approve what is written, then you are responsible for all content and "officially support" what is written.
Now, that specifically deals with libel of course, but it can also apply directly to personal opinions within any moderated forum. If a forum is moderated and content is reviewed, then anything that is written is "supported" by the forum owner. When you talk bad about a company (their game, rules, people, etc), the content is deleted or edited. Good, supportive, and praising comments are left alone. Of course, some posts are hard to spot, and those get by, but when you have very popular (and multiple) posts with thousands of players saying the same thing, then whatever they write (or the idea they are promoting) is essentially "supported" by the company. :)
Okay, looks like it's finally online now.
It's a very disappointing read, and rather short. Nothing about Lore or Titan like what was implied, it was just a Metzen personal nostalgia and feelings piece..
Apparently, there's more to come though: "Check back tomorrow for part two!" (Even though this article was sort of Part Two already, so the next one would be Part Three.)
I'm not sure if you watch "The Adventures of Merlin" (aka "Merlin"), but I've been watching the BBC series since it first came out. I don't really like the series mind you, and I'm surprised it's gone on for so long, but I guess the only reason I watch it is because there's really nothing else on that day. :)
The other reason I watch it is really to see the production value increase over time. During the first couple seasons, they had to keep using the same sets, scenery and props over and over. As it became more popular, they had more money to spend, and suddenly there were new locations, new sets, and much improved special effects.
The TV series is still much better than "Camelot" though. "Camelot" had a great first episode.. and the rest was rubbish. Everyone really needs to stop rebooting the King Arthur and Robin Hood franchises.. just leave them alone for a couple decades for heavens sake.
So anyways, I was watching "The Wicked Day" the other day and it pissed me off a little. In the beginning, Merlin had plenty of opportunities to expose Morgana, but I can understand that the writers wanted him to foolish, young, and naive. But now he's supposed to be smarter, more clever dealing with Morgana's tricks, and you'd figure he would clue in now that they're 4 whole seasons in. It's just plain bad writing, and it would have made much more common sense if the episode happened like this:
Still no updates on that PC Gamer article, where Nathan Grayson semi-implied that there would be more information on Titan lore. I think it was just a weirdly worded post that could be interpreted a few different ways, but it still looks like it was written that way intentionally to bring back his readers.
The latest updates are as follows:
On October 14 (last Friday), the author tweeted "Nearly done transcribing my Chris Metzen interview. He's an '80s nerd child to his very core. It's glorious."
And then followed by, "People are going to laugh at some of the things he said, but the degree of conviction in his words is incredible."
I figured his post would have been done by Monday, but I guess he's working on a lot of other articles.
They just registered for "CORE-ONLINE" and "COREONLINE".
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85446293
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85446291
I was hoping for a possible Online Mech/Front Mission game (e.g. Armored Core Online), but it appears that "Core Online" is just a gaming service portal.
IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Entertainment services, namely, the provision of online computer game services; online computer game services provided by means of an internet portal; information and advisory services relating theretoThis new registration is actually related to an older September filing called CORE:
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=85421330
They purchased the "CORE" trademark from another company a really long time ago too:
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=74299076
They don't appear to own most of the "CoreOnline" and "Core-Online" domains, so I don't think they have any serious or immediate use for this new trademark.
There's been a few new updates on the Diablo 3 Emulator front, it's still in a basic sandbox state though. I figured that since things were so quiet, I might as well start tracking the project and providing updates here for those that were interested.
Here are all of the links to get you started:
Diablo 3 Beta Client: http://us.media.battle.net.edgesuite.net/downloads/d3-installers/4de82d80-ddeb-4e61-80ae-b4e8817f54b0/Diablo-III-Beta-enUS-Setup.exe
Information about various D3 emu server projects: http://twitter.com/#!/diablo3dev
Currently, the best emulator is D3Sharp which has been renamed to Mooege.
Server files are here: https://github.com/mooege/mooege
General Mooege information and help: http://www.mooege.org/
Latest updates on the Mooege project: http://twitter.com/#!/MooegeDev
Autobuilder, updater, and launcher for Mooege: http://mooext.com/
Mooext is a wrapper for the whole Mooege D3 server to make it easier for novices to get into the game.
SWTOR will be launching late December, and I thought it might be fun to make some predictions on their future sales figures.
So, Battlefield 3 pre-orders are over 1.5 million (Sept 20, 2011) and over 1.25 million (Sept 7, 2011). And, EA has stated that "SWTOR far exceed BF3's pre-order sales." (July 26, 2011) On August 29, BF3 pre-orders were over 800,000 and SWTOR pre-orders were 380,000. On July 23 (within a couple days of their "far exceeds" announcement, BF3 pre-orders were 467,000 (not including PC, so it was probably close to 500,000.)
(* Updated the entry above because I'm confused. SWTOR pre-orders started on July 21, 2011 but I don't know when the BF3 pre-orders started. BF3 pre-orders should have been around 500,000 at the time of the July announcement, meaning that SWTOR pre-orders should have been between 0.5 and 1 million.)
With December 20 still a couple months away, those pre-order figures will still continue to rise especially as we get closer to the release date.
Right now, pre-orders should be atleast 1.5 million, but because EA stated that they "far exceed" (but not double) BF3 numbers, pre-orders should be about 2-2.5 million. As we get closer to December, pre-orders should be around 2.5-3 million.
(Hey, by the way.. did you notice that the SWTOR pre-order comes with an exclusive Training Droid? It's a non-vanity COMBAT pet. I guess we know EA's stance on virtual items and sales.. if they do this now, you know they'll do it later.)
I kind of have a hard time believing that number though. It's been such a long time that a MMO has been able to achieve those numbers of players.
I looked at RIFT as a possible comparison, but it just won't work. If you try searching for RIFT Subscription Figures, you'll probably come across the "1.3 million subscribers" post on the official forums.
"In a statement today, Trion Worlds announced their new flagship title Rift: Planes of Telara™ has exceeded all expectations, shifting in excess of 1.3 Million units. Digital sales amounted to a staggering 1 million, whilst physical copies came in at a respectable 300,000. A spokesperson was quoted as saying "Maybe we're closer to Azeroth afterall", poking fun at their own marketting slogan in relation to their success in comparsion to the current top dog World of Warcraft."However, this was just an April's fool joke.. if you couldn't already tell by the multiple spelling errors and poor grammar.
In reality, actual RIFT sales figures are about 400,000.
If you recall, Trion Worlds was bragging a while back about having "One Million Players" but these were just vanity figures invoked from "internal calculations". There's a massive difference between 1,000,000 players and 400,000 games sales (which probably has even less players). There was no outrage about this clear distinction, but WOW fans sure do get upset when you suggest that Blizzard does the same: "What!?? Blizzard would NEVER do that.. it would be ILLEGAL for them to give wrong subscriber numbers. THEY HAVE SHAREHOLDERS TO ANSWER TO DAMMIT! THEY CAN'T JUST MAKE UP SUBS!" Everyone else does it and they have shareholders to answer to.. so, why is Blizzard any different?
And, I can't really compare it to Age of Conan. They anticipated hitting 1M sales, but never reached their target. They also dropped 3/4 of their subscribers after the first month.
There is really no other MMO that can be used as a comparison.
So..
At current trends, there should be at least 3 million subscribers over the first month. This period is crucial too, and they will require excellent online reviews in order for their numbers to continue growing. But, from what I've read online there are a lot of people disappointed by the game and how it's too similar to WOW (which they have stopped playing due to boredom.) Most of the reviews have been very poor, and I know that EA has been trying to control these reviews as much as possible until after the game is officially released.
To that end, here's my prediction:
I think that right out of the gate, SWTOR will sell less than 3 million copies. Most of those figures will be digital / pre-orders. There will be poor reviews post launch, and many players will abandon the game after the first month. It won't be a massive exodus like what AoC experienced, but I'm going to guess at least 30% of the players will quit shortly after their first month (say 2-3 months after launch).
During the first couple weeks, EA/Bioware will be bragging about how great their sales figures are and how "successful" the game still is while trying to keep hype and momentum going. But, gamers will be more interested in the reviews and what their friends think. Normally a publisher would mention what review scores they are receiving and by whom, but in this case they will just pick out "certain quotes" from reviews and post the single quotes instead: "the graphics are phenomenal!", "the story is engaging!", "lag issues weren't that bad..", etc. etc.
(I'm hoping for a review scandal. :) EA threatens to remove advertising revenue due to bad reviews for example. Keep your eyes open on this one.. sudden changes in who reviews the game, reviews are up for a day then deleted, layoffs, angry blog protests, etc.)
During their Q3 2012 Shareholders meeting (during the first week of February), they'll talk about how greatly successful the game was.. and just pretend that their shareholders didn't read any of the reviews.
By mid 2012, subscribers will probably be around 1.5 to 2.0 million at the most. Still, not a bad chunk of probably many WOW (and some RIFT) players.
If I learn anything new, I'll update my estimates before December. But, I think the beta reviews that are slowly leaking out may halt pre-order growth. I might even need to start considering pre-order cancellations if the more disappointing reviews go viral.
* I'm going to have to make some updates, I'll wait to see if EA provides any new information. It's looking more like a RIFT situation though, but maybe with slightly more players in the beginning.
* UPDATE:
I'm going to cut some of those numbers in half, I just find it really hard to believe that a new MMO is going to have any where close to 2 or even 3 million subscribers. I think first month sales will probably be under 1.5 million (approx. 900,000 pre-orders and maybe 300-400k retail sales). I'm still expecting an exodus of players though once the reviews start to hit - so I'm sticking with the approx. 30% cut. I think most reviews will be "disappointing" but if they are "TERRIBLE" reviews, then that exodus will be much larger. If they can keep delivering major content, I think they can stabilize at around 1 million players and then slowly grow to probably 2 million over the first year.
* UPDATE (12/06/11):
I'm going to revise my numbers again. A lot of the information being peddled out by EA/Bioware is very misleading, which actually concerns me. And based on the active beta players, I don't think it's going to be over 1 million. It's "supposed" to be atleast 1.5 million based on what Bioware is saying.. but I'm going to estimate 900k sales for first day sales (which includes all pre-orders.) Even that seems really high and I have my doubts. If they do hit 1 million during the first day, I'll be very impressed.. then after the first month is when things get really interesting. :)
* UPDATE (12/15/11):
Even though sources are saying that pre-orders are near 950,000, the launch is 2 weeks away, and they still don't include digital orders and retail copies, I'm still going to stick with a low number. :)
You'll probably think I'm crazy.
Based on the most internet sites, it "should" be at the very least 1.5 million on the first day, and if you believe the publisher hype, it should be more than 2.5 million first day sales.
Even with all of that overwhelming information, I'm throwing caution to the wind and I'm still sticking with about 900k sales on the first day. If you want some more flexibility, I'll make a guess at somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000. :)
The "staying power" of SWTOR will be the most interesting. After the first month, will subscribers rise or fall?
Is there really any point to DLC for LA Noire?
I suppose it depends on what your definition of DLC is too.. to me, it should be something that expands a story, there are new discoveries, or it brings in something new, fun and useful.
The problem with LA Noire though, is that the main character (Det. Phelps) dies at the end of story. And because of the type of game, the DLC is pretty much limited to vanity aesthetics (suits, cars, etc.) and storyline driven DLC.
LA Noire DLC is a collection of "old adventures" before his death.
Does that interest you? If you found out that a TV series was revealed to be "all just a dream", would you even watch it in the first place?
With Phelps dead, what's the point in continuing the story? If he had lived, at least there would have been new "adventures" for you to follow, and the story could have been further extended or developed.
I think what had happened was that they didn't think it through clearly, and just tried to borrow from the success of RDR's DLC. But, they didn't consider the major differences between the two game genres.
RDR is a multiplayer action GTA-style game. (In the GTA games too, there's very little empathy for the main character as they are really just an outlet for your more villainous inner desires. If your character dies, no big deal, the next GTA will just have a new "bad guy" to play anyways.) RDR DLC consists of mostly new weapons or multiplayer maps. Besides, John's son Jack could just carry on his legacy if the story were ever extended in future DLC.
LA Noire, though, is completely different. It was marketed as a Single Player detective game with an immersive story line. The types of people who buy this game weren't interested in multiplayer shooting and action gameplay, but rather the story and it's people.
Your DLC options are pretty limited here. Why would you create a story, plan on extending the story, but have the main character DIE before extending the story?
It's just a simple logic failure, and I hope it's a lesson learned. DLC could have been MUCH more successful if Phelps was still alive, and they continued to develop his story and personal development. You need to get people addicted to a story; one where they can't wait to find out what happens next.
Perhaps LA Noire should have ended with a cliff hanger instead: the players are left wondering what happened to Phelps in the storm drain, and there was an "anonymous" funeral at the end of LA Noire instead. DLC for storyline driven games need to be marketed like successful novels.. you keep buying more books in the series to see what happens to your favorite characters next.
I've brought the proper template back up now, and the layout is all fixed. Comments still broken in some cases, but Google Engineers are apparently working on the issue.
I tried testing out about 10 other templates while I was trying to fix the problems, but they all just look like crap. It's hard to find a good Blogspot template, but I'd like to switch things up a bit sometime in the future.
I try to soak up as much information about Titan as possible, and I noticed something interesting in a PC Gamer article about GDC 2011 that they seemed to pick up on that no one else has written about (yet).
Here's what was odd about the article:
Chris Metzen is first talking about WOW lore, then customization, and then this continuation along the same line of thought:
“It’d be really cool if I could design my own castle and have people run through it. It’d be fun if I could design this big, epic quest line and let my friends run through it. The thing you run up against is quality level. With WoW, you’re going to get millions of submissions. There’s a lot of creative people out there. But maintaining a level of editorial control and quality control is just logistically impossible. But it’s something we talk about from time to time. I think it would be amazing if we were able to open this thing up.”And then he talks about the following, like a "While we're on this subject.."
“Obviously, I can’t get into what our thinking is in particular [with Titan],” he said. “But if you’re fortunate enough to have that hit game that’s beloved by X number of people, that expectation of performing again or outdoing the competition that’s also learned from your big hit can become very, very intense.”So.. was this part of his speech? He's talking about customization within games, which relates to the subject of Titan. Or was this a separate line of questioning?
I'll know more if I can ever get my hands on a video recording of the event. But, I thought it was of note since PC Gamer themselves made a connection between the two.
However, on the subject of their Next Gen game Nathan Grayson did continue to say:
And there’s plenty more where that came from. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Metzen after the panel for an exclusive interview, and you’ll see that in the coming days.Implying that there should be actual Titan information, but I think he just worded it this way to attract more readers.. or maybe it was just incorrect formatting.
- Mynsc's tweet about the Titan Timeline cause a little bit of a stir within Blizzard HQ. About 3 people came here directly from the Twitter page, and then there was a rush of some 25-30 users shortly after (and the following day) who appeared to have been emailed the direct link. Might just have been non-Titan employees who were interested in what was going on though.
- Fallen Earth is going F2P this Wednesday apparently. Should be interesting, I've never played it before but I was never going to pay a subscription for it.
- The most interesting development yesterday, which shouldn't come as a surprise, was Blizzard's unique approach to implementing an acceptable RMT method within World of Warcraft. Pay $10 for a BOE pet, sell pet in-game for gold. It's also only a single pet that you can buy, unlike past pets that would be available on all of your characters.
Q: Could I put the Guardian Cub up on the auction house to try to make some gold if I wanted to?
Funny how they, once again, stated that this RMT implementation was not because they wanted to do it, but because "players asked for it." :)
While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services. However, please keep in mind that there's never any guarantee that someone will purchase what you put up for sale in the auction house, or how much they'll pay for it. Also, it’s important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts. (You can read more about our stance here.) While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that’s preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling “black market” and account theft.
Q: What about future Pet Store pets?
It's too early to say how we'll handle future Pet Store pets. We made this change in response to feedback from players looking for alternate ways to get the Pet Store pets, and we're always looking into other opportunities for improvement. We're interested in hearing what players think of the Guardian Cub when it launches, and we hope you'll have fun with this new flying friend.
It sure did cause a lot of uproar though. Players are reacting like Blizzard has defiled or tainted the game. It's inevitable though.. their existing Paid Services aren't as profitable now, and they're under direction from Vivendi to continuously find new ways to drive revenue.
Unfortunately, because this is only ONE item, Blizzard will be benefiting from this RMT method far more than users will. With some many players attempting to profit from the pet (thinking that no one else will be doing it), the in-game price of the pet is going to plummet.
Bashiok also wrote:
TCG Loot card mounts like the Spectral Tiger have been BoE for a long time now (since patch 3.2), and that was and continues to be well-received, and as far as we've been able to tell hasn't had any adverse impact to the game or economy - despite them selling for sometimes astronomical amounts of gold.
It’s potentially worth noting that no new gold is being introduced into the game's economy with those mounts or the new Guardian Cub pet.
Our goal with the Guardian Cub is to provide alternative ways for players who don't want to spend real money to add these pets to their collection. Even though this has been available a while now with the TCG mounts, this is obviously a new kind of way to deliver Pet Store pets, and we're definitely interested to hear your feedback and ultimately see how this will play out. - It's funny how players reacted saying "Blizzard is now making it LEGAL!" I hate it when people say "Blizzard making RMT legal".. seriously, it's just a policy. You can't get arrested for breaking a dress code policy at work.
- Other than that, it's been pretty quiet. I've gotten my hands on RAGE and will be playing that over the next couple weeks. No point in talking about the game though, there are a lot of good reviews out there that pretty much echo the same experiences I've had with the game. So far, it's a little boring unfortunately.
If you haven't watched this video yet, you should really check it out.
This is just the beta, and I'm hoping that this is just an "Act 1 thing". But it appears that there's not as much randomization or larger maps like what I was expecting.
The beta is much like a game on rails (i.e. linear paths) where all outside environments are the exact same design, but with random placement of trees and mounds. Dungeons have more randomization, but they still use fixed points and identical passageways, so they're fairly easy to navigate no matter how many times they are generated (i.e. there are points of reference that help you select correctly when given multiple choices.)
Boss encounter areas are also static. Looking at all of this tells me that botting will be easier than I anticipated, and model editing more useful. With significantly larger maps and heavy randomization, exploits become more difficult, but I suppose they took this approach to take load off their servers (and increase game efficiency) during the randomization process.
Update:
VoidTester (see comments below) has updated me to a blue post about the randomization concern. Apparently, it is limited to Act 1 and it was meant to ease players into the game through a guided experience in the beginning. But, zones are much more randomized in the other Acts. Awesome news indeed.
Below is some informative information gathered from Sam "Slouken" Lantinga's blog (Direct Link) where he talks about his work on Titan Blizzard's other Untitled Project (not the Next Gen MMO). (* Updated here.)
(There are no details about the project, but rather his working experience with Blizzard on this project which is quite interesting.)
Sam was previously their Lead Software Engineer but now works at 38 Studios.
Here's a summarized timeline of everything that happened:
January 2009
(* Note: His resume says January 2008 which is when Titan began, and a year before the Untitled Project. However, Mike Sacco claims that this is wrong and January 2009 must be the correct date.)
First beginnings of Titan Blizzard's Untitled Project.
a job opened up for technical lead on a small unannounced project that was getting underway. It was a small project, with a short timeframe, at least for Blizzard, and it was a project that I personally was very interested in.Approx. Feb/Mar 2009
Sam was promoted to Engineering Lead for the small project.
Between Feb/Mar 2009 and June 2009
Research phase, planning, and hiring for urgent positions.
researching engine technology, getting some of the infrastructure set up, and worked with the producer on a detailed technical plan for the project.July 2009
After that, since the designers had a solid idea for the game and were making great progress in the prototype, I started work on proving out the gameplay systems and hiring the most urgent engineering positions.
Starcraft 2 launch became Blizzard's top priority, so most of the team were reassigned temporarily to help get Battle.net ready.
"Since our team was so small, most of us went to help out, including our producer and UI artist."From July 2009 to July 2010
The team consisted of approx. 6-8 people, while everyone else was helping out with the SC2 launch.
"We kept a small crew of designers, an artist and our newly hired graphics engineer to keep the project alive during our tour of duty on Battle.net."Between July and August 2010
SC2 launched, and team moved back to
"our producer was promoted to lead Battle.net producer, and the designers made great strides in evolving the game design and the gameplay model. The graphics engineer had completed the core of the graphics engine and was roughing out the tools pipeline and content creation system.If you recall, this is when Kotick announced (August 2010) that they were ramping up production of the game, but it looks like the reason for this was partially because the Titan team was working on the SC2 launch and there was just a skeleton crew left behind.
When we returned from Battle.net, I jumped right on getting our AI/gameplay engineer up to speed on the gameplay systems and started the herculean task of migrating code I had already finished over to the new gameplay model and tools systems that were developed while we were gone."
November 2010
His various tasks (e.g. "migrating code to new gameplay model") upon returning to the game were completed.
Sam was called into a meeting and told that there were issues on the team. He knew of issues with the gameplay engineer, but apparently there were more, and goals & milestones were not being met.
A few days later, he was asked to perform an interview for his own job.
Other Notes
The team was feeling a lot of time pressure and increased stress during the beginning phases of
It sounds like they were pretty much an independent group for 2 years (2008-2010) without any management involvement. But, with an accelerated deadline, management started taking notice (esp. with Bobby Koticks August 2010 announcement) and early 2011 is when they really really started stepping up hiring, with management more involved and setting clear goals.
Apparently, Blizzard was planning on developing and releasing this product at a faster rate than their previous (historical) development periods. Since they're rushing this game more quickly than previous installments, this might be one of the reasons why they brought in Kim Sellentin in Feb 2011 (i.e, Scrum and quick development principles).
If any of you follow up with this information and find some new interesting pieces of information, let me know.
Well, not really.
But they do own all of the GLIDER trademarks now. :)
This one must have flew under the radar. It appears that the exchange took place about a couple weeks ago.
The (MMO) GLIDER trademark was previously owned by MDY INDUSTRIES LLC (remember the one they sued?) and they're all still LIVE:
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77301195
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77301191
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77301198
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77301201
I never really followed the case, but maybe this was part of the judgement?
Pretty cool anyways. :)
- I found an interesting resume of a Blizzard employee who has been working there for the past 2.5 months.
His name is Robert "Robby" Duncan, and here's the interesting part from his resume:
2011 – Unannounced Game Title (Blizzard Entertainment - 2.5 months)
As soon as I read the "participated in key design decisions", I immediately thought "this guy must be an intern!". As I scrolled down towards the bottom of the resume, it was confirmed. :)
Designed and implemented a series of single-player missions, developed new features, participated in key design decisions, and provided a thorough design-analysis of the entire product.
Blizzard has a 12 week paid internship program by the way.
Here are the points that stood out:
* This does not appear to be Titan, it's the other "unannounced" game that Blizzard has been working on.
* Due to his early involvement in the project ("key design decision", "thorough design-analysis of the entire product"), this indicates that it's in very early stages of development. Titan is supposed to be much farther along.
* Based on his expertise, it's a PC platform game. (He also has SC2 Editor experience.)
* "Single-player missions" is RTS/MOBA language.
Based on Blizzards franchise release trends, I've always assumed with 99% certainty that the other unannounced game was going to be WarCraft IV/SC2 Phoenix related. This looks to be a pretty good confirmation (coincidentally, even his email address was rduncanIV@gmaildotcom).
Either that, he's slow, or he's trolling and it has nothing to do with a RTS franchise, even though he uses RTS language.
-
I found a very interesting blog post that was made a few months ago by a Blizzard employee named Shay Pierce. In this post, he describes working on a prototype game within the Blizzard workplace:
The idea started to come to me as I worked on card game and board game design prototypes - this, I realized, was a very pure form of game design. Though "table game" design gives you a limited set of tools compared to those you have on electronic games, it can really open your eyes as to what the core of game design really is.
This could be very big news indeed. His mention of card games makes me think back to the Product Slate Leak, where WOW TCG was mentioned. This seems to be related to that online World of Warcraft trading card game. Perhaps this is what Robert is working on if it's not a RTS or MOBA title. "Team 4" would be the unannounced MMO and "Team 5" is this upcoming trading card game? A game like that would be very successful on PC and mobile.
- In other news, I caught a very interesting B.Net post about wagering within Diablo 3. It was written by Sixen, one of the Community MVPs on the official message boards.
Date: 9/22/2011
So, right now most of the focus is on PVE, but later on down the road Blizzard is really keen on implementing an observer mode and an in-game wagering/betting system for PVP arena matches. This totally fits in with the high stakes arena gambling system I mentioned in that old mock Diablo 3 X1 post. :)
"It's something Force and I brought up at the Press Event back in July... Gambling, Replays, and Observer Mode to PvP. Jay Wilson said they're all cool ideas they want to do at some point in time... Just... Later on down the road."
Not only that, but apparently Micah Whipple (aka Bashiok) is ALL FOR turning Diablo 3 into a whole PVP / E-Sports system with wagering and arena gambling for players. Very interesting indeed.. it might not be called gambling though, I've noticed that Blizzard has been very careful in how they use that word (for obvious reasons) and get rather nervous when it's mentioned. - Because Diablo 3 is online only, it opens up some really cool features like what they have in World of Warcraft. Nothing has been announced yet, but I'm 100% certain that there will be holiday events and special activities during certain times of the year. Specific details about these events will most likely be exposed when people finally hack apart the retail code and patch updates. There will probably be Halloween stuff around town, Christmas presents, unique items that are only available on certain days, and even random events or encounters with a Holiday-based boss. 4-teaming a demonic Santa Claus for example. Since there's a server timer involved, I wonder if D3 will be implementing daily quests for players.. an extra way to level up, or earn gold for selling?
- Constance Wang apparently left Blizzard last month, and now she's developing content for the new Wildstar MMORPG. :) Constance, by the way, was a PA on the Titan team. She wasn't directly involved in development, but assisted with the research for them (ie, lore related stuff, library book diving, etc.)
- If you were curious if there were any Titan goodies in Kim Sellentin's tweets.. there aren't. I managed to find out. She's always been pretty careful about what she writes, though, especially after she started working at Blizzard.
* UPDATE:
- Rockstar has officially announced the release dates of LA Noire PC. No one cares. Everyone just wants to know when Red Dead Redemption PC is coming out.
- Apparently, LA Noire also turned out exactly as Daeity had predicted. High sales in the beginning, will never be able to match RDR sales, novel type game, linear, and with very little re-playability. That's the biggest complaint that most users have now.. once you beat it, there's no point in playing it again. With the death of the main character, what's really the point in DLC now?
- Here's a really good video embedded below about the future of AAA MMO's, operating costs of MMOs, and gamer psychology regarding subscription fees. I pretty much agree with everything he said.
It's a fun show and I will definitely continue to watch it (the first 20 minutes were the best). I couldn't help but pick apart the show as I watched it though, it had a high cheese factor, many cliches and annoying bits, and they borrowed a little too many things from the Jurassic Park films unfortunately.
- They have the "brainy daughter" who needs to explain everything. When a narrative isn't available, writers do this to explain things to the audience. Unfortunately, they're treating the audience like stupid children, and they're assuming that no one has watched scifi before. But, that's who the targeted demographic for this show already is.. so it makes no sense.
- They explained way too soon about the "separate time stream". Most people would have figured that out already, and it was completely unnecessary.
- They had too many mixed signals. In the future, it's shown as an extremely dangerous dystopia where overpopulation means death. So, ultra-violent overpopulation control stormtroopers break into homes armed with guns, completely destroy and rip apart the place hunting for children. They're about to take a child for presumably disposal purposes when the father intervenes to protect his child. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, you find out later that he could have just paid a fine. That's it.. a small fine, and he could have avoided prison. Where the hell did that come from? At first, it was a very cruel future, with everyone selfishly escaping the the past and destroying the timeline. After they leave the future, they suddenly start making it sound like a nice place and everyone was kind.
- The father (Jim) was only in prison for about 2 years.. that's it. And yet, somehow the family had to fend for themselves and survive while he was away. That made no sense at all. The mother (Elizabeth) was the breadwinner in the family.. her husband hardly made anything on a cops salary. She was a doctor, the family had MILLIONS, they had wealthy and influential connections, she was the best and brightest in her field, and she was personally selected by the government to travel back in time (out of 0.000001% of the population.) How in the hell did they need to "survive" after dad went to prison?
- I didn't have a problem with any of the characters except for the annoying teenage son (Josh). This character is all over the place, and his existence makes no sense.
First, he couldn't wait to leave the terrible future, then he does nothing but complain about paradise and talk about how great the future was.
Next, he's on a brand new world with sights he's never seen before in his entire lifetime, amazing new plants and animals, non-poisonous fresh air, real food.. and he's apathetic towards all of it. (Although, all of the pilgrims were guilty of this too.. they freak out over seeing a real orange in the future, but when they're surrounded by paradise and unlimited food it doesn't affect them in any way.)
In the future, he tells his girlfriend he'll "find a way to come back and get her." Is this how teenagers really talk? Shortly after he complains about leaving his one true love behind, it only takes him ONE DAY to start dating a new girl. Guess this proves that he never cared about "future girl" at all.
Then, he blows off his mandatory duties, orientation, and survival training. Apparently, the future was so easy going that he was expecting the same on Terra Nova. The new girlfriend (who is supposed to be bright and have leadership qualities) doesn't seem to be concerned about this at all.. she also doesn't seem to care when he flips out and acts crazy around his father.
He also constantly risks his own life to impress the new girl. And, he reveals himself to be a totally incompetent and useless coward with no common sense.
My opinion? They seriously need to remove all of this soap opera drama from the show, it's a tragedy, and I hope "Josh" dies painfully. - There were also no stars in the sky during nighttime. Terra Nova has a Hollywood sky. If you ever lived in the country, you'd know what the sky really looks like when you're away from city lights. And this entire planet has no artificial lighting emanating from Earth.
- The muzzle-flash-strobe-light-effect-on-dinosaur-scales-and-eyes was borrowed way too much from Jurassic Park. Most of the scenes were recreated from the films.
- Dinosaurs are apparently completely immune to thousands of bullets, sonic blasters, and laser cannons.
- I'm happy that they introduced some mystery into the show. The mathematical equations and geometry by the waterfalls (that looked like they had been there for a while) was a very nice touch. But then they ruined it at the end of the episode, when they revealed who wrote them and pretty much why. They were "the real reason for Terra Nova's existence."
- I hope they show more scenes from the future, or have new characters but shown from the future. They should have flash forward sequences that show different activities taking place in the future. But, they probably won't.
- It would be very cool, and redeeming for the show, if they introduce more mystery and scifi elements. More time travel, but possibly ancient civilizations from even before them. I doubt they'll ever bring aliens into the show..
- The mathematical equations by the waterfalls were either a timeline chart showing divergence or the creation of a paradox (e.g. it wasn't actually a separate timestream they were in, but rather the same one and they have destroyed the future or it's simply part of the timeline) or he was analyzing star charts and orbital drift, and determined that they weren't in the past but in fact transported to the far future (e.g. long after their old advanced civilization was destroyed and nature recovered without human intervention.)
- They had to explain the different time stream, so I wonder if they'll revisit that sometime later. If selfish bastards from a cruel society in the future traveled back in time to destroy their old future, they would be viewed as evil human beings. But the audience would be left sympathizing for them if they had no idea of the damage they caused.
- They also dropped a lot of hints about the locations of celestial bodies, and how everything in the sky looked wrong (even though they had never seen the sky before amazingly). If "brainy daughter" does the math, like she said, then she might come to the same conclusions as Nathaniel's crazy son.
- Much of the production budget was spent building the compound set and buildings. So, get used to it. It will be in every episode in S1, and it will never change. If you were expecting a Swiss Family Robinson thing to happen, it definitely won't happen in the first season.
- There will be "raptors chasing the kids" scenes. "Raptors" meaning any kind of vicious small creature.
- There won't be any more future scenes, unless it's an old flashback showing the family's life while Dad was in prison or while he was a cop on the beat. Actually.. I'm going to upgrade this to "not sure". They had some really decent sets and props, and it would be complete shame to waste them.
- There will be family conflict episodes. Teenage son does even more jackass things, he will betray the family and seriously screw them over, he'll put others in danger, or he'll run away.
- Before watching Terra Nova, I pretty much knew there would be different factions outside the compound. But this was already revealed in the first episode. The "Sixers" are just one group.. there will be more.
- The "Sixers" will at first be the evil enemies, but eventually they will all become friends and work together against a "new enemy" once the "Sixers" get boring. They will commit very evil acts, and then just one day, they will totally be forgiven.
- There will be internal conflict and strife within the family, and within the Terra Nova main group.
- A secret hidden faction will be discovered.. possibly time travelers from the future that came even longer before Nathaniel. There might even be a time traveling group from the very far future (when things get even worse) made up of criminals who killed for the technology.
- She acts very distant from her husband, so the wife (Elizabeth) probably had an affair while Dad was away in prison for (only) 2 years. She had to do it to "survive", because her millions weren't enough I guess. An early S1 episode will reveal one of her ex-boyfriends on Terra Nova too. He won't be around long though. (Probably gets killed by dinosaurs.)
- There will be viral outbreak episode. Some strange new disease, bodies aren't used to new parasites, different immunities, etc. etc.
- There will be a bottle episode where main characters will be trapped in a sunken vehicle or a cave. They can't leave the cave due to predators.
- The compound will run low on a desperately needed resource, so a strike team is created (with a couple scientists) to sneak out and get the resource.
- Many extras (adult soldiers & scientists - but no children) will be eaten by dinosaurs. Adults will get eaten whole, teenagers will be scratched and cut but survive.
- There will be super smart dinosaurs.
- There would be an option to switch back and forth between a D3/WOW stylized graphics option, and a Classic Diablo look.
- Players would create Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 conversion packs, also with randomly generated maps.
- Players could sell these self developed maps on the D3 MapMarketplace.
- If Blizzard created a Diablo 1 mod, it would be called "D1 Phoenix". :)
- A player would create a "World of Diablo" mod, but they would be forced by Blizzard to change its name to "Diablo Universe".
- Players could swap fonts or select new color schemes for their resource bars. For example, Monk's Spirit could be green slime instead of white spooge.
- Even faster quest pickups. The player would just need to run within 20 yards of a NPC, the quest is auto accepted, and the menu closed.
- Yards are converted into meters for the confused in other countries.
- Diablo 3 Auctioneer for much easier management of sales, and tons of undercuts. Meaning more profit for Blizzard and the powerhouses of profit would be making undercuts and reposts constantly.
- Enchantrix like mods. Mousing over on items would bring up tooltips showing disenchant results as well as converting gold value into current market value cash conversion.
- More skill keys and the ability to swap in and out of pre-programmed builds quickly.
- New unit frames, and customizable party frames for easier management.
- Floating combat text that shows XP, Gold, or Cash wins upon finishing off an opponent.
- Larger combat text with customizable fonts ("explosive fonts" like out of an arcade fighting game).
- Recount mods. For threat meters and tracking all statistics that Diablo 3 doesn't. For example, mob kills, highest swing damage, largest heal, pots drank, cash spent, etc.
- Lore book UI integration with "D3 Recount" showing interesting statistics about each monster. Total kills per act, average level, most amount of damage done, most damage received, value of loot drops, cash value of loot drops, etc.
- PVP Support mods, for monitoring DPS meters, cool downs, quick build selections, debuffs, onscreen timers and countdowns, etc.
- Automated in-game gambling systems like trivia bots, card games, or roulette tables for real money.
- Better stash management and better Auction House UIs
- Financial management mod for showing gold/cash per hour, or will lock you out from buying items (only selling.)
It's a very silly argument, but it seems to be very popular for some reason:
"There's nothing wrong with the RMAH because this is exactly what EBay does and they haven't gotten into any legal trouble."
Unsurprisingly, I haven't seen any intelligent arguments or debates that prove there is no gambling in Diablo 3. It's all just angry fanboys frothing at the mouths, and spitting out EBay as their only example since it's the first thing that comes to mind when they hear "auction". It's quite sad.
So, I've updated the "Diablo 3 and Illegal Online Gambling" post with several examples as to why EBay is not anything like the RMAH and why it's not considered gambling.