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Cranius.Commentary();//The most dysfunctional blog on the web
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5/20/2008 Age of ConanBack when the World of Warcraft Burning Crusade expansion pack slipped to coincide with the release of Lord of the Rings Online, I mentioned that I didn't believe this was a coincidence and that Blizzard had decided the best way to kill that competition was to go head-to-head with them. If that's true, then what does it mean when today, as Age of Conan goes live, that Blizzard has nothing to show? The next World of Warcraft expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, isn't expected until this holiday at the earliest, and the most recent patch 2.4 has already come and gone. I expected them to at least kick off PvP Season 4 release to keep the PvPers focused on bright, shiny new loot and distracted from even considering an Age of Conan purchase. But no, there's no new expansion pack, no new PvP season, and not even a significant patch to compete with Conan.
It could mean that:
I'm guessing that it stems from over-confidence, but that's really just a guess. I'll be playing Conan today, and I'll let you know what I like/dislike about it. 4/2/2008 DarrowshireMy next song, "Darrowshire", was inspired by the quest in the Eastern Plaguelands. The story is a heart-breaker as you find a little girl named Pamela wandering around in the Eastern Plaguelands looking for her family. Your quest is to set things right, which my brother, Tydup, did in with style while filming this movie. There are many such stories in the "World of Warcraft", some of which I've tucked away in the back of my mind to write songs about some day.
I wrote this song on vacation last summer with a Martin backpack guitar, sitting in a folding chair at the mouth of beautiful Lake Chelan in a little town called Stehekin. The town can only be reached by ferry. No Internet access or phone in the cabin where we stayed. Perfect for writing music. I highly recommend it if you need to just get away.
I had been wanting to write "Darrowshire" ever since I first experienced this quest in roughly early 2005. The little girl's story grabbed my attention, and as the song says, "will not let me go". What I didn't know was that by making the movie, I'd be exposed to lore that probably most people never see. For example, I had been trying to figure out how to create a scene where father and daughter are reunited. I figured I'd have to use the model viewer to composite this scene. What I found, however, by having to repeat the quest several times to get the necessary footage for the movie, was that the scene was already in-game - I just had to capture it. You just have to hang around town for a few minutes after completing the final stage of the quest to see it. As the movie shows, the father walks up to their home, summons Pamela, she comes running out, and the two are reunited.
Here are the lyrics to "Darrowshire":
I've seen a great many things that cause a man to wonder Note that the 3 gnomes, Ei, Ohi, and Fahrenheit from "Big Blue Dress" are singing the backup vocals in this song too. I was planning on putting them in the movie, but when I did, they sorta trivialized the drama of the story. Don't worry though. You'll be seeing them again soon.
I dedicate this song to the lore masters. Enjoy!
3/31/2008 Sexy PaladinsMy wife is a die-hard video game loather. She thinks it's a waste of time, and it's not "real". I've been slowly working on her for the past several years to try to get her to play with me. The answer has been "no"... until last night.
I think watching my "Darrowshire" video (which is almost done) inspired her that maybe it was a cool story to participate in rather than one to despise. This wouldn't be the first time one of my movies inspired someone's wife to play with their husband. I know 2 guys at work whose wives started playing with them after seeing "Big Blue Dress" in one case, and "Beer for my Horses" in the other.
She first thought she'd like to be a Night Elf, but she didn't like their glowing eyes. She thought that was creepy. In her mind, an Elf would have been like the ones in Lord of the Rings, and would look like Liv Tyler. Her favorite line in the Lord of the Rings series is when Éowyn says "I am no man"! So after deciding to be a human, she wanted to look buff and have a shield and a sword like her. I thought being able to heal herself would be really good for a newbie, so she we went for a sexy human Paladin rather than a Warrior. I also rolled a Paladin simply to match her experience.
At first I rolled a Cranius look-alike (bald, gray beard). After a while though, I said to her, "Hey! You're a lot sexier than I am... I'm going to reroll". She got a real kick out of that. Turns out she was thinking the same thing. So after rerolling a younger Pally with flowing, dark hair, she was even more content.
I took it very slowly, explaining everything so that she would understand what was going on. I never led her... only followed, giving instruction only when needed and answering any question she had. For example, "why can't I go inside the store?" (the little carts outside the Northshire Abbey). I let her read every bit of quest text at her own pace so she'd be immersed in the game. That way I could make sure she was learning rather than just being dragged around (I know that feeling). This is her first PC game since the original "Myst" (which we played together), so she struggled a bit with the controls, but she showed more patience than I expected in learning how to move around. I also turned off all addons and other things that weren't the "newbie" experience ("instant quest text", for example).
First thing she wanted to do was explore the Northshire Abby. This was a good sign. She's actually really good at directions, and she loves exploring (she's an avid geocacher) so she found her way around the Abbey better than I did when I was a noob. She found the warrior trainer and was slightly disappointed that he was somewhat rude to her about not being a warrior - even to the point that she wondered if I'd led her down the wrong class path (he says something like "why don't you go cast some magic"). The implication was that she wasn't going to be as badass as she would if she were a warrior. I assured her that all class trainers disparage other classes like that.
I showed her the white stallion on the side of the Abbey and told her how you can't get that horse any more. She was confused that there was a horse right there, but that she couldn't have it. I explained how the white stallion was available as an epic mount in the early game, and that Cranius had one, but that it's now unattainable and thus considered "pre-patch".
After a brief introduction to the quest system, we were off to find Kobolds to the north. She wanted to look at the funny little rat man closely, so we got up close so she could see them. Before long we were fighting Kobolds and Wolves, picking up loot, and finding equipment upgrades. She’s still looking forward to trading her wooden mallet in for a sword and picking up a shield, but that will come on a different night. After an hour or so, we were level 2, she was tired, and it was time for bed. It went very slowly, but some things are better when taken slowly. 2/26/2008 Peratus video on YouTubeMy friends Peratus have posted my "Wrought" video on YouTube and their MySpace page.
So Long Stage6I was shocked, as many others were yesterday, to find that www.stage6.com was closing down. This is sad because I had really come to like the service. After reading their explanation and reading between the lines, I think the truth of the situation is that their business plan was "to get bought before we run out of money". This plan apparently failed. I don't really know what that means for the DivX codec that so many people have come to like. It could mean nothing, but it could also be the death knell of DivX that Stage6 has failed. Time will tell.
I will now resume my hunt for a high quality, high-definition video sharing site that offers streaming and a decent UI for customers to enjoy and for content owners to feel like they're in control. If you have any suggestions, send them my way. 1/2/2008 New Music VideoFor the past year or so, I've been filming the local Seattle Punk Rock band, Peratus. It's been a lot of fun going to their rehearsals, their gigs, watching them in the studio, and basically watching what could turn into something big. I just wrapped up a new music video for their song "Wrought" from their new album "Equalibrium". I also plan on making a WoW video for this song... the perfect Undercity song. Here it is: http://www.stage6.com/user/Cranius/video/2018432/Wrought This video features footage from:
12/19/2007 Highwayman in HDI have uploaded a hi-definition (HD) version of Highwayman to Stage6. If you're not familiar with Stage6, it's a video sharing site created by the guys who created the DivX codec. The quality of the videos you can share there are far superior (as in "not even close") to what you can find on YouTube. YouTube uses codecs build into Adobe Flash, which most people already have installed on their computers, but the quality is comparable to that of AM radio. DivX, on the other hand, isn't ubiquitous like Flash is, but the hi fidelity means it's worth the extra effort to install the software needed to watch the videos.
Until now, I've been sticking with the Windows Media Video format (WMV as in the .wmv file extension). The quality of these files is quite good, and anyone with Windows already has the software needed to view the movie. However, this format requires a Windows Media Server if you want to stream the video (i.e. watch it while it's downloading), or it requires that you transcode the .wmv file into another format and upload to a video sharing service like YouTube (which typically downgrades the quality). Either way, the solution for content creators to make their videos available in hi-def for streaming using WMV format is difficult. That's where Stage6 and DivX come in. Hi-def codec, cross-platform player, coupled with a video sharing site that allows content creators to share their work in their full HD glory.
So... if you want to see Highwayman in HD, go check it out on Stage6. Let me know what you think about this format. 11/9/2007 Machinima StudiosI've watched with some amusement but mostly with disappointment as one machinima studio after another has become sidetracked with "making it big". They'll release a good movie, maybe two, then they go dark. We hear rumors of big deals in the making but nothing comes of them. We wait for that next movie with anticipation... and wait... and wait... and wait. In the mean time, other machinima studios start cranking great new movies out and suddenly the guys we thought were the big deal... aren't. Anyone who follows WoW machinima knows who I'm talking about, and frankly some of them don't need their egos stroked any more than they already have been by my mentioning their names.
There's perhaps a good reason for the many failures. First of all, it's human nature to want to take something that's really fun to do and make a living doing it - maybe even making it big. So when you make a movie that is well-received by the machinima audience, you start to think to yourself "hey... I could do this for a living". It's true. Some people can do this, but generally these people need to go work for the guys who own the content, such as when a couple leading WoW machinima artists went to work for Blizzard. The guys who don't go this route are soon faced with the realization that they don't own the rights to publish their works and make any real money. It's spelled out pretty clearly in the Letter to the Machinimators of the world:
"Your Production cannot be sold"
There are ways to make money without actually selling the work, however, such as selling a membership to the site where the work can be viewed, web advertising, T-shirts and coffee mugs with original art, or selling original music that was written for the movies. This perhaps explains the change in direction by some machinima studios who now seem to be focused on building web sites and communities.
In the mean time, some great movies that we've been waiting years for still have not been completed - and perhaps never will be. It's a shame really. Fans just wish they'd come back down to earth and get it done. 10/1/2007 Watch the credits when you finish Halo 3It used to be that credits for a video game included only a few people. Those good ol' days are gone because the credits for your average video game today are on par with the credits for a major motion picture. A friend of a friend worked on Hollywood movies, and it was always annoying to bring him along to a movie. He would insist that we sit and read every person's name in the credits and he'd express disgust for every person who walked out while the credits were rolling. On one hand, I can understand the desire for your name to be seen. On the other hand, get a life.
To combat this, many movie makers now include post-movie footage during or after the credits. The first time I saw this was when watching "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". At the end of the credits, Ferris could be seen strolling around reading the newspaper or some such. Then he turned and faced the camera and asked everyone "What? You're still here? Go! Go on! Go home!" More recently, artists have lured us into reading their names in the credits by injecting all kinds of footage while the credits are rolling. For example, the makers of "Toy Story" fabricated "bloopers" to play after the movie. The dirty little secret is that we don't actually read the credits. We watch the bloopers.
So it should be no surprise to hear that the hundreds of people who worked on Halo 3 also want their names to be seen. How did they do it? I'm not going to include any spoilers here, but I will say this: You don't really know how Halo 3 ended unless you watch the credits. 9/24/2007 The original vision of Quake delivered in Halo 3Shortly after the success of Doom II, John Carmack described id Software's next generation project to the public. The name "Quake" came from the concept that you would be this Thor-like hero with a giant hammer which, when you struck your enemies to the ground with this massive weapon, would create a small earthquake. However, the vision for the project was changed dramatically after this public disclosure due to the team's concern that they couldn't create the game they had described in the time they had given themselves to do so. Instead, they opted to simply create the 3rd generation of their first-person shooter style games: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and now Quake.
Most players didn't care. QTEST (the Quake alpha) was all they needed. Many of us who heard that original description, however, never quite let go of the game id had first described and felt somewhat ripped off when they didn't deliver it. To you in this latter category, I have good news. Halo 3 delivers on this original vision of Quake. I'm not sure if they did this intentionally, knowing that they were delivering on a promise made to a different generation of gamers, or whether it's just coincidence. The answer to that question doesn't really matter. What matters is that in Halo 3, you will encounter in your first hour of game play a weapon called the "Gravity Hammer" which will deliver on that original promise made over a decade ago. 6/14/2007 HighwaymanIn March 2005, I created my first WoW movie "Beer for my Horses". Shortly after completing that video, I had the idea to make a movie to the famous country song "Highwayman". I figured that people who liked "Beer for my Horses" would also like "Highwayman" despite the lack of PvP content. There were many reasons why I didn't follow up on that idea, the biggest of which was that there was no "space" content in the game suitable for the "I fly a starship" portion of the song, sung by Johnny Cash (my favorite part of the song). I considered using the Gnomish airport over Ironforge and other gnomish technology to do the "space" part, but came to the conclusion that it wasn't good enough, and so the project went on the shelf.
A long time has passed since then, and after releasing Big Blue Dress, I didn't think that people wanted to see another video like that from me. Instead, they want more original tunes and more mage pwnage. I had kinda forgotten about this video until a few weeks ago when I was playing near Area 52 with the rocket in the middle of town. After seeing it about a dozen times, it finally occurred to me that not only was this a suitable space ship for the video, but also that the area surrounding Area 52 would make that last portion of the video a lot of fun to see.
Of course, as I got started, I really wanted to make the perfect video for this song. The perfectionist in me wanted a lot more than what I eventually published this morning. However, the pragmatic side of me (which must prevail on occasion or I'll never complete anything) convinced me that it was "good enough". I still think this song deserves a better video that what I've put together, but I hope fans enjoy it regardless.
Here it is: Highwayman 5/8/2007 Did LOTRO cause Blizzard to flinch?For the past 2.5 years, Tuesday mornings have been the one day of the week where WoW addicts were forced to do something *else*. This can leave your typical WoW junkie dealing with the early symptoms of withdrawal. It's a stark reality that slaps you in the face with the suggestion that this fantasy world where you now reside can be taken away like *that*. Making this problem even more severe is the fact that Tuesday morning is also the time they do weekly honor system calculations. So anyone who has invested time during the previous week working on PvP combat for the purpose of acquiring Honor/Arena Points has to wait until the servers come back up mid-day Tuesday. This typically means that you have to wait until after school/work to find out how you did the previous week. The anticipation can be agonizing if you were *that* close to getting that item you've had your eye on for weeks. Cries from customers that Tuesday mornings were just too much to bear were heard by the folks at WoW Radio, who created the "Downtime Downunder" show to help fill the void. Complaints that downtime was too long were written off by Blizzard employees and fellow gamers as an opportunity to "get a life", or that it was a needed down-time to ensure that the servers were in tip-top shape...until today. Today, for the first time since November 2004 when World of Warcraft was released, I was able to wake up on a Tuesday morning and logon to WoW. I wasn't expecting to be able to, and I was about to reply to someone on our guild forums about a new macro that "I'll test it tonight when I get home", but then I thought perhaps I should just double-check to make sure the servers hadn't come up early today. Voila! Not only were they up early today, but it seems that now "rolling restarts" are now preferred over "all servers down for 10 hours". Curious. Or maybe not. Think about it. What's different today than the past 2.5 years? Consider what *was* next on my morning agenda: Logon to Lord of the Rings Online. I figured Tuesday mornings would be an opportunity to play a little LOTRO so that I could give it a little time before making the decision to pull the plug on the recurring bill after getting 1 free month with the initial purchase. It seems to me that Blizzard recognizes the weak link that has been Tuesday mornings and has decided to do something about it to secure their position as the only thing you want to do with your gaming time. 3/28/2007 Return 2 ExposedEzra of Rufus Cubed has finally spilled the beans on why "Return 2" has taken longer to develop than WoW itself. Well... not really, but close.
Here's the link to the whole affair.
I could write a lot on this topic, but I think I'll keep it really simple:
Who needs TV? TV is so 20th century. 2/27/2007 Lord of the Rings Online betaI received notification this weekend that I had been accepted into the Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) beta test. I signed up for the beta back when it was first announced, so I've been on a waiting list for a long time. There have been many betas I've signed up for and either didn't get in, or the game was never finished, so it was a relief to finally receive an invitation. Here's a summary of my experience thus far: Downloading the client took approx. 12 hours. Since I'm a former Turbine customer, I already had an account established with them, so I simply needed to apply my product key to my existing account. After installing the client, it took about another 20 minutes to patch and bring everything up-to-date. Then I was able to login to 2 of 4 worlds. The other two were apparently for a stress test this past weekend and were disabled. At the character creation screen, I could have chosen from Human, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Elf. Each class had a male and female option except for the Dwarves which only had a male option. Each race had a corresponding movie I could watch on the character creation screen to introduce me to the race. That was really cool and the movies were well done. Additionally, each class had a movie I could watch to familiarize myself with the class. I chose to be a male hobbit burglar (a burglar is like a rogue in WoW) since "The Hobbit" is by far my favorite Tolkien book and since I wanted to try something different (I usually play a mage). I'll probably roll a human mage too, since I have a history of doing so. As I chose my hobbit, I could choose from 3 different types. The one that suited me sounded a bit more adventurous than the other two. The naming guidlines for this class were to keep the name short and have it end in "o" (i.e. Bilbo, Frodo, etc). I complied, and created my hobbit burglar. On entering the world, I was in an introductory area where I learned the basics of navigation, killing simple monsters, finding loot, equipping items, managing my inventory, the quest system, and my first encounter with a Black Rider. I saw him talking to another Hobbit who was scared to death. He was looking for Baggins as the game is supposed to shadow the Lord of the Rings story line. After the Black Rider left, I engaged in my first escort quest as this hobbit led me to the first town. Within the first hour and a half or so, I finished all the quests in this starter area and was warned to finish all the quests before completing the completion quest of the area, since I wouldn't be able to finish those quests later. I think this is similar to "newbie island" in Asheron's Call 2, where once you left you couldn't go back. At this point, I ended my session and I look forward to my next session. It's worth noting that the UI and the quest system was so much like World of Warcraft, that I'm surprised this hasn't created a problem for Turbine. I guess these game developers borrow ideas from each other knowing that they're going to benefit from it at some point in the future. At least I like to think that's what's happening. Things I Liked The first 1.5 hours of game play was fun. It didn't take long to get involved in the quest lines and start to get involved. I got out and killed some wolves, spies, boars, spiders, and some members of some naughty band of thugs not far from the starting area. I also rescued some lady's purse and picked an assortment of berries for a couple different people (more on that later). I hit level 5 fairly quickly and was able to train some new skills (including stealth), sold some items and made a little cash. I really liked the in-game maps. I didn't have to discover anything. I just apparently owned some maps which reminded me of the hand-written maps at the front of the Tolkien books I read as a kid. They were interactive maps too where you could filter items (though I didn't use this feature in my first hour). Just looking at the maps was fun, trying to figure out where you were with respect to the Lord of the Rings story. I saw Bree on the map and a few other areas I recognized by name. This beta felt more polished than Asheron's Call 2 or D&D Online did when they shipped (though that's not saying much). Town was bright and alive, hopping with other players and NPCs walking around and talking to each other. It has a very different feel to it than WoW. The engine has a different look to it. Aspen trees looked convincingly realistic. The landscape, buildings, and basically the virtual environment were all very well done. I breathed a big sigh of relief after realizing that LOTRO is *not* D&D Online where every object appeared to be made of metal (including your skin). Titles are cool. I made it to level 5 without dying, and so I was awarded a title "the Wary", which meant that I could choose this title to appear over my head to other players (i.e. "Cheapo the Wary"). Presumably I will acquire other titles as I progress and I look forward to seeing what those are. They're like little awards you can wear on your sleeve to show off your accomplishments to your friends (and after all, isn't that why the vast majority of us continue to play MMOs?). Perhaps the thing I liked most was that it was still in beta and it felt like I was playing a released game. This is a very good sign that Turbine is not going to repeat mistakes of the past shipping games too soon. The jury is still out, of course. Things I Didn't Like There was one quest where I was supposed to help question a prisioner. My role? To gather berries so that they could bake him a cake so he'd answer questions. Ahem. Can I ride a pretty little pony too while I'm gathering the berries? Sheesh. I can think of much more Tolkienesque techniques for questioning a prisioner than baking him a cake. I didn't like the fact that every room I went into had to be zoned. Entry into even the smallest building was performed by opening a door, seeing *another* door behind it, and then warping into a small zone for the room beyond the second door. I was also concerned to see that the world I was in was very much contained. I didn't have freedom to just run in any direction I wanted to. This was not what I've come to expect from Turbine in Asheron's Call, so this was perhaps my biggest disappointment. I was really hoping to have greater control over my character's height and width as I did in Asheron's Call 2. I did have more control over my character than I've had in other games, with eyebrows, facial expression, lips, etc, but giving me some customization on height and width would have met my expectation from Turbine. Combat was a little boring too. I could basically put all of my skills on my "spell tab" and just mash the keys during combat. There didn't seem to be anything I needed to do other than mash keys and maybe run away. I'm hoping this experience will improve as I level higher and learn more about the game. 2/12/2007 Is WoW a "travesty to the genre"?According to a recent interview in GameSpy, Vanguard fans describe World of Warcraft as:
"a weaksauce MMO for newbs. Indeed, the 'modern' massively-multiplayer online RPG is a travesty to the genre, and only those who have no appreciation for what makes one of these games great will bother to play such unchallenging drivel."
The funny thing is that I pretty much agree with them. World of Warcraft does attract noobs and it is quite easy to play. I also think we have a long way to go before we can be proud of this genre. There's so much room for improvement.
That said, just because WoW is easy to play and attracts noobs doesn't mean you can't improve on that experience. There are noobs, there are good players, and then there are great players. The great players would be terribly bored if the only people they could play with were other great players. I mean how "massive" would your typical MMO be if the bar to entry was "great"? If there were no noobs, how would you ever achieve that "hero" status that many of the great players are seeking? Who would you show your epic gear off to? Who would watch your PvP movies? :) The point is that the larger the world, the better. The more densely populated it is, the higher you can rise and the greater the potential. More people to impress. More great players to dominate (or to be dominated by). Also, the more successful the game is, the more resources they can pour into it, and the more likely your game is to improve.
Still I agree that WoW is largely unchallenging. Sure, you can make a boss monster really hard to kill, but it's still just braindead AI that you're competing against. That boss monster will just keep using the same tactics every time you fight him until you figure out how to kill him, until you get enough people to help, and until you get gear that's good enough to help you survive long enough to take him down. No real challenge there IMHO, especially when it means that the game enslaves you to repeating the same content endlessly.
The real challenge for me is in PvP. It's more a sport than a game. If I had to guess, that's what the Vanguard fans are talking about. They want a harsher existence where you have to eek out your life by a thread on a daily basis. In truth, I'd like both. There needs to be something to fight for, but you also need a place to call home. I think WoW has shown us how this might work, but there's a lot more work to do, especially on the PvP frontier.
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