Yeah, hectic like a sloth — w, wait, no

Long time no see, ol’ weblog, ol’ pal!

I hope you’ve not been worrying after me, weblog, as I’ve been perfectly fine. Things have merely been busy and hectic lately, is all. Some months ago I was fancifully working on my first FPS map, for Team Fortress 2, and considering dabbling with the Python programming language. This all was swept to the side though when some opportunities arose. Things really came together all at once last week, when I was suddenly very popular, and within a small handful of days, a number of people contacted me to express interest not only in my past work, but also potential future work. I do mean to eventually return to the TF2 map and to the newbie programming, but for now, I’m seeing where these new rabbit holes will lead me.

Aside from these new rabbit holes, I don’t think I have a lot to talk about. I’ve been on a bit of a WoW kick lately — though I dare not actually re-subscribe to the game (not quite yet anyway)! I’ve got to stay productive, after all. This WoW kick, then, has found form mostly in reading forums and listening to whatever listenable WoW podcasts I can find.

Speaking of MMOs, the main pre-release Warhammer Online community held a career (class) poll, which has received nearly 4000 respondants thus far. Of course, this really only reflects the hardcore enthusiasts, so the Greenskins are probably overrepresented and the more vanilla ‘good’ races underrepresented. Interesting trends though: the tank and healer classes are much more popular than one might expect. I look forward to seeing if this trend continues post-launch, when the most offensively potent options tend to be the most popular.

For the record, I voted for the Knight of the Blazing Sun, one of the poll’s least popular classes. It’s a little ironic, since Warcraft’s humans are, to me, that game’s least attractive option, but what can I say? It’s probably the historically authentic armor that gets me; I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff.

I’m sure I’ll try everything at least once though, being the altaholic I am.

A post I meant to write two days ago

This image has nothing to do with this post, but I found it rather lolsome. I unfortunately have no idea whom to attribute it to.

WiiWare went live on Monday! Six games were released, and if you’re interested in reading more about them, Wired has good coverage.

It seems like a strong beginning, and it’ll be interesting seeing how WiiWare pans out. Will it give developers an opportunity to ‘test the waters’ of Wii development, as a space for proof of concept ideas? Will it attract indie developers working on quirkier, somewhat riskier games? Will WiiWare even develop a audience? I think that’s a fair question, given the reputation the Wii has for appealing to very casual players, who presumably don’t seek out game information themselves.

I just listened to this segment on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show on New York’s video game industry… or rather, lack thereof. When I started really looking at where the development studios are, I noticed that there’s really not much in New York — which was pretty surprising. There are a lot of publishers, but not a lot of the production gets done in NY, outside of slightly more niche segments of the industry, like casual and mobile.

It’s not a terribly in-depth discussion, more of a 20 minute fluff piece really, positing that New York is developing a video game industry…. maybe? The most interesting discussion comes when a couple developers discuss the difference between development on the west coast versus New York. According to them, on the west coast, investors have a higher risk-tolerance and are more adventurous when it comes to new ideas and putting money into startups. Incidentally, I have heard in the past that, in the games industry, the further east you go, the more… progressive game design becomes. Unfortunately, I don’t recall the exact quote and source, but that was a stereotype that I carried with me for a while. Knowing what I know today though, I doubt that experimental design knows geographic boundaries.

Another interesting (but not game related) story I heard on Public Radio, this time NPR’s Talk of the Nation: America’s most overrated product is the bachelor’s degree. That’s what Marty Nemko says in this article anyway. The jist is that far too many kids charge headlong into college thinking that it’s some manner of magic bullet, that it’s a guarantor of salary X. In reality, according to this guy, a great many undergraduate programs are woefully inadequate, not only not guarenteeing salary X, but not even guarenteeing basic adequacy for expected performance in the work force. To quote from the article:

“A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below “proficient” levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks as understand the arguments of newspaper editorials or compare credit-card offers. Almost 20 percent of seniors had only basic quantitative skills. The students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the gas station.”

I myself opted not to attend college, but I don’t mean this to be my vindicative “I told ya so”. Yes, it’s directly relevant to my own life decisions, but it’s also relevant to questions many of my peers face, as well as my two younger brothers. Societal pressures still insist that college is a must, but more and more, I feel that it’s entirely acceptable to ask, “does the cost-benefit ratio for college make sense for me?” or even, “is college right for me?” I know of several people for whom a trade school or career college would likely be a much wiser choice.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go stir fry some noodles. Warrior needs food badly.

The gorgeous trailer of Mirror’s Edge

I’d not heard of this game before. I post it mainly for the beautiful art direction — pristine white spaces accented by shapes of bold, vibrant color. Hopefully the game chiefly sticks to these sort of visuals, and doesn’t spend too much time in the murky dark green color palette we see a flash of in the trailer.

The player movement is remniscent of Assassin’s Creed, but in the first-person. The Wikipedia article includes a quote saying that, “principally, this is an action adventure. We’re not positioning this as a shooter – the focus isn’t on the gun, it’s on the person.”

Mirror’s Edge is developed by Digital Illusions CE, DICE, mostly known for the Battlefield Series, due out “Late 2008″ on PS3, 360, and PC.

Under sun and sky, outlander

I’ve taken some time out of the project I was working on —an earnest attempt at a custom Team Fortress 2 map— to work on what you see to the right.

It may look familiar to anyone who enjoyed Morrowind; these are the masks worn by the Ordinators of the city of Vivec, though obviously reimagined for the higher-res game art of today. This is actually something I started way back with my original Oblivion mod-work, but I never went beyond a basic high-poly model. I decided to revisit it to help remedy two weaknesses in my portfolio: a lack of human faces (important for a character artist) and a lack of Zbrush work. Because I already had the base established, I figured I could take this to completion fairly quickly. I wasn’t intending to take it to in-game implementation, but once I had done the full texture job, it was a matter of hey, why not?

Here are some further in-game shots: 1 2 3 4. The plume needs some work — it looks fine in 3dsMax, but there are some transparency issues in Oblivion itself. Also, you may notice in the profile shots, he is lacking ears! I’ve yet to fully explore how best to address this.

That said… here’s some stuff!

● I noticed shortly ago that Gamers With Jobs finally got their new site design up. I mention it, because the design was done by none other than my friend Eric Carl, web designer extraordinnaire! It’s a huge upgrade for them, much more professional than their old design, which I felt didn’t do justice to the thoughtfulness of their content. I mean, let’s face it, people absolutely do judge websites by their cover —er, design. I admit that I do.

● I finally got around to checking out Black Isle’s leaked VanBuren alpha, ONCE KNOWN AS FALLOUT THREE. There’s not, unfortunately, a lot to comment on. It’s very true to the first two Fallouts, and I will admit feeling a pang of bittersweet nostalgia that Fallout will not be revisiting the isometric turn-based style any time soon. However, one can’t help but wonder what might have happened, had this game seen release? I suspect it would have been another obscure and underappreciated gem, a fine game —possibly a great game— but only a modest market success, and likely not enough to, at the time, save Interplay, or ensure the Fallout franchise a bright future.

In any case, I note with some irony that Black Isle’s Fallout 3 was to start the player off as a prisoner… which happens to be the same way that every main entry in Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series has begun.

LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB

Tom Chick interviews Brian Reynolds of Big Huge Games. It’s mostly a look back at Rise of Legends, but also strays into more general questions. I’m really looking forward to what these guys do for their next games.

Over at 1Up, the question of just how personal game-playing can be is mulled over. Games as wish fulfillment, games as a mirror. I wish they’d try to distill it a little more, and deliver a firmer judgement on what exactly inspires personal involvement though.

RPS interviews Rod Humble, of EA Maxis. Humble is an interesting figure, both a part of EA, crusher of foes, vanquisher of dreams (I kid, I kid), and a producer of small art games. The interview mainly centers around Humble giggling at the various cruelties one can enact upon Sims.

Richard Bartle, co-author of the first MUD, has some harsh words for the anti-videogame figures of today.

● I’ll end with something I’ve dabbled in the past couple weeks: two MMOs — the free trials for Lord of the Rings Online and Everquest 2. Apropos of nothing in particular, I asked a friend who had never played an MMO before if she’d like to try LotRO out with me. She agreed, fortunately, because these games are always more fun with friends. We set aside a night to jump in together and check it out, but when the time came, Turbine’s account services were down, and she was unable to start the trial (I had accidentally started it the night before). That put a bit of a damper on our appetite for the game. We played the next night though and had a pretty good time, though not good enough to entice either of us back in. Though we had seven days, it was the only night either of us spent much time playing.

This post is already long enough, so if you want to read more about my brief flirtation with Everquest 2 and LotRO… well, there’s more after the jump.

A little-known indie project you may not have heard of

I really love this new UK GTA IV ad.

One. It’s all in-engine footage. It shows confidence in their product that they’re giving it to you straight. It also shows confidence in their audience, I think, that they don’t try to play tricks with hired actors or pre-rendered CG bits. As far as I can recall, Rockstar has always done this, so props to them for it.

Two. They keep it relevant. You’ve got Niko, the main character, walking through a multitude of locations that I, the player, will experience. Also important, the world is happening around the player character, and that living world simulation is basically THE big thing the GTA series offers.

Three. The style, direction, and that slick LCD Soundsystem track. As someone who’s obviously very invested in games, I greatly appreciate it when gamers aren’t spoken to or presented as a bunch of manbabies who desire, above all else, ham-handed ego-stroking and wish fulfillment. Rockstar makes games for adults and it treats its audience as such.

It’d be nice if the ad ended by simply cutting to a black logo screen rather than the obnoxious HAY BUY A 360, but oh well. I’ll blame that one on Microsoft.

Quick news from the Neverwinter front

NWN2 now has a beholder, and an extremely professional-looking one at that! It’s the work of Jonny Ree (that’s what he goes by in forums). He seems to be pretty committed to NWN2, so he’s one to keep your eyes on, if you’re into the NWN2 thang.

Right out of the monster manual, it looks like. It makes me wish I had cause at the moment to pick up Zbrush and, well, put it to use. I imagine that it’s a lot of fun to sculpt out these gross, lumpy characters.

Anyway, it’s really great to see another completely custom creature for NWN2. Along with WhoKilledKubrick’s Kuo-toa model, my golem was one of the first and, as far as I know, only custom creatures to be released for NWN2, and I was despairing a bit that NWN2′s custom content scene was stagnating pretty badly.

Unrelated, but sad, Games for Windows magazine is shutting down. Here’s Editor-in-Chief Jeff Green’s eulogy over on 1up. A twenty seven year history — older than me. All four editors are staying on, and will be concentrating on online content for 1up.com, though the magazine’s two-person art team unfortunately lost their jobs. The podcast won’t be going anywhere either, thankfully.

The Surreptitious Midnight Exploits of Clyde Blackravyn, 11th Generation Toreador

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I’ve been playing through Vampire: Bloodlines, which I purchased for the meager sum of $10 on Steam a good while ago. It’s been a real treat, as this is the most Deus Ex-like non-Deus Ex game I’ve played — including Invisible War. You’re skulking around modern-day LA, hacking into computers and lock picking your way into places you shouldn’t be. Like Deus Ex, it’s ultimately a flawed little masterpiece though. The game lacks a great deal of polish, with plenty of resultant awkward cutscenes and gameplay moments.

Fortunately though, what reportedly shipped as a soupy morass of bugs and instability has been transformed into a darn solid game, thanks in large part to the game’s loyal fanbase. This is something I’ll always love about PC gaming. There are two strains of player-made patches, the “TRUE” patch (warning, link is NSFW, as the patch author likes to create nude skins), which only fixes bugs and implements a few pieces of content that were clearly meant to be implemented, and a second one that fixes bugs as well as sort of refining and remixing the content. I’ve opted for the fixes-only patch for now. If I play through a second time, I’ll likely check out the other.

Here is a helpful post on the Something Awful forums, for anyone who might read this and feel inclined to check the game out.

Click here for a disparate jumble of thoughts and observations about my experience with Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

Waaaaaaaaagh.

As much as I may want to portray myself as some enlightened connoisseur of interactive digital entertainment (like every other geek with a blog on the net), I can still be a sucker for shameless consumerism in the form of HOT DEALS or DELUXE EDITIONS. So when I saw the Collector’s Edition for Warhammer Online, I was overcome with a minor bout of nerd lust.

I’m not a particular fan of the Warhammer universe (I simply don’t know much about it), but man, that’s some swanky packaging. It includes a graphic novel and a miniature (for the Warhammer tabletop game), but the one physical item I’m particularly interested in is the snazzy hardcover art book — if nothing else, Warhammer is an IP with some killer art. In a move that no doubt stirred up copious controversy on fansite message boards, the Collector’s Edition also includes some in-game perks, such as exclusive quests, exclusive character heads, and a consumable item that will give you a temporary experience-gain bonus.

I lack the disposable income to put money down on it right now, but pre-order or not, I mean to check this game out when it goes live. In the public mind, it still seems to suffer from WoW comparisons, but, taking the developers at their word, the two games diverge in that WAR’s focus and endgame is in its competitive, team-based PvP and territorial conquest. It’s funny, because I generally don’t consider myself a competitive, aggressive player, but there’s something very compelling about casually dropping into a big, epic battle between two player armies.

The ideal I have in my mind is that WAR will be a blend of the strengths of WoW and TF2. The quick gratification and ad-hoc strategizing of TF2, rolled into the persistent RPG systems and communal metagame of WoW. I have no idea if my little dream will be delivered upon (I’m not in beta!), but I certainly look forward to finding out.

Yeah, but don’t gaming PCs cost $8000?!

Wow. Check out this ridiculously exhaustive list of 2008 PC games.

I’ve not heard of the majority of these; many of them are clearly smaller indie titles, which is itself very exciting. Are we quickly approaching the point where indie studios can really cultivate an audience, stay profitable, and become a significant, entrenched force in the industry?

Look at all of those Adventure games. My love for the adventure genre has tapered off over the years, but still, it’s somehow very comforting to know that somewhere out there, somebody is still making adventure games, and there is an audience that pays for them. God bless you, you creative weirdos. . . probably all a bunch of Scandinavians, I bet.

Anyway. I want to know more about Eduardo the Samurai Toaster.

Content, assets, and the infinite hole at the center of the universe

I saw this article on Game Career Guide yesterday: “Which Artists Will Game Companies Hire?” Quite relevant to my interests.

To give the quick run-down, games are damn expensive to make, so outsourcing art assets is becoming increasingly common. To stay in-demand then, the article subject, Carey Chico, executive art director at Pandemic Studios, recommends being versatile and multi-disciplined, meaning anything from being competent with both character and environment art, to knowing scripting or programming, or even having experience in management.

It sounds good to me. I mean, the outsourcing bit is never good to hear, but the part about versatility is encouraging. As much as I love the process of art creation, my interest in game development has always been fairly holistic, and expanding my skillset laterally is something I mean to focus on in the future. I may never quite be able to quite grok programming, and may never progress past the stage of making a cheap little Tetris clone, but I mean to try, at any rate. It’s one of my 2008 resolutions, in fact: at least start to learn some programming.

I wanted to come back to the outsourcing thing too though — or at least the root problem of assets and content. It’s sort of the giant, looming issue du jour, for the entire industry, the main reason for ballooning development costs. I don’t want to dig into that entire can of worms though, so I’ll just cut to my little complaint: disposable content. What I mean by “disposable content” is game assets that the player will be exposed to for perhaps 2 seconds and never see again. Completely forgettable, arguably unnecessary, but an artist may have spent hours or days producing it. I’m very sensitive to this when I play through games, keeping my eye out for underutilized or superfluous art assets. In fact, I’ve probably worked on projects that were guilty of this offense.

To offer up a concrete example from a game I’m currently playing through, in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (which I’ll talk more about in a future post), there’s a side-quest in which you venture into a prosthetic limb workshop. There are crates of the guy’s handiwork (haha, punny) sitting around on shelves, and as intended, it’s pretty creepy. Unfortunately, you’re in and out of there in only a few minutes, barely a speed bump in the game experience as a whole. I imagine a handful of artists spent at least a few days producing the necessary assets, not to mention the designer time in laying the area out, so one can’t help but think there might have been a better use of those resources.

Portal and Team Fortress 2, on the other hand, are fine examples of effective use of art assets. Granted, it may be unfair to compare these to big, epic, AAA adventurey games, but there are lessons to be learned nonetheless. Both games take a pretty lean set of art assets — textures, props, etc — and manage to make them work, largely through focused, consistent art direction. Portal’s sterile, uncluttered environments obviously made a lot of sense for the game, and TF2 managed to use unique map layouts and centerpiece props/features to differentiate environments. For example, the radar tower in Gravelpit, the train station in Well, and the bridge area of 2fort all serve as memorable focal points, to make maps that otherwise share the same art assets distinctive.

I’ll leave it there. I of course don’t mean to say that it’s easy work, ensuring that art assets will have the content and gameplay to make them worthwhile (and vice versa). It’s merely something I notice a lot, and it sticks out more than ever in this age of skyrocketing costs and outsourcing.