covert.creations

Have a look. Trine is reminiscent of the platformers I played in the C64 era, but with zany light effects and physics! On Steam for $5!

Oh yes, loved it! Had it’s suckage but all in all…. thumbs up.

… more later!

I would very, very, very much welcome this.

According to RPS, this may be in the works. Per http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/09/26/sony-to-develop-planetside-2/.

As a somewhat seasoned (but inexpert) Planetside player (CR4), Planetside had a great mix of teamplay, massive battles, and a wide variety of individual player choice (specializations, vehicles, objectives). It’s probably one of my favourite games of all time. I moved on when it was clear the game was dying a slow death (empty servers, etc.).

My thinking on PS2:

• A PVE axis that contributed to the overall battle (and your XP). This was planned for, and never implemented in the original. There was a real lack of solo content in PS, and this would have really helped.
• Better base design, thus removing the layout silliness that players would exploit. Also base placement was a huge problem, very odd design decisions were made in that regard.
• Better LFM/LFG system. Enough of the hunting for extra squad members.
• Proximal VOIP system would allow you to shout at nearby players to get them moving. Teamspeak was great if you were already grouped, however the whole server couldn’t be on your TS server.
• If the game has a “Command” specialization that allowed them special privilege to direct the battle, then reward players who following your orders. This would ecourage better organization and get groups moving in the same direction. Having more people on one side of a battle made all the difference.
• Reward the support activities of players who chose to perform roles that don’t involve battle. The ANT drivers and the GAL pilots should be encouraged, not excluded.
• Outfit/Guild Housing is absolutely required. The implementation of Outfits was an aborted design, obviously. There must be clear benefits to joining an Outfit and sticking with it. And then rewarding the successful ones. A game built around teamplay should structure itself around the entire concept of “Team”.

The list goes on, now that I start thinking about it. Planetside was THE GAME that realised the goal of most MMO games. Massive battles, massive coordination, esprit de corps, and most of all, fun! I miss that game.

http://www.killtenrats.com/2009/09/14/fallen-earth-first-taste/

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Here’s to covert.c, turning gameblogging into bloggaming. I came back to my site to find I had let it lapse again, OOPS! So I re-signed for a whole year to make sure it doesn’t happen anymore. At my rate, that means about 2 posts before I have to re-new again.

Anyhow. Thoughts coming. I’m motivated this time! Thanks for (not) reading!

/covert

I’m jumping off the fence for a while on the gameblogging thing, and thought that perhaps rather than just idly thinking my thoughts about Games, I should just post them!

So covertcreations is back and I’m not liking the look of this site anymore. I intend on making a few custodial changes and fixing it up again! Is this a new years resolution? I hope not, or it will never get done! Hah!

My Top Five Memorable Gaming Moments of 2008 :

5. Leading a guild in World of Warcraft.

I had a reasonably strong guild in Warcraft (Bonechewer) only because as a rogue, the chances of being invited to raids was very low. So I decided that starting groups gave me a better chance, and for better or for worse I ended up with a guild out of it. Good times through 2008. Weird times, too. Warcraft is a game of rather broad scope, and the polish makes it enjoyable to play. However, the strong social vector that is present can be a boon and a bust for many things. The role of guild leader that I found myself in taught me a bit of politics and annoyingly, a lot of skill in appeasement. I’ll write more guild anecdotes later, but for now Warcraft was firmly entrenched in my gaming life in 2008…

4. Casual games on Facebook.

I went from Srabulous to Scramble to Word Twist and Word Challenge. Ultimately, the best game was ‘Who has the biggest brain”. Unfortunately for me, I plateaued at a certain stage with no hope of ever beating some of my esteemed facebook friends, as one is a certified genius from high school that routinely memorized entire encyclopedias and solved rubik’s cubes in under 20 seconds. AD&D made a brief appearance on FB this year as well. It was an aborted turn-based questing game that was somewhat entertaining, if not a little flawed. What one COULD do on Facebook with D&D gets my gears turning. More on that later!

3. RSA lose the token deal to VASCO on the Blizzard Authenticators.

Ouch. I was hoping this was a big chance for RSA to get into gaming security. Alas, to no avail. We are just too expensive for Blizzard. Vasco won it, and now you can do 2-factor authentication into Warcraft. And as I said a long time ago – this is GOOD security!

2. Not being able to log into WARHAMMER after changing my password!

WAR was interesting and entertaining. But I was really pissed that after changing my password that I could no longer log in. After hiatus, I’m sure I will return. However my friends in the game seem to be already trickling back to WoW. I’d like to see some good Planetside-style MMO action in WAR, but I don’t have my hopes up. And I’m only level 7 or something… who has time for all this stuff?

AND

1. Counterstrike!

So with my new leet gaming rig, I decided to log CS:S for a night. And I haven’t stopped! It’s crazy and intolerable just like it ever was, however it’s still a boatload of fun that I can’t seem to give up. Really, I wonder.. how OLD is this game??

So there you have it. My top 5 list for the year and the first content post in at least 2!

Happy New Year!
/covert

Innovation is surprising. It’s not something for which we already have a front-row seat. Its the thing that leaps out of the darkness, hitting us straight in the mouth. And we’re happy for it. Cold water can be good, it wakes us out of our reverie. The next wave. I see the wishful promises across print, spun out of relentless animated GIFs, flooding across the wires, and streamed into my home. Wireless and Mobile Entertainment. “Come”, they say. “Let us show you nextgen”. I walked through a door once, beckoned by my host. Someone was talking. “Craig, here’s the future.”

(continue reading…)

Quiz. What do these three things have in common?

a) Hockey
b) Artillery
c) MMORPG Design

Give up?

The answer : it’s where you aim your shot.

In the immediacy of hockey, players don’t pass to where their teammate is, but where they’ll be in the next 0.5 seconds. In artillery, shots follow a ballistic trajectory. In sum, the game isn’t won by playing the current game. It’s won by anticipation.

(continue reading…)

A big congratulations goes out to Neardeath Studios on the 10th year of Meridian 59. What a fantastic accomplishment. M59 is the first, the longest-running, and most respected MMORPG of them all.

This article is in response to M59 co-creator Brian “Psychochild” Green’s post, “Why middleware will not save us“. He hits pretty hard, and sets his sights on the “middleware market” in the MMORPG space. I’ll say I agree with the bulk of it. Yet, some of the specifics cause me trouble. Thus this post.

His argument noted two levels of the MMORPG industry, the indies and the AAAs (”the blockbuster games”). The gist of his article is that, as a technological cure-all, MMORPG middleware companies fail in their promise. They will make little impact on game development in MMORPG games. A gross-oversimplification on my part, so I’d encourage you go read Psychochild’s post.

First off, how does one define middleware?

(continue reading…)

So the whole world has presumably played (and perhaps even completed) the latest incarnation in the Half Life 2 universe. My experience with it was quite enjoyable. I downloaded it, played it, and completed the entire enterprise in about three hours. Great! So what do I have to complain about?

Well, its the new entry in the market sloganeering that’s been tossed out into the world of gaming. Episodic Content. Supposedly, this is the “wave of the future”, solving all sorts of nasty little problems in both developing, producing, marketing, selling, buying and playing games. And to some degree, I believe this to be true.

Reasoning it out, bite-size bits of our games get made and sold, freeing us from waiting a year for a “full expansion” to get cooked up pig-on-a-spit style, and forced down our throats in one gulp. Makes sense. Smaller price, smaller timeframe, smaller gameplay. I like it.

I just wish they called it something else.

To me, the notion of “episodic” invokes a somewhat nostalgiac image a small boy… tuning in to the radio each week for the next installment of his favourite serial superhero drama. Or in a more modern sense, scrambling to mininova to download the next episode of “Lost” (present company included).

With the ridiculously named “Half Life 2 Episode One”, its essentially a contradiction. It was half a year late, reduced in scope, and didn’t advance the story in any significant manner. OK, you say, its a game, games don’t tell stories. Then where is the “new gameplay”?

Give me episodic. I’ll pay for it. But give it to me fast. If you’re telling a story, then tell it. If you’re giving us more “game”, then finetune the gameplay. HL2E1 does none of this.

I say lets rename it. How about, Half Life 2 Nano-expansion 1?