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Quest for GC 5: Looking forward to…

Less of a knockabout comedy this one, more of a farce. I kid! I kid.

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Quest for GC: Episode 4

My terrifying acting debut. That’s got a dual meaning, folks. Enjoy.

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Boy am I ever busy.


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A day full of WIN

So much WIN, I am, in fact, exhausted. But let’s get something down.

Neil Edwards has painted a PC. A PC covered in WIN. City of Heroes and City of Villains WIN to be precise. Yes, this is for a follow-up compo to Andrew Wildman’s painted PC. You’ll be able to get your hands on it… if you (wait for it) WIN. Details to come.

We had big casting WIN. Well probably. One more step, Wednesday.

Costuming for said casting WIN. Talking about PVC versus leather actually got me excited. Not like that. Pervoid.

Secret community video thing… WIN. Several wins actually. One, two, three.. more to come. All edited by me. In some cases scripted by me. In all cases shot… I am a multi-hyphenated man.

Secret Games Convention quest thing WIN. Order goes out tomorrow for the first of many, many Moo cards….

And then I get home, and it’s all Xbox 360 new interface WIN! Rock Band 2 WIN (Who cares about making music when it’s got Livin’ on a Prayer??)! Continue reading

Fairway Solitaire… and the power of Penny Arcade

I’ve known about the ‘power of Penny Arcade’ for years now – in fact, I’ve watched it grow. The ‘power’ in case you were wondering, is basically their ability to get a mass of consumers to go after one thing; usually a game. Obviously, that’s a power often wielded to get people to buy their own stuff (and why not) but often it’s used to push people towards products they might not have otherwise heard about.

When it’s aimed towards a web site, often The Power can crush web servers that are unprepared. People used to talk about ‘getting slashdotted’ (ie, getting linked to by Slashdot – or just /. if you’re an ubernerd), and then ‘Boing-Boinged’ but when you get hit by Penny Arcade, you get wanged. (Their term.)

I was wanged once – a few years ago, when Jerry (Tycho) obliquely linked to Tagline (then, just a movie weblog). He wasn’t even directly linking; he was mentioning me in passing in a post (we’d met), and just threw the link in on some random word. Even with people thinking “Oh, I’ll just click that random link”, Tagline’s traffic increased by about 1,000% that week. Continue reading

The journey towards Games Convention…

… begins, and inevitably… compromises have to be made.

It’s almost, in a way, funnier in German: Continue reading

Thursday thoughts

Start the day with coffee, and trying to figure out what we have left to do for the UK Games Expo. We’ve done this so many times it should become second nature, and to an extent it has, but there’s always room for error… and the more complacent you get the more errors you make.

We need to buy hangers (for t-shirts) and storage ‘tubs’ for stock and, in fact, t-shirts. Quick trip to Woolies and one of several local ‘pound shops’ and we’re sorted.

Back to the office. It’s Massage Day (woo!) and Chris is having his First Ever Massage. When he comes out he tells me “I don’t know why I waited so long to have that.” Nor do I mate. Continue reading

Player generated heroics ahoy

Lovely moment of serendipity today. I was looking at this Massively post, asking the question ‘Is user generated content the future of MMOs?’ and thinking ‘Hmm, I’d like to comment about that on the blog’ and then Matt Miller goes and drops Da Bomb in his 4th Anniversary Address for City of Heroes:

Similar in concept to our character creator, [this future feature] allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialogue and any clues needed for the missions. When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are excited to be able to offer players very soon.

Happy Anniversary, indeed.

I was aware that this was coming – I certainly didn’t realise that it was going to be talked about so soon, so I had a ‘Woah’ moment when I… Continue reading

Pushing peeps along

Quick one: I had been meaning to check on Mystie’s blog for a while, and hadn’t until now. Great to see that he wrote up some more of his experiences at the MiniCon:

I don’t do breakfast, but I hear my girlfriend’s voice saying “Make sure you eat properly. I know what you’re like when you get on the computer.” going round my head. I’ve never been this organised in my life.

… but since then, nada. C’mon man! We want to hear all about what else you got up to! Perhaps this will encourage you to finish, eh? (Trust me; I know what it’s like trying to recount that monster….)

While I’ve got you in a reading mood I also wandered over to see if Hazel – one of our trusty Sidekicks – had updated her blog with more of her experiences from the weekend. And lo! She has!

I got to spend all day with Miss Liberty and Ghost widow. How lucky am I?

Answer: very. Go read more.

By the way, according to Haze, I apparently drunk some ‘beer’ over the weekend, possibly in Omega Sektor’s bar. I’d just like to say for the record… Continue reading

Welcome, Brinstar!

We’ve got new blood in the Guild Wars community team… but watch out, because that blood’s acidic! Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaohgodthatwasanawfulpun, I apologise, I am very tired.

Yes! New person. Specifically, this person, Regina Buenaobra, and I wish I knew how to pronounce her name so it sounded less mangled in my head. Regina’s just started today in fact, as the new ‘on-site’ community manager at ArenaNet (near Seattle, WA). As well as being officially announced she’s also been officially added to the official Guild Wars Wiki. Officially.

Why do I tell you all this? Well apart from being downright neighbourly I also do it because I’ve ‘known’ of Regina for some time, but I have always known her just as ‘Brinstar’, the mysterious online persona that she blogged under. (Well, not that mysterious. It sounds good though doesn’t it?)

Brin’s blogged about Guild Wars for absolutely aaaages, although she occasionally talks about other games too, at Acid for Blood dot net (ah, at last the opening pun makes sense). You should drop by. It’s good blog.

When she’s not there, she’s also writing articles elsewhere, like this one for the online magazine Cerise, which is dedicated to women gamers.

I’m… Continue reading