Archive for 'Video Games'
News is out that Electronic Arts is shutting down Pandemic Studios, half of a $775 million purchase that also included BioWare, putting up to 200 people out of a job.
Not to detract from what the people out of a job are going through now, but is it any wonder what happened to Mythic and WAR, knowing how EA treats its studios and developers? Origin Systems, creators of the incredible Wing Commander series, was acquired by EA and then shut down in 2004. Chris Roberts was the man that first got me heavily interested in computer gaming (and lit the spark that got me into programming)… EA’s “touch of death” killed them off not long after Wing Commander 4 (the only one in the series produced under their influence). Westwood Studios, creators of the venerable Command & Conquer series, was gutted in 2003. At least EA allowed any willing employees to assimilate under EA Los Angeles. Now, another studio is going under and I can’t help but think Mythic is next on the chopping block. They’re losing 40% of their staff, up to 80% of which is content developers.
I knew it was a bad sign when Mythic announced the EA buyout, as did many others. I knew it was a bad sign when shortly after, Sanya Thomas left the studio. More recently, Mark Jacobs left EA after the BioWare acquisition. I can’t help but feel that Mythic, as well as Warhammer and DAoC, would have been much better off if they simply stayed independent and true to their vision. It may have meant a later release of WAR, but given how things have turned out under the (mis)management of EA, it certainly could have meant a much better game as well.
Here’s hoping BioWare doesn’t come under the death-ray gaze of EA’s (mis)management in the future. Dragon Age may have been a huge hit, but it seems that as soon as a studio has a mediocre release the chopping block comes out.
~MikeR.
Posted on 20 November '09 by mike, under Computers, Sigh..., Video Games. No Comments.
Yesterday after work I had decided to stop by 26 Kingfisher to see if any progress had been made over the past two weeks. Boy has there been!
The first thing I noticed was that the scratch coat was done, pretty much ready for the stucco. I’m assuming they won’t bother with the stucco this year, being so late in the season, but I may end up surprised since I didn’t think they would put in the driveway either. I was lucky to find that the guy doing the wood finishing was still working on baseboards, and as such the front door was unlocked. Walking in, I saw that the flooring was actually done. The linoleum looks really nice and goes really well with the carpet we picked. The floor is a giant mess with cut carpet pieces and dust and wood everywhere, but it will all be cleaned up eventually. As well, the chocolate tiles are done around the jacuzzi tub and look fantastic. None of the “problems” we noticed last time we checked in had been dealt with, but the site supervisor was away until Sept. 28 so hopefully we just need to be patient.
Not having a camera with me, Lisa and I went back today with my sister and her camera to take some pictures which I have uploaded to the House Progress gallery.
I was able to recruit my friend Chris back to EverQuest 2 this past weekend and he seems to be enjoying his time back on Norrath. I’m glad I found out about Sony’s Recruit-A-Friend program, since I was able to get a Saryrn Deathcharger for my Shadowknight. Lisa and I are also having fun (although I am probably enjoying it more than her right now, but she’s getting into it) and just completed the Screaming Mace Heritage Quest. I’m really looking forward to doing a few more with her, and including Chris since he’s leveling up like a rocket.
~MikeR.
Posted on 3 October '09 by mike, under Everquest 2, House, Video Games. No Comments.
No, I don’t mean the remake of Quest for Glory II (or the original).
Yesterday I rolled in to work to something that I didn’t want to see; our server monitor was showing one of our server sites with a downed email server.
Great
I SSH in to the server to try to fire up the mail server. Failed. Not much to go with in the logs, so I figure rather than running the init script to start it, I’ll work with the executable itself. It at least gives me some more information; it can’t locate one of its .db files on the MAIL volume. Ok, no big deal, I’ll go poking around in the volume and see what’s up. Next discovery, no MAIL volume. In fact, no volumes at all.
WTF
Checking the disk partitioner shows that the EVMS container no longer exists. Long story short, I spend half the day rebuilding a broken partition table on a live server then recovering the lost data from backup tape. I learned a lot, and can honestly say I feel a fair bit more comfortable administering these SLES servers out in the field.
On a bit of a tangent, I don’t think I’ll be getting Bloodbowl. It seems that despite an earlier projected September release date for the XBox 360 version, it’s not coming anytime soon. If the October release date is more on target we’ll have other things to spend money on at the time, namely stuff for the house such as wall decorations and other neat things (Lisa took me to Home Sense this week and I really like some of the stuff they have). Besides, Dragon Age: Origins is coming out in November and it’ll be hard enough juggling my games with that. Oh yes, I do intend on getting it and I think Lisa is looking forward to it as well.
Speaking of the house, the basement is poured, dried, and level so I believe things should really move along. All of the trim around the doors and windows are up and stained, and the baseboards were laying in the kitchen when I was there on Monday. The sales agent with Qualico has a meeting with the site supervisor tomorrow and should be letting us know a firmer possession date either Friday or this coming Monday. I really hope it’s good news, such as “You can move in 3 weeks from now”!
Finally, Lisa and I have moved on from Warhammer. Too many people are leaving (Venustus and Beargrim from Royal Dwarven Marines are heading to Champions Online and Fallen Earth respectively, and I haven’t seen many guild mates in CoF on lately at all) and the Tier 4 experience seems to mostly be getting run over constantly since there are so little Order players out and about willing to actually defend anything. It’s really just getting frustrating seeing less and less people out and about, and reading blogs that used to be very much about WAR either coming to and end, or moving on to other things because the bloggers are done with the game. It’s sad because Mythic had such potential with WAR, having learned from mistakes made in DAoC and it just seems they blew it with any changes and fixes coming out being viewed as too little too late by the ex-playerbase. We’re now playing EverQuest 2 again, so you can find us as Sslizk and Kovanya on the Antonia Bayle server. I recommend giving the 14 day trial a shot, Sony has really made a lot of changes to the game to make it more friendly to new and returning players alike.
~MikeR.
Work on Fable 3 has been announced and is scheduled to be released in late 2010. Peter Molyneux doesn’t appear to be hyping the game up (yet) to the near fantastical levels that Fable 2 was hyped up to, but we’ll see if that changes in the future. I can’t say I’m personally excited about the announcement, as I never got interested in either Fable or Fable 2 so I can’t say a third interests me either. Lisa, however, devoured Fable 2 and the Knothold Island addon (as well as the Pub Games) and seemed to be a really big fan of the game. I think more information will have to be provided about the gameplay before she would make a decision on this one; from the announcement, it seems like it may be more political than action/adventure. I could be wrong though, as it does say that you start as a son/daughter of Fable 2′s hero and work your way up to be the ruler of Albion.
At least it may be a game that Lisa could look forward to, apart from Dragon Age: Origins slated to be released in November 2009 (I don’t think she’s interested in Blood Bowl at all).
~MikeR.
Posted on 20 August '09 by mike, under Video Games, XBox 360. No Comments.
Wow, has it really been three weeks since I last posted something? Time sure flies!
Last week Lisa, myself, Nikkole, and Matthew (Austen is in Calgary visiting with his dad) all went to Wasagaming, a town on the shore of Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National Park. It’s my personal favorite place to go for summer vacation, as it has everything you could want (in my opinion at least); cabins/motels to stay in, shops to browse, places to go eat (including the Wigwam, where I always make sure I order the Bison Burger), and of course the lake itself. Clear Lake is aptly named, as the water is incredible, especially when compared to Lake Winnipeg. The lake itself is very cold however as it is quite deep, and is spring fed. We had so much fun, even though we only went for three days. We rented a four person bicycle (quadcycle?) and toured around town for an hour. We spent a lot of time just walking around enjoying the sights. The kids played in the motel pool a fair bit (as I said above, the lake is quite cold and we haven’t had a hot enough summer to make it tolerable). We ate out. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was also Lisa and my third anniversary, and we sure enjoyed it.
As I mentioned above, Austen is in Calgary and had left at the end of July. We talked to him on the phone a couple of times and he really seems to be enjoying himself. Nikkole left with her Nana yesterday morning to visit and come back with him before school starts. She seems to be having fun too, even though she cried the night before because she said she didn’t want to go. Her opinion changed in the morning though, so while we’re sad to see her go for so long, we’re happy she’s having fun. It’s just Matthew for the next week.
I seem to have gotten Matt hooked to Microsoft’s latest XBox development, Kodu Game Lab. It’s a “visual programming language” that basically allows you to create your own game worlds in a fairly simple and straightforward manner. While it seems to be aimed at getting children interested in development, I can’t wait to have some time alone with it and see what I can come up with. It would be really wild if Matthew actually took serious interest in it and used it as a stepping stone to becoming interested in more advanced application development when he’s older.
Well, that’s about it for now. The next few weeks will be super hectic since we’re basically packing up the whole house and putting it into storage until 26 Kingfisher is ready to move in. We have to be out by August 27, so hopefully we have enough time to get everything sorted. We don’t really have a choice though, do we? 
~MikeR.
