About Those Lost Weapons...
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So the Democrats, with help from the New York Times, have produced their October Surprise. What a dud! In fact, the story the Times reported Monday gives enormous support to President
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Gabe:  Kara and I got ganked by four or five Horde last night out in Winterspring while we were trying to finish up a long quest chain. Thanks to everyone that showed up to help us. I'm not sure a 30 man raid was necessary, but we appreciate it.
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Tycho: The whole reason I wrote that other post was to link the new article about it at 1up, and I didn't even manage to do that - here you go. In a way, I'm glad I didn't link it before - in the intervening period, a new episode of the 1up show has dropped that has a ton of interview and video material for every part of Episode 2 - including TF2 and Portal. It's the top video on this page. Unbelievably delicious.(CW)TB
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Gabe: I know we don't talk about our game much. We really don't want to beat you guys over the head with it. Honestly we handle most of our big projects that way. We try to make coming here "easy" and I don't want you guys to feel like you're constantly being pitched something. Balancing that against the fact that if we don't tell you about things like new shirts and books you are less likely to purchase them is tricky. another reason for the lack of coverage is that we really weren't sure the game was going to be any good. We're doing a lot of the art and all the writing but the reality is that this was a collaboration with the Hothead guys and until very recently I wasn't convinced making the game was a good idea.Tycho said it best in a couple interviews "games look like shit until they look awesome." it's really more than that though because they also play like shit until they are fun. I remember getting the first build months ago and telling Tycho we should scrap the entire thing. The builds kept coming though and they kept getting better and better. I understand now that that's just how game development works. It wasn't until the most recent build that I finally saw something genuinely fun. The Hothead guys obviously knew what they were making but for me it was like looking at a sketch and not understanding how it could ever be a finished painting. I've played through it multiple times now and I can tell you truthfully that it's funny and it's fun to play. If you like PA I believe you will enjoy it. If you don't know about PA I think you will still laugh and If you hate us you'll hate our game. The game just hit beta and Hothead is polishing it more and more every day. I can tell you that what I see right now I'm honestly proud of. Tycho has written some of his best stuff for this game. Like me, he hates himself and hates the things he makes so he would never link you to this, but I feel like he deserves it. A while back Tycho spent a week at the Hothead studio writing non stop for the game. Ron Gilbert was up there as well and he posted this on his blog shortly after."Jerry from PA is up here as well doing the writing and it's a thrill to see him work.He's a top-shelf writer, right up there with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman."I'm sure when Tycho sees I linked that he'll go right for his wrists, but it's true. An early build of the game recently made its way through the media digestive system. The result is that you will see coverage of it popping up at many of your favorite game news sites. Everything I've seen so far has been very positive but I guess that's the way it is with previews. I think the best place to go is Gametrailers as they simply post high quality video of the game being played. You can make your own decisions based on what you see. If you want more you can watch the 1up show where a narcoleptic Jedi will tell you that the game is "like not really like PA but also like totally like PA." Maybe that's helpful to someone? The Gamelife blog over at Wired also has a very complete write up of the game if you want more than just raw footage. It's funny, before the game I never would have thought twice about calling someone a narcoleptic Jedi. After I had typed it out though I paused. Am I Derek Smart now? Will this effect our PR persons relationship with 1Up and other media outlets? Will they savage us in their review and will that hurt sales? Should I not talk about the coverage at all?Even if all of that is true should I care?Obviously the answer is no. -Gabe out
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Tycho:   The foe revealed, Armadeaddon is now almost complete.  Monday will see the promised epilogue, so at this point you have very nearly survived the ordeal.  We have endeavored these past weeks to reward the true "enthusiast," that man or woman who, brow heavy, has faced such cruel abuse at our hand for the last seven years.  It is apparently our policy to honor such dedication one every decade.    Since it was announced a couple days ago, the revelation that MS would be actively courting the hardcore boardgame player is something I've thought about almost constantly.  It may be that you weren't aware there was such a thing as a hardcore player of boardgames if your last experience with the context was playing Sorry! with your sister when you were eight.  Things have progressed.   There's a million experiences in this space I could use to lure you in, but one company in particular - Days of Wonder has already decided to make electronic variants of their tabletop crack, so they occupy a twilight space between the worlds.  I hope they see an opportunity to take their (already completed!) games over to the 360, or that Microsoft offers them a locked case containing an unspecified amount of untraceable U.S. Currency, because I'd love to see this prescient move by MS turn into a new era.   Days of Wonder makes a game called Shadows Over Camelot that could quickly become a dangerous obsession, obscuring biological realities with a single-minded focus on grails.  Well, grail I guess.  There's just the one.    But it's a completely cooperative boardgame, so every player is working toward the same goals - fighting back invasions, questing, all of it.  Except there might be a traitor in the group, determined by a hidden draw, who tries to derail the effort.  He's not always there, but the potentiality of that nefarious force can create unbelievable social tension.    The gaming table's fixed coordinate in space is its asset and its obstacle - managing space and time is actually the primary challenge of any gaming group, as opposed to banishing necromancers, though that also ranks up there.  Boardgames are so rich in design that, when one of these gets dropped in front of them on Live, I think many gamers will be shocked at their sophistication.    My thumbs hurt.  (CW)TB out.
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Siblings are the first ever to be convicted for sending boatloads of junk e-mail pushing bogus products. Also: Microsoft takes MSN music download on a Euro trip....  Nokia begins legal battle against European counterparts.... and more.
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Tycho:  I don't know why I get my hopes up reading shit about "broken street dates" online, I'm perpetually disappointed by the results.  I got a game on the actual ship date five years ago, and it's made me into some kind of Goddamned optimist.  There are scattered reports that people have picked them up, and you may invest your time in this way if you are desperate, but I apologize for wasting your time.  (CW)TB
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Tycho:  As suggested by Gabriel's recent communique, pokemania is not only going strong but has burst, like some foul canker, and the infection has spread.  It's true that I have built a so-called "Leaf Deck," but this is because I was fairly certain they would beat me up if I didn't.  Now he's hauling in his case of Next Quest figurines each day, as I myself once hauled a tacklebox of Necrons, only I need to stress that it was more awesome when I was doing it, because Necrons are unkillable harvesters of flesh and not some kind of weird fox or living scarf.  It's absolutely fucked that I have spent almost fourteen years trying to reveal the subtle glories of table gaming, only to be cast down time and time again.  However wise my counsel, it apparently lacked that crucial munchkin component.    After I completed Half-Life 2: Episode Two - perfectly acceptable entertainment, but nowhere near the revolutions found elsewhere on the same platter - I started to wonder how they would deliver the third episode to the same platform in the next year or so.  I doubt they'll have another four games to accompany it, but who knows:  they're a bizarre company where extraordinary things happen.  Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and Episode 3 might look pretty nice on there together.  On the PC, of course, one simply clicks a couple times to get whatever they want, and then leverages Valve's fairly incredible community implementation to get things done.  You could accomplish all of this using only the tip of your nose.      On the Playstation 3, even with Valve's distaste for native development, there's already several precedents for direct delivery of individual titles.  On the 360, where Arcade is Microsoft's only concept for delivering titles in their entirety, the hundred and fifty meg limit falls hard around some titles, hemming them in.  But there's a weird (read: psychotic) eyelet where where larger-form product can escape: as content drops for retail titles.  I was surprised that there was no option for this in The Orange Box itself.  Now that Valve is in a position to write a game once and then compile it to different platforms, a retail release - called "Steam," and including two or three catalog titles - could be delivered as an anchor for their considerable franchise power almost in  perpetuity.  After years of fairly positive digital delivery experiences through Steam, I have to say that I found purchasing a Valve product in a retail context almost unpleasant - and not just because it entails hauling around my considerable bulk.  Retail has been a raw deal for a long time now in developer terms, and I avoid it whenever possible.  I should solicit another piece by an insider here for the post, and I know just the guy.  When he breaks down the way royalties work in the industry, you'll be surprised it isn't just Electronic Arts that's left, selling Electronic Arts games in EA branded stores.
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What happens to the baubles an ex leaves behind?
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WASHINGTON Sept. 17, 2004 - Fallen Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but left signs that he had idle programs he someday hoped to revive, the top US weapons
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Recently, a handful of former Yugoslavian M36B2 'Jackson' Tank Destroyers have returned to American museum and private collections.
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UNITED NATIONS - Hundreds of tonnes of high explosives are missing and probably looted from a former Iraqi military facility, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Monday.
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Tycho: It's "limited," but not that limited. There's fifteen hundred of them total, if you are interested. (CW)TB
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Tycho: Two new shirts today. One based on the Broodax Strips, which can be found here, and looks like this:   And another shirt based on the control scheme for Starfire Saga V: Laserion, which can be found here, and looks like this:   (CW)TB
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TO PARAPHRASE Oscar Wilde, losing one may be regarded as misfortune but to lose two could look like carelessness. Edvard Munchâs paintings have been targeted again by thieves after an armed gang yesterday
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Gabe: Yesterday I made a post about the teenagers that murdered the homeless guy and then blamed it on violent games. These kids have given the media their angle and just like all the other cases where games are mentioned no one will ever look any further. No one will ask what their family life was like, what their parents were like, what the kid was like before all this happened. Games did it and that"s the end of the story.
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Tycho:  Do not forget!  All the information can be found at yonder page.  As requested, the date has been bumped up to the December 15th to give people more time for their projects.    The patch delivered a day or two ago makes the final game much, much easier to recommend.   (CW)TB