WIIII!

Most of the video game faithful are waiting patiently to get a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. The veteran video game company's newest console is sleek, stylish and revolutionary.

The Wii remote and "Nunchuck" allow the user to interact with the system by moving his/her body instead of just the thumbs. I've been a fan of the idea behind Dance Dance Revolution - exercise as gaming - and this is an extension of that. Sounds fool proof right?

The website Wii Have a Problem is documenting troubles with the new hardware. Actually that's not acurate: it's really documenting troubles with people using the new hardware. Apparently people are having trouble with the safety straps breaking, the remote flying out of their hands and hitting things, and said things breaking. It seems like TVs are the most frequent targets.

I don't actually have a Wii yet, but I wonder how hard these folks are really swinging? I doub that it takes a lot of force to get your on-screen avatar to do what you want to do, and some of the folks actually admit to just getting angry and throwing them.

OK, that one is almost something that could be a valid complaint, but this one cracks me up. Daily Mail has this article about folks hurting their elbows playing with Wii. OK that was funny, but seriously - imagine a bunch of fat nerds finally getting some exercise and, lo and behold, their bodies are aching!

I suppose this is why they don't play REAL tennis.

March of the Penguins

Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" is a non-political documentary attempting to educate the general public on the dangers of Global Warming. The movie and it's subject matter, regardless of who made it or what party they represent, should be absorbed and thought about.



Recently, a video called Al Gore's Penguin Army popped up on the internet's comedy video hot-spot "You Tube" portaying Gore as The Penguin from Batman and boring his penguin army to death about Global Warming. The movie wasn't very funny, but it did make it's rounds garnering 59,000 views. The movie was posted by someone calling themselves "Toutsmith", a 29 year old from Beverly Hills.

The Wall Street Journal contacted Toutsmith via e-mail and asked him about his video. He did not give his real identity, however routing information in one of his e-mails revealed it was sent from The DCI Group in Washington DC. DCI is a "public relations and lobbyist group", one of whome's clients is Exxon Mobile.

This is a powerful form of propaganda, and it does not surprise that lobbyists have discovered it's uses. A link to that video was no doubt attached to thousands of e-mails, which were then forwarded to thousands more. It's a very efficient way of spreading propaganda without a big investment.

In true internet fashion, these things have a way of policing themselves. Internet users, especially the audience You Tube is servicing, are very savvy, and pulling a sheet over their eyes is difficult.

The video has some ideas for ending the Global Warming problem that Al Gore no doubt missed in his movie:
1. Stop Exhaling.
2. Become a Vegetarian.
3. Walk Everywhere (no matter the distance)
4. Take Cold Showers.

MMO Snooze

The foreseeable future for the MMO industry is pretty lonely right now. With World of Warcraft controlling about 52% of the extire market, and no other MMO that can challenge it will be out til sometime in 2007.

One MMO I have been following somewhat is Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. For those who don't know, Vanguard is being made by Brad McQuaid - the main man behind Verant's Everquest (well, THEN Verant's).

There has been some wrangling and drama related to the development of this game, mostly relating to Vanguard switching publishers from Microsoft back to McQuaid's old company S.O.E., a seemingly dry Beta with weird Beta invites, and the game being pushed back to Q4 2007. However, after cutting through the BS you realise these folks have to deliver a game at the end of the day, and the competition will be fierce.

WoW has had 2 Christmas holidays to amass almost 7,000,000 subscribers. Sounds like they will get another. By the time Vanguard ships, it's feasible that WoW will have 7,500,000 to 8,000,000 folks subscribing. That's quite a bit of catch-up work to do, especially when working with an I.P. that no one has heard of.

I relate WoW to the I-Pod - if you're going to enter that space and confront either of those products, you had better have something to offer that's going to better it. From reading the Vanguard website, hearing descriptions of it on Massively Online Gamer and VirginWorlds Podcasts (respectively), and plain old looking at the screenshots, all I can think of is they're making the same mistakes that EQ2 and other games that are coming out are making. The game systems sound needlessly convoluted, the graphics are nice but not exciting, and it's a tired, clogged genre.

The challenge presented to Vanguard is to gain some sort of market share in a game genre that has a dominating force possibly greater that Microsoft has in the PC industry. If tey released Christmas 2006, maybe - however a full year for then is just too long a time to wait.

No News is Good News?

I wanted to bring your attention to my new News sidebar! Thanks to VirginWorlds for the links and code. Enjoy!

Dinosaurs and the Bible

I don't have much to say about the following link, except that it's proof positive that telling lies forces you to dig yourself deeper into more lies. Do yourself a favor and read through this entire "educational website", because it pretty much speaks for itself.

http://christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/home.html

HD-DVD or Blu Ray? Who Cares?

Ahhh the High Definition age. We're staring into the future of television every time we grovel at the plasma / LCD televisions in Best Buy. I'm surprised they don't hand out towels to whipe the drool off our faces.

I purchased a plasma television last year (Samsung SP-R4232) and it's not High Definition. It's an "Enhanced Definition" television which is somewhere in between a regular set and High Definition. The web tells me it displays the same resoutlion as a standard DVD. It's fine for my purposes (which is mostly watching DVDs) and I find myself still amazed at the picture on it.

I have been watching the new High Def DVD wars with interest - not interest in purchasing mind you, but a sort of quiet fascination. Mostly, I'm curious as to whether there is an audience there or not.

To talk about the success or failure of the two new emerging platforms (Blu Ray and HD-DVD), we have to ask ourselves why the movie/TV show purchasing public so fully embraced the DVD format.

VHS was a clunky technology at best (thank God Magnetic Media is dead). It was the inherent problems with VHS (rewinding, lack of storage space) which ushered in the DVD age. With DVD you don't need to rewind, and the extra storage allowed for more special features. The increased picture quality was just the icing on the cake.

The HD-wars are only offering us higher quality video, and it's probably barely noticeable to the general public. When moms & pops are shopping in the Wal-Mart Electronics Department, why should they buy a $500-$600 HD player over a $30 DVD player?

It will be interesting to see if either of these technologies (Blue Ray / HD-DVD) make any sort of impact. They smell a lot like BETA / Laser Disc to me.

Why do we like WoW?

During one of my daily World of Warcraft (WoW) General Forum sessions, I was reading a post that someone slipped in about the new hot MMO in Beta call Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. They proclaimed it the new "future" leader in MMO space and provided a link to it's website. Being a fan of MMOs, I clicked the link and started doing some research.

MMO communities are competitive regardless of their size. WoW stands at 5,000,000 subscribers, but judging from the log in wait times I have a feeling it's a much larger number. Vanguard is still in beta - I'm guessing it's in the hundreds of thousands. Curious about what they were saying about us WoW players, I slipped into their forums and read some of their posts.

One post caught my eye: It was titled "WoW -- why?" Why indeed. Why do we play WoW? Why do they play Vanguard? The post was constructive, but I don't think they ever really touched on why WoW is such a huge success.

I've been playing WoW since launch - over one year of play time. That's a long time to play one game in an industry that is more instantaneous than the movie industry. However, my experience has not been as enlightening as my good friends Matt and Adele, who have recently began their adventures in Azeroth. It's through them that I understand.

I have played, quite literally, most MMOs that have hit the shelf - an embarrassing amount of experience with MMOs. On the other hand, my friends are having their first MMO experience with WoW making them a good litmus test.

That they can jump right in and get hooked is the answer to the question. WoW is a complicated game with a fantastic learning curve. At level one, the game is very simple, and it's very clear where you are supposed to go and what you need to be doing without feeling like it's leading you around by the nose. As you progress through the ranks, it adds skills little by little; it even makes you purchase them which is a clever way of letting you progress at your own rate. This accessibility is the main reason for Blizzard's success with WoW.

I have to mention my recent experience with Everquest 2: I just recently returned to this game after a 10 month absence to see what was up. My level 13 bard was still there, and as soon as I hit the world I was assaulted with countless pop-ups with confusing skills and additions to my character I didn't understand. I was only level 13 after logging maybe 2 weeks of play time total - I had no idea what to pick and what not to pick. However, the game was forcing me to choose right there. This is not catering to the masses. A non-gamer would feel threatened by this sort of game design. After picking my skills, I started killing a few things - the same things I've killed for 13 levels. I want to move on, but I'm not sure where to go and where I should be at this level. Things I should be able to kill at 13 kill me. Friends, this is why WoW won the great 2004 MMO battle.

Another thing to mention is WoW's graphical style. The game has a look that the common person can "understand". It doesn't look like Dungeons and Dragons might look, which I'm sure puts off a few people with other games. It's stylish and clean; it's fun to look at even after playing it for a year.

WoW is the MMO equivalent to Pac-Man or Space Invaders - and I mean this is a compliment. It's the sort of game that can get business suits, women and children all to play it. As a matter of fact, it has: 5 million of them. Is Vanguard going to steal away WoW's thunder? Who knows. I haven't played it yet (although I'm sure I will), but from the screenshots and webpage I would say they are making the same mistakes as their forefathers - make it simple stupid!