Diablo 3 In Game Auction House

I am still alive, I swear. So.... I have really been meaning to weigh in on the whole buying IG items for RL monies.... in a pve focused game. If you don't know what's going on with Diablo 3 by now check out the story over at The Escapist.

As I may or may not have mentioned before I have probably spent more hours of my life playing Diablo 2 then any other game ever (even Oblivion GASP!!!!). In case you couldn't tell from reading this blog I love Blizzard and I have loved pretty much every PC game they have ever released. Now anyone who has spent any time with Diablo 2 on Battle.net may have seen something to the effect of:

""
"mulXXXbot224: Come to www.annoyingspam.com grand opening for D2 EPIK LEWTZ!!! On Sale Now!!!!"
"mulXXXbot224 leaves game>"

(See above screenshot I captured after joining a game for 15 seconds. This was just taken today.)

It's really annoying. It keeps happening, 12 years after release. Why has nothing happened? Why is this so commonplace? Because people keep buying IG items for a 12 year old game for RL money. People make a living by item farming in Diablo 2. It happens in pretty much every online game, and especially Blizzard games.

I actually really like the idea of Blizzard taking the reigns on this and, instead of trying to fight it and fail, is trying to control the obvious and overshadowing IG black market and make it not only safe and secure for people, but also try to curtail cheating and hacking. Imagine a world where we can play again and not be subject to the situation as detailed above, but the newbs who want to pay $50 for a SOJ can do so and give their money to Blizzard instead of Chinese gold farmers?

That is a world I want to live it.

Silent Hill Book of Memories and Skyrim

Two completely different games I know.

Take a journey with me if you would please!

Joystiq reported that there will be an upcoming entry in the Silent Hill franchise entitled Book of Memories that will be predominantly a multiplayer experience. As I have mentioned before this will be an epic fail. Ultimately this move really encapsulates what is wrong with the AAA game industry.

A lot of publishers and developers see Intellectual Properties as brands to be exploited rather than living, breathing universes that are specific works of art.

It is what I will refer to as the Guitar Hero effect. Something is popular, so lets push the shit out of it rather than take the time to develop the property into something that evolves and is continually exciting. Silent Hill 2 was so good that even 10 years later just the name will help a game sell well. It has brand recognition. Multiplayer games sell well too so if we combine a brand name with popular mechanics it should be a hit right?

This is indicative of what the AAA industry does wrong, but it must be doing something right? Right?!?!

Of course it does! I can't remember or find where I read it, but I saw that some lead on Skyrim said "we just want to make the most awesome, giant RPG" (paraphrasing). That attitude, right there, is how you make the big bucks. Take your time (within reason of course) to make the best product you can. It's how Blizzard did is, how Id did it, how Valve did it, and why all of those companies continue to be profitable when Activision and EA are laying people off and closing studios left and right.

AAA games will always be great if the people with the money, talent, and resources recognize the power they have to create brilliant art rather than analyze trends and imitate and not innovate. If you are going to spend $20 to $30 million on a game, why not commit those kind of resources to creating the best product you can? If you do there will always be plenty of "me's" to throw our disposable income at you (and we will be happy to do so).

Next time why Nintendo is stupid (short answer Wii U) .

Battlefeild 3's existence

So I watched the 12 minute game play video for EA's COD killer and you can color me impressed. I have said before in this blog that soldiers shooting soldiers, being in space, or in a real life situation is a bit played out for me, but the 12 minutes of game play we saw had some of the best current gen graphics we have seen, had realistic and beautifully rendered and designed environments, had some incredible voice acting (and not just for a video game), and in general was incredibly well produced. It looks like what a Call of Duty killer should like and Activision should be quaking in their boots.



With that said I'm not impressed because, despite looking amazing, it still looks like soldiers shooting soldiers.

Of course it will sell well. It will get glowing reviews. I will get $15 map packs for the multiplayer. It will be a fiscal success for EA in the same vein as Madden. My issue is that it does nothing to take risks or move our industry forward.

Now, any number of people I know would call me a hypocrite citing that the game already clearly tackles a real world current event issue. We have young men and women from the US and many other countries all over the world fighting together against insurgency in the Middle East. We have makeshift revolutions going on in the Ivory Coast, Libya, sort of Egypt, and many other North African and Middle Eastern countries. What is going on right now is complex and mature and video games have not been afraid to tackle "modern warfare as a subject matter and setting.

Beef is that it's been done to death. It may look beautiful and may be expertly written and produced, but is it different enough to really resonate?

I actually played the original Modern Warfare about a year ago (I know, pretty late to the party but hello?! PC Master race here) on XBOX 360 and I was legitimately impressed then too. The game felt real and was brilliantly produced. It wasn't perfect, but then again what game is? I feel it was different enough that it resonated, but when I went online to play some of the acclaimed multiplayer there wasn't a match to be found.

War FPS's are the new Madden except we get 2 every year. They are more expensive roster updates and for every one that sells well it holds back innovation and our industry from real growth as an artistic medium.

Is Valve the new Activision??

Well of course not, but I have had a very interesting argument this morning about Valve's role as a developer with my friend equating them more to a publisher with evil corporation like tendencies.

It could be argued that the only original IP ever actually created by Valve is the Half Life franchise. Everything else they have ever put out have pretty much been mod's on their source engine, or of the original Half Life (which as I recall was developed on Quake 3 technology but I really don't feel like doing the research this morning). Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, Left 4 Dead, my beloved Portal, all started as mod's or indy project's before getting "swallowed" up by the evil, rich, corporate entity that is Valve. One could (and has) argued that this is akin to a large corporation buying up a lot of small business to merge them into the corporate bureaucratic fold. Has Valve evolved into a publisher/distributor rather than a developer?

Well of course not. They are a beautiful and effective amalgamation of every entity in our little world.

Valve have an uncanny knack for spotting and snatching up epic level talent. They see really brilliant developers and give them jobs and resources based on their idea's more than a resume. Valve has about every luxury in the development world and isn't constrained by a third party publisher demanding results and immediate profitability; setting deadlines and awarding bonuses on Metacritic scores. What Valve seems to do is give smart people access to more talent, better technology, and lots of money to create the greatest experiences available. I don't see that as being evil at all; I see it as fantastic practices for both us, the consumers, as well as any investors for Valve as a developer of software.

Why isn't every company in the video games industry like this? Well it's not easy to pull of and maintain. It's not "standard" play (for all my like minded SC2 fans out there). The only other company who was sort of running on this business model was Stardock, and well they made some decisions that brought them away from the whole publisher/developer/middleware thing.

Long story short Valve is great for our industry, is always thinking forward, and has created a great counter-business model to the Activisions and EA's of the world.

Now is Portal 2 available early?! If it is working today is gonna suck!!

Rift Beta

Well I got my Rift Beta key, the new MMO developed by Trion Worlds. I'm downloading the client now to make sure we're good to go for Tuesday when the event goes live.. The Beta event starts on Tuesday so we'll see if just because we're not in Azeroth anymore if we still wish we were.

I always wonder why MMO developers go after WoW. You can't do it. Blizzard have unlimited time, money, and talent. They didn't invent the modern MMO but they certain perfected it. It is pretty common knowledge that it takes a lot of resources to build an MMO from the ground up and a lot of companies who take aim at the better half of Activision/Blizzard end up folding. A lot of companies who don't take aim at them but still put out an MMO end up folding.

We'll see if Trion has the stuff to compete.