Marek

I like how everyone's a graphic whore in that thread.

See: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=55379 EuroGamer says it well: "it's starting to look a bit more like a real game and not some sort of magical voodoo concoction as it did when we first slobbered over it at the start of 2003." I thought the screenshots were a little underwhelming. I mean, it still looks better than most games, but somehow these new locations don't seem quite as detailed as what we saw before. Oh well, I guess that was to be expected somewhat.

Maybe both? We can try this out on the weekend of 10-11, and if it's a success we do it again at Eurogamer Expo. I saw some posts in the other thread about people maybe traveling to London... given such commitments maybe it's a good idea to have a pilot meeting first.

I'll be there, whatever date is ultimately chosen. As for a place, I'm not super familiar with London, but a central location seems like a good idea. Around Victoria station, or Soho, or maybe in Old Street / Shoreditch? People with better knowledge of London please chip in.

Predictably, that had become way better in my head than it actually was at the time, but that was indeed the thread I was looking for. Thanks.

Life is pretty sweet for me now. I got a snazzy new job and moved to London, which is a crazy place. If anyone in (West-)London wants to grab a pint sometime and maybe sit around and baboo for a bit let me know. Wow, that sounds so dirty.

The bird noises are incredible and a little unsettling. I just imagined this crazy cult following nick/jake/chris around repeating their noises, sorta like the gulls in Finding Nemo that go 'mine mine mine'.

Hahahah the blood pouring out of the robot when it transforms =

So many new people. This place is so cool these days. Welcome noobs!!!

Soooo... if you're a babe magnet, could this technology interfere with your magnetic field? I'm concerned.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/9/2/

I really enjoyed Alfred J. Kwak when I was young. I knew it was in some way more mature than other series and I realized that some things went over my head, and this made it a bit mysterious. I've never re-watched it but now I kinda want to...

Marvel has already been exploiting its properties like there's no tomorrow (in fact, I'm really wondering if it's saturating the market for superhero movies). So not much new there. If Marvel as an independent company would have stopped doing well, I'm sure there'd equally be "initiatives", "directives", etc. from its executives, its board of directors, blah blah blah. There's not a whole lot of Mickey Mouse in ABC television or in Miramax films so I doubt we'll be seeing Mickey Mouse fighting crime alongside Spiderman. (But maybe some Hannah Montana comics? One can only hope.) I think the only meaningful thing to say about these kinds of takeovers is that continuing consolidation into these giant media empires is probably bad for competition. Then again I'm not really a comic book fan, so to me it looks like just another piece of business news. I didn't know what SLG was until I googled it just now.

"Please choose the wizard would you like to setup."

Oh man. My jaw dropped a thousand times.

Doh! I looked at the third page of that thread instead of looking at the first post that gets updated every time.

During the pod someone said something would be posted on the forum. Two pics of something? I forgot. But erm yeah, WHERE ARE THEY?

I wasn't being sarcastic... I think they'd be totally into that shit. Which is excellent.

The girls would love that

I like being able to choose a handler as a way of forcing yourself to play a certain way. In games that allow the stealth approach, diplomatic approach, brute force approach etc. I often just lazily go back to my default favorite approach rather trying different things each time. Choosing the stealthy handler for instance will kind of guide you along that stealthy path just for that mission, so that rules.

I don't know how the TV industry works so I should probably not assume too much. Not arguing that executives should do their homework though, I think it's the game developers who should, as it'll make it easier for the money people to trust what they're doing. Pilots seem like a good de-risking strategy, by the way (though obviously not without flaws). I guess prototyping is the game industry equivalent.

Ah, you're right. I see you didn't mention Brutal Legend.

Molyneux has funny ideas about what market research can deliver, that's for sure. The implied scenario of the creators of Dexter showing a presentation slide or spreadsheet proving the appeal of a murderer protagonist is completely ludicrous. I guess I expect at least some amount of bullshit to always come out of Molyneux' mouth, so I just read over that stuff and latched onto the parts that do make sense to me. When I read de-risking it doesn't initially translate in my head as excessive focus testing or avoiding creative risks. My interpretation of de-risking is basically "doing your homework", which I think the brainstorming or flavor videos are a part of. Before you start on a project you really want to make sure you actually have a compelling case for it. I think some developers actually don't do their homework properly in advance, making it more difficult to sell games to publishers/investors and, I would argue, making it more difficult to execute the concept well. In my (admittedly not super broad) experience projects are sometimes started before there is a solid understanding of the core of the product. I've seen pitches and vision documents that don't offer a fully compelling case for those products to be made, which basically translates into risk. A while ago I heard that a certain triple-A developer (not a rock star developer, but with a regular level of fame/reputation) doesn't even really present or pitch the game they want to make to publishers, they send in a 2-pager. Apparently that's fairly common. I think when e.g. Mad Men got pitched it wasn't an easy pitch, but I'm assuming they could justify it well... e.g. they already knew the characters, what kind of stories they wanted to tell, and maybe even had something for the visual style of the show. They at least needed enough for AMC to be convinced that they could make it work, and that it was a show they wanted to fund. In TV and film it seems that projects do simmer in concept development for a lot longer, and when they do get picked up there seems to be already a cohesive vision in place. Mind you, I recognize that making a game is a creative journey, and I am super supportive of things like agile development methodology that allow more flexibility to respond to things during development, but I also think that by doing the groundwork a lot better, there'll be more good games, and developers will be better at presenting compelling cases for doing games that are more creatively risky overall. It's interesting that you mention Brutal Legend because while that's a game with a lot of creative risks I also got the impression that Double Fine pretty consciously 'de-risked' it. I read something about them creating prototypes of the multiplayer gameplay (the highest risk area for them) before anything else, and once that was proven, they used it as a template for the singleplayer gameplay mechanics. I don't know if this was before or after the game got picked up, but in any case, as an investor that kind of de-risking would make me feel a lot more comfortable funding a game that is risky. If what Molyneux meant was "devs should lay the groundwork better, ultimately allowing them to be more creative" then I'm totally in agreement. If what he meant was "we should justify everything through focus testing or market data" or "developers shouldn't attempt to do the coolest thing they can but should already start thinking within limitations" then I'm totally against it. Anyway, thanks for elaborating. I can totally see it from your perspective and, if I read it on its own, I pretty much agree 100% with what you wrote. I think I purposely ignored parts of what Molyneux said and was excited that somewhere in what Molyneux said I could find a vague mental common ground with him, which made me arrive at a completely different conclusion.

I'm curious to hear why you think that. To me it sounds perfectly reasonable. He's not saying the industry should avoid risk, in the sense of not attempting to do anything fresh or interesting. He's saying that you can have a risky concept which you can then 'de-risk' by doing a lot of pre-production stuff. I think maybe he's saying it in an awkward way that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation, and he might be overemphasizing market research over prototyping or brainstorming, but the intent behind what he's saying seems like the opposite of garbage to me.

Fun Fact: a modified Being John Malkovich poster featuring Richard Garriott heads hung on the wall at NCsoft Europe somewhere. I believe it was temporarily taken down once when he visited the company.