Chris

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Everything posted by Chris

  1. Halo Reach

    I have a code but I've been on vacation for the last couple weeks so haven't had a chance to play it yet. I'll definitely give it a shot when I get home. RAD
  2. Flotilla

    HeUbrJ9uicA
  3. Neptune's Bountiful Pride

    It would be cool to take screenshots of that on a regular basis, and then at the end of the game stitch it together into a time-lapse animation.
  4. Neptune's Bountiful Pride

    Let me know if you guys start up another game!
  5. Idle Thumbs London meet?

    Wednesday and Thursday evenings are bad for me, I have stuff planned then. Other days should be fine.
  6. Hands on Deathspank

    I think he went there specifically to make DeathSpank; now that DeathSpank is done, he's leaving.
  7. Do you mean for Bungie, or in terms of having larger industry impact? I don't think it will serve as any kind of bellwether; Bungie is an unusually prestigious studio and probably secured a TON of money from Activision for this deal, and I think it will be pretty anomalous. For Bungie, I don't really know. Surely by a decade from now, the studio will look pretty different to how it looks now, just as it looks a lot different now to how it did ten years ago. I imagine, though, that this will really only end up producing two or three games total, considering a ten-year deal will straddle the console life cycle, so it's not actually all that different to Epic Games signing up with Microsoft for three Gears of Wars or something like that, it just sounds a lot more imposing this way.
  8. I imagine Microsoft wanted to avoid exactly what is happening with Infinity Ward now. Infinity Ward is sort of similar, but not nearly as impressive as the Bungie case. What's happening now with IW happens a lot more often, just not with such highly-publicized studios and this much drama; large groups of developers frequently leave internal teams to make their own studios after wanting to leave the traditional publisher model.
  9. I don't think think Activision is changing; it probably doesn't plan to build up a whole distribution business around third-party developers like EA has, it just recognized Bungie as an unusually proven and successful developer. And yes clearly one of Bungie's demands when it was shopping this game to publishers was that the studio remain independent. They have the leverage to demand that. If studios like Double Fine can pull that off, Bungie easily can. I can't think of other cases of becoming independent after being owned by a publisher, but I know there are others. One somewhat similar example is Big Huge Games, which is now owned by independent developer 38 Studios after previously being acquired by THQ. It's arguable whether that's the same situation, since BHG is now owned by another developer rather than buy a small group of people or whatever, but I think that's effectively an academic difference.
  10. Microsoft has been building up an internal Halo team for a while now. They may also bring in additional studios, like Activision has with Call of Duty, but there's definitely one main non-Bungie Halo team right now.
  11. It's nothing to do with being concise. Be as long-winded as you like. I was just pointing out that it isn't all their games for the next ten years. A lot of people are interpreting it that way; it's not the case. Bungie will still be making other games in the next ten years that aren't published by Activision.
  12. It's not a merger, nor is it "all their games." Bungie is still an independent company, and this only applies to Bungie's next internally-developed game or series of games within a particular universe. They're still developing Reach for Microsoft, and from what I've heard they have yet another team on top of that working on a third game; rumor has it that one is for Sony, but there may not even be anything signed yet. As for your other questions, nobody knows. The terms of the deal are not public.
  13. New people: Read this, say hi.

    Rad! Good job. I wish I had a way to record drums, I miss it.
  14. New Mechner Interview

  15. Treme

    If I wanted to pirate something, which I don't because that sucks, I would be aware that is an option. I'm going to request as of now that locations to pirate copyrighted material not be discussed on this forum.
  16. New Mechner Interview

    Yes, you're right. I'm familiar with Moleskine, but I didn't do the actual transcription, so I didn't catch that. Thanks.
  17. Starcraft 2

    Sean Plott knows what he's talking about and is obvious about that, but he's also very self-deprecating and down to earth. Frequently when he is being self-aggrandizing, it is simply in jest. He and his brother Nick are the best StarCraft commentators I've seen, and since Nick isn't doing StarCraft II beta commentary yet, Sean is my current caster of choice. I've been a fan of his StarCraft commentary for a while, and I coincidentally ran into him at Blizzard earlier this week. He's an incredibly nice guy, very humble, and very thankful for the opportunities he has had. I'm also glad he doesn't edit or produce his shows. It's important for a commentator to be able to carry himself on a live stream, and doing his daily show helps him stick to those practices. Also considering the volume of material he puts out, having to do post-processing would surely either reduce his output or burn him out. Trust me, I know--even just doing a weekly podcast is extremely draining when it's 100% in your free time.
  18. Well, your balls pop out of his mouth for sure.
  19. What you and everyone else needs at this point is to let it go. Any further discussion of this topic in this thread will result in a temporary ban. I don't care who instigated it or perpetuated it at this point; I'm not going to go back and check. It's off-topic and rancorous.
  20. Treme

    I am also curious as to whether there is a way to watch this show other than when it airs on HBO. I'm guessing I'll just have to wait for DVD. It's really ridiculous that we still can't just buy subscriptions to individual networks over the internet. They'd get a lot more money from me than they do right now, since I have no intention of subscribing to cable television ever again.
  21. There's a difference between contracting musicians and actually having full-time game developer employees at internal studios. Electronic Arts employs thousands of actual game developers. Electronic Arts makes lots and lots and lots of games. Also, what about the numerous studios that have been part of EA for so long that they no longer employ any of the employees that worked there before EA first acquired them? How can you possibly still consider that to still be the studio that existed before EA bought it?
  22. That was my favorite thing said in this episode. I think he actually said "Bullshit Dolby Surround Sound system for ruining your life," which is what makes it so funny to me--it implies ruining your life is part of its intended function.
  23. It wasn't Cyan. It has nothing to do with Cyan or Myst. It was by Smoking Car Productions, a studio Mechner founded in San Francisco, which went out of business after The Last Express shipped. I assume Mechner still owns the rights.
  24. You can pay to create a private game that is free for others to join. 20 credits makes a premium game that others pay to join; 50 credits makes a premium game that is free for others to join. Right now I'm playing in one free game, and one private game that somebody else created and was free for me to join.