Next up was an invite to meet with the president of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. I definitley think I’m going to jump on this one as it could be a great oppurtunity to pick someone’s brain that has a little perspective on the industry. In fact, these topics were listed as possible highlights to discuss:

* The 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit
* The Interactive Achievement Awards – why gamemakers’ opinions matter
* Into The Pixel – an art collection from some of the most popular video games developed by industry giants
* The state of next-generation consoles and games for those systems
* The evolving world of MMOs
* The changing dynamics of casual gaming
* The new face of game players

I’d really like to hear him sound off on the Wii and how a whole new dynamic of gamer has been brought into our industry.

Finally I bought some gear for the show. After pinging Tom Kim from The Gamasutra Podcast for Digital Recorder suggestions, and getting a response back that put the fear of god into me about being under prepared I decided to go for an Olympus DS-30. I’m gonna try to record just about every interview I do and get it up ASAP as a podcast and whatnot.

I also upgraded my laptop to Windows Vista and order 2Gig of RAM. This should help with video editing while on the road.

This beginning to be an expensive trip!!

Stephen Totilo of MTV and N’Gai Croal of NewsWeek have decided to do an email exchange of sorts discussing the recent Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta. I’m not putting these guys down as gamers, they are both gamers in every sense of the word. But the entire transcription is somewhat of a bitch fest on how they aren’t exactly good at multiplayer games, and how they want Bungie, or whoever, to make them more easily accessible. A valid complaint I suppose. In fact, the tone of the articles really change with the final part of the series.

Of course the graphics issue comes up. N’Gai even references the Reuters Article I was quoted in. Yes…I’m gloating.

Anyway, before we go any further, do yourself a favor and read both articles. I’ll update this article when part 3 is finally released.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

OK…done? A bit long winded eh? That’s ok. There are a lot of good points there, and the articles themselves are a very fresh take on games journalism. So lets dissect shall we?

My heretofore unexplored lack of interest in online multiplayer didn’t change much with the release of the PlayStation 2 or the Xbox. Apart from playing a handful of games with publicists and fellow journalists at industry events and online hands-on sessions (i.e. “SOCOM,” “Halo 2,” “Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory” and “Doom III”), or dabbling with a few more titles shortly after they shipped (mostly “Madden,” “Burnout” and “NBA Live”), I was pretty much M.I.A., or AWOL, depending on you look at it. And with the exception of a few quick bouts of “Gears of War” and “Resistance: Fall of Man,” the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 simply haven’t forged in me the love of online multiplayer that warms the hearts of so many gamers, like Level Up’s own Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling. But in the interest of Vs. Mode, I’m willing to use the “Halo 3″ multiplayer beta as a springboard to see whether there’s a place for me somewhere in this vast connected arena.

So N’Gai goes into a 6 paragraph spiel about his past, and limited, experiences with multiplayer gaming. Each one can be summed up as – “No sir…I don’t like it” Yet here he is about to write a 3 part article centering on a multiplayer only beta title. Odd.

I think it’s fair to say that someone can give a critical assessment of something they don’t like, but is it fair to say they can give a…well fair assessment?

Stephen then replies to the email and goes on to take a few jabs at N’Gai basically dodging the subject of actually discussing Halo 3. He begins to talk about the passage of time pointing out that these email responses clearly take place over days and even weeks. Regardless of this they are well thought out, probably edited, pieces of spoken mind.

Stephen goes on to talk about multiplayer games, and how a strict standard must be followed. Rules. Regulations. Measurements. Balance. He compares them closely to sports.

The difference between “God of War” and “Halo” multiplayer is that one is an adventure of narrative and gameplay. The other is enjoyed as a sport. I crave constant re-invention in the former. I assume perfection and stability is possible in the latter.

Sometimes a sporting formula just works. Take baseball. About a century ago someone figured out that 90 feet was a good distance between home plate and first base. Since then pitchers and batters have gotten stronger. Runners have gotten faster. Baseball strategies have changed. Pitchers’ mounds have been modified. Yet nothing has ruined those 90 feet. It still is just long enough — and just short enough — to make for exciting plays. The dimensions just work.

Is “Halo” baseball? Has Bungie already nailed the 90 feet?

Or maybe “Halo” is basketball back in 1953, just before the introduction of the 24-second shot clock. Before the clock was added basketball was played at a slower pace. The sport was still about tossing a bouncing ball through a hoop, but the shot-clock forced play to be much more swift.

This is one of the smartest analogies I’ve heard. Why reinvent the wheel when it’s already working. Competitive online gaming IS a sport. With several pro gaming leagues popping up and TV broadcasts becoming more popular, gaming is legitimizing itself has a competitive sport much like Poker did in the early 2000s. A lot of the complaints of the Halo 3 beta have been about the lack of change, or rather, the lack of significant change. But Bungie has a 14+ million selling franchise in their pocket, why would they want to significantly change it?

Stephen’s sports argument does have its flaws. What were those sports like before the insert defining feature was created? What if the rules committee, or whoever it was, never took that chance and decided to try a 24 second shot clock. They weren’t changing the core of the game, only one aspect of it. If there is change in something, it must be incremental. Look at Hockey over the past 20 years. The sport was in its glory days in the mid 80s to early 90s. But when Gary Bettman joined the league as commissioner and decided to make changes to rules and regulations, he changed the style of play, the game got stale. It alienated fans, and in turn, alienated TV Networks cutting off precious revenue. The same could happen to a franchise’s fans.

It’s definitely a conundrum. It depends on your target audience. It depends on your goals for the game. Do you only care about sales, or do you care about quality. Do you care about consistency or flexibility.

In part 2 of the series N’Gai admits that both him and Stephen are a bit of the newb category. He realizes they aren’t trying to fool anyone, and in fact I think the goal of these articles is to try to show how to expand the franchise to be more accessible to newer players.

We’re both newbs here, dammit, and we should fully engage the experience of that newbitude (yes, I’m bringing back my neologism grenades for this Vs. Mode sequel) rather than simply draw parallels between “Halo 3″ multiplayer and single player games, sports and television shows.

Ah finally…they are going to talk about the game. But not quite yet, first we go through another long winded list of something by Mr. Croal. This time we get a song comparison to Halo 3 analogy. It isn’t until the middle of the 3rd song that we finally get some meat about N’Gai’s experience.

After the couple of minutes it took me to get my sea legs, I gleefully gave myself over to the Hobbesian ecstasies of King of the Hill. The genius of this match type is its just-the-right-side of barely-controlled chaos: you rush to get to the “hill” as quickly as you can; you hold it for as long as you can; you terminate all of your rivals with extreme prejudice; your final scores is based on the cumulative amount of time you were able to hold the hill.

So if “Halo” single-player is built around the pockets of action that Bungie refers to as “Thirty seconds of fun,” King of the Hill is 15 seconds of fun, washed, rinsed and repeated ad nauseam, mercifully stripped of the various tensions necessary to make the more structured game types work. There’s no need for teamwork, patience, affordance, strategy, thought. Everything tactical is removed, but the presence of the hill gives it a focus — both in terms of the geography and the gameplay — that makes it more memorable and rewarding than a pure dog-kill-dog game of Slayer, a.k.a. deathmatch.

That paragraph really proves a point that losing is never fun. In the previous times mentioned, when N’Gai was actually losing at Halo and other multiplayer titles he mentioned how he wasn’t having fun. But once the tides turned, and he started winning; the game suddenly became fun.

I’ll admit, losing isn’t fun. Fuck. I’m as competitive as the next guy, maybe more so. I love to compete at everything. Hell I just bought a $300 Grill from Lowes because it was bigger than my neighbors. Yeah, I’m like that…I went there. What is fun during competition, even in losing; is exactly just that. The competition. The grueling nature, the frustration, the torment of fighting and clawing your way that when you do get that win, that oh so sweet victory, it’s just that much better.

Stephen’s retort talks about about teamplay, or lack thereof that sometimes accompanies online play. The moments in which teams work together, like a flock of birds changing direction, is a beautiful thing. It’s swift, concise and satisfying. It takes repetition (or luck), and communication. Something apparently N’Gai and Stephen didn’t have…as they couldn’t figure out the team chat function. The suggestion from Stephen is to have some sort of training program, or even a buddy program where someone can help you learn the system. I like to call these people friends. After realizing this isn’t really the responsibility of the developer, but rather his own personal social responsibility, Stephen decides on this training regiment.

I do have an idea that would help us neophytes. You know how in single-player games you often learn one ability at a time, gain one new weapon or tool every few minutes but never have everything thrown at you all at once in a situation in which you’re expected to excel? Imagine bringing that kind of pacing to multiplayer. Imagine being able to play multiplayer in training tiers: first maybe a map where jumping is disabled, then a map where jumping is enabled but shooting without both feet on the ground is not, then turn on a couple of extra weapons in the next map, then some heavier weapons in the one after that. Some of that map customization is already in the game, but not all of it. I think that kind of training routine could help a lot of players.

So what Stephen is suggestion is sort of a guided practice system. A really good idea, though I’m sure development time could be used elsewhere. Perhaps by building something like this into the already extensive custom game type system, Bungie could leverage existing code, as well as create a practice routine set of gametypes.

In fact, in the Final Part of the Series, N’Gai quotes Mr. Allen Iverson in regards to practice after several similar posts hit blogs around the net.

I mean listen, we’re sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game last it’s my last but we’re talking about practice, man. How silly is that?

Both Stephen and N’Gai seem a little more excited about Halo 3 in the last part of their article, but continue to lay on the suggestions on how to make it more accessible. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but when push comes to shove and the bottom dollar rules all, I’m not sure (and neither are the authors) whether Bungie has the time to pull off something major.

It doesn’t have to be this way. But the solutions aren’t exactly cheap. They will require more money, time, manpower and genuinely inventive thinking. And given how successful the Halo franchise has been to date, I’d be surprised if the brain trust in Redmond feels that any of the following additions are in order. Still, it can’t hurt to try, and I think that each of my ideas will actually appeal to the hardcore as well as the newbie. Moreover, none of these concepts take away anything that the core gamer likes; they’re all additive.

The argument of bots always comes up with Multiplayer titles. Should a title have bots? Do bots hurt the quality of the title by taking development time away from other core things? In multiplayer only titles like Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike it makes sense to have bots. You simply don’t have the offline component to fall back on. There is no single player AI because the single player AI becomes bots. But for a game like Halo, one with a strong campaign and a strong multiplayer component, does it make sense to add bots?

At the first stage of the campaign, rookies would be start out by being matched against bots to ease their way in. Subsequent stages would give gamers the option of to complete some requirements against bots rather than humans, but as the multiplayer campaign continues, the ratio of Achievements that can be completed against bots as opposed to humans would keep tipping towards the latter, because the campaign’s ultimate goal is to propel players online, with the confidence and the skills required to make Halo 3 a genuinely enjoyable experience. Think of it as Halo Age: Train Your Trigger Finger In Minutes a Day, with the disembodied heads of Dr. Frank O’Connor and Dr. Luke Smith encouraging us to stick it out. I’d sign up for that. Wouldn’t you?

I’m going to have to disagree. With an already extensive and deep matchmaking system that Bungie is continually improving on, beginners and newbies should (in theory) be matched up with people of similar skill from the get go. As long as someone would at least START the campaign of the game, they should get all the training they need with the controls and feel of the game. There is no need to go even further.

It all comes back to the losing statement. Losing sucks. And in multiplayer games where your losses are somewhat public it can make them even less appealing.

I think the difference is that offline games have long given me the sensation that I’m in control. I make a character move. I input commands. I own an inventory. I take missions. I deal with things. Video games put me in a driver’s seat, or at least create that illusion.

The jarring thing about playing Halo 3 and getting aced in it again and again is that it represents the opposite feeling: when I’m getting schooled on the Valhalla map I feel like I have almost no control. The skill disparity between my betters and me is such that I feel like I’ve got no handle on the situation. I’m not dealing with things. And that kind of experience, well, I’ve got enough of that in real life. It’s not an experience I look for in games.

But the opposite still holds true. With multiplayer games your victories are that much sweeter. In team games the victories are shared with your friends. There’s nothing like an adrenaline rush when you become the hero of your team. Being the last man standing, facing an insurmountable onslaught of human opponents only to take them all down and win the match? Sounds sort of like a single player game doesn’t it? Except now you have spectators. You have people to share in that moment. These people congratulate you, give you praise. That is why multiplayer gaming is good. That is why regardless of what skill level you are, or how many matches you lose, when you DO get that first win, that special win, that team win, it becomes that much more rewarding.

And that was just the start of the trend for Microsoft. Next up on the plate, one of Microsoft’s biggest allies, Epic Games came head to head with the corporate giant over a little issue of content pricing. Epic, being the kind hearted fellows they are, wanted to release a free map pack for their 4 million copy selling game Gears of War. Perhaps you heard of it? You know, the biggest seller on the XBox 360. Well Microsoft in their infinite wisdom thought it be better to simply not allow Epic to post this maps for free. Eventually, a compromise came to be, and the maps will eventually see the light of day for free, only after being on the Marketplace for a set period of time. And to top this all off, Epic’s Tim Sweeney didn’t have very nice things to say about Microsoft’s PC version of the Live service. In fact, some of the things he mentioned were downright scary.

And just when you think things couldn’t get any lower for Microsoft, along comes the Guitar Hero 2 Pricing Fiasco. If digital distribution is supposed to be so damn cheap, how come people end up paying more for digital content than physical media? Apparently in this situation this all has to do with new licensing fees, no doubt because of the popularity of the product.

The bottom line is Microsoft has lost a lot of face in the past 2 weeks. In a time when Playstation 3 sales are still incredibly week, and Wii’s are impossible to find, Microsoft missed a huge opportunity to widen the gap.

To combat the Guitar Hero 2 fiasco I predict we’ll see some sort of a gift from Red Octane, a peace offering of sorts. Perhaps a few previously unreleased tracks for free with the ever popular sponsored by tag attached to them. Perhaps even Microsoft sponsoring them itself.

While I don’t foresee Microsoft dropping the HD price soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if 6 months from now the price drops on both the 120GB and 20GB drive by a good 20-30%. I also think Microsoft is going to be making a few extra moves to increase the perceived value of the XBox Live Gold subscription service. Perhaps more exclusive downloads for actual content instead of demos, or perhaps some sort of discount plan.

So I’ve started a new site that builds greatly on the screenshot work I did over at Evil Avatar. I’m officially launching it tonight.

www.thegamersgallery.com

 The press release is as follows…

The Gamers' Gallery – A New Way to Look at Video Game Screenshots

EASTON, PA (March 30, 2007)
- Nicholas Puleo would like to announce the creation of The Gamers'
Gallery (http://www.thegamersgallery.com), a new website dedicated to
promoting video games through the sharing and discussion of game
screenshots. The Gamers' Gallery is a database-driven webportal
combining the beauty and elegance of AJAX with the power and utility of
PHP to provide a place where screenshots, game data, and
up-to-the-minute news can be centrally stored and made available to
everyone.

Puleo describes this project as a personal "labor of love."

"The
Gamers' Gallery was created because all other screenshot viewers are
severely lacking. I really just wanted to create the best damn
screenshot viewer on the internet, and provide the fastest and easiest
way to access information related to those screens."

Nathaniel Payne, a lackey of Puleo's working on the site, had this to say about the venture.

"Screenshots
are usually sent to various game journalism websites. They end up being
stored in separate silos of information, and it's difficult to pull all
that information together. The goal of the Gamers' Gallery is to
collect screenshots in one place, and match those screens up with the
relevant data that will give you the details of any particular game.
It's brilliant in its simplicity."

On the Gamers' Gallery, users
are able to view the screenshots, vote on their popularity, and leave
comments.   TGG also provides users the ability to subscribe to the
site which allows them access to hi-resolution images and the ability
to post their own screenshots for the community to vote on, as well as
build their own custom webpage for the community.  This service is only
$9.99 per year.

Puleo says that this launch is the first step in
the ongoing evolution of the site, and that new features will be
constantly added as the project builds in relevance and momentum within
the gaming community.

Nicholas Puleo goes by the alias
"bapenguin" and is an Editor-in-Chief and an Administrator of the
popular gaming community Evil Avatar (http://www.evilavatar.com).

Nathaniel Payne goes by the alias "Doctor Setebos" and is addicted to the internet.

Stay tuned to thegamersgallery.com for more information.

This is pretty cool. It’s a rainbow that forms in the upper atmosphere due to ice crystals alignment with the sun.

Photo in the News: Rare “Rainbow” Spotted Over Idaho

I hope to have it off and running by the end of the month with many members from the mainstream press, Gaming press, developers, publishers and other community members.

I may come back here from time to time, and I’ll keep this up just for old times sake…

Lots of gaming news and such over at my new blog. I may just keep it updated more frequently.

Also, be sure to join us in the chat room during the show!

It’s still fun to have.