An all-too-common “threat” in gaming communities these days is to “vote with your wallet,” that is, to show your distaste for a game/company/product/banana by refusing to pay for it, which in theory is supposed to show The Man how their decisions drive you to no longer support their product. However, what seems to be growing now is the power to do just the opposite: to show your support for a company by handing them money before they’ve even delivered a product to you. “Vote with your wallet” now works in both directions, and I think that’s awesome.

Is this something that will shake the industry to its very core? Doubt it. But it’s no coincidence that the rise in popularity of indie game developers occurs at a point in time where anyone can pay for anything easily on the web. I love Kickstarter because it puts it all in one place for me, and lets me throw money at things that look pretty.

For the curious, here are all the projects I’m currently funding on Kickstarter:

Double Fine Adventure

Mail Pilot

Agents of SMERSH

Gourmet Gamer

DisEnchanted – My friend’s in this show! Help fund her!

And here are the ones I helped successfully fund:

Ferrite

Crypteks USB

Kingdom of Loathing Comic Book

* Credit to my friend James for coming up with the title.

Comic-Con in a nutshell, is AWESOME. It’s the biggest show I’ve ever been to in the US, and it’s full of TV, movie, video game, and comic book culture. There’s so much going on that it’s literally impossible to see everything, even moreso if you’re actually working the show. So, in my little spare time I could scavenge, here’s some of the stuff I got to see and do last weekend.

• Mass Effect 3 – Working at BioWare Austin certainly has its advantages, but unfortunately that does not include being able to play ME3 early. So instead, I showed up to BioWare Base early one day and asked the ME3 team if I could sneak in and play the demo, and of course they graciously agreed (after begging for access to our game in return, of course). My first thought when I sat down and jumped in was “Yep, this is Mass Effect.” Which sounds like a bit of a letdown, but it’s quite the opposite. I love the satisfying feeling of just picking up where you left off, and not having to learn a whole new system. Three huge new things I noticed: First, the Omniblade is awesome. Press B to melee, but hold B and you whip out your blade and stab a dude for an instakill. As soon as I discovered that, I put away my guns and decided to just melee the rest of the enemies. So satisfying. Second, the lighting in the game is totally new. And holy hell does it look good. I’m not sure if it’s a new engine or what, but my god, it’s just beautiful. And I’m not the kind of person who typically notices that sort of thing. Lastly, in this demo, I stopped for a moment in the middle to chat with one of the devs, and suddenly Mordin’s yelling in my ear that reinforcements have shown up. So, apparently you can’t just take your sweet time. The dev thought that was the funniest thing ever.
• Telltale Booth – Those who follow me on Twitter know I have a dangerous obsession with three things: Glee, Pixar, and Telltale. While I didn’t get a chance to learn much about the first two (though I’m desperately searching for a video of the Glee panel), I did manage to stop by the Telltale booth at one point. Coincidentally, it was the time when AJ Locascio and Claudia Wells were signing, too! AJ is probably the greatest voice actor I’ve ever heard (his Marty McFly is quite literally indistinguishable from Michael J. Fox), and Claudia played Jennifer in the first BTTF movie. I also got to chat with the Community/PR expert Alan Johnson, who I owe many many favors to for hooking me up with some free copies of Telltale games in the past. That guy is awesome.
• Celebrity Sightings – Comic-Con is the best show for celebrity sightings. The full list of who I saw (though did not speak with) is: Adam West, Seth Green, Conan O’Brian, the cast of Big Bang Theory, Michael Hogan (aka Saul Tigh). I could’ve done better, I’m sure, but I was busy. I also heard that at one point, Harrison Ford was standing on the balcony over BioWare Base, though I didn’t actually see him so I can’t confirm the veracity of that rumor.
• Meeting voice actors – You know how they say that The Old Republic has over 900 voice actors? Well this weekend I met at least 8 of them. We had Holly Fields and Catherine Taber on our panel, of course, and a last-minute surprise guest when Jennifer Hale came by BioWare Base. Throughout the weekend, multiple people came by and introduced themselves to me as characters from our game. I can’t actually talk about who they all are, since some of them are spoilery, but it was really awesome to see so many people stop by and say hi to us. Hopefully in the future we can do something bigger with more of them involved.
• The Old Republic Panel – Last year was my first year at Comic-Con, and I snuck off from my work at the Marvel booth to get into Hall H for the Glee panel. That was fun, and Hall H is freaking huge, but this year I had the chance to be on the “other side” of the room. Stephen and I walked into the room on Wednesday to do a tech rehearsal, and we both let out a “Ohhhhhh shit.”
  

  This is what Room 6BCF looks like during tech rehearsal. Scary big.

  A 2,000 capacity room is REALLY big. The actual panel was awesome. The pure energy of 2,200 people in a room is just…wow. I could barely handle it. I hope someday I’ll get to be up onstage, because I can only imagine what talking to a full house must be like.

  

  Oh, right. That's what a full house is like.

• The Pre-Order All-Nighter – As everyone knows by now, The Old Republic launched pre-orders last Thursday at 12:01AM PST. So around 10PM, about 6 of us plopped down in our hotel lobby, plugged into all the outlets we could find, and dialed into our international pre-order hotline. For the rest of the night, we all were on various sites, phones, Ventrilo servers, etc making sure everything was as smooth as possible. It was really fun to be a part of an event like that (and obviously I’ve never been a part of a project bigger than SW:TOR), even if we it meant that we had little to no sleep in preparation for the show the next day. I think I even snapped a picture around 1AM.
  

  The team holds down the fort after launching The Old Republic Pre-Order Program

• The Gaslamp Strip Club – No, no, don’t freak out. I’m not about to discuss some inappropriate nighttime activities I indulged in. This is actually one of my favorite restaurants across from Comic-Con, and I had the pleasure of dining there twice in the past week. You order your steak, and they bring it to you raw and wrapped in plastic, then you go over to a grill and make it yourself with all kinds of spices. The first night, I got caught up in conversation and dried it out. The second time, I was paranoid and pulled it off so early that the inside was completely raw. Damn it. I blame these people:
• Hanging out with the Asymmetric Team – You may or may not know about the guys who created the fantasmagorical experience that is the Kingdom of Loathing. But I know them all too well, having been a hardcore addict of their game for the last six years. I even blame them for indirectly getting me into the industry in the first place. Last year at Comic-Con was the first time I got to hang out with them, and over time I’ve slowly been trying to get away from my “Creepy Fanboy” persona and into my “I’m Friends With These Guys” state. The community surrounding the game is awesome, and I am proud to still be a part of it to this day. Now I just need to find some time and money to sneak off to KoLCon 8.

Alright, WordPress is telling me I’ve hit 1200 words, and I think that’s more than enough. Plus, I don’t remember anything else at the moment. Hope you enjoyed!

• Wandering the halls on Sunday – I love watching booths get built. Especially when they’re trying to hide something important (That’s you, Sony and Nintendo). Guards stand at the edges of those booths ensuring you don’t look at them or stop, and push you along if you do. Always hilarious.
• Running into Greg Grunberg in the hallway – I had completely forgotten that E3 was a great place to run into celebrities, until I actually did. To be fair, I didn’t actually talk to him or grab a picture (I always feel like I’m doing them a favor by not bothering them), but it was really cool to see him in person. Seems like such a nice guy.
• Escorting Felicia Day into our demo – While she may not be the nicest Imperial Agent (Really, you just HAD to kill that guy, didn’t you, Felicia?), she is so friendly to all of her fans, which is always something you hope to see with a lovely girl like Felicia.
• Personally running a demo for Ken Levine (of Irrational Games) – Ken dropped by Thursday morning before the show opened to try out the game, and we were more than happy to accomodate him. Unfortunately, the EA booth had been struggling with some Internet issues on Wednesday night/Thurs morning, so I warned him it may not be the best experience. I did love his response, though: “You never need to apologize to another game developer. Ever.” Anyway, I set up a character, run the proper commands to get him all set, and let him go through the demo. I turn away for a second, and turn back, and his character is completely naked. Something weird happened with our reset commands, and the character respawned with no clothes, no weapons, nothing. Ken Levine is running through a demo completely nude, and can’t even use 75% of his skills since he has no weapons. I asked if he wanted me to reset the character again to fix it, and he was happy wandering around as-is. What an awesome guy. It was so exciting to meet him, and he even got me an appointment later that day to see the Bioshock Infinite demo. Speaking of which…
• Bioshock Infinite – I don’t get much time to explore during shows, but there was one thing I would’ve loved to have seen, and thanks to running into Ken, I was able to see their presentation. It was a live gameplay demo, and I still can’t believe the things I saw in there. Do you remember that 10-minute gameplay demo that got released a while back? Did it feel more like a pre-made trailer to you? Guess what: That’s literally how the game plays. The entire time I was watching, I could not believe this was live gameplay. It felt like one big cinematic cutscene that I was a part of. Your character comments on things as he walks by them, he converses with Elizabeth as they wander Columbia. The demo climaxes in this ridiculous battle along the skyrails, leaping from one to another in an attempt to reach a zeppelin and take it out. Oh my god. I still can’t process it. That game needs to come out ASAP.
• Battlefield 3 – Thursday morning before the floor opened, a bunch of us snuck over to our counterparts on the other side of the EA booth to try out some multiplayer. I had never actually played BF1 or BF2, but I got very addicted to BF:BC2 when it was released, and the recent trailers for BF3 are jawdropping. Let me tell you: The game looks just as good in person. I want every game ever made from here on out to be developed using their Frostbite engine. The guys at DICE do the most amazing work, and it shows when you get your hands on the game. So glad that we only have to wait until October for this.
• Meeting John Riccitiello – John (or JR as we call him) stopped by our area on Wednesday, and I was really excited to meet the EA CEO. He was an amazingly nice guy, and is a huge gamer, which are the main two things I’d ask for in a CEO. His kids came by and played our game as well, and loved it. I presume that’s a good sign.
• Hanging out with bodyguards – Apparently some child actors came by our booth at some point on Thursday? No idea who they were, but there were a lot of guards hanging around. Those guys were really cool, though. Loved chatting with them about their lives.
• Meeting Sessler – As my boss and I were hanging at the bar for our planned Meet & Greet, Adam Sessler came by, said hi to us, and stopped for a smoke. Immediately, he started chatting with both of us like we were old friends, even though neither of us had ever met him. He is a really great guy, and I’m so happy to have had the chance to speak with him. Morgan Webb was there too, but I think she was a little freaked out by the prospect of 200 Star Wars: The Old Republic fans coming to the bar shortly.
• The Meet & Greet Itself – This is the second event I’ve put together for BioWare, but probably the fourth or fifth I’ve actually been to for all the companies I’ve worked at. By far, this was the best one we’ve ever done. PAX East’s was great, but the structure of it led to controlled chaos, where we had too many people for too small of a space, and no one could hear anything, and it was too short, etc. This time around, we decided we wanted to do something much more casual. We put up a tab for our guests, and just let people wander and mingle. It worked brilliantly. People enjoyed themselves, everyone got to meet each other, and the BioWare doctors (Ray & Greg) surprised even me by showing up to hang out with our fans. We have the best fans in the world, without question.

That’s all my sleep-deprived brain can remember at the moment. I’m having trouble uploading pics to the blog right now, I’ll try and post some when I have a chance.

I’ve always wanted to build my own computer. Back when I was heading off to college, I declared I would build my own computer to bring with me. My parents talked me out of it, though, suggesting that it’d be better to have some guaranteed technical support since I’d actually need it to do work. Plus they helped pay for one, so that settled that.

Now that my home PC has died, and I’ve been working off a Macbook for the last two months, I’ve decided it’s finally time to realize that dream. Knowing nothing about how to build a PC, I was recently pointed to this guide, which I’ve read many times over the past week. “I can totally do this,” I cry. Before I jump into it, though, I’d like to run my proposed build by the hivemind of the Internet to see what feedback I can garner. Take a look (Click each for links to Newegg):

• Processor: Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz
• Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 LE
• Memory: 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600
• Video Card: Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 1GB
• Primary Hard Drive: Intel 320 Series 80GB SATA II SSD
• Data Hard Drive: Seagate Barracude 1TB 7200 RPM
• Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W
• Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX
• Total cost (after deals): $1228.69

Obviously there are a million ways to build a computer, and there’s always something better out there. My primary concern is: Will all of these things work together? For a new builder, it’s really confusing to try and figure out whether everything will plug into everything else properly. I’ve gotten my costs where I want them, and I’ve picked out the things that I want. If something won’t work, though, that’s what I need to know. Thoughts?

I’ve been playing with my own web space for a few months now. I made a post a while back explaining that I knew nothing about webhosting, so I finally decided to do something about it. Purchased some hosting, and now over the past year I’ve been using it to learn. I’ve got blogs, forums, games, etc. all set up on the site (most of them aren’t public, they’re just a sandbox for me to experiment with).

Whenever I used to ask how to learn programming, or how to learn animation, or how to learn anything, the answer was always “Just start doing it and you’ll learn.” This is probably the first time I’ve started a project with no more than some basic knowledge, and already I’ve learned tons and it’s paid off. I now know basic UNIX, I’ve learned how to edit in vi (I don’t want to hear a thing about emacs, okay?), I understand databases better than I did, and I finally know the difference between SSH and FTP. Hands-on experience is invaluable, and it only took me 10 years to accept the advice I’d been given.

So, welcome to my new (and hopefully permanent) corner of the web. I can’t promise I’ll be any more active than I ever have been, though being on my own server means I like playing with it more, so it’s entirely possible. Notice you can post comments via Facebook here? That’s because I like playing with plugins a lot. Want to try out my basic version of Legends of the Green Dragon? Go right ahead. Though, I’ve spent almost no time on it, so I promise you it won’t be any more exciting than the real thing.

I’ll do my best not to subject you to my bouncy tendencies too much, but if you enjoy it, feel free to stick around. Though, those of you who are here because you think I’ll be posting insightful things about my current project, sorry to disappoint. I won’t be insulted if you step away right now.

Q: Why should I bother with Palantir? I’ve been on Bullroarer and other Turbine Beta programs – I’ve filed bugs and offered feedback and nothing was done. Clearly no one listens – it’s just a huge waste of time.

A: This is one of those questions that is difficult to answer because we can’t tell you the ins and outs of how things are prioritized or addressed here. All we can tell you is this program works – we’ve seen it work – and while it may not seem like it on the outside, all decisions are made with the best intentions for the game in mind.

Not all bugs you report will be fixed before the patch goes to Live. Not all feedback that you offer will be acted upon or implemented. However, this does not mean any of it is ignored or considered a waste. We have a schedule, we have to prioritize. Sometimes we make the right decisions, sometimes we don’t. But we all have the same goal – to make LOTRO the superior experience it deserves to be.

I’m mostly posting this so I can refer back to it someday. But seriously? That is an excellent response. No messing around, just address the concern straight on without any sugarcoating.

PAX East! My very first pure video game convention was a great success. Not only did I avoid contracting any form of plague, but I also got to meet up with a ton of awesome Internet friends who I’ve known for a while. I spent a great deal of time with my good friend who runs Bioware Quest, which I highly recommend you check out and support. I also got to meet up one night with the Community Managers from the industry, including folks from SOE, Turbine, Perfect World, CCP, and Red 5. I even got to meet the Massively team, whom I love ever so much. But enough about the social stuff, let’s talk about the games.

I can honestly say that I did not play one bad game the whole convention. Was that because I avoided games I thought wouldn’t be good? Not intentionally, at least. And I was pleasantly surprised with everything I played. Let’s break it down:

APB: This game is GTA IV: MMO Edition. What that means is that if you enjoyed GTA IV (as I did), you will love this MMO (as I do). Choose a side (Enforcers or Criminals), and start doing missions to raise your rep with that faction. Then, while you’re doing missions, the other side will be alerted as to your attempts to complete it, and will be offered the chance to take you down. Suddenly, you’re teamed up with a handful of folks on your side, and you’re stealing a car and piling into it in order to destroy the other team and prevent them from reaching their goals. There’s no “PvE vs. PvP” argument in this game. If you’re playing, you’re aware that the other side is out to get you. Though I don’t understand the restrictions, I did notice that you couldn’t always attack the opposing team while wandering the city. Maybe you have to catch them doing something wrong? Not clear yet. The vehicles handle a little strangely, but the overarching concept of the game is awesome. I can’t wait to play beta.

Splinter Cell: Conviction: I loved the demo on my 360, and they were showing off the co-op mode. It was difficult to play, mostly because it was hard to hear my partner in the loud expo hall, but the gameplay seemed solid. I was so impressed with the home demo that I’ll still give it a shot.

Crackdown 2: I wasn’t going to wait in line for this, but I glanced over the shoulders of some people playing it. Multiplayer in the Crackdown universe? Sounds like fun.

Monday Night Combat: Watched my friends play this. At first glance, it’s a TF2 clone. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a tower defense game, it’s a game with loads of strategy, and a game that requires you to actually strategize with your team. The classes, while very similar to TF2, are distinct enough that it’s fun. Plus, as you collect money in a match, you level up your character and his skills, making him better. Player progression = more engaging.

Prince of Persia: Again, I didn’t get to play this, but I watched for a bit. Looks like they went back to their roots a bit (in the Sands of Time direction). Lots of parkour going on, lots of fighting. One awesome thing? The Prince is swinging around a pole (like he does). Behind him, a waterfall. He flips off the pole and through the waterfall to land on the other side. Now he goes back to the pole, and before leaping this time, he freezes time. Leaps off the pole, rebounds OFF THE WATERFALL and onto a higher pole above him. Whoa.

Slam Bolt Scrappers: Think Tetris plus Tower Defense plus fighting game. This game was part of the Indie Showcase, and I wanted to go back multiple times to play it again. It’s a 2v2 game, where you attack monsters flying in the air who then drop tetris block. You drop those blocks on your tower to match up colors in order to build weapons, which then attack your opponent’s tower. First to destroy a specific gold block on the other team’s tower wins. It was chaos of the utmost fun. I will definitely buy this game.

Red Dead Redemption: First, I am ashamed to admit that I waited two hours in line to play this. It’s not like I was even that excited to play it. I was just hanging with my friends and before I knew it, we had waited two hours for it. The game is GTA IV in the Wild West. It’s even got the same UI, same controls, etc. This is not a bad thing, however, because without the development time necessary to create an engine, Rockstar’s been able to focus on the fun parts of the game. Lasso yourself a horse! Tie up a random dude and put him on the back of your horse! Kill a coyote and skin him! Rob a stagecoach! The gameplay is easy to master if you’ve played GTA for an extended period of time, and I think there’s definitely a need for a good Western game in the market right now. I really hope they release a demo.

Finally, I’d like to report on my total haul for the weekend. Bear in mind the cost of this trip for me was about $300 total. ($45 for a 3-day pass, plus $200 for plane tickets, plus somewhere between $50-$100 for food).

• $100 gift certificate to Jinx, courtesy of Tritton Technologies
• Free copy of LOTRO Collector’s Edition ($30 value)
• Free copy of Unreal Tournament 3, courtesy of Intel ($30 value)
• Free signed hat from the folks at Rooster Teeth ($20 value)
• Networking with other industry folks (Priceless)

I think I made out pretty well. That’s over half the value of my trip in swag.

And that’s that. Next convention? Don’t know. Hopefully this new job sends me to all of them, in which case I guess the next one would be E3? That’d be amazing.

Oh, and PS. Major Nelson is actually pretty short in real life. Wasn’t expecting that.

Battlestar Galactica – I’ve got 4 episodes left of the entire series. Can’t wait to finish it.

Dexter – Started watching Season 3. Why is this show SO GOOD?!

Psych – Season 4 wrapped up this week. I’m an episode behind, but excited to finish it. What a fun show!

Lost – Don’t get me started talking about this show, or I’ll never stop. Ask me when it’s all over if it was worth it (Hint: It was).

Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks – This game is frustrating beyond belief, but I’ve got to finish it, because hey, it’s a Zelda game. But damn do I have an unfair hatred for trains now.

Elite Beat Agents – Old DS game that I can’t ever put down. The song selection is great, and I just seriously enjoy restarting and playing it through over and over again.

Things I will be playing next week:

Blur Multiplayer – Got me a beta code, can’t wait to try it.

Unnamed Beta – Rest assured, this game is one of the best MMO’s I’ve ever played. I want to talk about it so badly.

Bioshock 2 – Yet again, I got part of the plot spoiled for me, but now I need to keep playing through to learn the rest.

World of Warcraft – The two week break from the game has been nice for me, but I’m excited to get back in and continue gearing up. I think I’m geared up enough to start running some ICC, which should be really cool.

The post seems to have edited out some of my favorite parts of it from last night, but there’s still plenty to enjoy:

“Dave Allen didn’t “depart”. I fired him back in February for insurbordination and for acting against the best interests of the company, the LLC investors (who I represent), the game and the team.”

“The average gamer is as finnicky as a hummingbird on acid”

“My community sticks with my games because I’ve always stayed focused on the people who actually buy and play my games. Those are the people who I have catered to. QOL is going to focus on the community that buys and plays Alganon. If you don’t like Alganon the game for what it is and not what you want it to be, fine, don’t play it, don’t come here, go and play something else. No hard feelings.”

Derek’s posting style is totally a nightmare for any Marketing/PR person at Quest Online, and especially tough for any Community people they have over there. For now, the community seems like they’re frolicking around hand-in-hand with Derek and are happy as can be that he’s taken over, the honeymoon is not going to last long. He tends to intentionally infuriate people who are being rude, and guess what? Those people make up a good percentage of your community.

Even though right now the community likes seeing someone with a strong fist come crashing into their party to shed some light on the situation (that was going to be a metaphor but sort of died a quarter of the way into the sentence), my guess is that soon he’ll start rubbing them the wrong way, and we’ll see a bit of friction between the players and the development team. Or, more specifically, Derek Smart.