Clanless Fun

IncGamers interviewed lead producer Chris Sigaty about Starcraft II during the announcement weekend.

IncGamers: RTS games were the games that made Blizzard into a major gaming company, but now it’s been a while. Warcraft III was 2003. What took Blizzard so long to get back?

Sigaty: [Amused] Well, there was a little something that came along called World of Warcraft. We made the decision to make Starcraft II right after the ship of the Frozen Throne. But we couldn’t start in true earnest because of the impact of World of Warcraft. It was so huge, and so foreign to us at the time. RTS and action RPG games (like Diablo) were our bread-and-butter.

We made the decision to do it, and there were always a few people working on elements of it, but we couldn’t collectively attack it, because our artists would be pulled off to help work on this or that [for World of Warcraft].

IncGamers: There was a big gaming website that stated – definitively – that this big announcement would, in fact, be a Starcraft MMO…

Sigaty: [Laughing out loud] Yeah, I read that.

IncGamers: So why, at the last minute, did you switch things up and go with Starcraft II instead?

Sigaty: [Still laughing] Well, here’s the deal. Last Monday, we decided that because they said that, we wanted to screw them over and go with Starcraft II.

Read the interview here

Game developer Valve, known for games like Counter Strike (Source) and Half-Life (2), has published the results of a (continuous) survey they are doing through the Steam service.

Some interesting facts (based on results as of 10:32pm PST (06:32 GMT), June 05 2007):

• Processor Vendor
  • AMD 48.56%
  • Intel 51.44%

• Windows Version
  • Windows XP 92.88%
  • Windows Vista 5.04%

• DirectX10 Systems
  • Vista with DirectX10 GPU 1.25%

See the full survey results here

release notes:

• MFSA 2007-17 - XUL Popup Spoofing (low)
• MFSA 2007-16 - XSS using addEventListener (high)
• MFSA 2007-14 - Path Abuse in Cookies (low)
• MFSA 2007-13 - Persistent Autocomplete Denial of Service (low)
• MFSA 2007-12 - Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.12/1.8.1.4) (critical)

Download Firefox v2.0.0.4

Skype version 3.2.0.158 release notes:

• feature: Getting Started Wizard improvement
• bugfix: Installer error 1603
• bugfix: Sound setting not saved on Vista
• bugfix: Accessibility problems with screen readers resolved
• bugfix: Delay when playing notification sounds
• bugfix: Incoming call is not sent to Voicemail if user rejects it
• bugfix: On some rare cases conference call participants were muted
• bugfix: Skype crashes sometimes when ending a call
• bugfix: NTLM proxy authentication did not work
• bugfix API: App2App transfers did not work as expected
• Language files updated

Skype Website

A Q&A article by MSNBC asking Blizzards Rob Pardo (Vice President - Game design) about topics such as development processes, team motivation, courting casual players and expectations from StarCraft 2.

Q: How’d you manage to keep it secret for so long?

A: We keep games under code names and we teach developers to refer to games by their code name. And we’re just really careful about talking about the game internally. We don’t bring external folks through unannounced product areas. But I think even I’m surprised that we were able to keep it under wraps all the way to the end.

Q: The real-time strategy field is crowded right now with quality titles like “Supreme Commander,” “Company of Heroes,” and “Dawn of War.” How will “StarCraft 2” distinguish itself?

A: We’ve definitely never been shy to go into a crowded field, especially a genre that historically we’ve been one of the kings of. “StarCraft 2” will distinguish itself really well through online play. We’re building it to be the best competitive RTS on the market. RTSs, especially the ones you mentioned, are focused on single-player only.

We really are hoping to innovate more in the single-player [game] than we have in the past — we’re just not releasing details about it yet. But our story and our world and our IP [that] we developed in “StarCraft” is superior to what we’re going to be competing against.

Read the article here

“Valve’s goal with Half-Life 2: The Orange Box is to offer a great single-player title (Episode Two), a unique gameplay experience (Portal), and an awesome multiplayer game (Team Fortress 2). From our play date at Valve, it appears the legendary company will be able to deliver on all three aspects. While Episode Two is one sweet shooter and Portal is the next evolution in puzzle games, it’s Team Fortress 2 that proved the most impressive.

Team Fortress 2 is a fast-paced class-based online shooter. Valve’s challenge in reviving the long-dormant TF franchise was in creating a great experience no matter which of the nine classes a player chose. Along with making each class visually different, Valve managed to infuse each class with its own personality. Each requires a different type of strategy; but all nine classes are useful. And, more importantly, each is fun to play.”

See this article by IGN, the piece provides some insight on the classes used in Team Fortress 2.

“The demo gives you 3 tracks and 3 race types to try out.

Firstly there’s the point-to-point, against-the-clock action that’s a hallmark of the series. The demo pits you and your Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX against a testing Italian rally stage. This mode is also playable in multiplayer.

Secondly, test your nerve in off-road racing as you race against 9 fearsome AI drivers in a CORR class 1 buggy packing 650bhp.

Finally, take on the rally legend himself, Colin McRae, in a Subaru Impreza – the race is on a twisting tarmac crossover track in Germany.”

Downloads:

• mirror 1
• mirror 2

Scheduled for release: June 15th

ABC Island one of the most visited places in Second Life, has been obliterated.

“It looks like we’ve had some enormous cyber-bomb set off on our site. Somebody has nuked us in some way, shape or form, and they’ve obliterated almost every object on the site.“

I never understood this “game”, the hype the …. fuzz about some huge chat room.

Read more about it here.

Perhaps some of you may know it already, but it is good news: ->click<-

Another reason not to go for Vista yet

You need a new phone, mp3 player, video player, email client, navigator, etc.?
And you have too much money to spend?
Then check this out: new Nokia “phone” N95

Dutch website:
http://www.nseries.nl/

English website:
http://www.nseries.com/index.html#l=products,n95

Video review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX5eh7eLaVQ