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Archive for May 19th, 2006

Kotaku Stalku: D.M.C. from Run-D.M.C. at E306

Bust out the Adidas kicks and Kangol caps. Xbox-centric Gamertag Radio interviewed legendary rapper Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels as he checked out Gears of War at E3. D.M.C.’s not really a gamer. He talks and talks about things like being an honorary Dominican for five years. Non-sequiters abound, D.M.C. talks a lot.

Listen Here [Gamertag Radio]

 
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Who’s Next? Nokia, I Guess

It’s no secret that the best thing about Nokia’s empty, desolate N-Gage booth at E3 was that perfect for cutting through the crowds. The company is gung-ho about their upcoming cell phone fighter One—Who’s Next? I didn’t check out their stuff at E3 that much (see booth cutting comment above), but the images floating around online are impressive. Nokia says the game clip is real time, but is it really real time or just real time? —Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Digital Legends] Thanks, Torokun!

 
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Unlimited Mario 1Ups The Video

Earlier this week, Crecente posted how to get 99 lives in New Super Mario Bros. For the visual learners out there, here’s a clip. Pretty cool, huh? —Brian Ashcraft

 
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Today in Joystiq: May 19, 2006

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Base PS3 to be Upgradeable

The PS3, despite expectations, is going to be upgradeable after all. Describing the PS3 as a “computer,” Phill Harrison recently specified that you can upgrade the 20 gig PS3 to your heart’s content. A separateadaptor that will be sold that allows gamers to use memory sticks, SD cards and compact flash cards with the machine. There will be another adaptor to allow wireless controllers and you can install a larger hard drive if you’d like. The only thing you don’t get with the 20 gig is the ability to upgrade to HDMI.

That slightly mitigates the problems with the $499 PS3. Still, it doesn’t make the $499 very attractive… all those upgrades will certainly cost you a hell of a lot more than an extra $100. And when you add in Blu-Ray, the console’s practically free!

…

Sorry, we slipped into Sony propaganda mode there for a second. - Florian Eckhardt

20GB PlayStation 3 will be upgradeable, says Sony [Game Industry]

 
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Immersion Offers Rumble to PS3

First of all, thanks to everyone who pointed out in response to my earlier post that the problems Sony has had with the rumble feature have been in regards to a patent dispute with Immersion. I actually did know about this, but I had assumed that David Yarnton, I dunno, was talking about the rumble device exploding out of the controller in a jagged storm of plastic shards and maiming small children.

But since we’re on the subject of Immersion’s lawsuit against Sony, looks like Immersion has offered rumble technology back to Sony. The only stipulation? Sony needs to drop to the 2004 lawsuit that granted Immersion tidy sum of $90M in damages for the violation of a similar rumble patent. And, of course, pay licensing fees.

“I don’t believe it’s a very difficult problem to solve, and Immersion has experts that would be happy to solve that problem for [Sony],” said Immersion president Victor Viegas. Gee, how generous. Nine times out of ten, patents are overly vague and used by companies to blackmail more successful competitors. I suspect Immersion’s case is a tad more clear cut than the norm, but even so… making a condition of licensing a technology that is good for gamers the forfeiture of Sony’s legal right to appeal is about as scummy as it gets in the world of corporate game politics. - Florian Eckhardt

Drop the appeal and we’ll help with PS3 rumble - Immersion president [Games Industry]

 
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Sponsors Thanks

After many salty dog days out at sea, it’s good to be back on dry land, matey. Nice to see the faces of our friendly sponsors as we dock in port. Thank ye Intellext, Evian, BBC America, Hershey’s, Mobizzo and Mini for shivering out timbers all week long. We’re worn, sunburned and sporting Crecente pirate beards, but ready to set sail for another week. Ahoy!

Interested in sailing on the good ship Kotaku? Click here for more info.

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Girls ‘n’ Games event: this news is so old

Filed under: Culture, Business

We can’t help feeling an overwhelming sense of déja vu at these comments, all of which came up at the Women’s Game Conference last year, and few of which were novel even then. While it’s useful for developers to be aware of the range of demographics that will eventually end up buying — or choosing not to buy — their games, do we really need to hear the same points again and again? Is the “women in games” movement a stuck record?

Some panels focus on getting women to play games; others focus on the games women play and examine how upcoming games can learn from them to appeal to a wider audience. Both are important to game development and the future of the industry, but we wonder how long these conferences and panels can feature the same people repeating the same points before the rest of the industry closes its ears in boredom.

[Image from Gamasutra article.]

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One Gamer’s Torment

A video in which a darling little boy gropes his bladder but finds himself powerless to tear himself away from a GBA display and go micturate. Yet his toddler’s grasp on social decorum prevents him from evacuating right there in his pants! His solution? Walk it off between levels. I’m sure most of us can relate, because this is what gamer hell is going to be like.

Thanks to Crecente for supplying us with this delightful home movie from his childhood! - Florian Eckhardt

 
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What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I hate to say it, but I’m gamed out. The E3 coverage last week has gotten me less excited by what’s coming than burned out by what’s coming. So I’m looking forward to just kicking back on the couch and reading exploitative 50’s detective novels for the weekend. You know the type: where a hardboiled misogynistic gumshoe pumps round after round of hard lead into the intestines of a commie, lights a cigarette, then makes out with a “broad.” Over the years, I’ve inherited a few hundred such novels from my father, and I feel obliged to consume at least a couple a year to carry on the literary bloodline. My sole gaming will probably be a few rounds of Guitar Hero and possibly some exploration in Resident Evil 4’s “Separate Ways” scenario.

Still, I imagine our readers are quite a deal more loyal to our hobby than I am at this current moment in time. So what will you be playing this weekend? New Super Mario Bros. is out and of course that looks great. Otherwise, E3 time tends to be slow for major releases: it’s a time for looking forward, which means gamers tend to spend their time looking back when it comes to what disc they plug into their console. So tell us in the comments what you’re playing and how you’re liking it! - Florian Eckhardt

 
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Sonic More than Embraces Defeat, But Whores It

Team Sonic releases conceptual artwork of former Mario rival Sonic flogging the Wiimote. Somewhat humiliating sure, but the rot set in long, long ago. A damn shame. —Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Siliconera]

 
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Major PS3 titles missing launch date

Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Business

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Lack of Dev Kits Ices PS3 Sopranos Game

Although THQ and Sega are currently being praised for their quick embracing of the Wii, you won’t see similar praise being leveled at them for their PS3 support. Not because the flesh isn’t willing: oh, it is! But Sony’s ability to provide PS3 dev kits? Exceedingly weak.

So weak, in fact, that Sega’s Simon Jeffrey claims that there will not be very many titles available at the PS3 launch. That’s okay — there won’t be many consoles either! But the dev kit shortage has also caused THQ to cancel The Sopranos for the PS3… at least for the time being. God knows the PS3 doesn’t need a title based on one of television’s hottest properties for launch.

It won’t be all bleak, though. EA and Activision have their dev kits, and it looks like there’ll be fifteen titles available at the PS3 launch. But it’s starting to get depressing reporting failure after failure in regards to Sony’s handling of the PS3 launch. - Florian Eckhardt

Game Creators Frustrated by Sony [Kikizo]

 
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PS3 TIPS RSS feed from 1UP

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Japanese sales charts, May 8-14: Baseball booms

Filed under: Sports, Business

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Resident Evil Legos

Japanese Lego site Brick Time has Resident Evil homage from a while back. The cool thing about the page isn’t just the game bricks. Oh no no, there’s a side story as well, which is kinda like the talking noise yours truly children make when playing with toys. And how can you beat Lego zombies? I mean, really, how? —Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Brick Time]

 
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E306 Video: Shigeru Miyamoto Interview

Joel and I got a chance to sit down with legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto to talk Wii turkey at E3. In the 30 minute interview we asked our questions directly to Miyamoto in english and he responded in Japanese, which was translated back to English for us.

Miyamoto talked about Nintendo’s decision to explore disruptive technology, the future of Wii, the PS3 and how Microsoft can succeed in Japan.

During the interview Miyamoto let a few bits of news drop as well, talking about how to use interconnectivity between the DS and the Wii. He said the technology to support this is already built into the console, but that they haven’t decided how to use it yet, but they’ve got a few ideas.

Some of the possibilities include using the touch screen and microphone input from the DS to effect Wii gameplay. Another possibility, he said, is to be able to download content from your Wii to your DS, edit it, and then upload it back to the console.

Miyamoto said they weren’t sure when this connectivity would be available, but that it would be at launch or very early on because of the tremendous success of the DS.

Miyamoto also mentioned is that Wii remotes will likely be able to be ‘attached’ to different members of your household–each person would have their own Wiimote. Nintendo’s hopes are that everyone in the family will own their own Wii remote, each with a distinct look, and that people can just hop into a game with the controller–and the Wii would customize the look or settings of a game based on which controller turned it on the console.

Finally, I asked Miyamoto about why Nintendo didn’t release a price and date for the system at their pre-E3 press conference. He said that Nintendo has historically focused on the hardware and software during E3, saving the details of price and date for a later time.

When pressed, Miyamoto said that the price and date will likely be announced before the Tokyo Game Show, since while Nintendo doesn’t historically show up at TGS, many third-party Wii game producers do. —Brian Crecente

 
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WoW Profile: This Year’s Leeroy Jenkins

By Wagner James Au

“The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness…” - Sun Tzu, Art of War

“OK listen the fuck up. You are going to DPS very, very slowly. Now… and by slowly I mean FUCKING slow. If you get aggro, it means you’re going to lose 50 DKP because you didn’t know what the fuck to do. And watch the FUCKING tail.” - Dives, Guild Leader of Wipe Club

Dives is this year’s Leeroy Jenkins. If you understand that sentence, you can skip past the next four. The most prominent form of player-created content to emerge from World of Warcraft is actually external to the game–the voice chat that guild players use, especially during high-level “raids” against WoW’s toughest monsters, which require dozens of players of different classes working together in tight coordination. The perfect counterpoint to the game’s fantasy action, Warcraft voice chat is the stream of collective geek consciousness that makes all the onscreen heroics possible. Last year, the reining king of that subculture within a subculture was Leeroy Jenkins, the cheerful ass who gets his entire guild killed during a raid. The video of that strategic bumfuckery was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, making the battle cry “Leeeeeroy!” more instantly recognizable by millions of WoW players than any bit of dialog Blizzard itself came up with for the game.

This year, the new emperor of WoW voice chat hails from the land of Dracula and Nicolae CeauÅŸescu, the dictator whose submachine gun execution against a stone wall finally overturned the country’s Stalinist regime. (Perhaps the most difficult wipe of a Cold War instance.) And though no video capture accompanies the recording, you won’t ever forget the voice of Dives, founder and leader of Wipe Club as he leads (or misleads) his guild in a raid against the dragon Onyxia, which, as things go very wrong, devolves into an earphone-shattering rant. It’s like playing WoW with the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket if Lee Ermey was a Romanian techno fan. (Audio helpfully Flash-animated by “Deluthor” here, audio-only backup here supplemental Dives freak-outs here and here. Explanations for Dives’ obscure references to “DPS”, “DKP”, and “DoTs” here, here, and here, respectively.)

Hearing Dives at the Onyxia raid, you wonder how a game could possibly be so important that this man would risk a coronary, to play it. You wonder if he logged off his computer and bludgeoned his guild members to death with his keyboard, afterward. If Internet guru Joi Ito is right that in the future, large organizations will be run like WoW guilds, you wonder if this is what corporations will sound like, when they go Enron.

Most of all, you wonder about the man behind the scream and the immortal cry, “Throw more DoTs more DoTs more DoTs!”

Among Dives’ favorite characters is a Tauren Warrior whose equipment of choice includes a Broodlord’s defender and Elementium reinforced bulwark. Their home the EU Boulderfist server, Dives’ Wipe Club has about 80 members, most of them from the UK, Sweden, and Finland, with a smattering from Israel and Poland. And though many assume the recordings were secretly made by a disgruntled guild member, Dives says they were actually created and distributed with his full approval by the guild’s former shaman class leader.

Now living in Espoo, Finland, Dives is 22, and served for a time in the Finnish military. (Dives’ family left Romania after Ceausescu’s fall, and lived throughout Scandinavia before settling there.) Currently a self-employed computer technician and salesman, he’s also been the boss of two companies with ten-fifteen employees.

And though it may seem strange, in Romania, he was an altar boy in the Orthodox Church. “Dives” is actually drawn from that background, since it’s Latin for “rich.”

“I choose ‘Dives’ because I am rich,” he explains. “Not in wealth but in spirit and mind. It’s a multi-dimensional name.”

A couple weeks ago, I sat down with Dives in an MSN Messenger chatroom for a conversation about his guild, his background, and his philosophy of leadership.

au@kotaku.com:
Is this a good time for a short interview?

Dives:
Just woke up and I’m in a slight hangover, so I guess so… I got pissed off at work so I downed half a liter or so of vodka.

On why he started Wipe Club

Dives:
I wanted a guild in which people enjoyed themselves. And while the recordings are not the best advertisement of that, people do enjoy themselves.

au@kotaku.com:
When you started did you guess they’d make you famous?

Dives:
No way in hell, they were mainly for amusement inside the guild.

au@kotaku.com:
When people hear them, most say, “I bet everyone quit his guild the next day.”

Dives:
Nah, the problem with people is they base their opinions on something they hear in a recording. Those recordings were made with the idea of showing people what you do not want to get into [during a raid].

au@kotaku.com:
So you weren’t worried people would think you were an asshole and not want to join your guild?

Dives:
Well if they think that, then too bad. But forming opinions on something that is edited from some raids is not smart.

au@kotaku.com:
But that’s the only thing people have to form their opinion from, right?

Dives:
But then again, if we made tapes about the normal stuff that goes on in our Teamspeak nobody would care.

au@kotaku.com:
You sound genuinely angry at your clan when things go bad. Were you?

Dives:
Yes I was, because the performance was a disgrace, especially Onyxia… We took Onyxia down on the fifth try when we should have done it on the first.

On why he now needs a guild “Publicity Officer”

Dives:
We have five types of officers– Event Officer or Raid leader, Rank/Conflict officer, DKP officer bank/Loot officer, Publicity/Communications Officer… I can have up to 100 people per day contacting me, it gets stressing. Besides, we are a high profile guild and now it seems not only on the server we play but worldwide.

au@kotaku.com:
Like running a real company.

Dives:
Yeah, I have run two.

au@kotaku.com:
Have you ever yelled at your employees like you did at Onyxia?

Dives:
A few times. Not quite as bad, though… Unlike in a game, people can’t quit or stuff like that. I always like to say that I’m hard, but I’m fair. So usually they did their job better.

On what provokes Dives to rant at work

Dives:
Mainly people lazying off. You give a person a two hour deadline to do something relatively simple and he messes it up, etc. I usually start it slow, and if it does not get through to him, I change the tactic.

On what he said, when one employee missed a deadline

I think it was something like, “I gave you two hours to do the order, it been three fucking hours and the order is still not done and the only fucking explanation is that you have been ‘busy’ with what?? Answering your fucking email?? You have 15 minutes to get that fucking order done or you get your money from welfare starting tomorrow. Now GET THE FUCK TO WORK!”

Something along those lines. I hate it when people don’t do as I friggen tell them.

au@kotaku.com:
So if being a boss is so stressful in real life, why would you want to put yourself through similar stress in WoW?

Dives:
I’m taking it much easier nowadays, and frankly, running a successful guild is a lot harder than running a company. You have to be a lot more political with people in a game than in real life… in a game people CAN just leave the guild, while in real life if you quit your job you starve to death.

au@kotaku.com:
So how come people don’t leave the guild after you yell at them?

Dives:
They don’t leave because they know I’m right.

au@kotaku.com:
But do you apologize after?

Dives:
I apologize if I was wrong. Like to Crushim in the Onyxia tape. Well, I did not apologize, since he did fuck it up. But I did not give him -50 DKP since he explained it to me.

au@kotaku.com:
Have you ever apologized for a decision?

Dives:
Yeah. Don’t remember what, though.

The point is when we raid it’s like the army. Your leader is never wrong, even if he is wrong, he is still not wrong. And if he says do something you do it.

Dives on his most controversial command decision at Onyxia

au@kotaku.com:
I don’t understand during that time in Onyxia where you asked Mogris and Lee and a bunch of others to run to the center, then when they do, tell them not to be close together. WTF?

Dives:
The point is since the Horde does not have Fear Ward, it is slightly more technical to get aggro in phase three. [Wipe Club was Horde-affiliated at the time - WJA] So if Onyxia was attacking that person I told him to run to the center. So if she flame breathed she did not wipe that side. The “whatever you do, do not stay close together” was to make sure people are spread out so that in case someone gets breathed [on] he does not wipe half the raid.

au@kotaku.com:
So it was a correct decision on your part.

Dives:
Yes.

On his English usage and the possible origins of his unclassifiable accent.

Dives:
I have spoken three languages since the age of seven, and I speak four at the moment. Romanian, English, Finnish. My Swedish is not too great but I do get along with it… also studied two years of French.

au@kotaku.com:
Where did you learn to swear in English? You swear like an American. When Europeans and Asians swear in English, they usually do it wrong, so it sounds strange, like they say, “Shit you, fucker of your mother”, stuff like that… So how’d you learn to swear in English so well?

Dives:
Well, I have used it almost daily for the last ten years or more. Also, I have some friends in the US… Must be all the movies.

Thing is I’m an educated person but I use the education sparingly.

On whether the violence of his background influences the way he plays WoW

I had a violent childhood but no, I’m not violent. Last time I was in a fight was probably some two years ago… I did live in a country that went through a revolution, and I moved into a racist country. (Much has changed since then [in Finland], the people are more open.)

au@kotaku.com:
Do you remember the fall of Ceausescu? You must have been 8 or 9, right?

Dives:
Younger, but yes, I do… I saw a guy running with one eye hanging on his cheek.

au@kotaku.com:
Holy shit. What happened to him?

Dives:
No idea. But he was running.

I remember the fight for the radio building. Probably still one of the most touching things I remember still. “We are being attacked, come help us! We are helping you! So help us!” Ceausescu’s troops were trying to retake the building and gunfire was being heard in the background.

au@kotaku.com:
When you play WoW do you think of stuff from your childhood, like listening on the radio while Ceausescu’s soldiers came for the freedom fighters? That’s sort of like listening to a Teamspeak channel.

Dives:
Hell no. You asked me about my childhood and I told you. Don’t usually spend my days pondering stuff like that…

People go all psychoanalyst on you nowadays. It’s like [if] I just had a crap: “How did that make you feel?” Hmm, well gee, quite nice.

On the future of Wipe Club… and the future of Dives

Dives:
Well basically the only reason I’m still playing is because I enjoy the company. So I’m gonna socialize with the people and make some guild movies, get some more raid progress.

au@kotaku.com:
What do you want to do in the future besides WoW?

Dives:
Hmm, wish I knew. I have done so many things that I’m not too inspired. I could write a book about that. Been high class, low class, rich, poor. Had more women than necessary… I have visited most countries in Europe, including having intercourse with girls from most countries in Europe. It was a project of mine at one point.

I’d probably like to find a nice girl, get married, and have a few kids.

au@kotaku.com:
I thought about interviewing you with Skype but I thought you’d start yelling at me.

Dives:
lol no.

au@kotaku.com:
“WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT YOU FUCKING CUNT! THAT’S A 50 DKP MINUS!”

Dives:
Yeah, I get that a lot.

By the way, please mention that I DO NOT come on anyone’s Teamspeak/Ventrillo server. I get too many people asking me that people want me to come to their servers and yell something at them. I did go once and give some people some attitude, which was fun. But I get huge amounts of requests.

au@kotaku.com:
You could charge people money.

Dives:
Well, I’ll make some T-shirts. “Dives yelled at me and all I got is this T-shirt”, and stuff like that.

au@kotaku.com:
Thanks again, Dives. You’re an interesting dude.

Dives:
That is what people tend to say. Never boring and never blending into the crowd.

In between occsional WoW dispatches, Wagner James Au still covers the emerging user-created world of Second Life at New World Notes. Send Warcraft news tips to “Hamletau” on the Eitrigg server, or e-mail him– au at kotaku dot com.

 
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Mobile MMOs in Carmack’s future?

Filed under: Portable, Wireless, MMO, Business

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Nokia’s One: Mobile Phones Now Have Decent Graphics

Thanks to Ruben to pointing us towards this video of the upcoming Nokia fighting game One The video claim that this is real-time rendering on a mobile phone, and the designers are also promising the ability to customize characters with accessories and texture mappings… possibly microcontent. We’re as excited as anyone else to see some great graphics finally come to mobile phones, but the issue with mobile games isn’t graphics: it’s absolutely terrible controls. Until a company can figure out how to get over that hump, we’d rather carry a DS Lite around for our portable gaming. - Florian Eckhardt

A Cell Phone Game Can Look Like This? [Silicon Era]

 
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