Excuse me while I get political….

First of all, my apologies to Rick, you can’t even escape politics here. The DNC ends tonight with Obama’s big speech. There’s a lot of buzz and a lot of assuming he’s already won. That is a HUGE mistake. Right now I don’t know a single democrat that’s got any serious worries about whether or not Obama will win. This confidence makes people push for their candidate less. This election is not in the bag, not even close.

Right now we’ve got McCain waiting in the wings to steal the thunder of the democratic convention. The odds are pretty good he’ll announce his VP tomorrow to help steal the momentum Obama is building this week. What I’m saying here is, don’t sit back and assume we’ve got this won, that’s a sure way to lose. We now return you to your regularly schedueled geekitude.

MMO Licensing Part 2: The Matrix

In part 1 I discussed what made Star Wars Galaxies fail and the hope that’s on the horizon for the Star Wars license. Today we’re going to discuss a game that should have been insanely easy to design. I mean come on, The Matrix is a movie about a virtual world, how hard can it be to base a virtual world on a movie about a virtual world? Apparently really goddamn hard.

The Matrix Online (MxO) was released in March of 2005, I started beta testing it in September of 2004. I was excited for this game, while the second two movies really spent too much time trying to drive home the Christ analogy, the first film was one of the most impressive and surprising films I’ve ever seen. It’s seldom that I walk out of a movie and go “Wow, I didn’t expect the movie to be like that.” in a good way. Now I had my misgivings, by 2004 I’d spent a lot of time beta testing and a lot of time being disappointed by the games I was playing.

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Dells 13″ Inspiron

Dell has finally released a 13″ laptop for people looking to spend less than $900. The starting price on the new 13″ Inspiron is $699. The real trick here is what you’re giving up over the 1330. For that $200 you drop down to a slower processor and you lose the built in webcam. Now both of those are available as options and they’ll run you around $100. You also give up some options. The Inspiron 13 doesn’t give you an LED backlight option, it doesn’t give you a video card upgrade option and it’s not quite as sexy (or svelt) as the 1330. But this little bundle of joy is targeted straight at students.

But really I don’t care about that. I care about how this little laptop fits into my netbook considerations. It falls $200 outside of my budget, but it’s 13″ and has a full blown dual core processor. It’s res is the same as my 2133 (really the 2133 is pretty amazing mostly for its res, that’s a lot of pixels on a tiny little screen). That 13″ screen is so very tempting. But the weight is double, that battery life is going to be considerably less (it ships with a 4 cell battery, most netbooks ship with a 3 cell, my 2133 actually has a 6 cell). So how does this really stack up?

Well weight isn’t as much of a concern as size. The Inspiron 13 is 3 inches wider and 2 inches deeper than the S10. The height is almost exactly the same at 1″. The real kicker though is the Inspiron is only 1.5″ narrower and 1″ shallower than my VX2S and it’s not even a pound lighter. I really keep looking hard for a 13″ that can match the netbook, even with a bit of a price premium. At $250 more than the S10 it’s a great choice for a student, but it’s no competitor for someone who’s looking for something to compete with a netbook. Curses, foiled again.

Writerly Cast Ep. 3

Alright, it’s that time of the month again, this is the Writerly cast. Before I get down to the show notes though I wanted to mention (to those of you just following the podcast feed) that I’ve started doing a lot of actual blogging on Maximum Geek. I’m trying to cover a range of topics like we do on the podcast, so put the full feed http://www.maximumgeek.org/feed/ into your RSS reader and check it out. Now down to the show notes. This was a pretty simple cast.

Part 1: Where Jeff and I ad-lib trust me, it gets interesting once we get the silly out

Part 2: Jeff and I discuss marketability and what it’s place is in the writing process (hint: Jeff is wrong)

Along the way we also talk a bit about motivation and why Jeff isn’t writing any fiction lately. Good stuff, take a listen and give us some feedback, we actually are interested in what our listeners think, honest. And I know you’re out there, we use up plenty of bandwidth each month. So come on down and tell us what you think. Also spay or neuter your pets (a mention in next weeks podcast to the first person who can explain that last line email me).

 

 Standard Podcast [58:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (521)

MMO Licensing Part 1: Star Wars

Existing properties have become big business in MMO’s. Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix just to name a few. The thought being these franchises come with an existing fan base to drive players, new and old, to the game. Sometimes this works, sometimes it fails. The real question is why. What makes a good MMO license and is it enough to carry a game? What does it take to make a licensed MMO successful? In part one of this article we’re going to look at the biggest license of them all, Star Wars.

Let’s start with one of the biggest hyped MMO’s in the history of MMO’s, Star Wars Galaxies. We all know Star Wars is one of the most popular properties ever. This one seems like a no brainer. I mean diverse races, cool technology, iconic characters, what’s not to like? Hell, they even had Sony behind them, at the time that was a big deal with Everquest still ruling the roost. Star Wars Galaxies was one of the first games I followed from day one. I mean I was on the forums and active from very early on, I was in the second group of beta testers, I wanted this game to succeed like you would not believe. I’m a huge Star Wars geek, I know more than anyone should about the movies and I’ve read a LOT of the expanded universe stuff. So what went wrong?

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Star Trek Online – You’re Doin’ It Right

Well, at least they’re doing some of it right. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to fans of Max Geek that I’m a big MMO fan. I follow the development of MMO’s sometimes years out. Star Trek Online is one of those games. I’ve been following the news emerging about STO and I’ve seen several promising things. Before I dive into the details, let’s dive into a little history.

The History of Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online shares several things in common with Lord of the Rings Online. For those of you who don’t know, Lord of the Rings Online was under development by a different company for several years, it was known as Middle Earth Online. Turbine bought the rights and started from scratch. The same thing happened with STO. Perpetual Entertainment recently went out of business, they had the rights to STO and were moving along with the development. When they went out of business Cryptic came in and bought the rights and started the game from scratch. The similarities don’t end there though.

Cryptic has ramped up development on Star Trek Online amazingly fast. The reason is Cryptic already has a game engine, the engine they built for Champions (a different engine from that used on City of Heroes). The same thing was true of Turbine. Two great licenses, mishandled then bought by companies with a solid MMO pedigree. I love LOTRO and I’m hoping the similarities bode well for STO.

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Warner’s New DC Direction

Warner Bros. Pictures talked with the Wall Street Journal about their new direction for DC Comic films. The main film they talked about was Superman. Their plan is to make darker films, this is a direct result of the success of The Dark Knight. This appears to be a completely new Superman similar to what they did with Batman Begins. The eventual goal seems to be to do something similar to what Marvel is doing. It seems they want to bring Superman more in line with Batman so the two can work together eventually. In other words they’ve learned the completely wrong lesson from Marvel and the success of Batman.

The first mistake they’re making is in misunderstanding the success of The Dark Knight. It’s a good movie, but I seriously doubt it would have been this successful if it wasn’t for Heath Ledgers death. Not to take anything away from the film makers, but the hype doesn’t get much better than a death, especially when you’re a sequel to a successful film. Again I’m not saying it’s not a good film, but without Heath Ledger and his death it wouldn’t have done as well. What Marvel gets that Warner doesn’t is that there is room for different kinds of films in the same shared world. The tone of Hulk and Iron Man were different, they were in fact very different films.

With Superman I can see going darker than Superman Returns, but not anywhere near Dark Knight territory, I’m very worried they’ll do a serious disservice to the character trying to mimic Dark Knight. Warner has not shown any real ability to handle it’s properties when it comes to film, the good stuff has really been a result of them getting out of the way. There are several titles in development from DC, we’ll see what happens but I’m not really holding my breath.

One Stargate to Rule Them All

There will be no sixth season of Stargate Atlantis. The powers that be at Sci-Fi have decided to cancel it. They have already green lit a 2 hour movie, so it looks like it will follow SG1 in that direction. This doesn’t mean Stargate is going away though. There’s been buzz about another Stargate series in the works since SG1 got cancelled, well that series is going to air on Sci-Fi starting next summer after a 2 hour pilot episode sometime this winter/spring. The new show is called Stargate Universe.

Now this doesn’t exactly surprise me, with the Stargate Worlds MMO coming out I knew something would be happening. I’m a little surprised that they canceled Atlantis, but I think they were worried about taking audience from Universe. The concept behind Universe follows a new Stargate team, one that finds themselves on an unmanned ancient ship called the Destiny. This one is said to be focused on space action and I’m sure we’ll see all new bad guys. Brad Wright and Robert Cooper and producing and writing the show, so we can expect a similar tone to SG1 and Atlantis.

In some ways this sounds a bit like season one of Atlantis, our band of explorers is trapped, unable to return to earth. Now I understand why they did that with Atlantis, if they made it too easy to travel back and forth you end up with all kinds of questions and an expectation to see SG1 around more often. Even with the gate bridge there’s still a time factor. I’m hoping they use this trapped dynamic better than they did on Atlantis and that it sticks around. That’d be excellent from a story stand point, but how does it play out from a marketing perspective?

With Stargate Worlds coming out they’ve got some golden opportunities for some great promotions. If you can interact with the characters from the currently running television show then you’ve got a great way to pull more players in.  On the other hand you’ve also got something very unwieldy. You start sharing a universe across both mediums and you start having to worry about continuity. Frankly there are enough continuity issues in Stargate as it is. By cancelling Atlantis and starting a more isolated series they get two things. First of all they get a chance to change up the status quo with Stargates television prescence. Secondly you actually get to have more interaction with characters from SG1 and Stargate Atlantis.

I’ll be sad to see Atlantis go, but there were at least a couple of regular cast members planning on leaving at the end of the season anyway, we may actually see them stay around for the occasional TV or straight to DVD movie. This also means I can finally buy Stargate Atlantis on DVD when they release the entire series box set.  I have faith in Wright and Cooper, so far they haven’t steered the franchise wrong in my eyes. Let’s hope they can keep up the run with Universe.

Netbook Wars

The netbook market has been booming lately, everyone wants in. Lenovo and Dell are just the latest entries. I’ve had my 2133 for a while now and while I love it, I’m starting to think its screen is a bit small. I love how sturdy it is, I love the speakers and I love the large high speed HD and I really am happy with it. The thing is I don’t need this to be quite as portable or have quite as much battery life as I originally thought. I don’t travel all that much and I don’t just take this thing with very often. With my daughters when I go someplace there is no time for computing. Around the house though I use it more than my big laptop.

So now I’m thinking two things. Number one, do I need a netbook or would a basic no frills notebook be better? Number two, do I want a netbook with a bigger screen (although lower res)? I mean I should have no problem selling my 2133 for $500 which should be more than enough to get me one of the newer netbooks or a no frills laptop.

First off let’s take a look at no frills notebooks. This is definitely a more pricey solution it pushes the $500 mark pretty far. I end up with a 15.4″ laptop, Celeron under the hood with about the same amount of memory, HD space and around the same amount of battery life (probably a little less on the notebook) as a netbook. So more power and a bigger screen. Those are definitely bonuses. But I lose a lot of the ease of use. I mean 15″ is the same size as what I have now, not very easy to just whip out and play with (that’s right, I like to whip out my 15 inch “laptop” and play with it). I mean doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? As much as I like the idea of faster and more powerful, I just don’t think I can go bigger than 12 inches for a laptop like this. 12″ laptops start at around $700 to $750, that puts it out of my price range.  So that leaves me with other netbooks.

As I said at the start of this article there are a lot of netbooks either on the market or coming to the market.  The ones that most interest me are the 2133 (which I already have) the Acer Aspire One and the upcoming Lenovo S10 and Dell Mini. One of the things I want is a bigger screen. Well the Aspire One and Mini have the same size screen as my 2133. On top of that the Mini has no function keys. Keyboard is important to me on this kind of laptop. The Aspire One is very similar in size to the 2133, however it doesn’t nearly the speakers or resolution as the 2133. Compound that with a smaller battery and there’s really no reason for me to consider the Aspire One. So now I’m down to the Lenovo S10.

The Lenovo S10 is slated to release in early October. It’s a 10.2 inch netbook, similar in size to both the Aspire One and the 2133.  The S10 is a little deeper to acomadate the larger screen, but that difference is less than an inch. Weight wise they all come in about the same. While S10 has a larger screen it’s only 1024 x 600, quite a drop 1280 x 800 on the mini-note. The S10 also has less memory (ships with 512 meg and maxes out at 1.5 gig, my 2133 has 2 gig) and a smaller slower drive (80 gig 5400 rpm compared to a 120 gig 7200 rpm in the 2133). The upside is the S10 has the Atom. The problem is the Atom digs into battery life and the Lenovo only has a 3 cell battery. There is a reason the 2133 model I have is more expensive than the newer netbooks. In fact the 2133 I have is about as expensive as netbooks get. So can I give those things up?

This is a very tough call. I mean I can easily put an extra gig of memory in the S10 which really gets rid of that complaint. I love the battery life on my 2133, but I’m seldom very far from an outlet for any length of time. I think I can live with that. I have about 80 gigs of stuff on my 2133 right now (all my music mostly), so I’m definitely going to feel the decreased HD space. Still the Atom processor will make up for some of that performance drop from the drive speed.

In the end I think the Lenovo is a pretty good trade off. If I wait a little longer I could go with the Linux version of the S10 (assuming it comes with the larger drive and not just the 4 gig SSD) then put XP pro on there. That would save me enough money to bump up my memory. I think in the end the Lenovo is a better device for me. What do you guys think? Also while you’re at it, is anyone actually reading these blog posts? I mean we’ve never really blogged on Max Geek, we’ve always just been about the podcast, I’m interested in some feedback. Not that I’ll stop blogging, but I like to know what people think.

I Hate Fox

I resisted the urge to cuss in the title of this post, I don’t think I’ll resist that urge in the rest of the post, you’ve been warned. You see, Fox is seeking an injunction against Warner to stop the release of Watchmen. According a recent ruling Fox MIGHT not have given away all their rights to Watchmen in 1991, they MAY still have distribution rights. Then Fox had this to say.

 Via Comicbook Resources “Of course we are concerned about the fans; however, any disappointment from the core fans should not be directed toward Fox. What we are doing is seeking to enforce our distribution rights to ‘Watchmen.’ Legal copyright ownership should not just be swept under the rug and ignored.”

This is stupid and childish. “Don’t blame us they did it.” Good PR there Fox. Fox seems to not understand how little the average person cares about their fucking distribution rights. Of course Fox doesn’t care about the average person, they care about the bottom line, which they always assume has nothing to do with the average person.

We’ll see how this plays out, I’m guessing we’ll at least see a delay in the release. Which is really shitty.