Articles
Believe
Belief is powerful. Belief can heal and it can destroy. I believe in a lot of things but until now I didn’t know what it was to believe in a person. I’ve never been about the individual when it comes to belief. Belief in one person is dangerous, I’m someone who believes in ideas. I’m still someone who believes in ideas. I believe in the ideas of Barrack Obama and believe in his ability to bring change to this country.
I’ve Seen the Future
Live Mesh proves that Microsoft gets it. It’s taken a long time for Microsoft to realize the importance of the cloud and cloud computing, but with Live Mesh we’ve seen a killer app that really gets it.
The concept of Live Mesh is pretty simple and not really new. Basically it’s a way to store your documents online. The real difference in Mesh is not just about online storage, it’s about syncing files. When you create a Live Mesh folder on the Live Mesh Desktop you can access it from anywhere. By that I mean any web browser, or any Windows, OSX or Windows Mobile device with the software installed. When you’re using the actual application it seamlessly keeps your local version of that folder in sync with the online version. Sounds simple and really it is.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
It’s official, there’s a new Star Wars MMO coming and it’s called Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s being developed by Bioware, the company behind Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR). KOTOR is one of the most popular Star Wars games of all time. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be set in a time period 3,500 years before the Star Wars films. It’s a time where Jedi and Sith are abundant and the Republic is at the peak of its power. In short it’s the perfect setting for a Star Wars MMO made by a company that really gets the Star Wars license.
We don’t have many details at this point, in fact the details are so few I almost didn’t post this. However there are a couple of things I wanted to talk about which are promising. First of all it sounds like this is going to be a role playing game first. There’s talk about an emphasis on the personal story, in fact it sounds like it will have a strong solo aspect, since they talked about companion characters which are customizable. It sounds to me like this may be a very non-traditional MMO. Other than that all we really know is the only in game footage they showed was a pre-alpha build. That means we’re probably looking at a couple of years before release.
I’m worried that letting this cat out of the bag so long before release could be a problem. A long wait like that often sets players up for disappointment. Also any details they do release are subject to change and over reaching is common in MMOs. Still it’s too early to worry about any of that really. Hopefully we’ll see some screenshots soon, it sounds like the game will have a striking visual style, concept art come to life was one of the terms used.
Anyway, I followed Star Wars Galaxies for 3 years, I’ll definitely be keeping up with SW:TOR.
It’s Not For You To Decide
Remember that Apple debacle with the software kill switch? The one that was hidden. The one that Apple claimed was to remove malicious software. Well Google just fessed up to having something similar in Android. Now even I cut Apple some slack because I could see it being used to remove malicious software. Google however is a little more vague about what they’re going to use it for. Here’s what Google said.
“Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement … in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion”
Wow, that sounds a lot more ominous. I mean this doesn’t sound like it’s about viruses. Frankly I don’t trust Googles agreements. Google is a big fan of quietly slipping in things that are consumer unfriendly in those agreements and while I haven’t read the agreement (not for lack of trying, all I could find was the SDK license agreement) it worries me. I’m sorry but the software I want to run on my device is my damn choice. This is one thing Microsoft gets right, they don’t forceably remove software, you don’t have to run the malicious software tool. I mean this is an open source OS, isn’t the point to be able to run whatever we want. I can understand Apple, but Google?
I should mention that Google has promised to attempt to recover your original purchase price from the developer. Actually that part worries me more than anything. I paid for software and they want to remove it? None of their damn business. If they want to check for viruses and social engineering scams great, give me the option to opt out of their interference. Frankly I don’t need their help and I don’t want it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Google has abandoned their original mission statement, do no evil. Now their goal seems to be to do no evil as long as it’s convenient and doesn’t limit our control over everything. Google is rapidly becoming the new evil empire. While Microsoft is trying (although not always very successfully) to correct their past mistakes, Google has embraced their power we all know power corrupts.
MMO Licensing Part 3: New Kids On The Block
No no no, not the band. I’m talking about the newest licensed MMO’s to hit the shelves. Namely Age of Conan (AoC) and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR). These two games have been highly anticipated. Age of Conan came out a couple of months ago and made a big, but short, splash. Warhammer just came out and has a lot of potential to make a lasting splash. › Continue reading
Spore DRM, Taking it Down a Notch
OK, EA isn’t stupid. They’re taking some steps to loosen up the DRM of Spore. The first thing they’re addressing is install limit, it’s being increased to 5. By itself that’s useless really, but that’s not all their doing. They’re taking steps to allow deauthorization without calling EA tech support. So that helps that issue and will make it acceptable to many people (probably not Jeff though 
). They other issue they’re taking care of is the number of accounts. Instead of the previous one per copy of the game they’re upping it to 5, one for each install. This should be more than enough for most families so I’d say that one is a win. Still, is this enough?
Well I think the changes are enough for those people in the general populous who weren’t buying the game, but it won’t be enough for the geeks who are already taking a stand against the game. They’re not going to change their minds for anything short of dropping the DRM. The thing is, it may already be too late to fix the good will they lost. › Continue reading
Google, Game On?
So, the latest rumor on the interwebtubes is that Google will be purchasing Valve. For those of you who don’t know, Valve is the game design company behind the Half Life series of games. Now Valve did mention recently that they would be interested in talking acquisition. Does this rumor make any sense? Is there any reason for Google to do it? What could this mean for Half Life? Did John McCain invent the Blackberry? Is Jimmy Hoffa buried in Larry Page’s backyard?
Does this rumor even make any sense? I mean what could Google want with a game company? Especially a 3D first person shooter (FPS) game company. Googles traditional roles in the industry have been about information and advertising. This would be the first time they got into a strictly for profit software venture. I mean advertising is for profit, but that’s not what I mean. This would be the first time Google would straight up charge for their product. Unless of course they go free, which with a license like Half Life, sorry, it just isn’t happening. I mean I can see a 2D webbased game company being bought by Google to release totally free ad supported games. But with an FPS game, there’s too much overhead for that. So why?
Spore, huh, what is it good for?
So it’s no big secret that Spore released on Sunday (a strange day for a video game release, it’s usually Tuesdays) to great controversy. I’m for the most part not going to address the DRM, it is more draconian than I initially thought and will certainly keep people from buying it, there are no small number of comments on the Amazon page for the game.
DRM
Jeff is writing an article about the DRM. Jeff and agree for the most part, the DRM is crappy. We don’t agree on what should have been done and while it’s a deal breaker for Jeff it’s not for me. However, to be fair, I should say that I wasn’t fully aware of the DRM limitations when I bought the game. I would have made the same decision either way. Anyway, I disagree with Jeff on what they should have done with Spore. I think the creature creator is all the demo they need and they just need to drop some of the more draconian issues in the DRM. The one benefit of the DRM is no disk required to play. You could actually play on up to 3 systems. But many people would rather play from the DVD than be limited on number of installs and have the game check in every time an update comes out. In the end it’s not much of a benefit, especially since beyond the 3 you have to call EA to install, that includes reinstalls. That particular piece of the DRM definitely needs to go. Despite all the outrage Spore is selling like mad. So let’s get to a proper review of the gameplay shall we?
Does Chrome Shine?
Okay, not the most original title for an article about Chrome, Google’s new browser, but it’s early and sometimes I’m allowed to be lame. Let me start by saying two of the browsers I’ll talk about in this article are beta browsers. Both IE 8 and Chrome are still in the works and some of my complaints will most likely be addressed before they are “officially” released.
I have IE 8, Flock (a derivative of Firefox) and Chrome installed on my computer. I’ve been running head to head comparisons of the 3 since I downloaded Chrome yesterday and for a week before that I was comparing IE 8 and Flock trying to decide which would be my primary browser. It’s no secret that I’ve not been a Firefox fan, other than a brief flirtation when Firefox 2 came out, I’ve been an IE 7 guy. There are several features I like and Firefox 3 has had a recurring memory leak problem which pops up every couple of updates. So, it’s going to take quite a browser to convince me to change my ways. First let me start with the competition.
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.
Word War
Search
RSS Feeds
Be Our Friend
Twitter: MaxGeek
- No takers on the M11X? I'd donate my MSI Wind, upgardes included... Yeah, it's a fantasy world I live in.
- If that's not enough maybe even a whole year. On time.
- Someone buy me an Alienware M11X so we can review it for MaxGeek. We promise if we get one we'll do a whole months worth of eps.
- Powered byWordPress Twitter Widget Pro