Of all the games I've worked on, this was probably the trailer I've been most involved in and I have to say it looks awesome. For once the fans seem united in agreement on its kick-assedness!

Playing D&D is just like the mafia - just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. Now I'm painfully aware of the problems besieging pen & paper gaming - due in no small part to the success of online videogames. There's plenty of times I'm slaving over a character sheet or a particularly involved combat scenario and I mutter, "This is exactly what a computer is for." But so far there's nothing as creative or as fun as a well-run table-top campaign with a good group of players. MMOs and games like Neverwinter Nights give you some of the group dynamics, but none of the role-playing flexibility. Perhaps open-ended MUD-like platforms a la Second Life are the answer.

In any case, this is why I'm always a sucker for a D&D campaign and why've I've joined a co-worker's bi-weekly Eberron group. We've only played one session, but being the Wiki maven that I am I've already been spending many hours on a campaign site on Wetpaint. I really think Wikis give groups a great tool for building the collaborative fiction that can really breathe life into a game-world. I'd love to see a group of creative people take this to the next level and create some wiki version of Thieves World or Living Greyhawk. Anyways, take a gander. 

Link to The Eberron Northwest Campaign

The writer Matt Barton reveals himself to be an old-school CRPG grognard, but colorful statements like the one below make for entertaining reading. A nice stroll down memory lane for those of us who gamed and/or worked our way thru this period.

"Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, published by Ubisoft, is perhaps the most disappointing game in CRPG history. It's one of those games whose sheer wretchedness is hard to describe to the uninitiated, who assume the critic has some grudge or personal motivation for launching a stream of flaming vitriol."

[Link]

For many years now, I've told people that I was part of the concept team that drafted the original Xbox proposal. But I have often sensed that this statement is met with disbelief. People probably think, "Well if that's true, then why aren't you the VP of Xbox?" or "Why didn't you become as famous as Seamus Blackley or Kevin Bachus?" (who are often called the Fathers of the Xbox).

Well firstly, to all the non-believers, check out this little internal MS e-mail that Dean Takahashi posted on the Mercury Blogs site. Yep, that's lil ol me on the "TO" line. That was a heady time. I'd basically gone 7 years at MS without meeting with BillG, to suddenly meeting with him 3 times in rapid succession when the Xbox ball started rolling. And yes this was high-stakes Boardroom Intrigue with two project teams going head to head, winner take all. In the end, we won, they lost - yay us!

As to the answer to those questions I posed at the beginning of this post:

1. Green Card - Most of you have never been thru the immigration or naturalization process in the US, so let me just tell you it's no damn fun at all, even for Canadians. When you're going thru this process, you're expected to sit tight career-wise. The reasoning is that you deserve to get one because no one else in the US can do your job. Doesn't help if you keep changing jobs. Shortly after the Xbox was green-light'd, they wisely relocated the project outside the Windows team and I could not follow. Instead, I got to work on Windows Me (talk about adding insult to injury... actually more like disemboweling agony to injury but I digress). I'll admit the project had taken on a life of its own, it was pretty hot - left to my own devices, I'm sure I would have followed it.
2. Personal Passion - A year or two later I had my green card and an opportunity to join the project. However I'd had an opportunity to reflect. As much as I understood the strategic need for the Xbox (hey, Playstation was eating our lunch at the time) it wasn't where my passion lay. I'd spent 9 years at MS doing Platforms marketing and evangelism and I was tired of working on the "roads", I wanted to work on the "cars" - or put another way "screw the console, I want to work on the games." Also, as much as I love my Zelda and Halo, in my heart I'm a PC Gamer. I can't complain - some of the best things in my life have come thru playing MMOs including great new friends, a couple of jobs and most importantly my wife.

So is it bittersweet that I didn't get to follow the Xbox team? A little, since I'm always curious as to "what might have been" - and I really felt like a prisoner of the system at the time. But I love where I am these days, working on MMO's at an ambitious studio with a multi-million selling franchise - the future's looking pretty bright.

Imagine your first day on the job you find out PC Gamer is coming in next week for a cover feature on not one, but TWO new products. Thank god I wasn't a PR n00b, but even so - talk about having to get up to speed fast. Kristen Salvatore was a pleasure to work with - a total pro and a passionate Guild Wars player.

It hasn't been easy sitting on this story, and lord knows there's been the odd leak or two (ahem!) but in the end it's been all worth it. The PC Gamer issue is gorgeous, 14-pages of juicy GW goodness. Kristen does a good job pimping the games and the issue on this pod-cast.

And this is just the beginning: I just met with our PR lead for Europe and the amount of Guild Wars press coming in that region is staggering.

Overall I've been terribly impressed by the folks at ArenaNet and NCsoft and I'm having a blast. Hard to believe I'm not even 2 months into the new gig! Stay tuned for more!

Going thru the ol digital camera so some of this stuff is out of order chronologically. Here's a shot Sara took during the Jan 15th Midnight event at GameStop for WoW: Burning Crusade. As you can tell by everyone's attire - it was actually pretty effin cold.

Sixteen hours later we were jetting off to Antigua (photos to come) - what a difference a day makes!

Yes, it's true! After a year and a half wandering in the wilderness, I've decided to come in from the cold. Starting Monday I'll be the new Director of Marketing for ArenaNet, the developer of Guild Wars.

The decision to return to work, and in what capacity was something that I agonized over for months previously. One of the reasons I left my last job was that I felt that I had so much more to bring to the product planning & development process. As one friend put it, I wanted "a seat at the table" where the big decisions were being made.

At first I thought that this meant becoming a producer. But early on I spoke with some people who told me that as a strong marketing person who "gets it" and "actually plays games" - I had a unique value that I could bring to any organization that would be a shame to lose. The dilemma then was how do I fulfill my personal needs, while leveraging the experience that I'd already gained.

Well when Jeff Strain from ArenaNet called me a few weeks ago, I was afraid all they were looking for was a marketing "lackey" to coordinate for the publisher. Nothing could be further from the truth. I basically told Jeff what kind of job I was looking for - and I didn't pull any punches. I explained how I thought marketing should be involved in the studio and product strategy - integrated from the ground up. To my surprise, instead of scaring them away - it made them more excited!

I can't reveal all that I learned - but suffice it to say that this is a scrappy studio looking to do great things and they have ambitions that match my own. The fact that they're based in Bellevue WA is just the icing on the cake! So the next phase in my life begins now, after a 1.5 year sabbatical that I'll not soon forget. Yes I learned a lot in that time - some of which I'll blog about in the next few days - but excuse me while I get ready for my new job!

Came across this interesting article in Next Generation by David Cole, analyst for DFC Intelligence. In it there was a break-down of the true financial impact of the estimated 5 million Chinese players in WoW.

"We know, from the game's Chinese operator the9, that Warcraft has 5 million Chinese players...However, these Chinese users are not subscribers in the Western sense of the word: they do not pay a recurring monthly fee. In fact, they generate about 0.36 Yuan per hour of gameplay; that's about 4 cents an hour. Of course, Chinese users log a lot of hours. In the second quarter of 2006, World of Warcraft generated $32 million. While this is a substantial sum in the Chinese MMOG world, 5 million Western subscribers would have generated more than $200 million over the same time period. Thus, Chinese players generate about 15% as much revenue as their Western neighbors."

Cole also weighs in on the often asked question, "Is WoW evolutionary or revolutionary?" (Cole opts for the former). As to the question as to whether there's a competitor looming on the horizon, Cole posits that "Developing an online game with the quality of WoW is probably within the reach of several companies, assuming they have around $25 to $50 million to invest in creating a well-designed fun game."

Having some insight into the production costs of MMO's, I'd hazard to say that if you're developing this game in North America, you're probably looking at the high-end of that range. The reality is that there are no heir apparents for WoW's crown - although several pretenders to the throne.

Source: "Next Generation - Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft? - Mozilla Firefox"

Yes, the government is utterly corrupt, but we have great food - Let's Eat!

- Kerry Schwartz on Italy

1. Our greatest personal freedom, is the ability to control our response - Shit happens, lots of things are completely out of control, but what is NOT out of control is how you choose to respond and react to something. Or put another way, reality is 20% what happens, and 80% how you react to it. This is a very powerful freedom, but too often we surrender it by blindly reacting or allowing other people to push our buttons.
   
2. Maturity - Maturity is the balance between Courage and Consideration. If a person can express his feelings and convictions with courage balanced with consideration for the feelings and convictions of another person, he is mature, particularly if the issue is very important to both parties. Too often, I think we get a lot of courage, and not enough consideration.
   
3. Seek first to understand, then to be understood - Would you trust a doctor who didn't perform a thorough examination of your problem before he diagnosed? Neither would I. Likewise, when dealing with people, especially on tough issues, it's always worth the investment of time to truly understand their issues, before suggesting a solution, a response or a course of action. Too often we jump to conclusions, based on our pre-conceived notions of the person or their issues. Most misunderstandings I've seen in the guild could easily be solved if we stopped and took a moment to really understand the issue before responding.
   
4. Ethos, Pathos & Logos - This is Greek for Character, Relationships and Logic. As much as we may believe people respond to Logic, the reality is that your message will most likely first be evaluated based on the perception of your character, your relationship, and finally the logic of your argument. When making your case, its important to keep this in mind.
   
5. Synergy - The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognize his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings. This is the true power of the guild. Nurture it, Direct it and Harvest it and we will always be great.

Chris Lye was minding his own business as a monarch in the popular medieval fantasy game Asheron's Call when one of his minions approached him in the virtual town square to say hello.

"I didn't think much of it at the time," says Lye, a swordsman who'd worked his way up in the game.

That changed the next time Lye, 37, met up with her. She was trapped in the Dungeon of Shadow.

"Just as in real life, Sara has a terrible sense of direction, so she managed to get lost right at the bottom and she was asking for someone to lead her out. I said, 'Yep. I'll come down and help,' " says Lye, who started playing the game in 1999. "That's when we started talking for real, like real people."

In-game chat soon led to on-the-phone chat, then a cross-country flight to meet each other. Soon they were dating long-distance between Seattle and Philadelphia. It wasn't too long after Lye's dramatic, damsel-in-distress rescue that they were married.