I haven’t been publishing on the blog in the past two months. It’s part intentional, part schedule. So for major updates:

    Shavaun and I plan to submit our manuscript by the end of this month, September.
    On Nov. 7th I’ll be presenting a talk as part of a daylong lecture: Pathological Computer Use and Internet Addiction: Description and Treatment, hosted by Portland State University and put together by Dr. Jerald Block, MD.
    I have decided not to apply for Fall 2009 entry into PhD programs. Many factors go into this. I want to extend my earnest gratitude - encouragement and commentary from people whose work I respect, no matter how small or brief, kept me going.

Those being out of the way, this last weekend I spent two days at PAX!

This was my first PAX. I originally went to meet longtime e-buddies and local gamer friends, though managed to randomly run into a couple of old highschool friends, games industry friends and even Morgan Romine (Rhoulette) of the girl-gamer team The Frag Dolls, who I’d interviewed a few months back for the book.

Being a hardcore Fallout 1 and 2 fan, it was fairly amazing to see the Fallout 3 display on the expo floor. From what I saw of their demos, there’s a lot that revisits old flavors, a FPS feel to the gameplay and a much more commercial orientation than the games published by Interplay. Though huge games like Oblivion have been released by the new publisher, the Fallout IP captured an almost fanatic fanbase in the late ’90s through Fallout 1, 2 and Fallout Tactics; this is despite having gameplay features considered, even by some of its creators, as “bad, flawed, terrible game design.”

I would describe its charm as off-color, cooky. Which fits me, anyway. ;)

An MMO based on the universe, which has been on the menu for Bethesda Softworks since they acquired the IP, would largely depend on these older, nostalgic gamers in order to carve out a base market. In a sense, I think that Fallout 3 is a proving ground for that type of a project on, to a lesser extent, technical levels and, to a much larger extent, spiritual levels. If they pull it off, a Fallout MMO could be a serious wildcard contender in the battle royale to be the major next-gen MMO.

There were a number of other games being previewed, which was interesting. Wrath of the Lich King seemed to provide more of the same; Blizzard’s strategy of changing little is likely a large contributor to their ongoing success.

Bioware did a world premiere of the Dragon Age toolset. Having played with the Neverwinter Nights toolset, numerous 3-D graphics programs and a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, this program was so impressive. Though the game itself looks to be another chess move forward in their efforts to provide a delicious 3-D RPG experience (from Kotor, to Jade Empire, to Mass Effect and so forth), this back-end toolset to Dragon Age will likely have unprecedented consequences.

I also know that I was incredulous on this blog, after Bioware was absorbed and then city-stated by EA. I said something about having a dream of “wanting to work there,” at least until that acquisition.

That was an idiotic thing to say. After watching the passion and creativity of the developers presenting this toolset, I’ve decided that I would be so lucky to work with people so humorous, thoughtful and sincere.

As a gamer, maybe it’s easy to get disillusioned. It’s easy to think that this culture of misfits, rebels, intellectuals, the reserved, the shy, the forward-thinking, the creative, the secretly nerdy, all of the people who love games, is being taken advantage of. Acquired, as it were, by the same forces that seek to profit in any industry. That the artists weaving experience should be able to find their way around corporate leeches, the professional moneymen that demand the gameplay of guaranteed revenue stream. But then, at the same time, many of these creative minds might simply be learning to build income so as to make the games that matter. Maybe the gamers have always had a stranglehold on the market, what’s made, in how they buy. Maybe this “stifling of the industry” is just a cash cow, a side-along for the masses - so that the hardcore among us can prolong the transfusion of our lifeblood: the unended mystique of gaming innovation.

And now I’m having a good laugh at myself. Oh gamey philosophizing, will you ever get old??

Neils Clark :: Sep.02.2008 :: Games :: 3 Comments »