Well, Dan and I have joined an allegiance on Leafcull called Fallen Kingdoms. They seem like a really great and supportive group and we’re happy to be a part of it.

We’ll have more postings as soon as we can pry ourselves from Asherons Call 2 for longer than it takes to eat and sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving from Desiree and I to everyone who celebrates it. Enjoy the holiday weekend (here in the US)!

The build notes for the first AC2 event (scheduled for 9 December) have been posted at the Microsoft Games Insider site.

While many people will scratch their heads and say “why weren’t these fixes in the release version?”, I’m just glad they’re on the way. Two fixes/enhancements, in combination, now make it worthwhile to be in a fellowship and/or play a support character: the option to enable group looting (still free-for-all, but it’s better than nothing) and monster loot customized for the character that first opens the corpse, not the character that did the most damage in combat. A good game is about to become great!

So Dan, should we move to Seattle? Then we won’t have to feel bad about leaving the Bat Cave.

So, because some of the zealots in Nigeria couldn’t handle her Miss World news article, and because they took it upon themselves to start attacking Christians, the author needs to be held accountable?

Give me a break! Control yourselves and your country. Place the blame where it really needs to be placed. Quit trying to find a fall guy (or gal, in this case) because you can’t handle yourselves.

And damn them all for putting that stupid Courtney Hole song in my head!

While I’m having a lot of fun with AC2, it’s always interesting to hear what other teams are doing in terms of design with other MMORPGs. Yesterday’s dev chat with the Star Wars Galaxies team reveals some interesting tidbits.

On the plus side, I really like some of the ideas that they say they will be implementing, most notably the ability to set target attribute values and let the game manage your buildup to those levels, the concept of “insuring items” to protect them in the event of your death, the inclusion of a mission system (with bounty hunter missions!), a per-player PK flag, and of course player-owned structures (including houses and stores).

On the minus side, I fail to see how it’s an advantage to have a mission system that involves missions in public areas where you can be griefed; I’m not sure what they were smoking when they came up with that one.

The hydrogen in 50 cups of water, when used to fuel a fusion reaction, could provide as much energy as 4,000 pounds of coal with a minor amount of radioactive byproducts and virtually no other pollution. As Europe and Japan eye similar projects, the US Department of Energy has issued a preliminary report outlining a vision for a working fusion reactor within 35 years.

This is one of those rare projects that’s worth paying taxes for.

Thanks to Real Life, I won’t be able to play Animal Crossing without looking over my shoulder.

Microsoft researchers have authored a paper saying that it is “pointless” to fight peer-to-peer networking. They were specifically referring to music swapping, but the key factors in their conclusion - the decentralization of peer-to-peer networks (and subsequent lack of a single entity to pursue through litigation), rising adoption of broadband Internet connectivity at home, the proliferation of CD and DVD burners, and the ubiquity of instant messaging - make this warning almost equally applicable to any form of digital content. Since this would, by definition, include Microsoft’s entire portfolio of software, it’s probably safe to assume that this isn’t the company’s official position.

That this technological ‘arms race’ between copyright holders and copyright violators is unwinnable is not news; still, the long-term implications don’t have to be as bleak as long as so-called “old media” solves an old problem - quality content at affordable prices.
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…then just remember: at least you haven’t been fired for accidentally inviting a company executive to your “porn party”. (Yet.)