ash::the blog

right on, brother

2009-07-01T12:57:00.002-04:00

id Software

2009-06-24T14:14:00.000-04:00

The first line of the news item says it all:
Doom, Fallout, Oblivion, Wolfenstein, Carmack, Howard... all in one company.

Good stuff.

Kotaku - id Software Bought By Bethesda Parent Company, ZeniMax - Id

A Fool in Morrowind

2009-06-23T21:21:00.002-04:00

Alec Meer's blogs posts on Rock, Paper, Shotgun about playing Morrowind is a great example of a top game design rule that I believe: the most important story in any game is the one the player is telling themselves (or tells others the next day) as they play. You can write the most brilliant backstory that rivals anything Shakespeare or Hemingway -- but if your minute to minute gameplay isn't entertaining to the player, it doesn't matter.

Of course, what people find entertaining varies - everybody has different tastes. I get the impression that Alec is not a big Oblivion fan, but he definitely loves Morrowind. Morrowind will always have a special place for me - it was my first project. Without Morrowind, we would never have become the studio that we are now - Oblivion, Fallout 3 -- neither would've happened.

Good times. And a great read.

This is pretty funny, and sad, but really funny.

2009-06-18T20:29:00.003-04:00

Beatles: Rock Band

2009-06-18T15:43:00.002-04:00

Looking forward to this. The intro is one of the best pieces of animation I've ever seen.

Natal

2009-06-18T08:49:00.005-04:00

I got to see it at E3. Actually, I had to wait because Miyamoto-san showed up and we got bumped to the next appointment, so he could see it. I was like, but don't you realize who I am? I worked on Bloodmoon, damn it! Werewolves? Hello?

Anyway, we saw the same demo they showed on Jimmy Fallon. I got to try out Burnout Paradise - it immediately scanned my body and I was able to play immediately. Really cool. I got to meet Peter Molyneux and see his demo -- really nice guy and the demo was cool, as well.

Natal was very impressive overall. When I saw Burnout Paradise come up, I admit I did scream like a 12 year old girl, as it is one of my favorite games. I asked Microsoft why they are wasting this technology on games. They should be doing Ender's Game style remote robot controlled Skynet magic with it.

I have no idea when developers can get dev kits but man, sign me up. Me want it now.

NOTE: I have no idea what is up with the red jumpsuits. I was in jeans and a tshirt and it works fine for me.

I heart Monkey Island

2009-06-12T10:21:00.000-04:00

Fantastic read. Ron Gilbert, creator of Monkey Island, plays it, writes interesting stuff. I am a HUGE Monkey Island fan.

Grumpy Gamer Stuff and Things and Monkey Island

Please don't say E3 is back...

2009-06-09T22:13:00.002-04:00

E3 was great this year. The crowds were reasonable - you could sanely walk down the halls from booth to booth and see everything; kiosks were readily available for anyone to walk up and play. I thought to myself, I could do this every year. I would even fly myself out here for a long weekend - my wife could shop in Beverly Hills while I checked out games.

But...

Everybody is saying E3 is awesome. That means, next year, EVERYBODY is going to go and the incredibly HUGE sea of humanity will be back and the show will become the bloated, crowded, suffocating mess once more.

Wet and Rogue on Jimmy Fallon

2009-06-06T22:29:00.001-04:00

If you stare hard enough during Eliza Dushku's section, you can kinda see the top of my head in the distance.

Home

2009-06-06T18:55:00.003-04:00

Back home from LA. Had a terrific show at E3 this year. Good times.

Now back to unpacking the new house.Thinking of getting a rechargable electric lawn mower. The yard is big, but not that big, and I found a cordless electric lawn mower that Consumer Reports rates highly. No gas fumes, loud mower noises, or needing to keep a tank of gas. Plus I have a deep love of things that are wireless, quiet and require charging.

Megen is working today and tomorrow morning. After work tomorrow, we're going to head out to the Leesburg outlets and do some shopping for the house. We have lots of Crate and Barrel gift cards burning a hole in Megen's purse.

E3

2009-06-04T09:54:00.002-04:00

I'm at E3 this year, showing off our latest DLC, Point Lookout. It gets so loud and hectic in our booth, I lose track of what I'm saying half the time so who knows what ends up getting written in the previews.

The irony is that everyone back home knows more about what is going on at E3 than we do. All the announcements and previews and trailers are on the intrawebs, and I'm just in our booth most of the time while we're here. I'm going to get there a bit early today and walk around a bit.

I think Uncharted 2 looks awesome, really looking forward to it. Someone told me the visual difference between Madden and NCAA is pretty dramatic - though NCAA is usually a year behind so it should look just as good next year.

I actually enjoy it when developers from other companies come by our booth. I like talking with them and getting their impressions on what they've seen, what they are showing.

Saw Mickey Rourke and Eliza Dushku at our booth. Very cool.

Moved

2009-05-31T21:46:00.002-04:00

Whew. I'm exhausted. The weather was perfect this weekend - sunny and gorgeous. Movers were terrific. We're all moved in. Lots of unpacking to do. I love the new house. We had so much room now, and the neighborhood is great. We took a nice walk after dinner tonight.

Tasty all organic pizza

2009-05-23T08:49:00.004-04:00

Out in Ashburn, VA last night shopping for a couch, we got hungry. Megen read about an interesting pizza place -- American Flatbread. It is way out in the 'burbs; 'burbs so new our gps got lost trying to find streets that were no longer there, new roads and intersections paved over them.

The brick oven was impressive. The pizza delicious. I love the crunchy chewy crusts from brick oven pizzas and this did not disappoint.

We ordered one of the specials of the day - B.T.S Flatbread. It had baby spinach, mozzarella, specialty bacon, and cherry tomatoes. One was enough to feed both of us. The menu said their ingredients are freshly made, organic and locally grown. For dessert, we wanted to try the strawberry pie, but they were out. We plan on going back to try it because its supposed to be awesome.

Comcast

2009-05-22T12:46:00.002-04:00

I stopped by the Comcast office the other morning to ask about transferring service to the new house. They told me, sorry but you have to return your cable cards (currently installed in the TIVO HD) and your cable modem for us to stop service. Then schedule someone to come out and reinstall new cable cards and a new cable modem.

But why can't I just keep what I have?

Sorry but you have to return it and set up an appointment to get new ones.

I left very confused and annoyed.

So then I went to comcast.com, and filled out the moving service online form. It popped up a chat window where I basically IM'd with a customer service rep who informed me to keep my stuff, take it to the new house, and someone would come out and turn service on. I even managed to book them to come on Sunday, before I head out to LA for E3, so that I can get cable and internet set up before I go.

Hopefully they actually show up on Sunday and are able to get everything up and going again.

Great Fallout 3 vid

2009-05-18T11:28:00.000-04:00

Journey Rules

2009-05-15T21:10:00.003-04:00

On Notice

2009-05-13T14:21:00.003-04:00

8. Rain. It's been raining a lot. I'm tired of it. Stop.
7. Mornings. I hate getting up in the morning.
6. How I Met Your Mother. Just stop freakin teasing me and tell me who the Mom is already! I don't even care how you met her anymore, just who is she???
5. Washington Redskins. For their shoddy treatment of Jason Campbell and for Dan Snyder's lame attempts at running a pro football team like it was his ESPN fantasy football team.
4. Mortgage brokers. Seriously. What are they good for.
3. Swine Flu. I'm getting sick today. I blame the swine flu.
2. Dry Roasted edamame from costco. Like chewing dirt.
1. Car salesman. Totally worthless meatbags. I just want to know when the new 2010 Prius is coming so I can test drive one. How hard is it to tell me that? No, I do not want to buy a different car. If I wanted to buy a different car, why would I be asking about the new Prius?

Star Trek Fans

2009-05-13T13:41:00.001-04:00

Obama's speech

2009-05-10T10:04:00.000-04:00

Star Trek 11

2009-05-10T09:39:00.004-04:00

Wow. Best Star Trek movie since Wrath of Khan. I hope they make more. (I *know* they will -- we didn't see any Klingons, because I bet they're saving them for the next one)

Go see this. Now. Don't see Wolverine, Transformers or GI Joe. Just see Star Trek as many times as you can.

I'm a huge trekkie and loved all the nods and winks throughout. Megen, who doesn't know anything about Star Trek, also enjoyed the movie too. (Megen often confused Star Trek with Star Wars).

Day Off

2009-05-08T12:41:00.002-04:00

After a fun week at work, I took the day off today to clean up the house for potential renters to check out this weekend. I am by no means -- not even a little bit -- much of a handyman or landscaper, so fingers crossed that I don't hose anything.

As for the new house, we have movers lined up, weekends set aside to pack the house, and a closing date locked up. The contract is all settled (with almost all our closing costs being credited to us by the sellers - sweet). The home inspection was great; termite inspection had no issues and we get a 1 year warranty.

Just waiting on the appraisal. Evidently, they are "backed up." We know the appraiser checked out the house on Monday. We are eagerly waiting for his report to be "entered into the system," whatever that means.

For any future house hunters -- we used www.sawbuckrealty.com to look for houses. The site is run by someone I know who has helped me with mortgage stuff in the past. It is a fantastic site that runs through google maps and lets you save/store searches, plus will email you updates. The cost savings through them were pretty substantial - the rebate on closing and settlement costs is pretty good -- competitive to going through a credit union like Navy Federal. Our agent is Cindy Holland, who has been great plus also using the sawbuck agent saves you some dough. I'm not a big fan of real estate agents - prefer to look for the house myself, which is why I liked having my own website to search. But Cindy has been patient with us and helped us look at lots and lots of houses. You still need the agent to get into the house:)

I just want to be moved and done with. I hate, hate, hate moving. The new house is so awesome, I just want to be living there now. NOW.

Fallout 3: Broken Steel

2009-05-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

Should be live by now. Easily one of our most ambitious DLC, to date. We changed the game substantially so that it doesn't end now, added tons of new perks, and raised the level cap to 30, plus great new quests to play.

Good stuff.

If you were waiting for play PDLC, this is one you want. You should grab Anchorage and Pitt, while you are at it to take advantage of the extra XP and level cap. hehe.

House

2009-05-04T18:33:00.002-04:00

Appraisal on the new house was today. Once that's done, we just need the final approval on the mortgage. Our mortgage guy sometimes takes a bit of prodding to get things moving along so hopefully everything is going forward that needs to on the mortgage end.

We started shopping for a new couch for our new family room. Our current couch -- which happens to be Katie's old couch -- will get a new slip cover and is going in the living room/lounge. We're not big fans of a formal living room -- so we're going to make it more of a lounge/bar/library of sorts. Someplace for people to relax and hang out when we entertain.

Got some quotes from movers over the weekend, so that's moving along, too.

We also have several folks interested in renting the townhouse. We'll be showing it to people on Saturday. I also found out the Wash Post ad I placed is actually for this coming weekend, not last weekend -- d'oh.

Great cover of Hey Ya.

2009-05-03T09:27:00.002-04:00

Scrubs is at its best when they have music.

When Rory Gilmore and Matt Saracen Meet

2009-05-01T14:42:00.001-04:00

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to this movie because I liked their TV shows so much.