Made it into the Darkspore Beta. But when will I jump in?

Earlier this week I managed to wedge myself into the Darkspore Beta thanks to the folks at GameShadow! I was very excited to have a chance another Beta and was looking forward to that first moment, when the screen loads for the very first time on a new canvas of virtual pleasure and a new beginning awaits you. So after some fiddling with my EA account, a few downloads and updates to their client, I was ready to jump on board.

Then I read a short sentence: "Beta servers are closed" What? Ah, okay. They open up the servers only at specific times. Better check the forums to learn when. Only fortunately I didn't have any time this week-end to do just that. With a fully loaded social calendar, and the MiniCKs to entertain and train, very little time was left to gaming.

Let's hope this week provides me with the oppornutity to do so. In the mean time, I'll have these promotional videos to drool over. Man, I can't wait!









Looks fun no? Are you in the BETA?

Games for Windows Issue 07

Just finished reading the latest issue of Games for Windows (June 2007) and I must say, I'm still very much impressed with the quality of the content, the articles, artwork and reviews.

The four articles that I enjoyed in this month's issue (well actually next month's, since we're not even in June yet...) were "GFW Live", "Inside Blizzard: World of Warcraft" and the Spore and Mythos preview.

As a current XBOX Live Gold subscriber, I'm looking forward to GFW Live and seeing the various community possibilities it'll offer. Cross-platform gaming will bring in a whole new aspect to bragging rights and plain fun.

And even though I don't play WoW, I was still very much interested in the story behind it's phenomenal success. I'd be first in line to buy a book on the subject. Something along the lines of "Dungeons & Dreamers: From Geek to Chic", a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

As for the two preview, I can't wait to start building organisms and see them evolve in Spore - it's just to bad EA delayed the game until 2008. And I've signed-up for the next Mythos' Beta testing phase. This last one looks like a lot of fun, with some heavy flashbacks to my days of Diablo 2 and carpel tunnel syndrome episodes (thank god for Myoflex).

Gaming: more on Game Design, Will Wright and Spore

Funny how things come and go, and come back again. A few posts ago I wrote about a year-old GDC presentation on a new game concept from Will Wright called Spore. Then a few days after my post, a bunch of new and interesting articles come out on this very subject, including one from the man himself in Wired magazine and another over at GameSpy. Call it blogger intuition.

The article in Wired, is a look at the possible future of gaming, when players will be asked to take a greater role in the building of the game and it's content. Greater freedom will be given to players to utilize their creativity " to help build, design, and populate our digital worlds."

In his article he also explains how games are a completely different way of learning which may not be evident to older generations. He call it the generational difference. The current status in today's media is mostly negative, and it has a lot to do with this difference, this gap. Wright puts it plainly when he writes,

Society, however, notices only the negative. Most people on the far side of the generational divide - elders - look at games and see a list of ills (they're violent, addictive, childish, worthless). Some of these labels may be deserved. But the positive aspects of gaming - creativity, community, self-esteem, problem-solving - are somehow less visible to nongamers.

Which reminds me of an article from the Economist I posted about last year about research on this generational gap.

Now back to game design, research and Spore. At this year's GDC in San Jose, Wright had a presentation on doing good research before building a game and how that will impact the game design. Read all about it over at GameSpy.

Here's an additional 25min video of some Spore game play, from last year's GDC.(It's nothing new though and if you've seen the full presentation, then you've already seen it)



Last not but least, here are a list of other recent articles you'll definitely enjoy:

• GDC 06: Will Wright and Spore (IGN)
• Will Wright explains the origins of "Spore" (ZDNet)
• GDC 06: His Spore-ness addresses adoring throng (Gamespot)
• Wikipedia: Spore (computer game)
  

This should keep you busy reading up on it until the game comes out, or close to it!

Gaming: Will Wright and Spore - The future of gaming content?

Now I know this is over a year old, but I think it's still a great presentation with some great ideas as to where content will be coming from. As games become more complex, creating content becomes a very expensive proposition, which small developer studio have great difficulty putting out. This is an idea, a great one at that, and it shows that we may not have seen the end of innovation in gaming.


After viewing the presentation, head over to GameSpy, Wired, and IGN for some additional information.