Daily News Spin — April 11, 2001 (Wednesday)

EverQuest comic book in the works

Stomped has an interview with Jim Lee, founder of Wildstorm and well-known artist behind e Uncanny X-Men and others, and Verant's Brad McQuaid, who will co-write the EverQuest comic. Here's Lee on plans for the comics:

Mainly prestige one-shots and possibly graphic novels. Stories which are complete unto themselves so that the average person who may not be a comic book fan but are into either EQ or fantasy can pick one up and enjoy it. The kinds of stories we get will dictate the format really but in the end, we want to explore and build off of the immense creative framework the people from Verant have already created.

An EverQuest comic is a great idea! It will give us something to read while we're playing EverQuest and just sitting around waiting for our characters to heal. As to what the comic will be about, here's McQuaid:

It's a story centered on Firiona Vie and her party as they re-discover the land of Kunark.

In case you're not an EQ player, Firiona Vie is that shapely blonde elf on the box with the big ears. You did notice her ears, didn't you?

Command & Conquer: Renegade now first-person game

PC Zone has previewed this game and the news is that Westwood has added a first-person option, which they expect players to use more than the third-person view.

Originally intended as a third-person action game, you can now play it in first-person as well! In fact, this is now the default view of choice. "The game was going to be third-person as we thought that this would be the best way to see your character in the environment. You can see him shooting, rolling, ducking, dodging, and you have a better idea of where you are in the environment.", explains Mike [Bell]. "We've discovered since that on a PC more people play from the first-person and like that style of game better, so we thought that it'd be great to keep the third-person style and add a first-person mode."

Zeus add-on announced

It's Poseidon, it's set in Atlantis, and it's going to be like this:

In Poseidon, players will build and rule the fabled cities of Atlantis, a kingdom of science and technology. They will mine the mysterious mineral "orichalc," establish colonies in ancient Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia, and trade with ancient civilizations. New industries, massive monuments, and characters unique to Atlantis expand the city-building experience presented in Zeus: Master of Olympus. Never-before seen gods, monsters, and heroes help tell the tale as players build Atlantis into a mighty kingdom. Players will also be able to create their own adventures in Greece or Atlantis with a powerful, yet easy-to-use Adventure Editor.

Tropico gold

PopTop and Take 2 and Gathering of Developers and some guy sitting at the corner table in Carl's Deli have announced that Tropico is gold. Break out those Cuban cigars!

Tribes 2, Kohan get the 60 Second treatment

Tom has dished out praise for one and complaints for the other. You'll have to read them to see which he likes, but here's a clue: Mark was going to play Tribes 2 with Tom, but he's still downloading patches.

Black & White to change the world, more news at 10

Salon's Wagner James Au is a bit taken with Black & White:

...Black & White is everything promised, and perhaps much more. It is a great game, and if it becomes the mass market hit it deserves to be, it should shatter the last arbitrary boundary between culture and technology. And if that happens, and its success carries over to its online versions, it might even change the world.

...With the creation of the first truly lifelike AI the gaming world has ever known, implemented into open-ended gameplay that accommodates a limitless range of emotionally and morally resonant paths, Black & White succeeds as a work of art as vital as our best films or interactive media installations -- and perhaps even surpasses them.

We were deeply moved by our creature shitting all over the village. We even had an epiphany. We quickly repaired to the couch and had a nap hoping the epiphany would pass, and it did. Whew!

Some readers disagree with Mr. Au. :

People unfamiliar with computer games who read Mr. Au's review of Black & White would think it must be a social and technological achievement on the level of the invention of the car or the Internet itself. They would be wrong.

And:

Put [Wagner James Au] into suspended animation with a pair of goggles and headphones to play his game, and the dude will be happy forever. Meanwhile, chess has lasted for hundreds of years playing "black and white."

Fat Babies are morons

Not only do these lamebrains reprint entire articles from other sources instead of excerpting them (they claim they consulted with their "lawyers" who said it's ok to lift entire articles as long they credit the source), they are just NOT FUNNY! The first rule of writing humor is that you need to actually be funny. The second rule is that if you're not funny, THEN DON'T EVEN FUCKING TRY!

Here's their latest pathetic attempt, a made-up interview with "Tar Tar Sinks" at Lucasarts after Lucasarts declined their request for an interview.

The project manager on the game put us in touch with Tom Sarris, the illustrious director of pubic (oops, that�s public) relations at the company. After several e-mails, we must have scared the high-powered little boy lovin� Sarris off, because we only heard from his "assistant" Tar Tar Sinks. So FatBango asked Tar Tar the questions.

FB--Was that the motivation for using the AOE II engine?

TTS--What yousa sayin'? Yousa set us up da bomb? Whosa put out crap? Wesa not put out crap, wesa in PR only shovel crap. Yousa want some crap? Oh, oh, mesa digress.

HA HA HA HA! They wrote "pubic" instead of "public"! Oh, that's really funny! And creating a fictional PR person based on Jar Jar is brilliant! Oscar Wilde, look out!

And we're not linking to them. On purpose! We consulted with our lawyers. They said that was ok.

Call of Cthulu announced

Fishtank has announced a new first-person game based on H.P. Lovecraft's tales of ancient evil and unspeakable horror, or is that unspeakable evil and ancient horror? We get them confused all the time. From the press release.

Set in the 1920s, private eye Jack Walters uncovers a dark secret nestled within the decaying fishing village of Innsmouth. Determined to uncover the truth, Jack descends into the macabre world of Cthulhu, the sleeping celestial being whose telepathic dreams inspire cults and ghastly deeds. Innsmouth is in the hands of The Order, a draconian organization stained with the blood of the innocent and steeped in unholy rituals. The player will take the role of one of four investigators who unearth the horror below this enigmatic New England town.

...To further involve the player in the narrative, "Call of Cthulhu" does not feature a permanent on-screen interface. To assess health, the player must look down at the character's body for injuries, and to check for ammo, players must open the revolver chamber to count the remaining rounds.

This lack of an interface sounds a bit gimmicky. The last time we played a game where we had to "check out" our in-game body, it was Trespasser. Actually, we didn't have to look, but those hovering breasts were a distraction.

P4 price cuts

If you can hold off on upgrading or buying a new PC for a couple of months, you will probably be rewarded. Intel announced new price cuts, some of them quite aggressive.

15th April, 2001
P4 1.5GHz from $631 to $519
P4 1.4GHz from $423 to $375

29th April, 2001
P4 1.7GHz from $701 to $361
P4 1.5GHz from $519 to $256
P4 1.4GHz from $375 to $193

Indrema dead

The Indrema is history, according to The Register. The staff will be laid off by the end of the week. The company making it was unable to secure funding.

Cuts have already taken place among the company's 50-odd staff, but the rest will be laid of this week, said Indrema president John Gildred, according to Video Business.

Indrema was founded in January 2000, and quickly unveiled its console, the L600, based on a 600MHz CPU with graphics driven by Nvidia's GeForce chip, as we reported at the time. The L600 was to have shipped this summer.

The only surprise here is that the company hung around this long. Trying to compete with Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft was a quixotic dream.

MPlayer front-end being switched to GameSpy

The front-end software for MPlayer, the company recently purchased by GameSpy, is being replaced with GameSpy Arcade, according to the MPlayer home page.

Sometime next week, the new GameSpy Arcade software, which is almost ready for your playing pleasure, will be completed and ready to roll. At that time, we'll move games and chats group-by-group from the current Mplayer game service into the new and improved GameSpy Arcade service.

GameSpy Arcade is pretty nifty. Back in our 56k days, MPlayer was sort of a pain because every time we connected we had to download patches. Still, we have fond memories of multiplayer Incubation games on MPlayer. We spotted this story at Stomped.

Theglobe.com cuts workforce

It's no shocker, but theglobe.com, parent company of Computer Games Magazine, Happy Puppy, and Games Domain Review has slashed its workforce to cut expenses. From the press release:

theglobe.com and a leading network of communities, today announced additional aggressive cost-reduction initiatives in recognition of significant declines in the Internet advertising sector and continued wide-spread economic uncertainty. These initiatives include eliminating 59 positions, or 31% of the Company's workforce, as well as reductions in discretionary spending and contracted services. There have been no reductions in the Company's nationwide sales force. These cost-reduction initiatives are expected to save theglobe.com over $8 million on an annualized basis and better position the Company to achieve profitability.

Like so many other Internet-centric companies, theglobe.com has been hit hard by the downturn in advertising revenue. At one time their stock traded at $38 a share. Now it's down to $0.19 a share.

We have no idea yet how these layoffs will affect Computer Games Magazine and the other game properties, though Games Domain Review already had undergone some staff and freelance trimming.

3am

It seems like only yesterday that the page wasn't updated. Our apologies. We'll keep the fires stoked today with as much news as we can fit onto the page, and since it scrolls, that's a lot. Expect the page to be updated several times today.

Geoff Keighley has a "Final Hours" look at Black & White. It's a long read, so refill that coffee cup.

Corp News has an interview with Bob Roland, former community director at Origin for Ultima Online.

It's not like EA woke up one morning and said, "let's fuck Origin." It's a big mistake with anything to assume that those who you disagree with are either stupid or malicious. Odds are, the other person had a damn good reason in their mind for doing what they did. I'm sure if you're an exec at EA you had a motive that made perfect sense to you at the time.

Just for fun, here's a link to a story about the first complete mapping of the sunken city of Alexandria.

Click here to read Monday's news