Revisiting China four years later

I had the opportunity to visit China again after nearly four years of being away. While the visit was work related and not to the city I stayed in last time, it would still be a great opportunity to really understand if I ever wanted to return long-term. I would be visiting Shanghai for the game event, ChinaJoy, to write about it for my Events For Gamers website that covers all sorts of game industry events.

Upon arriving in the Pudong airport, I suddenly had this giddy feeling about me. I quietly whispering to no one in particular, “Yep, smells like China.” The smell wasn't bad of course, but just unique enough to recall it from my past trip. The next thing I noticed was that I had no immediate concerns or curiosities about the surroundings, having apparently lost that air of mystery when traveling abroad the first time. Even walking the city streets felt like a walk in the park back in Vegas. Been there, done that, romance over... at least for now.

If you are interested in how the event went, you can read about it at Events For Gamers.

After the event it was time once again to head across the Pacific back home. A year of being abroad, especially when it's your first time, not surprisingly gives you a great urgency to return to friends and family you hadn't seen in that time. Having to pay $1,700 for that return flight and quite vividly remembering the experience gave me the same exact sense of urgency to get back before trouble had a chance to set in, not to mention I seemed to be quickly coming down with the flu. It looked like I wasn't about to pay $1,700 for the flight home, but possibly just as much to stay overnight for another couple of days in some mysterious Chinese hospital, which consequently would demand I purchase a ticket anyway for the flight I missed.

Fortunately none of that happened, except for the additional night stay paid by the airline. We were on the tarmac waiting to take off when the captain came on and announced a "minor" delay (which ended up being three hours long) in taking off while the Chinese airlines got priority to fly out. It was a busier day at the airport than usual. Sensing the plane moving again we managed a few corners on the tarmac and then the engines suddenly shut off.

Damn... that close to taking off.

The captain came on again and announced a mechanical issue with the aircraft. It would be a few more minutes to get the tools to fix it. At this point in 90 degree heat inside of the aircraft and coming down fast with the flu, I began to doubt my decision of returning to the country. Several more minutes passed as everyone kept asking for water that was quickly being depleted. The captain once again came on and announced that we would have to taxi back to a gate because the tools had mysteriously gone missing.

Oh shit.

At this point we were simply glad to get off the broiling aircraft. To no one's surprise as I watch nearly everyone roll their eyes after the airline apologized for the additional delay, we waited in the airport for another hour as we started to form small groups to discuss which hotels were preferable for an emergency overnight stay that was inevitably going to occur. As if on queue, they announced a rebooking of the flight for the next morning and a hotel voucher for that night's stay. I sprinted full tilt down the hall toward the voucher counter to ensure I got that free hotel room, got in the room and collapsed for the night. I prayed for the flu to subside before the next flight. Did they check at the customs checkpoint for sick people? Was I going to show up on some sick-o meter and be banned from boarding the aircraft?

The next morning and not feeling any better, thoughts on the medical scanners were forefront in my thoughts as I pushed the luggage cart back to the same terminal and got my new ticket for another aircraft in supposed working order. Wheels touching down in Las Vegas 16 napping hours later and feeling quite a bit better, I ran to the nearest burger joint and ordered a double whopper with an extra slice of cheese.

I smiled and took a deep breath, whispering to the hamburger in my hands, “Yep, smells like America”.

What are the ways you interact with your community?

For the Rise of Immortals community team at Petroglyph, there are four primary methods we use to communicate with our community - 1) Website/Forums, 2) Game Interface, 3) Chat/Social Networks, 4) E-mail

The website/forums is number one in importance simply because it provides both short-term and long-term communication. You can post a news announcement valid for that specific period of time that anyone can reference repeatedly through a common link, or something that can be archived for review months later.

The game interface is next in importance because we can post news directly on the launcher, in-game ad sections, and send updated messages to those that are playing a game at that time. The downsize is all of these areas, particularly one-off messages in chat are time sensitive and mainly only apply to that moment. This is why I place it second in importance, as you can always regurgitate news via the website/forums.

Then there's all those social networks, excellent ways to spread the word about an announcement after it has been established in the game and main website/forums. Just as important are tools like Skype which we use constantly for those one-off messages and more personable discussion between community leaders. Skype is excellent for active group chat.

And last is e-mail, used sparingly every week or two for key announcements consolidated through newsletters. The best way to reach older community members that may have drifted off to another game. Use this to give them a friendly reminder at how awesome your game still is, especially after that last game update announced in the previous methods.

From previous discussion on LinkedIn.

A podcast for community managers

The game industry is relatively small, and the community manager field is even smaller still. A great deal of community managers know each other, usually by attending the same yearly events like E3, GDC, and PAX. We also have a forum and website where we discuss new ideas on how to best manage our respective communities.

A few weeks ago I realized there was one thing that we could do that would bring community managers together, and allow another avenue of discussion with the community, which was a podcast that talked about community managing. The first steps in kicking off a community manager podcast began earlier today.

Community managers are social people that love to share all they can about the game's their communities love. I particularly love running around the office during seasonal events like Halloween to take photos of decorated rooms and developers to show the community the crazy mindsets behind their games :).

Now we can get community managers from all over and outside the game industry to share what it's like to work in their fields. To share how they go about bringing features and events to their communities. I'm particularly excited in starting this podcast because it's a chance to meet other community managers.

We've setup the equipment, established a website landing page, and have a tentative schedule for the first set of shows. Now we just need a few guests and we're ready to roll!

Shuttle Endeavour gone forever from space station

I read a very interesting article earlier this week about the space shuttle Endeavor and its last flight to the space station, or anywhere else for that matter. With the space station near 100% completion and other more efficient vehicles being designed, the space shuttle is an outdated icon of humanities first attempts to reach for the stars.

It was a moving read to learn more about how about space endeavors, pun intended if I may, have really taken off in the past few decades. The last time I wrote about exploring space exploration, I pointed out the world's reservation of reaching for the stars. We're finally moving beyond some of that skepticism and really beginning to understand the importance of space exploration.

Resource Acquisition

It starts with economics. If there's any reason the average person would want to spend money to get into space, it is to invest in their, or their company's, future. Some may not realize it, but even just an average 1km asteroid has enough metals such as iron, gold, platinum, etc., to last decades at current rates of consumption. How many asteroids of this size or larger are just in the asteroid belt? Millions.

Scientific Discoveries

We've already gained benefits from exploring space. Everything from the comfort of our bed mattress, Kevlar, to our ability to know exactly where we are on the planet while in the middle of nowhere, are just a handful of technologies that began development in space. Telescopes inform us of impending solar storm activity that may effect sensitive electronic equipment on Earth, saving us from electrical grid week-long blackouts.

Breathing Room

This last reason to spread our wings into space is two-fold. On the one hand it is quite clear that we are overpopulating the planet. There are two main choices we can consider to resolve this dilemma. Either we limit reproductive capabilities, which is a morale, economic, and simply practice issue that will likely never be realized, or we live where we haven't before... in space.

On the other hand, we have all of our eggs in one basket right now. As anyone who carries around eggs knows, they can all easily break together if not compartmentalized and secured. Another analogy to this is the breeding of specific genetic crops for food consumption. By doing so we increase harvesting potential, but limit biodiversity that protects crops from disease.

For this very reason, it seems prudent to me to get into space as fast as we can before the next asteroid, plague, or civil war tears apart the planet below...

"Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds."
- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Windows 7 and PC gaming

Microsoft pushed the PC as a major gaming platform particularly hard when Vista was released. It has since largely failed in achieving this objective. Microsoft’s head of their Games for Windows Live division was laid off earlier this year, and just before that the ACES and Ensemble studios were shut down. These are just a few key indications of how Microsoft is taking its Games for Windows Live initiative.

How many games have you bought for Vista, specifically because of DX10? Windows 7 isn’t much different than Vista in terms of PC gaming support. DX11 may have a larger impact than DX10 in the long-run, but it will start off just as slow. PC gaming has been in a free-fall in terms of both marketing and support for the past several years. I don’t see Windows 7 solving any of the issues that plague it either, starting with piracy being the dominate concern.

While I feel that the way forward and future growth for PC gaming is clearly through Windows 7 and DX11, I don’t think it will have the impact that some believe it will. Compare Windows XP to Vista and then to Windows 7 in terms of specific gaming support. I’m not feeling the urge to go out and buy a DX11 video card tomorrow. In all likelihood, we’ll see the next generation of consoles succeed in bringing DX11 and Microsoft gaming support, just as Windows 7 passes to its successor.

An uncertain future for space exploration

We have become content in only exploring existence in our immediate bubble of reality, rightfully worried about the future of our families and careers. Has space travel become lost? I truly hope not, but the delays in returning to the moon, setting goals to reach mars, and establishing a general presence in space are all becoming ever distant realities. Why?

NASA has always had challenges getting the funding it needed. Part of the reason is simply the vast cost of exploring space, versus the immediate benefits realized. Another reason is the world's general apathy toward space exploration. The population is not educated enough in the potential of exploring space because the ideas are often quite complex to understand. I don't fully understand them myself.

Humans have always had a hard time seeing beyond their immediate surroundings, let alone in places like space that are well out of reach for most. We can only truly believe in things that actually happen to us, or that we understand from direct experience. This is because chance and other factors often create uncertainty in any outcome. Would exploring space truly help our civilization, and ourselves?

"The American people have no idea what's going on," said congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords, chairwoman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on space and aeronautics. "The average American does not know the shuttle will go away at the end of 2010."

Space travel has been reduced to a back-burner idea, a dream that lights the eyes of those that can afford to take part. To the rest of us, it simply remains a dream with many seeing it nothing more than an expensive experiment.

This is partly due to our societies saturation with fictional media that partly satisfy our interest in exploring the unknown. Telescopes and other tools to observe the universe have provided us a wealth of information about the universe, that we apparently need not visit it ourselves. After all, why should we go to the depths of the ocean, where we'd only find a few interesting species and more water?

Just one example of the benefits of space exploration is revealed through our moon's abundance of helium-3 on its surface. This element is a non-radioactive isotope of helium. It is rare on the Earth, but on the moon it is implanted in the upper meter of the lunar regolith by the solar wind. Mining would provide non-radioactive thermonuclear fusion power to an energy-starved Earth for thousands of years.

Wernher von Braun said once, shortly before his death:

"Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe.

When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of."

People often rely on corporate news sources to tell us what we need to know, what dangers are around the corner, and what Britney Spears was wearing on her honeymoon... all important things to survive in this chaotic world. The problem with this source is the way the information is portrayed. There are so many inconsistencies and political spins, that all anyone sees in the end is distortion.

Let's start building that bridge Wernher spoke about, because right now all of us stand on this single fragile rock floating in space. The vast majority of the universe is dangerous and our earth is more an exception than the rule. I'd prefer having a bridge to somewhere else in case this side goes the way of Venus, Mars, or more likely, via our own ends.

The end of the desktop PC

While sugar-laden milkshakes at McDonald's are convenient, I prefer mine sugar-free. I purchase the milk and shake-mix separately at Trader Joe's. If I run out of milk, I just go and buy more milk. I not only prefer it this way for my milkshakes, but also for my primary gaming system. Last month McDonald's introduced a sugar-free version. I no longer need to go to Trader Joe's.

We're seeing unprecedented technological growth in all areas, but none so much in the processing power of electronic devices we often take for granted. I used to buy a new CPU for my desktop PC on a yearly basis, until recently that is. We've already hit a plateau in processor frequency, as we have been hovering in the 3GHz range for the last few years now.

When was the last time you upgraded your co-processor (CPU), main memory, monitor, or other components of your desktop PC? When was the last time you even bought a desktop PC? Keep that period of time in mind, and then think back to the last time before that, and I almost guarantee the latter period was longer.

GPUs have had a similar effect, as we're seeing more units that combine power between many GPUs than faster single ones, though the GPU is still behind the overall curve. Input device needs were met over a decade ago, and sound over five years ago. GPUs are fast coming up on this curve with the "HD" revolution being one of the few things delaying it.

Game consoles have similar functions as a desktop PC, so they ultimately bend to the same curve. We can use them as a measure of what happens when upgrading a single component isn't feasible. I see a day in the near future where everyone buys their primary system much like they do a game console. And I may not complain about the lack of flexibility, because I simply may not need it.

This ability to upgrade one's desktop PC isn't disappearing overnight. What is changing today is the need for such a system in the first place. Why go through a costly upgrade when games run just as well on a $150 card from two years ago, as they do on a brand new multi-GPU $500 card from last month, which will be in notebooks the following year?

I like the feeling of mixing my own shake with the exact ingredients I want from a store I trust. However, I don't mind going elsewhere if the product is available pre-assembled and likely to satisfy my needs for years to come.

I used to spend well over a grand on computer hardware every year, just to keep pace with the need to run my games. I also upgraded for the fun of it because of new features introduced each generation. I'm either becoming old and not as interested as I used to be about upgrading at every product cycle, or there simply isn't the need.

I look at it another way. In 1994 I struggled to fit Windows 95, just the operating system, on my entire 512MB hard drive. I didn't have any room for anything else except one or two games. Mp3s didn't exist back then, so forget about a music archive, let alone movies. Space was at a premium for everything.

A few years later high speed internet arrives, hard drive storage space explodes, and suddenly there is more storage space available for all the music I could ever hope to listen to. Now we're seeing the same thing happen today for games and videos. I haven't bought another hard drive in over a year solely based on the need for more music space.

All software and media have a base level of hardware requirements to run that media at optimal performance. The most demanding ones being graphics based. Eventually we will develop GPUs capable of rendering photo-realistic images. Where will it evolve after that? Maybe we can finally concentrate on making quality games that take advantage of a consistent and reliable platform.

While we may not be hitting a plateau on graphics needs just yet, as we have a long way to go for photo-realistic graphics that run perfectly on a 1080p display, I am happy with what we have now. In fact, there may come a time when our thirst for better graphics simply stops, just short of that point where photo-realism takes place.

Would we notice?

Notebooks, netbooks, and even your iPhone will all become the dominant computing platform in the next decade. The curve for our need to keep pace is slowing. We may eventually run out of steam in our march toward progress. Like I mentioned above, would performance be the dominant feature that keeps us upgrading, or will it be convenience, quality, and style?

Because desktop PCs provide that ability to easily swap out individual components, we won't see these systems die anytime soon. We will see them as being placed on the back-burner of the computing market. They will remain there as more of a curiosity than a primary PC that you turn on after you've packed away your notebook after returning home from work.

Would you care to spend $2,000 every three years on a new notebook that is entirely mobile, or $1,500 on a new desktop PC that is bulky, laden with wires, and encourages you to upgrade components that cost you over that $500 you saved otherwise? And all assuming the games you want to play tomorrow would run just about as well as today's?

The brief era of computers being a novelty that need special attention is coming to an end.

Laptop GPU busted? A possible fix...

Laptop problems got you down? Not fast enough, battery constantly running low, and now it's overheating or causing weird display errors? Is the GPU causing reboots and BSODs when attempting to enter Windows? Does it feel like it will spontaneously combust in your face?

Fear not, for I have the answer, courtesy of a friend's diligent investigating after my own laptop went bust. Bake it! Solder points on laptops are sensitive. If you especially have a Dell e1705 Nvidia dedicated GPU (must be dedicated and NOT integrated (IGP)), here is a simple solution for when it goes bust:

Preheat your oven to 400f. Once it is nice and toasty warm inside, insert your laptop into it. Wait wait... if you know how, take out the GPU first from the laptop and insert THAT into the oven. If you don't know how, find a friend that does. Bake for 15-25 minutes. Take it out, let cool for 15 minutes.

Voila! You "may" have a working GPU now if the solder points reconnected (and that was the problem to being with). Insert back into laptop after a good inspection and cooling to test. It worked for mine! Really. I couldn't believe it, but I now have a working laptop again.

Disclaimer: I am not to be held responsible if you accidentally forget its baking in the oven, turn the temp to broil, or confuse an oven with a microwave...

Here ends the solution.

Promoting original IP

Alganon is an original fantasy MMO IP with only vague similarities to mythological and medieval references that many games share. The uniqueness is in its individual features, such as: the Library, Studies, consignment for the auction house, amongst others. The developers built the game on a foundation of familiarity, then added from there.

There are so many games that share common features, how can you successfully promote your game when the first thing the community usually judges are screenshots that tend to glaringly show off these commonalities? Is it enough to focus on the individual unique components? If we were to hammer into the community that the Library was what made Alganon great, would the game really sell?

I feel one of the keys to successfully promoting an original IP game is to ensure that all content areas are highlighted together when talking about its uniqueness. Show how your character will grow in all areas because of a feature that lets them craft sandwiches while offline. Ignoring content areas or focusing exclusively on a specific feature, won't sell the game.

Regardless of which features are a focus, the game itself needs to have a pull, and that requires active participation to experience. Let the community explore the world as soon as it's ready. This will ultimately tell you if the game will be successful. While it may not be completely unique, does the game have those individual features that make it interesting? Do those features make the game, dare I say, "fun"?

Quest Online is promoting Alganon by listening to the community on what interests them. It amazes me how so many developers brush off the ideas and thoughts of their community. While caution should be taken, as the community is going to have high expectations for your game, listening to them does more than give you ideas, it gives you perspective.

My first 100 days as a Community Manager

A few months ago I wrote about my first month as a developer Community Manager. When first acquiring the position, the expectations I had were wide. While those initial expectations were mostly positive, I looked forward to meeting any challenges that may lay ahead. I also wrote about how I came to choosing this career path, and that if I had not done so I would have regretted it.

An interesting observation since my first month, is that no one in community management is a true expert. There is a chance for each of us to find a niche. I want to help the field in better understanding itself and the direction it will take with the next generation of gamers. Almost any job in the game industry still has this potential, but more so it is found in the community field. Being a part of Quest Online has given me an opportunity to begin exploring that potential.

Everyday our MMO, Alganon, is growing in the public spotlight. We recently entered Private Beta with a target release date of this summer. Fans are pouring in from many diverse backgrounds, hoping we are the answer to gameplay frustrations and waning interest in their current games. While I don't believe any one game can, nor should, be an "answer", I am proud and excited to have the opportunity to show the community a game that at least gives them another unique choice.

A large part of being a Community Manager is to positively bring together individuals and existing groups in a setting where everyone shares a common interest. Where we can work together on a project to produce something all can be a part of and enjoy long after it is "complete". That is what I enjoy most about this career. That it happens to involve game development is simply a bonus.