By Lesley Smith
So the first day of Blizzard’s Worldwide Invitational is over: Diablo III is official and fans stream out into the streets of Paris to rejoice. Of course the Opening Ceremony wasn’t the end of the event; merely the beginning.
The ceremony itself took place on the main stage which was jam-packed with over 3,500 people and many more standing. Attended by press from all around the world as well as several special guests such as the VPs of Global Finance and Human Resources (yep, we were all humbled too). Hosted by pop star China and stand up comedian and film star Anthony Kavangh, the event saw Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime take to the stage and congratulate the gamers of Europe as well as reminding all those present that this is the first time an invitational has been held outside of Korea. He took us on a trip back in time to last year’s event in Seoul – a movie which includes a classic sound bite in the making from a teenaged Korean fan: “It’s fun because Blizzard made it.” Morhaime also commented on the Activision-Blizzard merger, provoking laughter when he said they’d ‘leveled up’.
by Lesley Smith
If last year’s BlizzCon is anything to go by, it won’t be too long before the goodies (and the bag itself) given to attendees at this year’s WWI start appearing in auction sites. Sad but true, some people will just put the swag straight on eBay in order to make a quick buck or two. But how much should all this swag set this back and is it worth the £55/€70 ticket or the even bigger sum you might end up paying via an auction site?
Fortunately, as Blizzard have a shop selling many of these exclusive goodies, we can tell you.
Blizzard’s concept of a shop, however, is not something you’d recognise instantly; with one per floor they only stand out thanks to the humongous sign and the enormous, never diminishing queue. Rather than go in an browse, attendees can drool over items for sale which are handily displayed in several glass cabinets, they then fill in an order form, wait in the queue for what must seem like for ever, hand over fistfuls of Monopoly money (sorry, Euros) and depart with their goodies.
There is an assload (U.S. measurement, roughly 12 percent lighter than the Imperial arseload and metric arseload) of Diablo III videos over on Gametrailers and assorted game video sites. I know about them all, up here in the Kotaku tower, and I could spend all day posting them. Instead, I’ve embedded this one, which features 20 minutes — an Imperial shitload — of gameplay. And it is indeed awesome. Links to the other trailers are after the jump. There are many, including a series featuring the specific abilities of Witch Doctor and Barbarian classes. Enjoy, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.
My favourite part of “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” came when they figured out the paradoxes of time travel and, simply by saying “Must remember to bring a trash can!” one appears in Ted’s hands and he stuffs it over a bad guy’s head.
Not that you can do any of that in “Chronotron”, but the idea is the same, think in the present, giving orders to yourself in the past. Sort of. In Chronotron, the idea is to Clone multiple versions of yourself, using a time machine, to get through a puzzle level. The catch — all past versions will spawn and recreate your actions, so you need to think in chronological order for each step of the puzzle, and leave enough time for your final self to get through the gates and ride the risers to your objective.
It’s a hell of a fun flash game — my co-worker showed it to me yesterday, so I can vouch for its productivity killing effect.
Chronotron [Addicting Games]
That’s one of the tidbits coming out of a 90 minute interview Shigeru Miyamoto did with Wired, in which he expounds at great length on Wii Fit and to other degrees on subjects such as the Wii’s graphical capabilities, competitor imitation of the Wiimote, and other matters. Here’s an interesting excerpt:
Miyamoto: I think that the understanding of the Wii remote technology has certainly proliferated to developers, and their understanding of how it works is now very strong. But, I think that in terms of developing games for the Wii remote, it’s really more about the focus of the team and how thoroughly they consider the user interface and the end experience for the consumer in terms of how intuitive that is and how easy it is to use. And, at this point, I think it’s just difficult for me to say how many teams that are really focused on that experience ae out there and are working on games.
Tucked into a wide-ranging interview with IGN is this nugget from Cervat Yerli, the CEO of Crytek, developer of Crysis: It’s crazy how the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now. For one sale there are 15 to 20 pirates and pirate versions, and that’s a big shame for the PC industry. I hope with Warhead I hope we improve the situation, but at the same time it may have an impact on [our]PC exclusivity in the future.
Yerli goes on to say that if a game isn’t an online multiplayer game, it’s up for grabs to piraters, and for that reason the company is spending development effort making Crysis: Warhead more difficult to crack. But if it doesn’t pan out, and PC games continue to be pirated at the 15:1 ratio he offers, it’s going to affect Crysis’ development strategy in the future. “We would only consider full PC exclusives — if the situation continues like this or gets worse — I think we would only consider PC exclusive titles that are either online or multiplayer and no more single-player”, Yerli says.
So I guess the message is: PC gamers, stop pirating and start snitching on your friends if you want more exclusives out of Crytek. And to show he’s serious, he also tells IGN they’re working on a non-Crysis console game.
Cevat Yerli Q&A [IGN]
Anders Tychsen has some interesting ideas on how to leverage elements of tabletop RPGs in order to make their digital cousins more compelling (and thus keeping players enthralled for longer). Tychsen points to issues of integration — something many tabletop games are quite strong on, but an area that has seen less work in creating console or PC RPGs — as an area that could use some work, and create more positive gaming experiences:
If you’re getting dominated in TF2, ganked in AoC, pwned in Halo 3; feeling blue after finishing MGS4 or down in the dumps because your 360 RRoD’d — or if you’re just feeling awesome and want to feel even better about this crazy habit we have, which forces us to sit inside for hours on a perfectly good day otherwise, then just watch this video that ThatsMrOffDutyNinjasent us, and sing along.
Chris Plante has posted a plea over at GameSetWatch — one for bringing more global entertainment to the West (well, America specifically). His idea? Some sort of portal that will be able to showcase games from all over the world, dragging American gamers kicking and screaming into acknowledging foreign countries that are outside of East Asia. Interesting concept, and one that could theoretically be implemented right now:
For all you MGS4 gamers, reader Christine L. has a couple new cheat codes for you. These look new to us, so we’re passing them along. With them you can get the .45 pistol and the Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle before they unlock in the game (which happens after you meet up with the Metal Gear Mark II.) It doesn’t exactly rock the foundations of science, but it might be useful to some of you.
