TomMannino.com

If you watch any of these vids that I post, watch this one =P

Welcome to the Meteor Games video blog, the official video blog for the up-and-coming MMO, Twin Skies! Tom Mannino, the Lead Cross-Media Developer of Meteor Games introduces himself, Twin Skies, and then forgets his lines.

I *GUESS* the Prison setting lends itself to a free web-based MMO??

MMORPG Free Online Browser Based Game | PrisonStruggle.com

I want to draw this dude with rippling muscles beating the shit out of the Warcraft E-thugs. Seriously, check out his answer:

Are you planning on playing games like Age of Conan and Warhammer when they come out?

I’ve already played Warhammer. It was called World of Warcraft. Age of Conan – that’s PVP. Wow, gosh, PVP – it’s pretty hardcore, PVP, isn’t it? No. When you played [older MUDs] you got killed after three months of playing, your character was gone. Yeah, hardcore PVP – yeah, we’re hard, aren’t we? We’re evil. No. You don’t know anything. I might have a look at it from a point of view of seeing what things – the class balances are like, seeing how they’ve implemented the – I really ought to write up a book on how to read a virtual world so that I have a vocabulary in order to explain it to people. But there are a number of things you can do with player versus player, and I want to see the way they’ve done it not because whether it’s cool or not but because of you chose that way. Now, why did you choose that way?

http://www.massively.com/2008/06/20/richard-bartle-on-how-hed-make-world-of-warcraft-better/

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Two Belgian beer fans have launched a video game named ‘Place to Pee’, which allows players to slalom down ski slopes or kill aliens while relieving themselves at urinals.

Someone find me this game!

A D&D Campaign dungeon that is 100$ and is designed to take probably years to play. Look at the map.

The dungeon adventure has been a staple of gaming since its earliest days. Now, AEG brings you the ultimate incarnation of this adventure classic: the World’s Largest Dungeon! This colossal epic will take characters from neophyte dungeon crawling all the way to epic levels.

Miles of passageways — filling a map the size of your living room — hold enough danger and excitement for years of adventuring. Every monster in the monster manual is included within its confines, all gathered into logical ecologies and never before seen diabolical hierarchies and encounters.

If your group is serious enough to fight its way to the top, the World’s Largest Dungeon is a challenge you can’t pass up!

Here’s some links to people who are documenting their adventure into this game…
The 20′ By 20′ Room: World’s Largest Blog

God, read every word of this article twice. This is really good stuff. Nom nom nom. People are starting to notice that you don’t need a lot of money to make a great idea work. You also don’t need a perfect product as long as you’re evolving and flexible.

Martin suggests a new mantra: “Embrace the Chaos” — this requires a lot of letting go. His advice is to have faith that chaos is good for you, despite the lack of obvious guarantees. Whereas traditional programming is built on the principles of ACID (atomic, consistent, independent, durable), the web is built on the principles of BASE as introduced by Google (basically available, soft-state, eventually consistent). ACIDity creates trust but kills innovation, whereas BASE promotes innovation and still allows a certain level of trust. The trust comes in the “eventually consistent” part of the equation in which all your data coalesces — and provided you can get your vendors to agree to this model you have a non-obvious guarantee of trust and you can successfully sacrifice the “good” point of the triangle.

READ THIS ARTICLE

Call it Funware. That’s the name for applications with game-like mechanics and game-like behavior that really aren’t traditional video games. And Funware just might steal the thunder from video games, which may no longer have a monopoly on either interactivity or fun.

This concept was brought up a few times at GDC and it was generally laughed at. Like the guy spoke at panels and people basically giggled and said “hehe, cool idea.”

But as far as warm bodies using a product, and time spent doing so, ‘funware’ is now rivaling ‘gameplay.’ I’d rather not pit them against each other, though. Let’s all be friends! Some amazing, amazing points in this article…

Funware’s threat to the traditional video game industry » VentureBeat

This is insane. Sorry for the huge quote but it makes the most sense when you see it all in one clump:

Attent™ with Serios™ tackles the increasing problem of information overload in corporate email using psychological and economic principles from successful multiplayer online games and market economics. Attent creates an economy with a scarce new currency (Serios) that enables users to signal the importance of their outgoing email by attaching value. Recipients can use the Serios received to prioritize their attention to messages, and in return use their Serios to assign appropriate weight to their responses. Attent also provides tools to analyze and manage communication patterns and information networks in the enterprise.

The lively marketplace of ideas and communication patterns that emerges from this economy offers new insights into collaboration, teamwork, and goal alignment. The Seriosity solution to information overload will give your information workers more time, more thoughtful input, and more insight so that they can be more productive.

I love this, I wish I could use it, but I don’t currently suffer from information overload. I’ve worked in a few jobs where this would work well in, however. Just a facinating idea, and more proof that ‘game design’ is beginning to span more then just games.

Wow. I am a huge fan of Assassins Creed and all of the run-everywhere-parkour-esque craziness… This game, Mirror’s Edge, is mainly about Parkour, except from the tops of giant skyscrapers. Another amazing game that does what good games do: Let you live out your dreams, easily and enjoyably.

Mirror’s Edge Trailer - FileFront.com