The Assasins' Tales

Are you playing WoW with a Pornstar?

Nimloth — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 04:02:05 GMT

Yes, we've heard all the stories of how that fine seemingly young hot night elf druid that you've been chatting with in the wee hours for the past week really is a man in disguise. Perhaps you are one of those who have invested many hours, gold and items into gaining the trust and familiarity of your e-date, only to find out it really is someone like this dude hiding behind the round bouncy traits of the female avatar:

It is no secret that a large percentile of WoW players need their bibs in place for when the drooling starts at the thought of girls in game. Even more compelling is the thought of interacting with them in "naughty" ways; because, lets face it - opportunities for finding e-girls are plentiful. We've all come across episodes where nude videos of our server's local exhibitionists make their way to the public domain, mostly due to a breach of trust between said e-girl and their lucky voyeur.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all guys online are fapping horndogs, nor am I saying all females online are attention seeking e-girls. It's just the stories that do pop up get so much publicity due to the nature of the mmo playing demographic, horny teens and the undeniable fact that sex sells.

This brings me to the next big thing. We've all heard about them, in some form or another. Either it be the hentai'esque creations of World of Porncraft or it be the enacting of many guys wet fantasy dreams by the girls of Whorecraft - porn is entering the MMO space slowly but steadily.

Whorecraft Girls @ Blizzcon

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The truth is here folks. Some of you might remember that Kate has a hoof! from a couple years back. Fact of the matter is, yes - pornstars DO play World of Warcraft and you might be playing in guild with them without knowing!

At the end of the first day @ Blizzcon 2007, we ran into some rather fine looking gals dressed up as Nightelf Druids for the costume contest. Despite my rather hesitant interviewer, I managed to convince him to do one last interview with the 'hot chicks' out in the Blizzcon lobby. Much to my surprise, however, it turns out that these two young ladies came representing Whorecraft in smoking hot costumes that did a damn good job at showing off their, uh, curves.

Informing us that they do in fact play WoW, character names August and Stacy, along with some of their other whorecraft friends intrigued my curiosity. What if I was playing with a pornstar currently and didn't know it! What if you are?

What would I do if I found out that awesome druid in my guild spreads her legs and takes it up the rear while wearing elf ears on production video in her spare time?

I would have loved to sit down with them and talk more, particularly around this subject, but unfortunately it was getting late and it was time to get some food and head out to the nightly #Battlegroup9 drinkage at the Hilton. My question to you guys is, what would you do if you found out your guild's main druid, priest or whatever turned out to be a hot pornstar who gets it on for your viewing pleasure?

Edit: Right as I finished writing this post, Kody posted a very related news article about one of the Whorecraft girls getting suspended from WoW for - seemingly - being one of the Whorecraft girls.

My take, competing in WoW arenas with shitty gear!

Nimloth — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:26:47 GMT

So, It's been a while since my last update here! The question is, have I just been lazy or have I been busy? Well, to be honest -- a bit of both! It's been almost 3 weeks since last so - here goes for one kickass update.

Lets talk some about World of Warcraft arenas.

As some of you may know, I play a Rogue in the guild <Conquest> on the Kilrogg, US server. It's a class that, ever since changing mains from Necromancer to Rogue in Everquest, has been my favorite class. At this point, I'm in the process of gearing up with PvP gear for Arena's and Battlegrounds. Considering the fact that I repeatedly manage to somehow miss out on the Honor weekend grinds (in favor of hitting up the local bars, mind you), my gear improvement is going ultra slowly.

Why? Because I refuse to "PvE to PvP" as it so popularly is called. I simply do not want to do Karazhan or farm heroics over and over for gear that I will replace with better PvP gear further down the line. This, of course, poses some problems in itself. Working at Curse really does take a shitload of my time. Because of this, I have not been able to participate at all during Season 1 of the PvP arenas. This means that I'm entering into Season 2 of PvP arenas still wearing greens and blues from leveling up as well as some select level 60 epics.

The problem with this? Even the shitty scrub players at 1500 or lower rating have a level of gear that far exceeds my own. Let me tell you, trying to kill a protection paladin with 250+ resilience while I'm wielding level 60 weaponry and 21% crit is damn near impossible. Thus, the never-ending circle begins. Despite the fact that my 3's team, consisting of Kody on his frost mage "Zoinker" and Slifli on his Holy Priest "Chod", in most cases vastly out skill our opponents - the level of gear difference is just too high and we end up losing to gimps with gear. It is kind of similiar to this image, actually. The outcome is determined already before it's happened:

Fantastic? Right?

Well, don't get me wrong. This isn't as much a whine about unfairness - because it's not - but more a vent. I generally welcome a challenge, but at the current state of gear level on myself and my teammates, effectively gaining and maintaining more than 1550 rating in 3's is pretty damn challenging. In essence, every win counts, much more so than usual. Not to mention the rather ridiculous amount of warlocks that seem to inhabit Arenas these days, specially with high levels of resilience and a soul link spec. Attempting to kill those with my level of gear simply ain't happening.

Which brings me to the conclusion of my blog post here. When every game matters, and it isn't as much a simple task of playing a few extra games to make up for a loss, simple bugs piss me off to no end. Most importantly, the LOS while feared through pillars bug, and the using-evisc-on-target-who-vanished bug consuming all my stored combopoints without doing jack *** to my target. Ironically, I managed to capture BOTH bugs happening back to back in the following video clip.

Bug with Vanish

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Whatever.

As soon as www.curse.com gets pushed live, I intend to take a nice vacation to the annual Conquest Palooza. After that, I will be able to play WoW a whole lot more, thus I will be getting the gear I need in order to actually perform the task that is expected of me -- namely; kick the living *** out of the people on "the other side".

Thus concludes my rant for now. Perhaps I will tell you some more about the past two weeks when I get off work tonight. Perhaps not, we shall see.

Thursdays are the best! Age of Conan galore within

Nimloth — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:42:56 GMT

I knew the day was going to be great when I woke up before the alarm clock ready to face whichever challenge Thursday should throw in my face, with steadfast determination, mind you!

The first part of the day went by as I finished up some Video work I had left for the morning while Kevin put the polishing touch on the Age of Conan Writeup. In retrospect, I have to say that going to Eidos' studios was a pretty pleasant trip. Also, getting to hang out with Jason and Jorgen was the best part. I finally spoke Norwegian and we both got to talk with Jason about his EQ days.

Age of Conan Gameplay Video

Age of Conan Press Event Footage

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We finished our product after lunch and then gave the Age of Conan Forums some love. Developer Jason Stone has answered some questions about melee attacks in the thread, and it is worth a read for those of you curious about Age of Conan.

The rest of the day went to working on our top-sekrit project codename super red alpha! Actually, V4 and some mails while rendering. I will say this though, we have recently finalized something we believe you will enjoy very much here at Curse. On that note, tomorrow - we will be posting in a series of video journals with Perpetual on their upcoming game: Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising. This first instance is with Seth Olshfski, Development Director. So keep your eyes tuned to MMORPG News @ Curse.com!

Rave :: Castle Shikigami 2

Lectra — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 05:26:29 GMT

The pinnacle of my console gaming career was during late Summer 2006. Like any self-respecting gamer, I spent a good part of every week at my friend's house in Flushing, Queens (an area most notable for general shadyness - as well as its rather formidable population of nerds). For hours on end, we played the goods, bads, and uglies of video games on his hacked XBox. A game that particularly caught my attention was a Japanese release that I have been looking for ever since.

Fast forward a year later, and here I sit ecstatic, having finally managed to track down a copy of "Shikigami no Shiro," released in the US as Castle Shikigami 2.

Unenlightened Friend says: "Wtf? it's an old, 2004 released arcade game."

Shikigami no Shiro 2

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Yes. However, Shikigami no Shiro is also an addictive-as-crack and cheap-as-dirt Japanese vertical shooter. Do not be deceived. While it can be played single player, it is infinitely more fun co-op for obvious reasons. It also clears any doubt that Japanese video game creators are crazy. Between the spiraling waves of pelting neon bullets that catch your psychedelic eye in the later stages, the trippy ass and clearly fobby dialogue, and the gameplay modes that are nearly impossible without hacks, this game is a gem. It includes several playable characters that have very different abilities which take some time to master. The graphics are generally smooth, of excellent quality, and offer enough crazy colors to be a candy raver's dream.

Perhaps my favorite part of the gameplay is its shooting system. First, you are soaring above a futuristic skyline and being pelted with an unending assault of particles that want to hurt you. Second, your weapons aren't truly efficient unless you are as close to oncoming bullets as possible without getting shot. Now that's just gold.

All I'm saying is, if you see this new or used at your local game shop, don't hesitate to blow the $8.50 plus tax and proceed to be blown away.

Screens!

Ahoy! | New Writers in the House!

Nimloth — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 06:59:59 GMT

In trying out all the features of V4, I have asked two good friends of mine, Lectra and Quse whom I have known since well into Everquest to co-write and make this blog an interesting daily read.

Quse also being in <Conquest> with me means that her abilities as a player are exceptional. Lectra, well - she is just badass. You guys will see what I mean when these two delve into their articulate trickery!

Besides that, we all wish you a happy 4th of July evening and enjoy the bbq and food/drinks!

@7pm, 4th of July
Edit: Lectra has her first post up here!

Age of Conan - A brief overview

Nimloth — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:17:48 GMT

Following the entry about the hands-on's, where I talked about meeting Jorgen Tharaldsen and Jason Stone, I'm giving you guys this tiny sneak peek:

We played on Alienware extremes; 1920 by 1200 on a 30 inch widescreen. The game was meant to feel great for us. Smooth framerates thoughout the entire session filled with 2 hours worth of game play was pretty fun.

Ok, so this is a game that takes all what you know about MMO combat and turns it upside down but in a way that you quickly get into it and get in gear. Your movement is 'wasd' while your melee attacks are q-1-2-3-e in that order. They represent the basic combat moves / attacks. These also form combos and light up on the ui in front of you. When talking about it, Jorgen laughed and said that some ui freak would create something way better than theirs probably anyhow, but pointed out how the UI really does supplement the way the game plays. When interacting with quest NPCs, you get put in dialogue frame with the npc and numbered options below as if its subtitles.

The gameplay itself and the classes I will save for tomorrow as Kody has some really interesting reading material lined up. I will conclude with a teeny weeny taste and say that weapons having a swing radius, directional targeting and no need for point and click targeting makes for a very different combat style. Prepare to be surprised!

If you have any requests for what you want me to include from our 90 minutes of video footage from the press event, feel free to leave a comment about it here below!

PvP - the new MMO supertrend

Nimloth — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:30:48 GMT

Not too long ago a lot of you may remember talking about MMO games and their respective endgames with only one thing in mind; Raids and PvE progression. Following the highly popular trend derived from classic MMO games such as Everquest, the mainstream games of today such as World of Warcraft quickly adopted this core design structure. That was in 2004, however. Today, in 2007, we are seeing a completely different trend arise inside the MMO gaming sphere.

Player versus Player combat, or PvP for short, is what made games such as Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot hugely popular in earlier years. Following EA's acquistition of Mythic Entertainment a while back, EA - as large as they may be, are now sporting 3 of the most renowned PvP MMO games in the world. Ultima Online's revamp "Kingdom Reborn" is sure to be re-vitalizing the interest in a game a lot of people thought dead and forgotten. The other two giants are none other than Dark Age of Camelot - the first RvR (Realm versus Realm) centric MMO to ship to a broader audience and Warhammer Online; Mythic's latest up-and-coming flagship title.

Other titles that have captured large amounts of the market are Asian developed Lineage 2 and American based Guildwars. As we are moving through 2007 it is becoming increasingly apparent that more and more developers are focusing on the dynamic gameplay that a PvP 'endgame' allows for. Even Blizzard Entertainment, responsible for the worlds most popular persistant world - World of Warcraft, are jumping on the bandwagon and even taking it one step further as you can see in this video interview I had with Paul Della Bitta, Senior Community Manager and Blizzard E-Sports figurehead.

Curse Interview with Paul Della Bitta, Sr CM, Blizzard

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What is the cause of this?

If we are to believe the hardcore nuts of #Battlegroup9, Gamesurge, the reason is simply "PvE sucks". While I am certain that some people certainly don't enjoy the "static" design that is Player versus Environment (PvE) endgame, I think the roots of this trend lie deeper than just pop culture. If we again look back to the "glory days" of Everquest, one of the main driving and selling points of the raiding endgame was that there was real competition around the availability and achievement of defeating endgame bosses. In today's world, however, just about all of the endgame in any newer MMO is instanced - meaning that even if Guild A goes and kills the monster, it will still be available for defeat to Guild B who will enter the same zone in a different spawn instance.

Back in the day, as people so cleverly say, this was not an option. You had to bring your team to the monster when it spawned, often resulting in "races" of who could be the first to get to and defeat said encounter. Essentially, a winner takes all mentality. The strongest (and perhaps the least RL socially active) guilds would form routines around killing all the hardest monsters each week in order to collect the loot and claim 'intarweb superiority' over everyone else. With instances, this level of competition is gone; leaving a void zone desired by many gamers. For many, gaming is about being better than everyone else and having the resources to prove it.

Perhaps another reason also resides in the fact that the generation who were playing games such as Everquest religiously have grown up and are either already in or starting on their careers, marriages or what have you. A clear drawback of the raiding endgame is the time commitment required by a larger amount of people in order to accomplish anything noteworthy. PvP on the other hand, does not require the same amount of time commitment from the same amount of people. That is, at least not in the competitive MMOs of today.

The bottom line in this matter is that the developers and publishers for the most part will cater their games towards where the money in the market lies. With games such as Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Fury, Age of Conan and Guild Wars 2 on the horizon, the stage is set for a very interesting and competitive battlefield, testing each players skill, dedication and their character's gear.

PvP in Battlegrounds - Working with Video footage

Nimloth — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:44:43 GMT

Saturday came and went in a swift fashion. The mid day was spent on the couch recovering from the days prior as I watched "Eternal Sunshine" with my roomates. The afternoon spead it up slightly with events and Thai-food in the city before returning to the ever so familiar Curse office.

As I mentioned in the entry from the press hands-on's I have a whole load of gameplay footage from both Age of Conan and Gods and Heroes to be edited and put on site. Realizing at the end of the evening that I didn't actually have much experience with editing gameplay footage, I decided to do a quick Eye of the Storm in World of Warcraft to get some "experimental footage".

Being quite nackered at the time and focusing more on getting the footage than on my actual gameplay is shown quite apparent in my handling of the combat. In retrospect I give myself a 3 of 6 in performance. The clips and transitions goes through 3 or 4 different transitions throughout the video clip and shows off a little of how these effects actually affect the viewing experience.

Lessons learned:

Too much flashing is never impressive.
Use digital video zoom effects more on the actual clips to create a sense of immersion.
A better use of scenes and gameplay transitioning into a 'red line' of story telling would make the video far better.
Fraps videos do not show up perfectly in a 1.21:1 pixel aspect ratio.

All in all, you may enjoy the result below:

Late night PvP in Eye of the Storm - Working with gameplay video

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Press Events and Hands-On Galore: AoC and GnH

Nimloth — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 13:41:35 GMT

This week has been fantastic. You have already read about Monday through Wednesday, and here comes the story of Thursday and Friday. It so happens that both Perpetual and Funcom were holding press events and hands on for each of their games here in San Francisco, and lo and behold - we were there to get the snoop on the latest and greatest MMOs coming out.

Thursday started great, with finalization of the video interview with Perpetual's Seth Olshfski before heading out to the 1900 Jazz Club a few blocks down to take on Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising. Once there I quickly met up with some old friends and familiars from websites and magazines such as Massive, Ten Ton Hammer, Warcry and IGN. Perpetual's crew were in place with art directors, product managers, the vice president, community and world teams.

After a few rounds in the bar it was time for the play session to start. Kevin was placed nicely in front of a computer while I dealt the camera work for this rounds event. Making sure to capture both the footage from Kevin's exploits as well as from the other participants, the hands-on quickly came and passed - and 5 hours later, we had tons of footage and a good base to write some reviews and articles. These will be posted on the Curse Mainpage on either Sunday or Monday.

Some pictures from the press event itself can be found here! and you can view the latest official trailer shown at the event below:

Gods and Heroes: June Sizzle Video from Press Event in SF

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Our good friends over at Kohnke made sure to keep us entertained with a festive afterparty. Dana Massey from Warcry, Rebecca Bundy from Massive and various other press along with some representatives from Perpetual dug into a few rounds of tequila shots, jack and coke and other alcoholic beverages before we parted ways at the end of the night.

Enter Friday. Pre-lunch was not much to talk about, your regular Friday with normal tasks. After lunchtime though, it was time for Kevin and I to prepare for and head out to an event over at Eidos' studios in Redwood for the Press Hands-On event for Age of Conan. We got down to Eidos' HQ at around 3:15, met up with the team and got ready for the mass gaming goodness.

At the current time of writing, any information regarding the event itself is embargoed until 9am PST on Monday morning - at which point we will have a whole lot of content for you to fiest your eyes upon.

The evening was later spent eating some amazing Indian food with Hubert, Kevin and Jorgen Tharaldsen from Funcom. Jorgen being a Norwegian like myself was a great change of pace from English speaking San Francisco nightlife. Being able to talk a bit in my native language was refreshing, and as the night went on and we hopped from bar to bar, Jorgen also proved that he still has Scandinavian blood in him and can handle a good amount of liquor and rounds along with yours truely.

Be sure to check out www.curse.com for official updates, reviews and articles regarding the games on Monday and Tuesday. In addition to the editorial, there will be mass ingame video from Age of Conan and Gods and Heroes also!

Perks of the job.... Tokyo Game Show!

Nimloth — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 08:19:41 GMT

Wednesday, half the work week is over and I get to spend some over time while rendering videos at work. Fantastic!

That said, today has not been all bad though. One of the things I had to do this morning was set up a list of each of the video game events that are on the horizon this year, and mark off the ones that Kevin and I will be attending. Boy, is that list a fantastic one! Let me indulge you...

What: Blizzcon (Anaheim, California)
When: August 2-4

What: Leipzig Games Convention (Leipzig, Germany)
When: August 23-26

What: Austin GDC, (Austin, Texas)
When: September 5-7

What: E for All, (Los Angeles, California)
When: October 18-21

What: Tokyo Game Show, (Tokyo, Japan)
When: October 20-23

What: G-Star 2007, (Seoul, Korea)
When: November 8-11

You may sit back there and think, "holy ***, that's a lot of traveling". Yes, indeed that is a lot of traveling. That being said, I will probably end up missing out on the Austin GDC (due to being in Europe at that time to get some biz stuff in order) and on the E for ALL - mostly due to the fact that I am prioritizing Tokyo Game Show.

Japan, and especially Tokyo has always been one of my most sought after destinations for a visit. When I earlier this year confirmed with my boss that I not only was getting to go to Tokyo, but also visit the Game Show I seriously considered hugging the guy. However, despite him being French I did find that choice a tad too gay for my liking. At any cost, this post is not about my French boss, but rather about the awesomeness that is TGS.

As you can see from some of the pictures above and below, the game show has a lot to offer a gamer from the west such as myself. Between a serious amount of awesome games, mmo's and console goodness, there's the added bonus of hot japanese booth babes everywhere.

Let's not forget to mention, though, the possibilities Curse has with some proper representation over in the Asian Game Developers home turf. It is a well known fact that breaking through in a different culture and market than what you originally designed the game around is a tough trick to pull off. I believe that fansites and communities are very key elements in enabling the adaptation of cross-cultural games around the globe. It is, after all, through exposure and communities that MMO games flourish.

It is on this turf that Curse specializes, and with some of our near-future bizdev plans it is particularly important to show attendance, exposure and knowledge across the globe as a major contributor to the creation of global gaming communities.

Of course, let's not forget the booth babes.

These fine young ladies go long and far towards lightening up what in many cases ends up being a business nightmare, running from booth to booth getting the correct interviews and initialization talks with the right people.

Off topic though, as I mentioned earlier, Japan has been one of my most sought after destinations for a visit for a long time. Tokyo in particular, and here's why; Tokyo is by far the most technologically advanced city in the world. A true metropolis sporting off the latest innovations, gadgets and trinkets enabling a simpler and more joyful and wondrous lifestyle. Atleast, that is what I chose to believe!

So here's to Japan, Tokyo Game Show and Curse.

Making WoW a Serious Business

Nimloth — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:17:52 GMT

Lately, you may have noticed the increasing amount of publicity and promotion of competitive World of Warcraft PvP. Starting out with Blizzard's official Arena Rankings with their implementation of the Armory and following up with the World Series of Video Games (WSVG) in China and Louisville and Championship Gaming Series (CGS), the media's eyes on WoW as a game, let alone as a competitive E-Sport is becoming more and more of a debate in the gaming industry.

While for years already, games such as Guildwars have had competitive PvP tournaments with monetary prizes, it is first now that MMORPGs as a genre is being looked at by the eyes of the world. This is mostly due to the sheer size of WoW's subscription base as well as Blizzard's enormous financial resources backing the project.

To tell the truth, I was not really into the idea of competitive "professional" gaming much myself until the mass PR around World of Warcraft PvP hit the world with storm shortly after the release of The Burning Crusade expansion - mainly because I never was much of a FPS nor RTS player - genres who have dominated the professional gaming market for years with titles such as CounterStrike and Starcraft. Perhaps another reason why MMORPG Pro-Gaming has gained so much attention lately is also because of Starcraft being another Blizzard product. In essence, the mentality many people are following is that "Blizzard has done it before and proven themselves" and they can replicate this in World of Warcraft.

In reality though, MMORPG PvP and FPS/RTS matches are completely different in nature. Not just because of the coherent design around the older genres as competitive platforms, but also because of how a match plays out for the spectator. In my mind, it is a lot easier to tell a skilled player from a random newbie in spectated FPS or RTS games simply because you are a lot more aware of what is going on at all times. In MMORPG's however, there is so much information, game mechanics and understanding that is required by the viewer to fully appreciate what is being shown. Other obstacles are the actual spectating client and broadcasting itself. Being an infant in terms of broadcasting, viewing and commenting experience of a MMORPG PvP match it is hard to accomodate the various factors that come into play by each team on a very rapid pace such as using line of sight kiting of casters, predicting and interupting spells and exceptional use of attacks/assist trains to rapidly drop a target. This does not even begin to delve into the depths of talent specs and a team's class matrix with explanation of why Team A has an advantage over Team B.

There are some websites out there that specialize in the analysis of teams like this, most notably SK Gaming and World of Ming. While each of these websites respectably are attacking the idea of bringing awareness and understanding to the competitive World of Warcraft scene, they are going at it in completely different angles. While SK Gaming takes the more formal approach already as an internationally recognized E-Sports website, World of Ming follows suit as a more vocal and personally biased resource, often embedding racist slurs or personal attacks in his commentary, seemingly to amuse the audience.

One thing is certain though, bringing out the childish and often idiotic behavior of 'elitist' players from PvP realms in MMOs is definitely not the way to go when attempting to appeal to the masses and sparking interest around the game and its competiveness. The word "professional gamer" in this would mean: an expert player, as of golf or tennis, serving as a teacher, consultant, performer, or contestant; pro. When you have some of the leading websites on the internet running their mouth as if they were still teenagers, it is hard for the mass media, the audience and potential financial investors to take the venue of competition seriously.

Another thing that is equally important to keep in mind is that a transition from a hobby to a professional e-sport is not something that happens overnight. American culture in particular is very adamant about seperating 'real sports' from e-sports as an accepted form of entertainment - very much unlike our eastern culture counterparts such as China and Korea. It is only through improvements to the flaws mentioned above, through steadfast quality media representation and through the timely process of mass adaptation that WoW will succeed as an E-Sport in American society. It is also up to us, the fansites and communities, to portray this e-sport with as much professionalism as possible in order to not alienate the real target market - the audience.

- Nimloth

Video Editing and Improvements

Nimloth — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 06:27:40 GMT

It is a Monday. Mondays usually suck due not only to the very well known 'monday factor' by itself, but also due to the fact that work has piled up over the weekend and the entire day is spent by playing catch-up. Today, however, was far from the norm. Over the past few weeks, I have been bugging Net for a computer to do video rendering work on in order to not completely bog down the speed - and most notably, usability - of my regular work computer.

Christmas comes early to those who are persistant, as it would seem. As many of you may have noticed, a lot of my visible work at Curse has lately been in the form of videos of various sorts.

Introducing the iMac - my new friend! Obviously, NOT with Mac OS, but rather my good and trusty Windows!

Having more resources available to get more work done, you may expect a whole lote more on the video front from Curse in the coming weeks and months. Video -- or rather, rich media as is the 'official' marketing term, is something I am pushing heavily for. Not only to encourage our users and communities to use and share their own video content, but also because it is in my opinion the superior form of content by today's web2.0 standards.

That is for most editorial content of course -- and only if it's done right. My video editing abilities are still in their infancy stages, and I have much learning to do for my videos to be as desirable and visibly pleasing as I want them to be. I am hoping that you guys can comment on and feedback to me as I go along releasing newer Curse videos, interviews and developer content. Hopefully, there will be a visible improvement along the way.

To give an example of the improvements I will link the following two videos:

Pre US Regionals Interview with Team Pandemic
Post US Regionals Interview with Flow Gaming

As you can see, the quality of the interview, camera positioning, background and editing effects used have improved by a lot over the week I've spent learning Sony Vegas. This trend shall continue, and anyone who wishes to share tips and tricks about Sony Vegas Studio are welcome to do so.

That's all for this time.

Ciao~

First Post

Nimloth — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 12:55:15 GMT

I pwn! This blog is great mwaha!