James Ackley and The Sounds of Guild Wars 2

Over at the Guild Wars Guru forums, a conversation about the sounds in the Guild Wars games and player’s wishes for sounds in Guild Wars 2 was met with a surprising reply by James Ackley, ArenaNet’s Audio Director, via Regina Buenaobra which you can read in full here! There’s talk of footsteps, which I’ll admit to loving in most games, if done properly of course. Also environmental and ambient sounds were a big hit in GW with me (My guild hall has a very nice waterfall that is just nice to listen to while chatting with friends and guild mates!). To say the least, I hate ArenaNet for mostsome of the things they do, but I do love it when they come through in a lot of little ways like this. Kudos for the community involvement, James and Anet!

News Flash! AVATAR Makes A Lot of Money Opening Weekend! Guild Wars Mortgages My Soul

Thank you Captains Obvious and Duh. So, yes, AVATAR was released this past Friday and despite harsh winter conditions (at least here on the East Coast) people flocked to their local theater en masse. Over the weekend the film managed to rake in $232.2 Million, and for a movie that cost $300m that’s pretty damn good. Not record breaking, but pretty. Damn. Good.
Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Chocolate Hangover Day!

And, I guess, normal hangovers are included…oh and Day of the Dead. No, not the movie. Anyway, regardless, you may have either drank too much alcohol, ate too much chocolate, or both. Me? I just had too much sugar while playing Guild Wars for their Halloween event. It seems ArenaNet finally got around to adding some horrifying quests for the holiday and they were a welcome addition to the festivities, which leads me to believe Wintersday may get something new as well. Hopefully.

Anyway, aside from that, I have yet to get Windows 7 on my computer, only because, as you may have guessed, I am lazy, but I got the student upgrade which has had problem after problem after problem, but that won’t happen to me. I can’t be bothered with this stuff not working. That and MS sorta fixed it by releasing the ISOs.

Oh, and, with it being November, not only do we get to set out clocks an hour back, I get to look forward to the Friday after thanksgiving, and the Monday after Black Friday, oh, and the first week of November! All of those days will have absolutely fantastic sales going on in stores around the states and online, and I will be poor shortly there after. Of course if it’s anything like last year, my wallet will keep warm. Or maybe it’s not just me and Black Friday is dying.

Near-End Week Notes, I’m Sorta But Not Really Busy

Okay, so a quick little update about some stuff, so I can say I don’t doddle on my blog.

First, I’m back into Guild Wars for God-only-knows what reason, but whatever, I’m back and playing on a usual basis, or rather, would be playing on a regular basis if not for the Aion open beta, in which I am partaking, FINALLY!

Second, something NOT about gaming, I got a new mid-tower case for my mid-range PC, so I can not wait to move all the crap from one crappy case to a slighty bigger crappy case. Actually that’s not true, my current case only has one 80mm fan for cooling. That’s the kind of stuff that makes me cry at night in between wondering if it’ll blow up and/or start a fire. Hopefully this new case will provide more room (it does) and better cooling (does that too) so I’m happy, until I start to take everything out and put it back in.

Finally, and so we’re clear on this, I, Connor, The Lazy Geek (maybe the laziest) F***ING. HATE. GAMEGUARD. Here, let me bold that so we can all be on the same page. Ahhhh, much better. i’m glad I got that off my chest! Well, time to go play some more Aion, until the next post.

Jeff Strain Strains My Relationship With ArenaNet, Leaves NCSoft West

So, aside from my day without the internet (that day being yesterday), and a doctor’s appointment that took an hour longer than it should have, I had a somewhat a-okay day. Upon my return to the virtual world, however, I find that all is not well in the land of MMOs. According to an article at MMORPG.com, Jeff Strain and David Reid are done with NCSoft.

NCsoft West Public Relations Director Ryan James had the following to say about the departure of Strain:

“With a successful history creating MMORPG games, NCsoft has made an indelible mark on the games industry. Last year, the South Korea-based NCsoft created a division to follow a vision of bringing AAA MMOs to the West called NCsoft West. This organization was formed as part of NCsoft’s ongoing vision to be the premier global MMO publisher in the world. With that vision, change in a growth industry is inevitable. NCsoft West announces the departure of Jeff Strain, President of Product Development, who has chosen to leave NCsoft under amicable terms and NCsoft wishes him the best in his new endeavor. This does not change our plans or negatively impact our upcoming launch of Aion, and NCsoft remains very excited about the game’s launch on September 22nd in the U.S. and September 25th in Europe. These changes do not influence any other teams, development schedules or other launches.”

Bullshit! This is yelling to me that ArenaNet is slowly dying out, and Guild Wars 2 will soon fall into a “Duke Nukem coma”, while the original Guild Wars withers away in a painful death that has been shared by Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault. With Aion soon to be released in a little over a month, NCSoft had better get its proverbial shit together before it hits the proverbial fan if they want to become a global MMO juggernaut, but, as for me, NCSoft is dying, Aion will not do as well as they need it to over here in North America, and with all the player-hype it has, it only has room to plummet to its death…only to has its heart replaced by a battery and kept alive by shocking itself with jolts of fanboys.

Jeff Strain and David Reid Out At NCsoft @ MMORPG.com [via Massively]