Monday, October 9, 2000

The Developers have returned!
SimuAndy posted a few days ago!
Subject: RE: Tis a sad day...


I am still here, reading.

-andy

Also he posted agin this morning
RE: Tis a Sad Day

I've been reading more or less daily, but have had little to say. My responsibilities here have always been less in the game making arena but more in the game-supporting infrastructure areas.

Andy


Thanks for posting Andy!



- posted by Ulairi @ 10:24 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Friday, October 6, 2000

Two Million Thanks To Our Great Readers
Earlier today, our very popular Vault Network Boards surpassed a significant milestone when the post count topped the two million mark. We’d like to thank the hundreds of thousands of readers who form the large and growing Vault Network community. Your support of our message boards and of our group of sites dedicated to RPGs and online gaming has meant and continues to mean a great deal to us. We look forward to bringing you news, information and more on these and other games for a long time to come, and also to thanking you all again in a few months when we reach three million.
- posted by Ulairi @ 9:22 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Sunday, September 24, 2000

Hi Everyone!
Hi, I am making this post to basically introduce myself. I’m new Site Manager for Hero’s Journey Vault. I will pick up the updates (they have been slow), will add new content, and hopefully when Hero’s Journey gets a publisher, we will have much more to do.

If you have any news, questions, or just want to talk, don’t hesitate to email me.


- posted by Ulairi @ 12:27 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Wednesday, August 2, 2000

Consoles Clash With The Net
Steven Vonder Haar of Inter@ctive Week discusses the troubles of moving console gaming onto the net in his article The Internet Don't Play That. His argument is that only certain types of games work online: games that are not popular on PlayStation and the impending next-gen consoles. Neil Harris of Simutronics gets a quote in the article:

"People are used to twitch games, and that can be challenging on the Internet," says Neil Harris, executive vice president at online game developer Simutronics (www.play.net). "With sports games in particular, the challenges of Internet latency are immense. And it's very unlikely that anybody is going to redesign the basic structure of the Internet so people can play games."

As a result, most online game services that have survived have changed their strategies to live within the technical restraints. Simu tronics, for in stance, focuses on the development of fantasy role-playing games such as Gemstone III and DragonRealms. The entertainment value of the titles hinges on how well they foster community and personal interaction.

"There's a lot of stuff you can do if you think of your games as a community," Harris says.

It will be interesting to see what trends develop in online gaming when the X-Box and other next gen consoles with broadband capabilities ship: the console game market is much bigger than the PC market.
- posted by luxor @ 11:22 AM PDT [Comments 1]

Friday, July 28, 2000

Server Side Security Is Paramount
If he's said it once he's said it a thousand times! Russ Whiteman discusses maintaining data integrity by using server-side security in this HJS board post:

<< Second, I don't think that your answer about only showing the client what the client needs to know is a realistic solution. I mean, are you going to rely on the server to do visibilty checking? >>

As others have mentioned, you betcha! In my view, -everything- related to game mechanics belongs on the server, and the client is only there to handle making it pretty and easy-to-use. Rule number 23(?): NEVER trust the client...it's in the hands of the enemy. The last people I want to reward are the ones who'd rule the game if we started putting extra data on the client-side. ;)

As far as what sort of network latency penalties this carries, I'd have to beg off answering that, since it's not an area I have any expertise in. But I'm pretty convinced it's feasible, and rapidly getting more so as broadband communications become more popular.

Thanks Russ!
- posted by luxor @ 9:15 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Monday, July 24, 2000

Hero's Journal 13
The lucky thirteenth issue of the Hero's Journal is hot off the digital newspress. Give it a read at HJS for some Simu and MMORPG articles as well as a nice piece of artwork.
- posted by luxor @ 11:41 AM PDT [Comments 0]

Monday, July 17, 2000

Elonka Dunin Interview
HJ Stratics has an interview with Elonka Dunin which took place at the recent DragonCon. The interview is long and informative; its nice to see Simutronics representitives talking about Hero's Journey again. Here's part of an answer to a question regarding funding:

So we could not afford to self-fund this game in a reasonable amount of time. If we do bits and pieces over several years, yes we probably could. But the problem with that is we are trying to spec out, now, what the typical consumer computer will be like two years from now. So if we designed the game in two years, it matches what we think we will have. But if we take six years, it is going to be very out of date.

Read the full interview.
- posted by luxor @ 10:52 PM PDT [Comments 1]

Wednesday, July 12, 2000

Preview In CGM
Thanks to Elonka Dunin of Simutronics for sending word of a new preview of HJ in the August issue of Computer Games Magazine, part of their "Ultimate Preview Guide". The article is a good summary of Hero's Journey, although they still have old quotes from Derek Sanderson, who has not been with Simu for nearly a year. Elonka adds another correction:

The release date is not definite until we finalize
negotiations with a publisher.

HJ Stratics has put up a straight lift of the preview. Perhaps the "Ultimate Preview Guide" will make its way to Computer Games' super-retro Online site one of these days.
- posted by luxor @ 10:36 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Tuesday, July 11, 2000

Chatlog With Elonka Dunin
I noticed HJ Stratics has an IRC chatlog with Elonka Dunin from over the weekend. No concrete information regarding Hero's Journey or it's status came forward, but Elonka did make some interesting comments on a few topics (under the nick SimuNova):

SimuNova: Audience goal: Large. :)
SimuNova: Large == As big as possible. :)
SimuNova: At Simu, we like to open a game and then stick with it... Like GS3 has been running a persistent world for over 10 years now.
SimuNova: We haven't done a long-running persistent world with a graphical game yet... So I'm curious as to what game elements will keep people over the long term... It's not just the combat and the game play, there also has to be a solid community structure in place.
SimuNova: My own personal philosophy on PvP: Some people love it, some hate it, some want to use it occasionally... There should be areas in a game that allow for all 3 types, so that you can choose if you want to go all out, or avoid it entirely (like in safe area). The trick is to accommodate the "occasional" folks, who may want to fight sometimes, but don't want to be targets for the predators who *always* want to fight.
SimuNova: One of problems is that if someone really does "just want to RP a psycho killer," then the community (in real life) would catch them, hang 'em high, and then go on with life. But in a game, that killer gets rezzed and comes back for revenge. Or if we lock out the account, they keep coming back on throwaways. So "real world" doesn't apply.
SimuNova: Desmond: Have you seen the Inns in our games?
SimuNova: There's a *lot* of socializing going on in there. ;)

Read the full log.
- posted by luxor @ 8:27 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Vault Network Explores The Alien World Of Atriarch
Persistent online worlds are the new frontier for computer gaming, and interest in this category continues to soar. Arguably the most unique among the titles in development is World Fusion’s Atriarch, which blends RPG and strategy elements with an alien organic world where everything is alive at some level. Featuring an enormous gameworld with environments that vary from deserts to ice plains and swamp, five original sentient species and a variety of technologies that are not always fully understood, the game is attracting growing interest among fans of the genre and media alike.

In order to offer the best possible community-oriented coverage of this intriguing online title, IGN Vault Network is very pleased to announce the launch of our latest site, Atriarch Vault. Highlighting today’s opening is cool new creature animation movie offering a visual representation of one of the game’s many interesting elements and ideas.

Other site content will include additional features, game information, news, concept art, screenshots, and much more. As with all our other dedicated sites, Atriarch Vault will focus on the player community with thorough community news coverage, message boards, reader participation features and much more. We invite all members of the community who are interested in the future of online gaming to stop in regularly to check out the coming excitement.
- posted by luxor @ 8:20 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Thursday, July 6, 2000

IGN Now Hiring
We have been informed that our IGN.com hub site is looking for qualified engineers, editors and designers to join the team. Positions currently available include the following:

Java Software Engineers (CS degree or equivalent)
Oracle & SQL7 DBAs (formal coursework)
Software Engineering & Operations Top Management
IGN Codes Editor
Production Designer

Most if not all positions are located in San Francisco. For additional information on the positions, qualifications required and how to apply, simply click here.
- posted by luxor @ 6:56 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Wednesday, July 5, 2000

Official Site Updated
The official Hero's Journey site received a minor change recently (I just noticed it today). Here is the new text:

Current status of Hero's Journey: Simutronics is circulating a demo videotape (screenshots from that video are what you see on this page) to publishers and potential investors. No deal has been signed yet (if you are a publisher interested in Hero's Journey, please contact us).

Too bad it's not a rental tape! :) Be kind, rewind.
- posted by luxor @ 6:09 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Friday, June 30, 2000

Dave Goes Dungeon Bashing
Somebody got a new game today and wrote it up on Seshat.org. Here's an excerpt that mentions HJ:

Diablo II rocks.

This game is very slick. Replayability exists in the form of tons of training options this time, rather than in the map randomizer. I'm starting to hope that Blizzard will make an MMORPG one of these days, 'cause with this game they've proven they know what they're doing. They could easily blow away UO and EQ, and if they put some emphasis on roleplaying in addition to the excellent advancement/quests/items side of things, they could give HJ a run for its money as well.

Hey, a ska fan!
- posted by luxor @ 9:47 PM PDT [Comments 0]

Simu Server Outages
Andrew Finkenstadt of Simutronics sets the record straight on yesterday's ISP outages at their facilities:

I think that the scheduled maintenance that Michael-DR was alluding to was for the morning of 6/27/2000, and indeed it was scheduled and down during that window of time. There was (usually) a banner posted on all simutronics web sites mentioning this during the time in question.

Wednesday morning's brief outage which forced wednesday afternoon's emergency outage turned into a much longer ordeal when some equipment at our ISP died a horrible perma-death. I was at the office all night working with them once the equipment was back in service to bring up the rest of the service.

Andy

Go to the post. Thanks Andy!
- posted by luxor @ 8:37 PM PDT [Comments 0]

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