Catching breath

Haven't blogged in what feels like two months time. Probably is two months also. Haven't had the time to read other blogs neither, which feels like a huge loss really. But there's been to much stuff going on, on a personal level, for me to really give time to blogging. Contradictory, because at times I really could have needed to vent a little. God knows I have had a lot of ideas for blogposts, stuff now more or less forgotten or irrelevant.

And in the midst of this I get order from my chief editor on Gameplayer: You must start using our internal blogsystem. Whop-de-do. Yet another blog to keep updated regularily. But I have a plan. I'll post more personal and interesting stuff here (although I have a tendency to never get to personal.. I shun from exhibitionistic behavior. The virtual Johan is quite different from reality Johan.) and leave the fun rants and easier stuff for Gameplayer. After all they have different audiences. You can find my GP-blog here.

I can already hear some wise-ass mongrel starting to object and say, "So you guys are gonna promote your writers via blogs just like Loading.se". You couldn't possibly be more out there grasping at straws than that. Our blog system has been integrated since day one of GP 2.0, and we've discussed our plans for it internally for a long time and when it is all finished it will be a lot more useful feature of our site than the halffinished solution we gave Loading.

Actually the reason to why you are seeing Gameplayer getting a lot of new functions right now is because we had to take a break working with the site just to prioritise finishing the new Loading for Reset Media. They are really the copy of us, since the backbone for all their features are the GP-core.

Anyway, was gonna keep this short, but went on ranting. So I'll stop.

Why buy a PS3?

Haven't updated this blog in a while... but I've just been busy with other stuff. Will get back tot hat in another post though.

Today I wanted to bring the topic of PS3 up. Why should anyone buy one? When it was announced together with Wii (revolution back then) and 360 I ruled Microsoft out as a competitor. I knew Nintendo would succeed because of their smart audience targeting strategies. But comparing the Xbox to the Playstation the Playstation looked like a winner. On the paper.

Today we know better.

I am actually not gonna debate this myself, because others have don it so well before me. One of my most favourite arguments are those of Gaming Steve. Here's a post he did the 2nd of October:

As the PS3 launch fast approaches I keep asking myself a very simple question ... why would I want to buy a PS3? And if I'm asking this question, a person who has owned every single game console released since the Telstar, the so-called "hardcore" segment that Sony is banking on to buy their $600 monstrosity, I have to wonder who is going to buy the PS3 and why? I keep thinking to myself, why do I need to buy a $600 console which doesn't offer me anything I don't already have?

Blu-Ray? I already have hundreds of DVDs thank you very much.

Online access? I already have the Internet and Xbox Live.

New games? I already have more games than I can play for my Xbox 360/PC/PS2/DS. The last thing I need is more games.

Unique PS3 titles? I will say that Resistance: Fall of Man looks and plays great ... but so does Gears of War. And Gears of War doesn't require me to buy a new console to play.

So why do I need to buy a PS3 exactly? Why should I kill myself looking for a PS3 this holiday season and spend $600 for this system? Why?

I can not think of a single reason that I would want to buy the PS3 right now. Not a single one.

Perhaps in a few months if/when the PS3 gets its legs and finds its place in the console landscape. But right now all I see when I look at the PS3 is a bloated, overpriced console which offers me nothing new. I truly hope that Sony manages to get their act together and releases some awesome unique content in 2007, but right now I just don't see the need.

Now the Wii ... that's a different story.

Tilt the universe with Tiltor

We got a post from one of our users over at the Gameplayer forums where he linked to a small but fun game he and some others had put together. It's a simple but challenging puzzle game in cosy pixel-graphic retrostyle. I have taken a liking to it and I urge you all to download it.

It's hosted here.

It's well worth the download. Tilt on. Oh, and if you solve level 32, give me a hint. I'm stuck.

Those crazy germans

Ok, this is from Starmania, the german equivalent of Idol. During the early takeouts this guy enters the stage and starts to sing "The Brimstone Gate", a song made by the Umeå-based black metal band Naglfar.

Not only is it such a sorry call for attention, he really sucks at it too. Has he ever heard of lungs? The jury seems kinda unaffected tho.

Lars Leijonborg

Political satire, only for those who know how to speak swedish (pun intended)

Doom 4 life!

Well, as promised here is the link to download my Doom 2-levels: ZIPPED ARCHIVE

I'd recommend using the Doom Legacy engine to play it since that's what I optimised it for some time ago (Using DoomEd and ZenNode. It was however originally built with a fairly early version of DCK for DOS).

The levels are not 100% finished. Some are more final than others, but in a few you'll find some texture misalignments and other oddities. They are all 100% playable though. All seven of them. There is an eight map that I began designing but never finished. All in all the .wad was supposed to have like 15 levels all in all, and I had a storyline, proper levelnames and everything written for it, but all I have left is the raw levels in this wad. I wish I had finished it because I'm quite sure I will never get to it now. I have forgotten half of the concepts I had in mind and besides, I doubt anyone will actually play it anyway, even though I post it here.

The levels are all designed to be a challenge (or at least a challenge to me and my own skills back then), and to keep the player on toes. I implemented many ideas where I wanted to challenge the traditional gameplay encouraged by the Doom-games. The players usually had to think a bit extra about what they actually were doing, so it is wise to be careful and pay extra notice. Although I think some of my ideas were fresh back then, by todays standards they are fairly simple.

All levels can be completed even though you only start with a single gun. It was one of my most important designchoices and personal challenges. Make every level being completeable by starting from scratch, while not giving too large an advantage to people that play through them all subsequently. There's also a lot of thought put into making it enjoyable in coop-mode. A lot of secrets and stuff are much more easilly revealed in coop. Oh, talking about secrets, I love secrets. There's lots of secrets, all over the place. If ever stuck, just try pushing or shooting walls or panels that look suspicious. You never know what will happen, a trap or a reward? You'll find out.


Level 1: Castle 1 entrance
This was actually the third level I ever designed. It was after I started to flesh out the concept and story I had in mind when I made my first two levels. Anyway, this level is a parantesis. It's there to introduce the type of gameplay style I expected to base my levels on. Everything is not what it seems. It doesn't hold in itself any concepts or ideas that make it unique, but rather a simplified version of everything else I made. Not too fond of this level and was always thinking about giving it a proper update, but never gotten around to. In my book it is a raw incomplete version of what it could have been.

There is both a double barreled shotgun and a chainsaw on this level. Can you find them? Not that you need them anyway, if you save your ammo that is. The exit is that diamondshaped hole.

Level 2: Castle 1 basement
This is the first Doom-level I ever made. This means that almost everything in it is ideas that appeared when I wanted to exercise the Doom-engines possibilities and limitations. It is therefor a weird mix of typical Doom-design and some really unorthodox thinking. The level has a small bug regarding an early secret area if you play coop, but you really need to mess up to do it anyway. I really like this level, it is hard and fun to play. First half is pretty straightforward (if you find the lightbutton to the left) with a few surprises while the second half is really starting to mess around by morphing parts of the level. I love my corridor of slaughter, where the chaingun or plasmagun comes in very handy (if you can find the latter that is). I just love to kill those marine zombies in dozens.

Since it's my first level ever the gameplay at a few instances tend to be a little trial an error, much because it's an uneven mix of many ideas and concepts. I was learning as I went on. Anyway, a small tip: exit is just by the entrance.

Level 3: Mountain outpost
This is a level I like a lot but that some of my friends found confusing because of it's labyrinth nature. The story behind it is that you must activate the generator that powers the outposts electric system to get in, so you can get the key you need to progress. It's fun and it has some nice traps I really like as well as some bonus secrets that are just flavors, like a small blood waterfall in the end that you can access if you click the right pillar. Anyway, it introduces the Wolfenstein nazi troops, which made sense with the storyline I had for it, but might be confusing otherwise. I needed more human-type models. They fit the purpose. Here are some areas that are ONLY accessible in coop if you know how (Another of those concepts I was playing around with a lot).

Level 4: Castle 2 entrance
Begins like most of my levels exactly at the point where the previous ended. Some of my favourite traps are implemented in this level. It also probably has the most sadistic exit of all my levels. You'll understand when you get there. Gameplay in this one differs a lot in coop since you can work around the traps in completely different ways. Although I love some of my concepts in this level to pieces I was never truly satisfied with it. It lacks something to spice it up a little, and the end might just be over the top annoying to most.

Level 5: Castle 2 interior
This is my personal favourite of all the levels I made. It tries to simulate a feeling of true 3D-space in a medieval castle environment. The objective is to raise the 2 bridges to the tower at the far side of the lavafield. Not as easy as you think, since it requires exploring both attics, cellars and towers of the castle. If you ever play these levels I'd really want to get feedback on this one. It has a weird bug though, just by the exit all sound is muted. It's just for that sector which is weird. Never figured out why.

Level 6: Mining Facilities
Here I tried mixing up my own designstyle with the traditional Romero-style of Doom. It has a small bug with lightvalues in a few sectors. I tried fixing it with DoomEd recently, but didn't get it to work properly. If you find it too dark, just up the lights. Anyway, the yellow key can be found in two places. One obvious, and one not so obvious. Oh. Traps. Beware. Can you get into that lonely tower by the way? Oh, and the puzzle to raise and lower the ramp seems harder than it is. Trust me.

Level 7: Old Mines
Last level I ever finished designing. Also one of my absolute favourites. It ended up exactly as I had anticipated, and encourages exploring in the same way the castle level does. It's probably my most straightforward level though, but that is what I wanted to achieve with it also. If all levels follow the same patterns it becomes too obvious.

Level 8: Scattered Outposts (unfinished)
In this level I aimed to work with contrast. Big landscapes and small narrow corridors mixed together. Shame the Doom-engine isn't really made for landscaping, but at least I tried (and yes, failed utterly). Big antclimax though, for the level ends quite abruptly, just as things get interesting. Never got time to finish it.

Is this guy weird or what?

Ever wondered what my last post was about? Well, thing is, I was rummaging through my harddrive searching for some old mp3s of the last band I was in to send to my friend Kristoffer that used to be a drummer in the very same band. While finding the mp3s, I also found my library of lyrics I wrote for all different bandprojects I was in. Slow Aggressor was one of those songs that never got finished. Anyway, I once got accused of writing to obscure and nonsensical lyrics on a forum. So, that's why I explained the thought behind each line of lyrics. Problem is, I think I never got down to actually post the damn explanation. So, quite some years overdue, there it is: The explanation and defense of my lyrical style.

Anyway, more interesting is, while being in that dark corner of my harddrive I found some even more exciting (well for me it is) stuff just lying around collecting virtual dust. Something I thought had been destroyed in a harddrive crash way back. My old Doom 2 level designs; a wad file of 7 complete levels that was never shared properly outside my own circle of friends. It's just a novelty today, of course, but it brings back lots of fun memories of fiddling with level designs and concepts.

I'm thinking of posting it here later. Since I think they deserve to be spread. They never really got the chance back in the days. I designed them with an early version of Doom Construction Kit back when Doom 2 was fairly new, and stuck with a 14.4k modem and no real possibility of hosting them online. Internet back in -95/96 was primitive and limited, mark my words, compared to today although we tend to forget that.

I also found most of the units I designed for Warlords 3 Dark Lords Rising, although they actually did get their chance. I used to have a site over at Angelfire where people could download them, and I had made some like 16 or so unique units for the game, some with original graphics, some modified from existing game units. Some became really popular in the community, such as the Plague Lords, Hay Golem, Succubus, Halfling Braves and Halfling Warriors and made it into some of the largest fan-additions for the game. However, my Warlords 3 site met a grisly and grim fate, as anglefire pulled the plug on it. They said it hadn't been active for over half a year and withotu warning shut it down. Mark my surprise as I had edited it just a month before and had at least 5-10 visitors each day. Shame, since I forever lost my campaign map that I had taken a lot of time to design and balance, as well as 2-3 units I never took backups for. Oh well. Shit happens.

Anyway, I'll get back to the Doom 2 levels when I finish out which version of my wad is the most complete. Not that I think anyones really that interested, but if someone actually is, it'd be a shame to not post it.

Slow Aggressor Explained

A thousand pale and obscured minds

Man of today live a busy life, mostly unaware of the surrounding world.
Even though we live in an age of information, everything we see or read are already biased. Thus our minds become obscured by our own prejudices, perspectives and opinions and it makes us unable to view the world objectively.

They march for an unknown future

In this state of subjective blindness we aim headstrong into a future we imagine to be known, able to foresee if we just can break it down and control all our actions. The problem arises when everyone wants control of their own world and wills collide, creating more chaos in the process, leaving the future more unknown and unpredictable than before.

On this inevitable path of death

The only thing we can be sure of is our final goal, which ultimately always will be extinction. Sooner or later we will all die, however we try to fight against it. It is the only fact of the future we can know, and the only thing we to some extent can control by taking our own lives.

No words are enough to describe

We are rendered speechless and unknowing of the feelings of frustration that this creates inside of us. We all want control and we all need control, but we actually have no control whatsoever over our pitiful lives.

All the grief that wallows within

This frustration that is building up inside of us results in many different feelings, and one common is the lack of hope, and the inner grief that follows.

All these dark feelings kept suppressed

Feelings like this we supress, unable or unwanting to deal with them, since dealing with them could expose our weakness. Show us for the fragile beings we actually are.

A huge clot inside

Thus we tend to harbor these feelings as they grow inside and builds up during our living years. Growing and growing in our breast until they become all that we are.

Aggression builds inside

And when we are our grief, we no longer have any control. All we have created is a different man, an aggressive man. We will react violently against anything that tries to break our illusions of the world, since we rather live in our dream of the life we never can have. Aggression towards ourselves and aggression towards the fellow man. We slowly become a destructive force of nature. Bitter and empty.

Spock wants to feel Kirk from the inside

Star Trek + Trent Reznor = Love

When game reporters go bored

So our reporter team in Leipzig didn't get the interview they had been promised from the Forza developers. So since we had promised our readers at least something, we gave them this:

Go here

click the "Visa videoklippet" link to play the flashmovie.

Oh, and this is one of those NSFW clips.

The blogosphere was right...

...There was motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane!

Lets spice things up a little

Well, I've left this blog unupdated for a long time now. A little shameful, but I've been a little busy and honestly haven't felt a need nor drive to write neither anything of essence nor any ranting. I guess the regular way of getting back for a new season like this would be to philosophise over things that have happened just recently, or summarise the last few weeks experiences. But that's boring and you probably wouldn't give a bloody damn anyway. So I'll serve you some eyestinging and provoking little mass of text instead.

I have been a gamesjournalist/writer for what now? A year and a half? It depends on how you count I guess, and really the time is irrelevant. The point is it's been a bumpy journey that has given a whole lot of good useful experiences and insights. But through the journey I have also peeked over my shoulder every now and then to see the dark side of games journalism. The things everyone knows about, but noone utters a word about. What I am about to speculate around here is one of those deeper shadows that do affect the gamejournalism trade somewhat. The speculation is based on things I've overheard, seen while lurking on different forums, boards and blogs throughout the Internet, as well as personal observations and derivations. The dark side of game reviewing.

I'll start by setting the tone with an anecdote.

Spel2 was a small independent site, and our competition in swedish game media was heavy. And although we focused on original content mainly (articles, chronicles and creative writing) to keep up with this competition and keep a personal profile, game reviewing always stayed equally important. A gamesite without newsreporting or game coverage will always have a hard time luring visitors into it's fold. Unless you have some really heavy funding to cover an extensive marketing campaign that is. We didn't. Thus, getting out reviews on hot games was essential inevitably. The distributors on many occasions didn't make it easy for us though. Although we generally had great relationships with them, sometimes their marketing policies clashed with our needs. Naturally. One memorable occasion was when a new hot game was going to be released for one of the handheld formats and we knew other sites and publications had gotten their copies in time. We hadn't, even though we had contacted that particular distributor in time. We were told that there were no review copies left anyway. Something that I still today find puzzling. Giving away an extra copy of that game will cost them more or less nothing, compared to pr-events, media advertising and banners etc etc. It's free coverage more or less, as they will reach out to even more possible buyers. We decided (as was our policy unless someone already had decided to buy the game for personal reasons) to keep our journalistic integrity and not cover that particular product. No tears shed. That was the beauty of Spel2 and our indepence, but not every site or publication out there are lucky enough to be able to ignore problems of this kind.

Competition between magazines and sites out there is hard, not only in a small country like Sweden, but globally. The large, well known and already established publications can reap more benefits through well rooted networks and contacts, getting exclusive content and review and beta copies months before release sometimes. This while the large majority of smaller publications struggle with each others getting their hands on that last review copy, that they sometimes get handed weeks after release at worst. This all because marketing and nepotism. That's how things have always worked of course, and I wouldn't expect different really, however as the smaller sites suffer, this also creates consequences. Every action has a reaction.

Against their will, gamepublishers in this way indirectly feeds piracy. I would be so bold as to claim that they create their own dilemma. I know some will deny it to the last drop of blood but it is an undisputable fact that writers, for small and large publications alike sometimes are forced to get hands on copies out there, in a less legal way. You may protest, but that's just putting on the blindfolds. It might not be true for most of us of course, but I'd claim that it's widespread enough to be a potential problem.

Publishers and distributors keep their strategies for certain reasons. They give out review copies to certain publications following certain marketing strategies and theories. But when a reviewer can't get the hands on reviewcode, he and his site/magazine has a problem. Therefore some fall for the temptation to get their hands on the code through other means. For PC-users this obviously means filesharing, but they are far from the worst sinners. Console owners somteimes import games already released in Japan, or they buy a chipped machine so they also can download gamerips through filesharing services. There's networks out there solely created for this purpose.

While game companies themselves of course aren't responsible for this, neither are the publications. Needs within both trades has created a problem within the industry that I personally find most troubling. And I don't even know if there really is a solution to it either. But it's something that do deserve attention, because as I see it everyone in the industry suffers from this more or less.

Now, before I leave this open for debate I'd point out that this is not attack on any particular publisher, distributor, publication or writer. It is merely a concern I've pondered on a lot, and that troubles me. So keep it clean people.

Back

Well, it's been a grand summer. But it's time to get back in business now. Of course this also means I'll start updating my blog again.

I have no rant for today, but I have this neat little piece to share with you all:

[Clickety]

Boycott Sony

Yes. Any company who produces racistic bullshit like this advert-campaign deserves to be spit on.

A den of game journalists and their plots for world domination

Met up with Michael Gill and Stefan Blomberg over at HUMlab, over a supposed fika, after work today. I think the idea was that we should just talk games and play som NDS games, but in the end we just sat down and had some really interesting discussions instead. Most about recent topics on ASOS in general, but also regarding our future as game journalists.

One thing we all agreed on is that we're not quite satisfied with the way game journalism works today. But that might not comes as a surprise to anyone who have argued or debated with us in the past on the topic.

Personally I really think something needs to be done about how we perceive games. Yeah it's that old fun vs art debate all over again, ain't it? No, not really. Because those two don't contradict each others. A game can be fun and it can be art. Are we that naive that we don't think game designers don't know what they put into their products? For example, I think it is quite ignorant to assume that the creators of Sim City hasn't thoroughfully calculated which economical and infrastructure systems works best for their game design. Of course they are fully aware of the sociocultural and ecocultural messages their game send. Story driven games, such as roleplaying games are even better examples. For every quest or choice in a well designed game there is a moral context in line with the story, and of course these are carefully considered when written. Even Postal 2 was written with a purpose.

Why isn't this reflected in games journalism? Are we blind? Asleep? Or is this some big taboo we just can't touch, because, heck.. someone might think we're pretentious? Well, it's time to wake up. We need to analyse what we're fed through the media noise, and if nothing else just to preserve the gaming culture from prejudice and medial slander. Somehow I think that the fear here is that people assume game analysis in this sense would look much as it does when these Maoists do it. However, that's not necessarily how it needs to be like. There is no contradiction between analysing a game, and writing it in a way the readers can relate to easilly. But as it is now I almost prefer the Maoists way considered the alternative is standard media hype. It's about time we wake up.

I'll shut up now though. I could go on forever otherwise.

Gill told me one thing I found a bit of a shame, and that's the fact that Super Play won't be publishing anything on the Stylus Orchestra event. I was wondering whatever happened to that article. I really was expecting something to come from Mattias or Michael there. But it seems it just won't happen. And the big loss here is that I think this is the type of stuff gamers really want to read about; events where games become a little more than just mere games. They get a context. And I am quite certain many gamers out there really would relate, and think that this proves their gaming hobby isn't necessarily just some nerdy procrastination, but actually something really cool. But what do I know? After all my article for Gameplayer was only really well received and appreciated. Nevermind. Just a shame, that's all.

Regarding the Stylus Orchestra however, preliminary it might seem like we will be attending another event in September. I'll get back on that later.


To end this post today, I want to point out I found out the rockband Soak the Sin I mentioned some months ago have their own My Space account. Check it out, they have two of their videos there that you can watch.

Oh, and make yourself a service and pick up any Faith No More album this instant, and listen. Listen.

A summer tuesdays rant

I wish I had something really deep and profound to say today. Something that would really bend your mind and challenge your intellects. But I don't. My vocabulary skills today seem to stretch to "My feet hurts from too much walking", but that's about it. I'm pathetic.

It is quite obvious it's summer though, and I must say walking a lot isn't such a bad thing really. Just enjoying the season. Until the heat gets too much that is.

One thing I've noticed this year that I really never thought of before is how different people act when summer arrives. During winter if you might some acquaintance on the way somewhere, all conversations seem to end within five minutes and all more or less consists of phrases like "Hi, long time since I saw you last time.", "How are things?" and "Well, I gotta be going, in a bit of a hurry?". I don't know what it is that makes winter create such stress and dislike for long conversations. But the difference in how people act when you meet them now are so much different. Met two guys the other day, that I normally would only have said "Hi!" to in best case. But now these "Hi", turned into 30 minutes conversations. And still, these people were actually busy. One actually going to work, the other running errands. So you can't just claim it's because they have vacation. No, it's something with the climate. I mean, I know I am affected. The darkness of the winters up here are so dark, that I always get gloomy, whereas the summers are soo light that I feel like a totally different person.

Anyway, not gonna sit here and waste this perfect sunny day in front of the cimputer anymore. Going out into the sun.

Oh, this of course also means there will be less blog updates during summer from me. So, you'll all have to wait for those profound thoughts. Now, what a loss, eh?

Umm... online games?

This just has me speechless. Guess it's old, but it's quite new to me.



Thanks to Angela for finding it.

Motivation?

Borrowed from here.

The underlying reasons...

So why are you making a boardgame Johan? What is the purpose of it all and what do you expect to achieve? Just out for a quick buck or are what is your ultimate motivation?

The thing is, I just love games. All sorts of games, and I am very fascinated by game design. As much from a mechanical standpoint as well as an aesthetical. I do it all for the love of the game media.

Making a boardgame is my first try at showing my skills at game design. I start with something small, while still trying my skills at combining game mechanics balancing with storytelling. It's a fun art, complex yet simple. Inspiring. Creative. Creating a game, no matter how small or simple is like creating a world. And what can be more fascinating than that? Setting your own natural laws and playing god with what is right and what is wrong in your creation.

I have many ideas and visions, so many dreams, and I wish to make at least some of them reality. It's just not all limited to boardgames, no. My dream is to be able to move on to computer game design given the chance. There is so many stories I want to tell, stories that make a difference. I want to be able to create fun enjoyable games, but still tell a story and a message. I want to reflect our world, our human weakness, our human strengths, in visions portrayed within the games. There is so much that can be done within the compputer game media, that the possibilities are endless. I want to provoke, and I want to please.

But most of all I just want to tell stories, stories that matter, and I want to do it on the media I love the most. The media with the most possiblities, and the most interesting audience. And I just want to entertain and hope to spread some joy into the world.

This is my first step into the the known unknown.

Games in US politics

While lingering on the topic of politics



(Link stolen from Naseer who dug it up. Just thought it should be spread as much as possible.)

The Pirate Bay drama intensifies

I have deliberatly refrained from discussing politics on my blog, but this is taking so huge proportions now...

Quoting a post on Piratbyrån about the latest updates:

After the raid against the Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån and almost 200 other servers, information suggesting pressure from American lobby organisations as well as the US government was the reason for the police action was released. Minister of justice Thomas Bodström immediately denied all knowledge of that kind of foreign influence.

This Tuesday however, Swedish public service TV have presented evidence that shows how, shortly before the raid, the US justice department threatened with trade sanctions via the WTO if Sweden doesn't act harder on Swedish file-sharing sites – that is, the Pirate Bay.

- This is no more than a farce-like juridical outrage featuring Thomas Bodström as the main character, says Tobias Andersson from Piratbyrån. - If he has a grain of decency and self respect left, we expect him to resign from his post.

The Pirate Bay is a file-sharing site using the Bittorrent technique. The technique itself is in no way illegal, which is why the Pirate Bay has not been shut down before. The complexity of the technique is also why Bittorrent hasn't had its legal status tried in the US.
- We demand all cards to be put on the table immediately, says Tobias Andersson. We won't tolerate this kind of fiddling, lies and foul play. It's an attack on freedom of speech!

Piratbyrån has not yet gotten its server back after the raid, although it was not an official target for the bust. The police remain silent, contradictory and refer to prosecutor Håkan Roswall for more information. Roswall on the other hand has not given Piratbyrån any answers.
- We're convinced that this raid against the servers was meant as sabotage against the Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån and not as a juridical case, says Tobias Andersson. - Obviously we are an uncomfortable part of the debate, but it's alarming that freedom of speech is not worth more for copyright crazed lobby organisations and legal authorities

Piratbyrån is forming a critique against copyright by operating as a think tank and information aggregator for issues concerning intellectual property, file sharing, piracy and other related topics. We pursue no activity that could be considered a violation of Swedish law.

Make of it what you will. Personally I definitely do not support piracy or copyright-related crimes. I do however support an open debate on copyright issues, and copyright and patent changes that help support the authors and creators instead of the greedy corporate bodies. This just isn't the way to go. This is so wrong on so many levels, I am out of words. Right now I am ashamed for living in a country with such a corrupt system, where politicians act on whims or from threats from other countries. Working against public opinion as well as, most upsetting, directly spitting on our constitution.

Summer means ice cream

Furiae Boardgame - Entry II

Since I've found out I get a fair share of visitors from Linda Bergkvist site, where she links to my blog from her Ungentle, Gentle picture that shows a typical Skinflayer Dryad, and because Thord D Hedengren asked about it, I think it's not more than right I give you guys some heads up on the boardgame project.

I wish I had some fancy new pictures to show, like I did in the first post about the game, but I'd rather not share too much of the material I have at the moment. Driving up unnecessary hype or showing material that might change considerably for the end product seems improper and unfair to both me and you. Maybe I'll show off something in future updates when we have more stuff finalised and we are through the initial prototype phase. Because that's where we are now.

The map for example is, although accurate, just a roughly drawn variant and the final map will of course be much more detailed and fancy. But in it's current state it works splendid for testing purposes. It just need a few minor changes, as to working out the perfect balance between strategic considerations and storyline and worlddesign considerations. It's all more or less in it's final stage.

The rules and mechanics are finished more or less, and just need some playtesting, but I feel confident that they are very balanced and works splendidly in conjunction with the storyline. So I have finally moved on to building the prototype. Which means trying to find some means of printing out the map, god-tokens and other colorcoded stuff somehow, in a proper size. Which is a bit of a pain in the ass since I don't have access to a printer currently. However it seems we have now worked out a perfect solution there anyway, so it'll be done within the week. The rest is just a matter of gluing white paper on to generic game cards with different colored backs, so to separate the five different card types used in the game (3 spell type variants, monsters and magic items).

A lot of you are probably wondering how much of Lindas art will be present in the game since it circulates around her world. While I am doing most of the layout, all art is made by her really. The map, the magical items, the creatures and characters, all will be based on her visions and painted by her. For some stuff we will reuse known and popular paintings already done, either details or the whole images. But for some we will use new original paintings made by Linda, such as those Skinflayer Dryads in the Ungentle, Gentle picture which was made public just to give you people an idea as of what you can expect from us.

Also, additionally I might add I am actually working on another boardgame concept, which I will pursue as soon as we get this one finished. And we're thinking about eventually doing a card game for Lindas world too, but that's just loose ideas at the moment. It all depends on how well things go with this game.

And that's all for now. I'll keep you updated with the progress.

Blog metapicture

Naseer of Super Play! posted a nice picture of the metastructure of his blog. I kinda took a liking to it's molecular aesthetics, so I decided to jump on the trend and post a pic of my own blogs metastructure too.



blue: for links
red: for tables
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images
yellow: for forms
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes
black: for the root node

You can go to this site to generate a picture of your own blog.

Statistics, Anthologies and Machinima

The other week I installed a statcounter for this blog. Mostly because I was a little bored and really felt like procrastinating. I'd guess. Or maybe it was because I have a secret, almost perverse, love for webstatistics, no matter how depressing they are. To my surprise I found out that I have a lot more visitors here than I ever expected. Each day I get somewhere between 20 and 50 unique visitors. I can't for the love of anything understand why however. The oddities of Internet. But since I obviously have an audience, I might as well make my best at entertaining them. Or bore them to death, whichever one applies the best. So I'll better try update it a little more often.

Something I should have mentioned quite a few days ago is that my synopsis for the mmorpg anthology was approved and that I was one of the few lucky authors that got accepted for the book. Except for a few select individuals I really have no clue as to who the other authors are, so it'll be exciting to look forward to what comes out of it all. It's a thrilling project indeed. I guess I'll have plenty of time during this summer to write my chapter for the book. Although, I'll make sure to leave some time for the boardgame development and Gameplayer of course.

Another thing I have for a long time wanted to get off my chest is a kind of irritation. An irritation aimed at game development philosophies and market strategies. Of course I have many aversions and irritations in this matter, but one in particular made itself obvious today as Olle Agebro published his review of the Movies expansion, Stunts and effects.

The other week we republished a short article, also written by Olle, on Gameplayer originally intended for and published on Spel2 (Yeah we do that since we have a larger audience now, so shoot us. Our stuff is good). In that very article he asks the developer how he thinks the expansion will help in improving the machinima culture that the game both supports and profit from. He didn't answer that very question and Olle, with all right, draws the conclusion that they can't answer the question, because they really don't care or know what they are talking about when it comes to that.

But the thing is, this was a fairly easy question still. We brainstormed quite a bunch of good indepth questions regarding machinima and machinima culture for that interview. Olle, of all those questions, only choose to ask this one, since the length of the interview didn't allow more. Personally I think it is insulting to us as journalists that they refuse to answer even the simplest of questions. Even a nobrainer answer like "We of course hope it will help in stimulating the creativity among the players", would have been enough. But we're treated with silence. It shows two things, and two things alone, as far as I am concerned:

1. The devs don't give a shit about the machinima culture, they just find it amusing. Meaning: they have no clue as to what they are doing, except making profit.
2. They have no respect for, nor any high thoughts about, game journalism, since they think just leaving questions blank will solve things. Make us ignore we asked it. To them we are just a means to an end.

Thumbs down for Lionhead (or whatever developer made that expansion), they have no spine. Thumbs up for Olle, he has.

Just a short notice

Published a small preview on the upcoming Lost Eden expansion for Anarchy Online today on Gameplayer. It's nothing thrilling there for you hardcore AO fans, except maybe some screenshot or two, since the article is mainly aimed at people not too familiar with the game already.

But it all reminded me of the fact that I had been thinking of tipping people to read the blog of Yngvild Lothe, one of the AO developers at Funcom. Her blog can be found here.

I can't help it, but I envy her. She's got the job of my dreams. Anyway, her blog is a very interesting read. Check it out.

Zelda - Hero of the bad taste

Well, it seems the idea is that if you like something enough, you pick a group of untalented people and bring them together to make a movie about it. And thus forever slaughtering the very thing that you adore. Ah, the stupidity of man. Makes for a good laugh though :)

The truth about CDs

Over at Neurotically Yours, they know what's up with CDs.

Click here for the movie

The Stylus Orchestra

Article about the full event on Gameplayer!

Gameplayer <3 Spel²

And now it is official. We jumped ships. The core crew of Spel² has joined the ranks of the site Gameplayer. We are all very happy with how it has all turned out for the best and confident in that we will help in making Gameplayer become one of the best swedish gamesites around, if not the best!

The Gameplayer crew are resourceful and full of ambition, and I am eagerly looking forward to getting to know them all better. And it's also fun that we can maintain some of the soul and ambitions from Spel² still.

For the official statement go here!

Henrik has also a blogged about this here!

Kieron Gillen has never played Anarchy Online

That is the only conclusion that can be made. Quite a bit embarassing for mr Gillen I'd say. Isn't he allknowing?

To his defence however it must be said that he does play Urban Dead. That's respect!

Gaming for Culture

This saturday night, I will be performing live together with Stefan Blomberg, Michael Gill, Mattias Wikström and Ulf Sandqvist during the Kulturnatten event here in Umeå. What we will perform? Music of course, but it won't be a regular performance. No, we will be playing a multiplayer session of the Nintendo DS game Band Brothers. For those unfamiliar with the game, which is likely since it's a japanese import and not released here in Europe, it could be described as Guitar Hero, but for the NDS. Looking forward to it a lot. We did go through the playlist yesterday and will be rehearsing some more today in preparation of the event. If you're around, be sure to check us out.

As a sidenote, Linda Bergkvist will be exhibiting some of her art at the local Pilgrim-shop during the event. She will as per usual without doubt draw a lot of attention.

This means however that I will miss out on the finale of the Eurovision Song Contest, and possible the finnish monsterrock band Lordi's eventual triumph there. Such a shame, but I guess I can always watch the reruns. It is possibly one of the coolest things to happen in that lame contest ever. Such a shame I won't be able to vote.

Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust: In Retrospective

As of yesterday, the 15th of may, around 7pm, Spel² is no more. It was decided by the chief editor that the site was to be shut down with immediate effect. The reasons were many, but the final blow was the single fact that he's becoming a dad and just didn't have any time for a project that didn't bring any form of income. Add to that some of of writers had lost focus and ambitions, and many of us others was becoming overburdened with responsibilities towards the site. All in all, the level of ambition had dropped and discontent was starting to rise. While we still had some amibitions left and some, I'd dare to say, really good ideas and concepts for the future of Spel² it's not possible to pull such a thing through if all involved aren't involving themselves hundred percent or more.

It's with a heavy heart I am letting go of Spel². After all I have dedicated my life for about exactly a year to the site now. But it's not only that. I am probably the one person who had enough competence to pick up the torch after our chief editor Emil. And that knowledge has pained me quite some, because a part of me really didn't want it to end like this. But neither I can dedicate myself to that extent without getting paid. It of course sucks to admit that a lame reason as money has to ruin things, but that's reality. In theory I could have taken over. In reality, that is just a dream, nothing more. Also, even if I had, what would be the point? Since the atmosphere and morality was low among the others, it would just have been a futile attempt to prolong a painful death.

Looking back now, it is easy to see some critical points were we did wrong, or somewhat failed. Things that ultimately paved the way to this situation.

First and foremost I think it was a mistake focusing on keeping up such broad content, because ultimately we lacked the resources to keep that image up. The initial thought was to have many writers and freelancers helping us to cover up all areas. But as some who were in the project first dropped off for different reasons, it became harder and harder. And with freelancers you have the problem that they can't prioritise helping us if they can't get paid. We just couldn't rely on peoples good will. It doesn't hold up in the long run.

I know for sure we should have dropped the mobile part already in the beginning, and maybe we should have only divided the formats into three categories: PC, Console and Handheld, to limit the stress of trying to cover every damn format to prevent the site from looking inactive or unupdated. Also, the culture and retro-articles should have been merged into one category also, since after all the retro part was just a subcategory to the cultural articles anyway.

It doesn't matter now, but in the end this was one of the most fatal mistakes since it forced us to compromise and prioritise on quantity instead of quality. Quantity material ensured a steady flow of visitors, but without enough quality material to back it up we could never reach the goal and image we had originally set. For myself it meant being stuck doing reviews and previews and stuff noone else wanted to do, leaving little or no time to write the articles that I really wanted to focus on. And I think we all got caught in very similar positions thanks to that. And naturally, it lowered the level of ambition. Since we didn't get paid for it, neither could we fully focus on what really motivated us.

Another problem that indirectly affected the image, was the lacking community part of the site. Since I wasn't there when the site was originally designed I can't say for sure what the idea behind the user registration system, comment system and forum really was. I just know that when I joined it didn't seem quite thought through. So I took it upon myself to revise the concept, considering my cast experiences wih online communities and forums as an old administrator at the old Ebony Keep art forums among others. But in the end, although I gave loads of advice and had a clear vision of what needed to be done ro raise the usability of the system, only about a tenth of my ideas were realised, leaving us with a halfarsed compromise that totally lacked any clear use. As I see it, the user registration system should either have been dropped from the start, or put more effort into. The only point with having a community is to give the site visitors a home, where they can mingleand rant. But our forum was never a home to anything. It was an empty shall lacking all vital functions and with a design I never had any confidence in. We did open up the comment system, after I had nagged about it a while, but it was still too late for the community part. We should have dropped it, since we were just dragging a corpse.

Last but definitely not least, because either way we turn we always have our back behind us, there is the money issue. Although we made some sweet deals for site hosting and was slowly starting to build funds, there was really never any possibility that we would have made any sort of money within a year, that could support the work. So we did it all for free and we took everything from our own pockets, especially Emil himself, which definitely made the situation unbearable in the end.

But I don't wanna make it sound that all we did was a failure, because it certainly weren't. Sure we couldn't live up to our own initial expectations, but many times we did manage to raise the barrier and put out some really good stuff. We had an aim to challenge the swedish game journalism, and we did. Not always directly, but more often indirectly. I think we set up a new standard for review scores for games, and made quite a big deal of giving pure and honest reviews. We got a lot of appreciation from our readers for not exaggerating the scores we gave, and not to give halfarsed games better scores then they deserved. And all in all, Spel² was a sandbox where we could speak up about our ideas and everyones opinion counted equally. We could in theory write about everything we wanted to, as long as we wrote a good text. And I could although I strongly disagreed with someone on their article still be happy about it and love it, because I knew the article was written with passion and a drive to make a difference.

Sure, we never made the impact some of us might have hoped from the beginning, but I do think we made a dent. We launched almost at the same time as the ASOS-blog, and pushed for a more open and introspective view on the swedish gamespress. We might not have been leading it, but that isn't important. What's important is that we were a part of it and we did make a dent. We did make a difference. And to me, considering the short time we were live, that definitely counts for something. The body of Spel² might be dead, but the spirit of it will still live on inside all of us who were a part of it. I will surely miss what we hade, because I know nothing can ever be what Spel² was. It might sound like a lot of nostalgia and bullshitting, but I honestly believe so. We did have something special going on. There was never anything wrong with our ambitions, it's just that reality reared it's ugly head our way.

So this is the end of an era, but as such it is also the beginning of another. Myself I will take this time to sit back and relax a short while, and try to take this all in. But my aim at the moment is to push on and look for other opportunities. There is no way I am stopping now. We'll see what the future brings and if there is some site or publication out there that might appreciate my work.

Veils of mist

Yesterday morning I woke up quite early, at 5 am since I started early working at my small extrajob. Anyway, yesterday morning it was extremely foggy outside at that time. And when I say extremely I literally mean a fog so thick you could hardly see more than five meters in front of you, and at best sort of like ten meters in front of you. It was pretty cool actually.

My job is on the other side the city though, and I have to cross the river that splits the city in half to get there. Fastest way over there, by bike, is to take a route over the largest bridge, that is located close to our home, cross that and take a detour when it comes across to the island that's in the middle of the river, take small forest road there through a small and nice villa community and then later over a tiny bridge and be back on track after a main road until i get to the working place.

So, I jump onto the bike, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and aim for the bridge. But as I start to ride out of the bike I have become enough awake to realise that it's dead silent. Just me on my bike. No cars or traffic, and I had seen no other soul at all up until then. And as I roll on out on the bridge I realise that I'm like a prisoner isolated in a small tiny seclusion inside the fog. It's as if the bridge itself appears out of nowhere as I push on forward, just as if it didn't exist prior to that. I'm starting to creep out as suddenly a undistinct shadow or shape starts to form in the mists in front of me. It makes no sound, no nothing. As it gets close enough it's obvious however that's it's a jogger out early exercising for some godforsaken unknown reason. But it's too late. During these few seconds my vivid imagination started to paint up Silent Hill references in my subconsicious and against my will I start to feel quite a bit unsettled. Bravely however I force my bike onwards over the bridge.

As I reach the island, I take the detour and aim for my shortcut, and soon enough I'm out on the small muddy road leading through the community here on the island. It's a few houses here and there, and at this time of day it could have been a ghost town for all I know. Devoid of all that's life. But there is not silence this time. No the silence has been replaced with this silently growing eerie highpitched irregular sound. A sound born from the darkest pits of hell. Truly. And as it grows in both volume and pitch I see another dark shape coming towards me, but this shape seems highly irregular in form, sways back and forth and closes in in a very high speed. I start to almost believe in the unknown at this point. But only almost. The sound is piercing through my ears as a man in somewhat 40+ scuttles past me on his rusty untrustworthy old bike, probably aiming for hiw own work most likely. At least the word scuttle is as close as I can describe it. The sound itself came from the crappy old bike.

And I must say I love fog. Despite how rational one usually are, it's a wonderful source of inspiration at times like this. Painting up the most vivid and vibrant concepts inside your head. I arrived at work very very tired, but in quite a good mood.

Are Wii a hoax?

According to this blog, the name Wii is just an elaborate hoax to drive up expectations for this years E3, where the real name of the console will be revealed. Let me quote the most interesting parts from it:

Because we don’t believe that Wii is the real name. We think Nintendo is setting you all up to be Punk’d at E3, generating a massive amount of positive buzz when the scam and the real new name are announced.
[---]
Allowing your audience time to vent is not SOP in a name announcement, and also telegraphs that Nintendo knows what a stinker this name would be. Second, it’s not possible to engineer a worse name for this product.
[---]
There are no trademarks registered by Nintendo nor by any dummy corp in the U.S or over there for Wii. This is unprecedented for Nintendo and it is not possible that this is an oversight. If Wii were the name, they would have registered it. In fact, no new trademarks have been registered by Nintendo at all.

Elaborate hoax or bad judgement call? Guess E3 will have the answer.

Wii will change everything!

Or at least give everything a foul stain of yellowish. Just yesterday Nintendo declared that the new name for the Revolution console will be Wii. The reasons? Well, they want gamers and nongamers to unite into small cuddly pillowparties all over the world. At least if you are to believe the official statements made on the official Revolution site yesterday.

No, but seriously, I do think sticking to Revolution would have been a better choice because:

1. It's a serious statement of Nintendos effort to revitalise it's own products.
2. It's a perfect step away from the childish/infantile mark they have unrightfully earned over the last decade.
3. Revolution was established within the gaming community and everyone could relate to it.
4. It made perfect sense and described the product perfectly.
5. It marked Nintendo as a serious competitor on the gaming market.


I think Wii is a lesser good choice because

1. All the wee-wee jokes we will have to endure if we buy one.
2. It's meaning is too farfetched and cryptic to both gamers and non-gamers alike.
3. Non-gamers won't start liking games or start appeal to a product just because of a product name change. Only gamers will care about that.
4. It is not established within the gaming community at all.
5. It sounds like the name of a childrens toy and do not describe the product.

Sure I understand that Revolution might not be the best choice back in the homeland Japan. Levolusion all the way and all, but Wii is even worse in western countries. After all it pronounces like Wee, and already the internet is flooding with jokes on this and pictures of Mario wetting his pants.

The most ironical thing however is that Nintendo also has made it official that the distributor Koch will make Wii available to the players in Great Britain.

So you brit's can sleep safely tonight, knowing that Cock distributes Wee still.

No joke. Seriously.

[quote] Fuck! [/quote]

Yes, indeed. The debauchery, the insanity, the immorality. An elder woman, an Xbox 360, some diet Coke, and most important, a copy of Oblivion.

The blog trend

I just noticed that Emil Kraftling, the editor of the swedish PC Gamer has joined the ranks of bloggers. Could be interesting to follow his rants regarding games and games. According to himself it won't be full of any pretentious nonsense, but just full of love for the game media. He promises to write about his experiences and impressions of all the gameworlds he'll encounter. Sounds like a wonderful cause if you ask me.

The Furiae game

For some people I have already hinted about this project, but to most this should be quite new, although it is far from a secret in any way.

It all began when Linda Bergkvist started her first sketches for her upcoming novel and storycollection based on her fantasy world Furiae, that most of her images is based on. During one of our regular chats I suddenly got the idea that it would be a good idea to launch some sort of card game or board game, following the release of her book, based on the same world. A game that would in a sense contain at least some traces of storytelling and that could channel the atmosphere of her visual work. After some brainstorming I soon came up with the basic concepts that were the seeds for what later, now, I am referring to as the Furiae boardgame, or more precisely by it's project name Furiae: The quest for Rinavor. Since not much has been printed about the world itself yet (although Linda has some ideas and plans for a lot of stuff for her world), you are probably by now wondering: "Who or what is a Rinavor". Well, let me explain the game for the first time publicly, and you might get an idea.

The game takes part in a particular area in the Furiae world, a place that has been quite central to a lot of the lore Linda has built up by the years. A place known as Rinavor. It is a land that has gone through a lot of conflicts and has a very colorful history. The current rule however, has banished all religion from it's land. Something that is really annoying the gods themselves. Four of the gods have however started a wager about who will be the first to break down this human vanity. So they all send out their most trusted avatars on a mission to convert the lands.

Now in the game the players will take the role as one of these gods, and guide their avatars with the help of magic and ancient artifacts to outmaneuver and battle the opposing avatars while converting as much of Rinavors population as possible by completing great deeds. However magic in the Furiae world doesn't really work like the typical D&D systems, but rather drawing it powers from completely different sources. Therefore I have built a system for this game to reflect this, dividing magic into three basic realms of Power, passion and harmony. Then it is up to the players to weave together their own magic powers from these sources. When one religion dominates most of the land, the god can send his avatar to the capital and claim his teachings state religion.

Quite early on I made up a great and intricate rule system that would offer some very dynamic gameplay, and that's where I stood about a little less than a year ago. A lot has happened since then. Firstly I have been postponing the game for some various reasons. Firstly, Linda herself has for necessitys sake had to postpone her book somewhat which have given me time to myself postpone the development. Secondly, we felt both a bit disencouraged when presenting the ideas for certain people, and although interest arose in the product, we both felt that people were aiming to take a bit more control over the product than we wanted, so we hesitated. And thirdly, I realised I had made a big mistake by making the first rulesystem too complex for the target audience. While it certainly would had been challenging for the typical boardgamer enthusiast, it probably was a bit too challenging for a more mainstream audience. So I have taken time to rebalance and simplify the rules without loosing the goal and atmosphere of the game. Fourthly, when I joined Spel² it also gave me less time for developing the game.

Today I am back on track however, and the game is nearing completion. I think I have a fairly playable system now that should be very enjoyable. What I need to do now is to make a simple prototype version of it, and playtest it on my friends and others perhaps. It's kind of a scary (and exciting at the same time) step to take since it will show if my system works or not in practice. And after that the process I'm not good at will begin: Pitching the game to a publisher.

Anyway, now you all know what I do with the rest of my spare time.

A swedish MMO anthology

The way information bounces around on the internet really amazes me sometimes. Today, this morning I received an email from a friend that works at Massive Entertainment regarding a fresh and interesting project. It seems that the game researchers Peter Zackariasson and Daniel Pargman has decided to write an anthology on online gaming with focus on "the border between the virtual and the real". And they need writers with firsthand experience from the world of online gaming.

(Now Zackariasson is working here at Umeå University and you can actually take part of one of his seminars at HUMlab, through videostreaming if you want to. I'd recommend it actually.)

Here's a quote from the email regarding the anthology project:

"Onlinespel, som World of Warcraft, är idag en aktivitet som fångar allt fler personer och som också börjar få större utrymme i medier - även om artiklarna oftare spelar på kuriosa-aspekter snarare än att försöka förmedla och analysera. Därigenom uppstår möjligheten för oss som har tillbringat tid med att spela och reflektera över onlinespel att skriva en antologi som har till syfte att underhålla och upplysa. Vet du någon som kan bidra till denna bok, eller vill du själv bidra?"

You can read the actual full invitation letter as a .pdf document here.

I have personally decided to take this opportunity to write an article I have been pondering on for a very long time, about my experiences and reflections during my time as a guildleader in Anarchy Online for about two years. I always thought it to be a bit too extensive in form to be a good article for the webformat. In this regard however I think I have an unique approach that should pitch well and be informative enough to fit into such a thrilling project. I also urge anyone in the swedish gamepress or game industry with unique experiences or knowledge to join in on this project and send their ideas to Zackariasson and Pargman. Deadline is the 12th of May.

Snakes on a plane

The almighty Joss Whedon supposedly said about this movie:

I just have to say I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found a kind of spiritual transcendence in the title "Snakes on a Plane". It gives me faith in this bleak Hollyworld that there should be such simple beauty, such direct and uncluttered understanding of the human condition. Snakes, as the great philosophers used to say, on a motherfucking plane.

Thank you PC Gamer!

About a month ago, right before I went to see Depeche Modes latest tour in Stockholm, I wrote a short and hasty preview on the more or less marginalised russian first person shooter Ubersoldier. A game about undead nazis killing other nazis. Yeah, I know, storywriting at it's peak. Anyway, not surprisingly it got a few reads the first week and the occasional comment. But considering how new and unknown the developer is in the business and how stupid the title of the game is it didn't get especially large attention. Nothing strange about that.

But last week we suddenly got a huge influx of visitors at Spel², and although we've had a good and steadily growing number of visitors since February, we couldn't really figure out why we suddenly got this boost of visitors all of a sudden. The BF2142 article rush was over, so was the Oblivion review rush. We had nothing new last week to offer but standard material. Nothing that'd draw this much attention you thought.

So I took a closer look upon our webstatistic, and to my surprise I found out that my over a month old preview of Ubersoldier was the cause for all this new attention. 25% of last weeks hits was on that preview. Our most read article this month so far. While this of course was fun for us at Spel², we couldn't at all understand why this small russian title suddenly got this much attention. Or at least I couldn't. That is, until yesterday, when I finally had the time to pick up and read through the latest issue of the swedish PC Gamer magazine.

It appears that Mikael Hjalmarsson had written a thorough review of just Ubersoldier. So it became suddenly very apparent where all this extra attention came from: The PC Gamer readers had gotten interested in the title and wanted to know more. And since we are one of the few (the only?) swedish gamesite with any sort of coverage on the game, well, they came to us. So thank you Hjalmarsson and thank you PC Gamer for bringing your readers to us :) Involuntarily as it may be.

Anyway, my real point here is that this certainly shows what a heavy actor the swedish PC Gamer is in the game industry here. Hjalmarssons conclusions about the game could be described pretty much like being "lukewarm", and pretty consistent with my own conclusions. It's not a big title, and it will never be. But, PC Gamer reaches out to so many readers that they will affect the target audiences instantly. There is no way that Ubersoldier would have gotten any attention at all without coverage in PC Gamer. But now I dare say enough attention has ben made to this title to affect sales in a positive manner.

My sincere hope is that the marketing departments realise this, understand what it means, and pay due respect. The true power lies within the gamepress, not the PR departments. The smallest article can bring attention that it would otherwise never get. And I also hope magazines like PC Gamer are aware of this, although I think they are. And that they use this power in the right way.

While at it, I would be very glad if PC Gamer now could give me a one year subscription for free. Pretty please? I'm kind a low on funds at the moment. No? ah, well, it was worth a shot at least.

World of Borecraft

I've decided to cancel my World of Warcraft account for now. I'll probably pick it up again when the expansion is released and it's time for me to review it. But for now I've had enough with online games for a while.

And it's not that it's something particularily wrong with World of Warcraft in itself as a game. For those who have the time to play it, it's one of the best online experiences out there. It's just that I have started to crave more from online games. More than they can offer. And it became quite apparent this weekend when I tried out the free korean online game Maple Story. Because the second I started playing it I went into analyze mode, comparing the effort/reward balance, the timesink system and so on... and it just struck me that not even the free games dare to challenge the norms in mmo-development. And at this moment I hunger for change, since in my eyes all that mmo games does today is to limit the players, forcing them to play in certain given manners, instead of encouraging player creativity and freedom. It's all just illusion. But this type of illusion no longer works on me since I know the game mechanics structures better than my own apartment. Or so it would seem.

I used to say quite some years ago that I'll never play an online game like Ultima Online or Everquest, because I knew I'd get addicted. Badly. But through the years I have tried quite a couple of online game titles now, and two games really did become addictive for me. First Anarchy Online and then World of Warcraft. And even Eve was almost snaring me, but I managed to stay away there. And boy, I have had a lot of fun in those games. And I have been addicted, to an almost fanatical blindness level. But in the end, as soon as you reach endgame, all these games all start to suffer from the exact same problems. When you realise that, when you see through the veil of lies the machanics are, the addiction dies instantly. It becomes apparent that they all just dwindle down in timesinks. Which in my opinion takes out all enjoyment from the game. All that's left is the social aspect. But that is not enough. Not for me anylonger at least.

I dare the industry to evolve. But looking at all the next gen mmorpgs coming, it doesn't seem promising.

...correction...

I was mistaken on one single bit of fact in my post about the swedish gamepress earlier today. I'm sorry for that, so to not spread any false rumors:

The individuals leaving Gon, is not going to join the already large Level-team, but rather going to join the ranks of the Super Play-crew. Sorry for getting that piece of information wrong.

My apologies.

Soak the Sin

Back in my very last years at the Gymnasium (swedish equivalent of the american high school), I was the singer in a death metal band. Although of course always being damn cool, I never had any luck with girls, but I had at least a few girlfriends this period. The most memorable of these being a sweet girl named Åsa Grundberg, that studied media at the time. She was a bit more into grunge, not metal, and also loved sports, as opposed to me. She left town and we broke up. Lost contact years and years ago.

Now my music career failed for many stupid reasons, so I am not in a band anylonger. But she most definitely is (and I'm arguably into media somewhat, how's that for a twist of fate?). She's in this really cool rockband called Soak the Sin. And their debut album "The Work is Done" is released today.

This is damn good stuff. Girlband, but with definite influences from bands like Queens of the Stoneage, Muse and that kind of stuff. And it's surprisingly fresh and good. So, I am plugging them. Here and now. Buy their album.

Their site

Their video "I said no" on SVTs Spinn

The incestuos swedish gamepress

Quite a powerful title, eh? Well, it isn't necessarily something extremely negative, but my god, it certainly is a mess.

I'll try to make it short, but it's a long story.

Once upon a time there were only 2 good games magazines, one covering console games and one PC games, in Sweden. They shared the same publisher and thrived for years. We know them as Super Play and PC Gamer. Competitiors came and went but they could never really compete with these 2 magazines. But recently, just a year or two ago, things took quite a violent turn. Internal conflicts when the publisher got bought made the chief editors for both magazines to leave for greener pastures. Together with a copule of freelancers and other dropouts they formed their own company and their own new magazine named Reset.

Reset was a massive project with dozens of talented writers connected to it and they competed directly with the old Super Play magazine since they aimed for the exact same target audience. Nothing wrong with some good old competition, because it did feel the trade needed it. Anyway, the Reset team also lined up with the swedish gamesite Gon, to host their community forum called Loading. Although different companies with different writers this cooperation seemed to have worked quite well over the last year. And Super Play? They just kept going in the same old pace, taking in some fresh blood as well as one or two writers from the sister magazine PC Gamer, still being the number one console magazine.

Very recently however, for reasons I can only speculate in, Reset decided they should join a new publisher, and merge with their smaller more independent game magazine called Player1 that had been around for a couple of years. The new merged magazine are to be named Level, and as it seems at the moment is more or less just Reset with a new name (and Reset were to begin with never more than just yet another incarnation of Super Play if you ask me). Time will tell I guess. Anyway, there's a few changes, mostly personell related, and here's where things start to become real messy.

See, Level recruits one of the heavier names from Super Play to write for them and to fill this vacant spot, Super Play in turn steals two other well known writers from the new Level team. So what we have here is really just the same people being cycled through these magazines. Add to that the fact that one or two writers from Gon are also being recruited into this new mess, joining the Level team if I am not mistaken (but I could be wrong). Good writers both, who definitely deserves the attention.

But all these events makes a few certain things quite clear. Sweden has a selfpronounced gamepress elite, and it consists of the people in these two magazines and the site Gon. It's the same kind of people and the same kind of network of contacts and friends being pushed around more or less. They might be different companies and publishers, but as I see it, since it's just the same people, it really is the same entity entirely. Philosophically speaking.

Now, don't misinterpret my intentions of writing this. I do think sweden needs two console magazines, but is there really any competition in material if it's just the same old people anyway? I disgress. And the thing is, although these magazines now have lots of great writers, there is still lots more just as great writers out there writing for many of us smaller and larger gamesites. There's plenty of talent in sites like Gamingeye, Level7, Kong, Gameplayer etcetera etcetera. Why are these sites indirectly but effectively being frozen out from this "gamepress elite"? Because I think the readers deserve a change of atmosphere, just not only the writers.

Well, anyway, it certainly is a mess, and we'll just have to see how this develops further. I am intrigued to how the new Level will land. If it is a new fresh take or just Reset all over again. Super Play I have no doubt will cope without any problems, considering their strong fanbase and heavily established name.

More on Oblivion...

I am actually a bit disappointed all of a sudden.

Bethesda just released the first plugins for Oblivion, just like they did with Morrowind. The difference is, these plugins used to be a gift from Bethesda to their paying customers. Now it's just a commercial sham.

A PC-owner has to pay two american dollars per plugin, while an Xbox360 owner pays 200 credits on the Xbox Marketplace (which is actually roughly more expensive). Hey that's not much for game content you migth argue, but the thing is, it's more than much. It's a damn ripoff.

The content in question is definitely not worth 2 dollars. Features that were supposed to be in the final game but never made it in. We're talking horse armor, a mere aesthetical touch really, a short mage quest for some ugly gizmo, and a house just for mages. Oh, but 2 dollars is quite ok for that you might claim, but you are wrong. These features cost 2 dollars each, summing up at roughly 6 dollars (~9 dollars for Xbox owners), which is almost a third of the price for a full expansion. So, imagine just 6 more small plugin features like this and you have a full expansion? No of course you don't. Noone would pay 20 dollars for that little content.

I certainly wouldn't cough up 20 bucks for this little game content. Especially not for stuff that were supposed to be ingame already to start with.

Shame on you Bethesda! Shame! Didn't your game sell well enough? Or has Bill Gates greedy black heart gotten you at last?

Oblivious

The talk of the town (town in this case being quite large since it covers the whole internet) in the game media world right now is the hugely successfull computer roleplaying game Oblivion. Although I haven't looked into it for verification, I have heard that it sold over one and a half million copies just the first week. How's that for a success story?

As someone, I forgot who, pointed out to me: "Hey, compare that to normal record sales for a large artist, or the sales for a new movie. In all that amount of sold cd's or tickets is considered an extremely huge success. Now, compare the pricetags.". This rant isn't going to be about prices on games, but think about it for a while.

What I really wanted to rant about is a completely different subject, related to rpgs and how they are developed for computers and consoles.

See, the game has gotten a lot of feedback. And I mean a lot. And it all differs, there's tons of good criticism, as well as a load of negative. Both constructive and destructive opinions are being aired. And, heck, everyones entitled to their own opinion. But what really gets to me is when some people start to talk about things they don't understand. Criticising game mechanics without understanding the game balance, and the reason and purpose of the mechanics. Or, like in this very case, not understanding the game at all.

In dozen upon dozen of threads on forums I've read complaints about Oblivion not being a rolepaying game at all. Yes, you read right. The mind boggles, doesn't it? Sure they have a point if they compared to real roleplaying, as with the theatrical roleplaying or the popular pen and paper roleplaying games. A computer game can never truly simulate that kind of experience and "gameplay", at least not with todays limited technology standards.

But that's not what they are saying, no. The claims are that Oblivion is not a real rpg, because it's not linear. Because it doesn't give you the direct answers and feed you with a silver spoon. The same people, and they line up by the thousands, of course claim that they're better of playing hack'n'slash games like Gothic, Final Fantasy, Diablo or Dungeon Siege, because all that's left in Oblivion is monsterbashing, and compared to those games Oblivion "sucks" since it has crappy rewards and a slow unsatisfactory fighting system.

Take a long deep breath.

I cannot help but wonder if these people have played the same game I have, because their line of reasoning is alien to me. Oblivion is in my opinion the most successful adaptation of a rpg on the digital media to date. The game allows free exploration, and it puts the narration of the game in your hand, the choices are yours and yours alone. And it's all about what you think your character would do or react to in any given situation. The game questions your morality in many cases, and it keeps you on the edge all the time. That is, if you roleplay the game. Which of course should be what an rpg is all about. But no, the game doesn't take you by the hand and play your character for you, as with most generic, so called, "rpgs".

So where are these people coming from? Why do they think Oblivion isn't an rpg? MY guess after reading all these discussions are summarised in two words: Character development. See, the idea is that when you roleplay a game, your character develops with the challenges. For many gamers, as opposed to roleplayers, this is all about levels, attributes and items. I'd like to call it the "Dungeons & Dragons"-disease. These people aren't interested in actually roleplaying, and therefore they don't grasp the idea. They just want to play their games, not roleplay them. Get better stats, better items and more gold, like as if that was a purpose in itself. But Oblivion doesn't do that, it almost prevents that kind of mindset if you are to enjoy it. Oblivion isn't a game that you "beat", it's a game that you experience, and that experience will always differ from character to character, game session to game session.

There's been a bad trend in crpgs lately. They have become more and more hack'n'slash focused, more and more about monsterbashing, item farming and stat-raising. The epidemic mmorpg trend doesn't help that either, since those are the very premises that kind of games are based on. My hope is that Oblivion will be the renaissance for the genre. Like Baldurs Gate was almost ten years ago now. Because it's about time the trend of shallow gaming is turned.

X marks the spot

If I would start talking about Vikings and burial mounds, most of you would probably get pretty graphical pictures and visualisations in your head. Romanticised ideas (not the kiss kiss smooch smooch ones, the literary kind) of glorified deaths in ancient times. And probably huge tourist attractions with well known routes to these historical and archelogical locations.

Reality doesn't even come close.

Every day at lunchtime I take a walk with my dog a few kilometers into the woods. Usually following smaller or larger trails and paths, or like now during winter, snowmobile tracks. Well, one of these tracks, just a few hundred meters into the woods, not far at all from where I live, there's a Viking grave. Not that kind of Viking that sailed across the seas or so, no, but one of the real kind. The ones that stayed put here in Sweden. Iron age tribal people trying to survive best they could.

Isn't that fascinating, just outside my door, a real Viking grave? How exciting and exotic? Right? No, not the least. It's just a piece of mosscovered rubble, barely distinguishable to the untrained eye. And noone knows of it. It's in the middle of the forest, no real path there. The sign marking the place is slowly rotting away, leaning somewhat twenty or thirty degrees to the right. Noone in the surrounding area probably knows of it. Heck, probably almost noone in the entire city, except me and the archeologist students I know sometimes go here on some excursions. It's an important part of our history that noone gives a shit about, except my dog who loves jumping around in the woods and sniffing out the squirrels that live in the area.

And that's just it. In other parts of the world people cling to every little notion of historical heritage. In the Americas there's a huge fuss over the smallest fragment of an arrowhead. While here, in Scandinavia, we merely let our pets piss on our legacy totally ignorant of it's presence.

Isn't that fascinating?

Games, more games, a bit of arrogance and the occasional but rare insight

On the internet, you don't really exist if you don't have a blog. So here's my go at trying to justify my own existance. Or something...

This really isn't my first attempt at blogging though. I do have a LiveJournal account that I have barely updated for years, and that I never really cared about anyway. It didn't inspire me, and I never knew what I should post there. It was merely an empty facade.

This blog has a much more outlined purpose and goal. I'm gonna frolick in my own opinions, and rant about stuff that inspires me or annoys me. Things read on the internet. Things currently on my mind. And of games of course. Those beloved games. After all it's my hobby and passion.

Also, it will be a grand opportunity for me to connect two worlds. If I get the time (haha) I will try to translate here into english some of the better texts I write in swedish. Just so that my foreign friends might get a chance to read them (yeah right! like that will ever happen).

And that's it really. This is a blog. My blog. And you can probably expect the same old shit you get on any other blog. Oh, and of course long periods of inactivity ;)

But I'll try to update it once a week at least. But I can't promise anything. (Not that anyone cares anyway.)