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.)