Plan for Edward Gardner
by Edward Gardner · 05/16/2004 (7:01 pm) · 4 comments
As many may know, we took 7 of our guys from Max Gaming to E3 this year, partly to do a little business, but as much as that as to reward everyone for successsful Lore launch and celebrate.
There were parties every night, IGDA party, Apple party, nVidia party, then Trymedia party were the ones I got invites for, and between them all I didn't get to bed before 2 am on any night. Combine that with the time difference, and that makes for a very tired me :)
Interesting people I met, in no particular order:
Gallagher- He was shopping for a studio to make a game. I was drinking a beer at the IGDA party, and I looked up and there was this guy with a checkered hat and crazy hair. I said hi :) But, I think he was shopping for the wrong reasons, not sure he got any takers. I have no idea how to build a sledge-o-matic game and make it fun...
The EvE dev team- I played EvE for 3 months or so. I had a mixed experience with it, but, Lore was getting more and more complicated, so, I had to concentrate on that, and stop playing EvE (and most other games for that matter). Anyway, I was drinking beer at the Trymedia party, talking with Justin Mette and Dave Myers from 21-6 Productions and Jeff Tunnell and Jay Moore from GarageGames, when I caught a glimpse of an EvE Dev team jacket. EvE is a technically impressive game as far as I was concerned, and it's professional courtesy to tell someone what you think about their product at a party :) Being IN the game industry has it's perks after all. We talked for a while about my impressions of EvE, and about my recent experience with Max Gaming and the release of Lore. We commiserated about online communities and the trials and tribulations of having an online game. They are very passionate guys, they really love what they do, love their game, and love their community (even with it's roller coaster nature). So, hats off to Magnus Bergsson, Reynir Hardarson and Sturla Sighvatsson. EvE players should rejoice that there are passionate developers working to make that game as good as it can be.
Rich Hernandez from Apple computer- Rich is a rock star, he and Wallace Poulter are (well, were in the case of Wallace, see below) the heart and soul of Apple's Games initiativeas far as I am concerned. Rich is passionate and honest and loves games. and he loves bringing games and developers over to the Mac. Talking with him was a real treat and with him driving things inside Apple, Mac owners are gonna get some sweet games.
Infinium Labs- Soooo much hype lead up to this, so much net anger, and flamebaiting. Nobody seemd to think it was real. A number of weeks ago, a guy named Wallace Poulter left Apple Computer to join Infinium in preparation for the Phantom launch at E3. Wallace is a really passionate, no-nonsense guy, he loves games and the game community. When he joined Infinium, that was my first personal clue that the Phantom was real. We met up with Wallace a number of times while at the show, and shared a drink and mutual thanks with him and his boss, Kathy Schoback at the Trymedia party on Thursday night. With these folks passion and connections, there will be some sweet content coming out with the Phantom. For more on the Phantom, see below.
I have a stack of business cards, a couple hundred emails to write and reply to, and a bit of a head ache from all the parties and the jet lag :)
Other news of note:
Dark Horizons- Lore
Lore was on display at E3! On the Phantom no less. I was certain that sometime in the future, Max Gaming would have a game at E3. I was more than pleasantly surprised that we managed to get one at THIS E3. Of course, events leading up to this were all hush-hush. Infinium Labs and the Phantom Gaming Service, including the Phantom hardware itself, has had something of a love hate relationship with the gaming community at large. People even speculated that is was some kind of scam and would never really exist. Well, it exists, and it's pretty damn cool. Like I stated with regards to Wallace above, the fact that someone like him joined Infinium was my first clue that it was not vapourware. Then, GarageGames mentioned the possibility that there might be room for their catalog of titles to be shown as technological proof of the Phantoms capability, which, inlcuded Lore. I think it REALLY hit home after seeing Infinium Labs folks join the Lore lobby the week before E3. Part of me was still skeptical, I was imagining that they would have PC's to show the games they intended to have available thru their service, I was still unsure that we would see any Phantom hardware.
Then of course, I got the the Exhibit hall. There are still some rough spots in the service, and not every demo was flawless (unfortunately, including the first 2 times they tried to run Lore), but when they finally got it working, man did it look sweet. They demo'd other GarageGames titles, including ThinkTanks and Orbz, as well as the mainstream titles like UT2004. Basically, thru their service, the Phantom console can play ANY PC title (yes, I said any). And, you can try demos, rent games, or go whole hog and buy full versions of games that get downloaded to the Phantom hard drive. I think, that now we all know it's really real, this is something to watch. It was definitely cool to see my game on the big TV's being played by conference attendees :)
It's not a done deal that Lore will "ship" with the Phantom in it's retail debut this fall, there are still all sorts of things that we need to work out. But, Max Gaming was psyched to help bust the Phantom "myth" and we were doubly psyched that ours was one of the games Infinium selected to accomplish that myth-busting goal.
I'll be posting photos and a short video of the hardware in action later today.
For more information on Phantom, visit:
http://www.infiniumlabs.com
For more information on Dark Horizons- Lore, visit:
http://www.darkhorizons-lore.com
For more information on GarageGames, ThinkTanks or Orbz, or to purchase a copy of Lore, visit:
http://www.garagegames.com
Dark Horizons- RPG
In other Dark Horizons news, E3 gave us a chance to get together as a team and review the Dark Horizons Universe RPG, currently in development by Max Gaming, including first run miniatures in pewter of the Cavalier Medium Armor.
Max Gaming has entered into a deal with Iron Wind Metals to produce a line of miniatures for the upcoming paper and pencil RPG. The RPG utilizes the Open Game License material typically associated with the d20 series of games. While the DHU-RPG will not necessarily be a d20 branded game, it will utilize a similar core rules set, making it instantly accessible to RPG enthusiasts everywhere. The RPG will be supported by a line of IWM produced minis, and is scheduled to be released later this year. It was an exciting time for us to see the first draft colour copies of hte Federated States source book and the core RPG rules, and even MORE exciting to see 5 Cavalier minis assembled and painted to match our concept art.
I'll be posting photos of the minis later today. Brian and the rest of the RPG team have done a fantastic job so far, and the whole team is very excited about the game. Look for more information in August, around GenCon time.
For more information on the Dark Horizons Universe RPG, visit:
http://www.darkhorizons-rpg.com
There were parties every night, IGDA party, Apple party, nVidia party, then Trymedia party were the ones I got invites for, and between them all I didn't get to bed before 2 am on any night. Combine that with the time difference, and that makes for a very tired me :)
Interesting people I met, in no particular order:
Gallagher- He was shopping for a studio to make a game. I was drinking a beer at the IGDA party, and I looked up and there was this guy with a checkered hat and crazy hair. I said hi :) But, I think he was shopping for the wrong reasons, not sure he got any takers. I have no idea how to build a sledge-o-matic game and make it fun...
The EvE dev team- I played EvE for 3 months or so. I had a mixed experience with it, but, Lore was getting more and more complicated, so, I had to concentrate on that, and stop playing EvE (and most other games for that matter). Anyway, I was drinking beer at the Trymedia party, talking with Justin Mette and Dave Myers from 21-6 Productions and Jeff Tunnell and Jay Moore from GarageGames, when I caught a glimpse of an EvE Dev team jacket. EvE is a technically impressive game as far as I was concerned, and it's professional courtesy to tell someone what you think about their product at a party :) Being IN the game industry has it's perks after all. We talked for a while about my impressions of EvE, and about my recent experience with Max Gaming and the release of Lore. We commiserated about online communities and the trials and tribulations of having an online game. They are very passionate guys, they really love what they do, love their game, and love their community (even with it's roller coaster nature). So, hats off to Magnus Bergsson, Reynir Hardarson and Sturla Sighvatsson. EvE players should rejoice that there are passionate developers working to make that game as good as it can be.
Rich Hernandez from Apple computer- Rich is a rock star, he and Wallace Poulter are (well, were in the case of Wallace, see below) the heart and soul of Apple's Games initiativeas far as I am concerned. Rich is passionate and honest and loves games. and he loves bringing games and developers over to the Mac. Talking with him was a real treat and with him driving things inside Apple, Mac owners are gonna get some sweet games.
Infinium Labs- Soooo much hype lead up to this, so much net anger, and flamebaiting. Nobody seemd to think it was real. A number of weeks ago, a guy named Wallace Poulter left Apple Computer to join Infinium in preparation for the Phantom launch at E3. Wallace is a really passionate, no-nonsense guy, he loves games and the game community. When he joined Infinium, that was my first personal clue that the Phantom was real. We met up with Wallace a number of times while at the show, and shared a drink and mutual thanks with him and his boss, Kathy Schoback at the Trymedia party on Thursday night. With these folks passion and connections, there will be some sweet content coming out with the Phantom. For more on the Phantom, see below.
I have a stack of business cards, a couple hundred emails to write and reply to, and a bit of a head ache from all the parties and the jet lag :)
Other news of note:
Dark Horizons- Lore
Lore was on display at E3! On the Phantom no less. I was certain that sometime in the future, Max Gaming would have a game at E3. I was more than pleasantly surprised that we managed to get one at THIS E3. Of course, events leading up to this were all hush-hush. Infinium Labs and the Phantom Gaming Service, including the Phantom hardware itself, has had something of a love hate relationship with the gaming community at large. People even speculated that is was some kind of scam and would never really exist. Well, it exists, and it's pretty damn cool. Like I stated with regards to Wallace above, the fact that someone like him joined Infinium was my first clue that it was not vapourware. Then, GarageGames mentioned the possibility that there might be room for their catalog of titles to be shown as technological proof of the Phantoms capability, which, inlcuded Lore. I think it REALLY hit home after seeing Infinium Labs folks join the Lore lobby the week before E3. Part of me was still skeptical, I was imagining that they would have PC's to show the games they intended to have available thru their service, I was still unsure that we would see any Phantom hardware.
Then of course, I got the the Exhibit hall. There are still some rough spots in the service, and not every demo was flawless (unfortunately, including the first 2 times they tried to run Lore), but when they finally got it working, man did it look sweet. They demo'd other GarageGames titles, including ThinkTanks and Orbz, as well as the mainstream titles like UT2004. Basically, thru their service, the Phantom console can play ANY PC title (yes, I said any). And, you can try demos, rent games, or go whole hog and buy full versions of games that get downloaded to the Phantom hard drive. I think, that now we all know it's really real, this is something to watch. It was definitely cool to see my game on the big TV's being played by conference attendees :)
It's not a done deal that Lore will "ship" with the Phantom in it's retail debut this fall, there are still all sorts of things that we need to work out. But, Max Gaming was psyched to help bust the Phantom "myth" and we were doubly psyched that ours was one of the games Infinium selected to accomplish that myth-busting goal.
I'll be posting photos and a short video of the hardware in action later today.
For more information on Phantom, visit:
http://www.infiniumlabs.com
For more information on Dark Horizons- Lore, visit:
http://www.darkhorizons-lore.com
For more information on GarageGames, ThinkTanks or Orbz, or to purchase a copy of Lore, visit:
http://www.garagegames.com
Dark Horizons- RPG
In other Dark Horizons news, E3 gave us a chance to get together as a team and review the Dark Horizons Universe RPG, currently in development by Max Gaming, including first run miniatures in pewter of the Cavalier Medium Armor.
Max Gaming has entered into a deal with Iron Wind Metals to produce a line of miniatures for the upcoming paper and pencil RPG. The RPG utilizes the Open Game License material typically associated with the d20 series of games. While the DHU-RPG will not necessarily be a d20 branded game, it will utilize a similar core rules set, making it instantly accessible to RPG enthusiasts everywhere. The RPG will be supported by a line of IWM produced minis, and is scheduled to be released later this year. It was an exciting time for us to see the first draft colour copies of hte Federated States source book and the core RPG rules, and even MORE exciting to see 5 Cavalier minis assembled and painted to match our concept art.
I'll be posting photos of the minis later today. Brian and the rest of the RPG team have done a fantastic job so far, and the whole team is very excited about the game. Look for more information in August, around GenCon time.
For more information on the Dark Horizons Universe RPG, visit:
http://www.darkhorizons-rpg.com
About the author
#2
05/16/2004 (11:49 pm)
I probbaly shoulda broke this into 3 .plans :) that's pretty long :)
#3
The XArcade announcement from Microsoft and the Infinium Labs coverage made it a 'great time to be GarageGames'.
I'm on vacation - yeah I know I shouldn't be reading novels like Ed's plan, but I'm still decompressing from being amped up for e3 and have an eithernet connection for another 12 hours before it costs another $9.95.
I still say even e3 isn't as fun as IGC... more news on that front when I get back.... (Yep I just can't help myself hypn' Lore, GG and IGC even on vacation.
05/17/2004 (1:14 am)
It was a great show! And having Ed, Adrian, Logan, Sebastian, Brian, and everyone else on the Max Gaming team out rocked. Some stuff you just can't experience via email and IRC. The XArcade announcement from Microsoft and the Infinium Labs coverage made it a 'great time to be GarageGames'.
I'm on vacation - yeah I know I shouldn't be reading novels like Ed's plan, but I'm still decompressing from being amped up for e3 and have an eithernet connection for another 12 hours before it costs another $9.95.
I still say even e3 isn't as fun as IGC... more news on that front when I get back.... (Yep I just can't help myself hypn' Lore, GG and IGC even on vacation.
#4
Served a different purpose altogether :)
I'll post those pics as soon as someone else posts a .plan
man I REALLY shoulda broke this up into 3 .plans :)
05/17/2004 (3:26 pm)
oh, e3 is no where near as fun as IGC.Served a different purpose altogether :)
I'll post those pics as soon as someone else posts a .plan
man I REALLY shoulda broke this up into 3 .plans :)
Employee Josh Williams
That thing is looking very attractive. I hope it gets popular, so PC games start selling as well as their console counter-parts. I can't believe the Phantom is free with a 2-year subscription to their service. That rocks. And I love the look of their kb/mouse controller (check GameSpy for info, anyone who's interested).
But enough about Phantom. Congrats to you and Max Gaming on a very successful E3!!