Making Videos

I made my first foray into the world of making game videos last night. Of course I made an EverQuest 2 video showing off a couple of zones, but nothing spectacular as far as production values are going on here.



The framerate and graphics settings are just as they are as I play the game daily. I have a 3.0 ghz intel with an x800 radeon video card and 2 gigs of ram

*update* the video is breaking my page for some reason. I'll leave it here for a few days, then only post a link to it.

*update2* I exported the video at a higher quality, no telling when youtube will make it available. No clue why the embedding code for the video screws up the rest of my page

*update3* Music by Jesu

For all of the EVE Online miners

Apparently I get alot of hits because of my posting on mining in EVE Online which I play periodically. I guess people end up here thinking they are going to get info on mining so here is some info (taken from >evegeek.com who also happens to have some decent ore and mineral calulators for all you min/maxers out there).

Veldspar
Units per batch: 333
Volume: 0.1
Cargo per batch: 33.33 Minerals: Tritanium 100%
Variations: Concentrated Veldspar (+5%), Dense Veldspar (+10%)
Found in: 1.0
Veldspar has the best cargo/mineral rate for tritanium

Scordite
Units per batch: 333
Volume: 0.15
Cargo per batch: 49.95 Minerals: Tritanium 66.7%, pyerite 33.3%
Variations: Condensed Scordite (+5%), Massive Scordite (+10%)
Found in: 1.0
Scordite has the best cargo/mineral rate for pyerite

Pyroxeres
Units per batch: 333
Volume: 0.3
Cargo per batch: 99.9 Minerals: Tritanium 81.8%, pyerite 5.7%, mexallon 11.5%, nocxium 1%
Variations: Solid Pyroxeres (+5%), Viscous Pyroxeres (+10%)
Found in: Amarr, Caldari 0.9

Plagioclase
Units per batch: 333
Volume: 0.35
Cargo per batch: 116.55 Minerals: Tritanium 25%, pyerite 50%, mexallon 25%
Variations: Azure Plagioclase (+5%), Rich Plagioclase (+10%)
Found in: Gallente, Minmatar 0.9 Caldari 0.7
Plagioclase has the best cargo/mineral rate for mexallon

Omber
Units per batch: 500
Volume: 0.6
Cargo per batch: 300 Minerals: Tritanium 41.7%, pyerite 16.6%, isogen 41.7%
Variations: Silvery Omber (+5%), Golden Omber (+10%)
Found in: Gallente, Minmatar 0.7
Omber has the best cargo/mineral rate for isogen

Kernite
Units per batch: 400
Volume: 1.2
Cargo per batch: 480 Minerals: Tritanium 25%, mexallon 50%, isogen 25%
Variations: Luminous Kernite (+5%), Fiery Kernite (+10%)
Found in: Amarr 0.7 Caldari, Minmatar 0.4

Jaspet
Units per batch: 500
Volume: 2
Cargo per batch: 1000 Minerals: Tritanium 19.9%, pyerite 19.9%, mexallon 39.8%, nocxium 19.9%, zydrine 0.6%
Variations: Pure Jaspet (+5%), Pristine Jaspet (+10%)
Found in: Amarr, Gallente 0.4

Hemorphite
Units per batch: 500
Volume: 3
Cargo per batch: 1500 Minerals: Tritanium 24.2%, isogen 24.2%, nocxium 48.4%, zydrine 3.2%
Variations: Vivid Hemorphite (+5%), Radiant Hemorphite (+10%)
Found in: Amarr, Gallente 0.2
Hemorphite has the best cargo/mineral rate for nocxium

Hedbergite
Units per batch: 500
Volume: 3
Cargo per batch: 1500 Minerals: Isogen 64.7%, nocxium 32.4%, zydrine 2.9%
Variations: Vitric Hedbergite (+5%), Glazed Hedbergite (+10%)
Found in: Caldari, Minmatar 0.2

Gneiss
Units per batch: 400
Volume: 5
Cargo per batch: 2000 Minerals: Tritanium 20%, mexallon 20%, isogen 40%, zydrine 20%
Variations: Iridescent Gneiss (+5%), Prismatic Gneiss (+10%)
Found in: 0.0

Dark Ochre
Units per batch: 400
Volume: 8
Cargo per batch: 3200 Minerals: Tritanium 25%, nocxium 50%, zydrine 25%
Variations: Onyx Ochre (+5%), Obsidian Ochre (+10%)
Found in: 0.0

Spodumain
Units per batch: 250
Volume: 16
Cargo per batch: 4000 Minerals: Tritanium 71.6%, pyerite 14.2%, megacyte 14.2%
Variations: Bright Spodumain (+5%), Gleaming Spodumain (+10%)
Found in: 0.0

Crokite
Units per batch: 250
Volume: 16
Cargo per batch: 4000 Minerals: Tritanium 25%, nocxium 25%, zydrine 50%
Variations: Sharp Crokite (+5%), Crystalline Crokite (+10%)
Found in: 0.0
Crokite has the best cargo/mineral rate for zydrine

Bistot
Units per batch: 200
Volume: 16
Cargo per batch: 3200 Minerals: Pyerite 25%, zydrine 50%, megacyte 25%,
Variations: Triclinic Bistot (+5%), Monoclinic Bistot (+10%)
Found in: 0.0

Arkonor
Units per batch: 200
Volume: 16
Cargo per batch: 3200 Minerals: Tritanium 37.6%, zydrine 20.7%, megacyte 41.7%
Variations: Crimson Arkonor (+5%), Prime Arkonor (+10%)
Found in: 0.0
Arkanor has the best cargo/mineral rate for megacyte

Mercoxit
Units per batch: 250
Volume: 40
Cargo per batch: 10000 Minerals: Morphite 100%
Variations: Magma Mercoxit (+5%), Vitreous Mercoxit (+10%)
Found in: 0.0
Mercoxit has the best cargo/mineral rate for morphite

A Non-normal Life

Every day that I go to work I get to talk about video games. All day. I talk about making them, playing them, what I play now, and what I used to play. It is the subject of almost every conversation at work. If we aren't talking about video games we are talking about movies, roleplaying, and music.

How did my life get to be like this? I'm not complaining, but I live a weird life when I really sit down and think about it. Tonight I went to a club where women were eating fire and lighting body parts on fire while belly dancing. As crazy and exotic as it sounds, it's pretty normal in the scene that I hang out in outside of work to see this kind of display. If it isn't that, it's a fashion show, people hanging from the ceiling suspended by their piercings, or some other wacky thing that I've grown too jaded to really care about anymore.

It's not that uncommon for me to blow town and roll into Vegas for the weekend, drive up to San Francisco, or spend the day at Disneyland. Hell, I sometimes go to Disneyland a couple times a month!

Today at work I was thinking out crazy it is that I get to see all the "cool stuff" before all the rest of the cool kids that play EQ2 do. It wasn't that long ago where I was just some guy posting on the boards and playing EverQuest every day 6-8 hours a day wondering how awesome the next expansion is going to be, and how awesome it would be to be playing EverQuest 2 when it comes out. Coolness = playing in Kelethin before everyone else does, and getting paid for it.

What toll will it all take? Will I become so jaded that I can't enjoy movies games and music anymore? I admit, I'm way more jaded about the quality of games and the smoke and mirror tricks developers play to make a game "cool". Rarely am I really that impressed anymore. Even in music I feel the same way. The last musician to really freak me out in a good way was Joanna Newsome (she plays a harp and sings, and is all kinds of awesome in my opinion). I guess only time will tell.

It's going to be a dork out weekend

My fiance' is working all weekend, and you all know what that means. Too much gaming!

What will you be playing this weekend?

Better than that, what is your all time favorite game? My all time favorite is Castlevainia IV. Why? It's Castlevania IV, it just is!

Whew!

LU #24 for EverQuest 2 released and a collective sigh is heard throughout the building. Big patch days, especially AP or Expansion days are hectic in general. It's probably a little known fact, but several designers form a strike team of sorts on days such as this, and run through checklists of areas in expansions and adventure packs to make sure that functionality is still there after all of the data is pushed to the live servers. They get here at 6am and it's a race against the clock to try and get it rolling again before the players get too antsy. The real scary part is when something important breaks and there is a scramble of fixing and testing to get things into place.

The Commonlands appears to have survived my changes without a mass of players trying to bang down my office door. I guess I did alright! I'm already entrenched in a new task, but it's for the forthcoming expansion, so it's nothing I can talk about at this juncture.

If any of you are on the fence about getting The Fallen Dynasty adventure pack, I think you should take the plunge. It probably costs less than it does to go to Mcdonalds these days, and it is well done.

I personally worked on the prior 2 adventure packs, and I was hoping the adventure packs would continue to be successful. After participating in a couple internal playtests and playtests on the live test server, I have to say I was pleased with the zones that we have there.

It's interesting to look at these places from both a player and dev perspective. As a player, I love finding new places to go as my character experiences them. From her perspective, this isn't just newly discovered country, it's just a region that she has yet to investigate herself. From a dev perspective it was interesting to see the interaction between our office and SOGA to make this all come together. Both studios were very involved in the creation of this adventure pack, and it was interesting to see the results of that collaboration.

So Many Games, So Little Time

It would be an understatement to say that my gaming interests are varied. I have a chronic habit of buying games when I have several unfinished ones on various platforms still vying for my attention. Couple that with being a game developer for an MMO, being engaged to a wonderful girl, and trying to maintain friendships and it starts to get a little crazy.

Sure, I could drop the games and pay more attention to everything else, but this is my hobby and this is what I enjoy. Some people like to go out drinking and partying on the evenings, I like to game. I'm not sure who's habit is more expensive though, because things are starting to rack up around here!

In the past 2 of months I've bought Ghost Recon, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, PGR, New Super Mario Brothers, and Half Life: Episode One. All of these games have been bought during the course of my 2 month revamping of the Commonlands in Everquest 2, the SOE Fan Faire in Atlanta that I attended, E3, and a trip to Las Vegas. In the meantime I still found time to get into EQ2 a few times and get into an ORE strip miner in Eve Online.

With the advent of LU 24 on the horizon, the release of The Fallen Dynasty adventure pack, and my outrageously big update to the Commonlands, everything feels like a giant spring waiting to uncoil next week. This weekend was an actual sigh of relief, thanks to the fact that my zone is pretty much good to go, and I have some time to kick back and take a look at all of this gaming goodness.

This is a great time to be a gamer. We have so many good games on the shelves and coming soon, its like being a kid in a candy store if you have the money and the inclination. It just takes some magic to balance life against the gaming, which I've become particularly adept at. I handle everything else first. Play games later. It works out pretty well, but whew! I'm getting behind with so many good games to play.