I’ve just started reading (Flipping through? Glaring at?) The Design of Everyday Things, so I found this especially apt. You may also find it apt if you use a computer.

How many times has this happened to you?

• File->New->Text Document.
• Change from “New Text Document.txt” to “.htaccess”.
• Windows: “You must type a file name.”
• Hit F2 to rename.
• Change from “New Text Document.txt” to “.htaccess”.
• Windows: “You must type a file name.”

That’s right– Windows won’t let you create a file starting with a period.  Fret no more!

• Open Notepad, Vim, or whatever you like.  Create a new document.
• Save as .htaccess.
• Hooray!  Other programs are not subject to explorer’s restrictions.

The first question you may ask is “what is a casual game”? Some say it’s “Easy to learn, hard to master”, but from what I could glean it is in fact, any game that you can stuff full of advertising.

Another great post from the Introversion blog.

Handling scandal isn’t just for politicians. It’s now part of running a successful online game– but as CCP has shown, developers have a lot to learn.

The Escapist has done a great job of reporting on the scandal, but here are the highlights:

• A player named Kugutsumen uncovered that an EVE developer used his position to give some useful information and seriously fat loot to his corporation (an EVE guild). These ill-gotten contributions may have played a part in that corporation becoming the dominant force in EVE– a major coup in a PvP-centric, single universe game.
• Kugutsumen went public with this information, exposing the identities of many developer-players in the process.
• CCP banned Kugutsumen, citing a portion of the ToS that prohibits making the game more difficult to administer– by, say, pointing out that the developers are sending loot to their friends.
• CCP claims they disciplined the offending developer last year, when they uncovered the incident independently. Until now, the ill-gotten loot remained with the corporation. The developer still works at CCP.
• The head of the guild that received this preferential treatment retaliated against Kugutsumen, by posting his personal information and encouraging people to call and harass him at home and work. That player has not been disciplined.

Sound bad? The more you read, the worse it gets. CCP’s posts are a model of what not to do: they give lip service to the actual scandal, while complaining about the loss to the developers (several of whom were forced to delete their accounts). It’s a tasty helping of scandal: dig in.

The very pretty Warhammer RTS just released its multiplayer demo. Anyone fire it up yet?

Update: for that matter, the friggin’ Supreme Commander demo is out (as of a day or so ago, actually)! If I didn’t have to get to level 60 70, I’d be giving these guys proper attention. I’m hearing that SupCom multiplayer is, in spite of its external matchmaking program, quite addictive– and soul-crushingly frustrating as only a good RTS can be.

The SOE Exchange handled a total of $1.87 million worth of transactions in its first year of operation. If it can do this for Everquest II, imagine what Blizzard could do with a similar service? $1.00 an item, $1.00 for cash, $10.00 for a character. Also, it’s massively reduced SOE’s customer service headaches.

Check out Raph Koster’s writeup on the whitepaper, which has all the links you could need. So what do you think– would people play on a “Blizzard Exchange enabled server”? I thought the idea would be a flop for SOE, but clearly I was wrong.