There seems to be a continuing trend of several hard core gaming news sites really stepping up the level of their coverage.  Evil Avatar has interviewed game industry analyst Michael Pachter about how he makes his predictions.  It doesn’t tackle all the points of contention between gamers and analysts in general, but it’s an informative and quick read.

The interview is actually part of the Evil Avatar Analysts site.  It’s still working on hitting its stride, and insight can vary from pundit to pundit, but it’s a good place for commentary on the latest numbers and forecasts.  Sometimes the commentary’s as simple as “can anyone figure out where they pulled that prediction from?“.  Other entries combine sales numbers for a more in-depth take than you might have come up with just digging around on your own.  Either way, it’s sure to be more good fodder for console partisans.

Well, that’s my guess anyway: we know they’ve been working on Diablo 3 forever.  Of course, they could have scrapped it indefinitely after closing Blizzard North, or even just rebooted, in which case it might not be ready for unveiling.

That, plus the fact that the new title is being unveiled at a massive Starcraft event in South Korea, lends quite a bit of credence to the rumors that it’s Starcraft 2.  I’d personally be a little afraid to attend the unveiling: a new Starcraft could cause massive riots across the country (and if it’s just a World of Warcraft expansion, the riots will be worse– unless the new playable race is Zerg).

Who else can cause this kind of anticipation for the announcement of their next title?  Amazing.

(In case you’re curious: I’m hoping for Starcraft 2.)

In the vein of Kirby: Canvas Curse for the DS comes Sonoro TV. You can create bridges for your dudes to cross, updraft lines that make them jump, and in general just draw lines to help the characters finish each level.

They’ve got a Youtube-hosted trailer right here, so check it out.

Continuing in the vein of nothing’s simple in web development, here’s a great writeup on how to get fixed positioning in IE.  One solution requires that you put IE into “quirks” mode, and the other has even more serious drawbacks, but they seem to be the best solutions available.  Either don’t do fixed positioning, or use one of these solutions at your own risk!

Why are so many MMOs designed around leveling treadmills?  That’s why.

I’ve barely heard of this tool. It’s very under the radar, aside from a post-mortem at GamaSutra, almost as if the site itself has been designed to repel search engines.

Lucky for you, now you’ve found it: FishEd is probably the most advanced, cheaply available 2D map editor out there. Having developed a quickie myself for a GBA game, I really appreciate how much more advanced FishEd is. It’s got the basic like layers and meta data, along with more advanced functionality involving brushes, masks, and animation.

It’s designed to export easily into BlitzPlus, with a BlitzMax version in development, though I’m guessing the data format shouldn’t be too difficult to adapt for another tool (I haven’t verified this). It’s got a free demo and costs only 5 GBP (10,000 USD or 500,000 Canadian, I think), so if you’re developing a 2D tile-based game, give it a serious look.

Thanks to Joystiq for the heads-up.  You can find 9 more pics on Flickr.  It’s hard to believe this game still has such a passionate following– amazing.

Totally unrelated to the site, but a striking photo set: the abandoned billboards of São Paulo, Brazil.

Before releasing World of Warcraft, Blizzard attempted to implement a system to somewhat even the playing field between players with different amounts of time to invest. The original idea was that the longer you played, the less experience you would get from killing things. Unsurprisingly, the most vocal players– that is, the ones who play the most– didn’t like this. Blizzard changed it to “rest XP”: you have a certain number of hours during which you get double the normal experience for dismembering defenseless critters.

As documented on Raph Koster’s blog, China has implemented Blizzard’s first pass at the idea. Players under 18 get an experience penalty after they’ve played over three hours in one day. After five hours, they get no XP, and a reminder every fifteen minutes to go outside, already.

This is, quite clearly, a very bad move on the part of the Chinese government. As any good game designer knows, you should steal the best, most recent iteration of someone’s idea. Let me offer the following suggestions, to replace stick with carrot:

• Gold for grades: capitalists know to pay for results, not effort. An A is 100 gold, B is 50, and so on. Bonus side effect: studying becomes the most ethical way to farm for (and then sell) gold.
• Non-subversive XP: while Blizzard gives their players bonus XP just for failing to log in, you could really extend this to encourage restraint from many activities. For every hour you spend not promoting democracy, religion, or even pornography, you gain a monster-kill’s worth of bonus XP.
• Good citizen bonus: if your neighbor’s being subversive (see above), and still gaining their bonus XP, you might be inclined to let it slide– unless, of course, you could get a fancy new epic any time you reported someone who was subsequently convicted or disappeared. (Note that this would work quite well in the U.S. War on Terror as well!) To protect informants, all rewards should be bind on equip, not bind on pickup. “Dude! Your neighbor just got picked up!” “I know. Wow.” “Were you scared? … Say, where’d you get that sweet sword?”

These ideas are all off the top of my head, and subject to refinement. However, I hope I’ve made clear the value of a governmental Department of Game Design not only to China, but to aspiring game regulators worldwide.

Gamasutra has completed its novella-sized history of computer RPGs.  If you have fond memories of the old CRPG classics, this series will give you a massive nostalgia buzz.
Part One covers 1980-1983, covering tabletop gaming, mainframe RPGs, and pioneers such as Akalabeth and Telengard.  Even Wizardry and Ultima started out back then.

I didn’t actually play any CRPGs until Part Two, covering the “golden age” of 1985-1993.  Here’s where we hit Bard’s Tale, and Gamasutra gives a solid overview of the series, well worth reading for the nostalgia hit if you played any of the titles.  We also get to the SSI gold box titles, Autoduel, Wasteland, Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic, and plenty of other fantastic RPGs.  The golden age, indeed.

Part Three catches us all the way up… to 2004.  This episode is a bit grimmer.  After giving Baldur’s Gate II its propers as one of the best single player CRPGs of all time, the author despairs:

At the end of the platinum age, the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, or the MMORPG, dominated the scene, and, at least to this critic, the future of the CRPG is grimmer than anything ever dreamed up by Lord British.

Still, the time period does hit on some classics such as Ultima 7: the Black Gate and Fallout, and 3D RPGs from Ultima Underworld to Morrowind.  The author lauds Planescape: Torment, and even goes so far as to describes Bioware as “the new SSI”.

It’s a long read, but if you’re an RPG junkie you’ll find yourself devouring it (even if you skim a bit).  Check it out.