PAX East 2012: Plot vs Play panel

Here are Ken Levine (Bioshock), Chris Avellone (Fallout: New Vegas), and David Gaider (Dragon Age) speaking about the importance of writing, plot, and game mechanics.

Images from WonderCon

Cool painting in the hotel

Sign in the dealers' room food court

Speaking of food - personal apple pie 

Lovely ladies

Gamers gaming

Walkway between Anaheim convention center and hotel

Tardises and Amy Pirate

The BEST panel of all

Interview with Chris Avellone

This is an excellent interview with Chris Avellone, wherein he discusses how Fallout: New Vegas and its DLCs were created - the steps designers go through, etc., things he's learned in the industry - such as not to foreshadow future games as they did in Knights of the Old Republic 2 since 3 was never made, and how to break into the industry - example: being a modder with an extremely popular download rank is a plus.

You also learn some cool trivia, like Chris A. wrote Lanius and Rose of Sharon Cassidy, and he attended William & Mary and Virginia Tech.

Thoughts on Skyrim and Dragon Age

Welcome to Skyrim. This place probably needs no introduction amongst my readers, right? We're all bleary-eyed from having stayed up too late playing the latest in the Elder Scrolls franchise.

My fella asked if I was riding a draft horse and I proceeded to tell him about how Skyrim horses are sturdy and built for endurance because of the local terrain etc etc. He asked how I knew all this. I told him I'd been living in Skyrim for a while now.

So you can take it as read that I love Skyrim. Even though the giant Frostbite Spiders are entirely too realistic.

You do not want to see that thing charging at you - first person point of view, mind!

Of course, it's worse when they sneak up on you. Turn around and WHAM there's a giant spider IN YOUR FACE.

I hear there's a No-Spiders mod for PC players. I'm a PS3 player, so I'm stuck with 'em. Solution? Temporarily turn gameplay to "Novice" and hit 'em with a Dwarven Battle Axe. Results in minimum amount of spider face-time.

As realistic as Skyrim is, I must admit I felt more You Are There in Rage.

Rage feels like you're holding a video camera in front of your face. You're literally right there.

So glad that game didn't have spiders.

Some of my friends criticized Rage's role-playing aspect. I was lenient on that because it's listed as a First Person Shooter, and that's really what it is. A First Person Shooter with Talking.

Because my friends are correct, the role-playing aspect is weak - you don't get to know anyone very well considering what they want you to do for them; you risk your life on the slimmest acquaintance and you choose sides without much inquiry on your part. One of my friends diagnosed the player character as "pants-on-head-stupid."

I was reminded of this when playing one of the quests in Skyrim. My only option to get the quest moving forward again was... well, I said to my screen, "What? Am I pants-on-head-stupid?"

And it struck me that many of the criticisms that were leveled at Rage are valid against Skyrim as well. You risk your life on the slimmest acquaintance. You're asked to choose sides before knowing much about either.

But what really gets me is the lack of dialogue options. I know things. And yet there are no options to tell anyone. I know the identity of a secret Thalmor agent. Obviously I must be able to tell someone at some point. But why wouldn't I tell them now?

That's a small frustration, though. I think my biggest criticism of Skyrim is that we don't get to know anyone very well. And this is important, because Skyrim IS a Role-Playing Game.

I want to know - and like - the characters I'm fighting for. For me, what differentiates a Role-Playing Game from other genres is the emotional investment. I expect there to be a story and I want to feel something because of my role in that story.

This was something Dragon Age 2 did spectacularly. I care about all the people in my party. I feel for them, and I want them to like me. Especially Fenris and Anders. (cough, cough)

Which brings up ROMANCE. Nobody does romance like the Dragon Age team. There's flirting and witty dialogue and it's genuinely fun.

Sidebar - have you seen the sexy cutscenes in Dragon Age Origins? Those were awesome!! Why don't other games do this? Why didn't Dragon Age 2 do this? I expect sexy cutscenes in Dragon Age 3!! Developers, take note!!

Back to romance in Dragon Age 2:  However you feel about romancing Anders and how that complicates your response to Anders' actions - the point is that you do feel it. Your emotions are invested in this game.

I don't feel anything about anyone in Skyrim. (Except my horse. Anyone kills my horse, I hit reload save.)

Currently there is nothing stopping this Dragonborn from saying, y'know, y'all are about as inviting as this place, which is unrelentingly snowy and cold, and Alduin actually sounded pretty intelligent so I'm having a moral crisis over slaying all these rare beasts, therefore I'm riding south in search of a beach. Good luck with whatever.

After all, I've got plenty of reading material - Cats of Skyrim, Thief of Virtue. Maybe I'll stop in Cyrodiil and see if they can find a copy of Hard in Hightown for me.

Solving Bioshock Cats on National Cat Day

Today, October 29, is National Cat Day and to celebrate I shall share with you a partial SOLUTION to the BIOSHOCK Cats Mystery.

Including cats for the player to discover actually IS a game-within-the-game.

While it is still unknown who originally designed the black-and-white cat and put him/her in the original Bioshock, all the level designers of Bioshock 2 participated in finding fun places to stash kitties. And...

We have Steve Gaynor to thank for putting NAMED cats in Minerva's Cave.
All Hail Steve!!

There are THREE cats - one for each level of Minerva's Cave. The names of each feline honor someone important to the development of computing - which is of course very important in the Cave storyline. I found Babbage and Turing, you may remember.

Armed with this information, I set about to find the third kitty on my second playthrough - and discovered:

Lovelace

According to Wikipedia, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace is recognized as the World’s First Computer Programmer, having written the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine.

For whose computer did she write this? Charles Babbage’s.

Babbage called her the Enchantress of Numbers and wrote of her in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864):

I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea's memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced: I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algebraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process.

Fun facts:
 - Ada was the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron.
 - The computer language Ada created by the US Department of Defense is named after her.
 - The British Computer Society awards a medal in her name.
 - There is a movement to have an Ada Lovelace Day (which this year was October 7).

I didn't know any of that, so I am now a better informed person because of Bioshock's dead cats.  :)

Many thanks and virtual cupcakes to Steve for allowing me to interview him on the subject of virtual kitties. He's a wonderful fellow and you can follow his tumblr and his twitter.

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Vulcade Rules

I love Chris Avellone. Seriously. He is the coolest dude.

And I shall now believe in my heart of hearts that Vulpes/Arcade is canon.

(FYI: The link in the above tweet I sent goes to THIS post)

Everything is Vulcade and nothing hurts!! You would not believe the squeee-ing and flailing of fan-girl arms that accompanied receiving this tweet. I was super-euphoric for the rest of the night. *dancing*

Schrodinger the Cat

I stand corrected - there IS a named cat in Bioshock 2.

I was scavenging in the frozen Imago gallery, melting things - as you will when you're scavenging, and I melted a pile of ice to discover another Bioshock cat.

This one was upright, not tipped over. Like a living cat would be, except he's frozen. I moved my reticle to see if any word would come up for this kitty.

And laughed. I found Schrodinger the cat! 

He's an Easter egg I'd heard about and forgotten, so I was very pleased to have stumbled upon him. (Being frozen, he is both alive and dead at the same time = Schrodinger's cat.)

If the upcoming Bioshock Infinite doesn't have this cat in it, I shall be highly disappointed. 

Cats in Minerva’s Den

The mystery of Bioshock’s cats deepens….

Okay, if you follow this blog, you know that there is one specific dead cat populating both the original Bioshock and Bioshock 2.

No dogs, no other cats. Just one black & white kitty who can be discovered in corners all over Rapture. And who wears solely the designation “corpse” – if anything at all.

Well.

I was playing the Bioshock 2 DLC Minerva’s Den and I found the cat again.

AND THIS TIME IT HAS A NAME:

His name is Babbage!

Much later in the adventure, I found another cat.

I had already jumped through this hole in the floor before I noticed him, so you don't have a good view of the cat's body. But you can see that he, too, has a name.

A DIFFERENT name!

This cat is named Turing!

Now, I immediately recognized that as a reference to famous British codebreaker, computer scientist, mathematician, and father of artificial intelligence Alan Turing.

So I looked up Babbage and - as you may already know - Charles Babbage was a British "mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer," according to Wikipedia.

So now we know the theme of the cat names in Minerva's Den. But...

HOW MANY CATS ARE THERE?

If you have spotted a named cat in Bioshock, please comment here with the name. It would be interesting to collect them all.

And we still don't know whose idea these cats were.

Yes, the Bioshock cat mystery deepens….

Bioshock Cats UPDATE

For all of you who have wondered about the prevalence of dead cats – or rather, one dead cat in particular – in Bioshock, the mystery continues….

Remember my blog post about this cat in original Bioshock? Well, the same cat appears in Bioshock 2. And this time, I have photos. (It’s like the Loch Ness Monster! Pictorial proof!)

Okay, here is your typical Bioshock cat:
















See how it looks like it just tipped over? Not like the icky corpses of people.

That circle you see over its front paws is my PS3 reticle. You’ll notice no descriptive word has come up to identify the being.

Now here is a Bioshock cat you can uncover if you melt a specific pile of ice. This cat appears to have been frozen with some fish and a fisherman (perhaps its owner?).

















This time, when the reticle is placed on the kitty, it is labeled “Corpse.” Same as the person.

And here is a kitty in a baby buggy. It is also merely labeled "Corpse."

In case you’re wondering, there are some models of dogs in Bioshock 2. They’re statues (possibly broken animatronics) located on this museum/ride thing that teaches children why Rapture was necessary. But no real dog bodies. Only real cats.

So the cat mystery continues.

We all live in a … underwater city that’s not actually yellow

Welcome to Rapture, the underwater city where Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are set.

Although this is one of those Utopias Gone Very, Very Wrong, let’s pretend for a moment that Rapture actually turned out okay.

It’s beautiful, little bathyspheres float you around to different areas, there’s lots of lights and glass – lots of views of the sea life.

Of course, you’re always inside/enclosed (otherwise you’d drown) and there is no sunlight this deep.

So my question for you is this:

Could you live in an underwater city?

Original Fallout

PC gaming is a completely different beast when you’re used to PS3 gaming.

I am currently playing the original Fallout on Steam. And I must admit, I was lost at the beginning. The concept of Taking Turns during battle eluded me. (“Why can’t I just kill this rat?”)

I also didn’t understand how to explore the map. I went directly to Vault 15, couldn’t find a rope, got ganged up on by five radscorpions and died without having saved. At all.

This turned out to be good, though, because the next time around I found Shady Sands, which led me to Junktown and The Hub. And I haven’t even been near Vault 15 yet. I also picked up Ian as a companion, which has saved my hide several times.

The pace of this game is…well…sedate when compared to Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas. It’s mental rather than physical.

For something more action-oriented on Steam, I tried Team Fortress 2.

You’d think someone who types all the time would easily adapt to using the keyboard as the game controller.

You’d be wrong.

I am laughably inept at remembering which keys move me and which change my weapon. I’m going to get a mouse and see if I do any better.

Technorati Tags: Fallout,PS3,PC,gaming,TF2,Team Fortress 2

Bioshock Dead Cats

I'm playing Bioshock (the first one) on my PS3. I'm trotting around. Shooting stuff. Evolving. Y'know how it is.

And I notice there are a lot of dead cats strewn about the place.

Not in piles or anything. And not gory, either. In fact, unlike the people, they look completely fine. Like they just tipped over and fell asleep. There's generally one per floor/section of each area, so if you scavenge--and I scavenge like a boss thanks to Fallout New Vegas--you're going to find a bunch of them.

They're never labelled "cat." If any word comes up at all when you put your reticle thing on them, it just says "corpse."

So I started to think, I wonder if one of the game's developers likes cats. Maybe has a cat like that. Because it's one specific black & white cat.

I can totally see someone sticking their own cat in a game. Probably because it's the sort of thing I'd do. (I did put my pug in a book, after all.)

So as I was sitting through the credits--yes, I sit through all credits, film ones, game ones. What? They're cool.

Anyway, I was sitting through the credits and I saw one fellow thanked his wife and his cats.

The quotes weren't attributed, but I totally want to ask this person if they are responsible for the prevalence of cats in Bioshock.

And thank him for a job well done.  :)