...It's been an awesome summer so far

Just got back from roller skating and then berry picking...I've done so many cool things these last few months:

• Clambake on George's Island
  
• Much house parties
• AC/DC in Gillette Stadium for Free!
  
• Going to see the Red Sox
• Mike Runy's Wedding in NC
  

See the pics below. I go to Amsterdam soon for two weeks! And in one month, The Beatles: Rock Band.

...Cheaper Beatles: Rock Band

Friends, here's a relatively cheap way to get The Beatles: Rock Band. Hurry only a couple days left:

- Trade in $50 worth of games
- Get a 50% coupon
- Use both to get the bundle for cheap

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_84701651_1?ie=UTF8&docId=1000395991&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-2&pf_rd_r=0JRDXK5EMQEGKQRBWYKZ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=482460011&pf_rd_i=979418011

...Reviews for 2009

Here's a running list of what stuff I'm checking out this year. Recommended items in Bold.

Music:
The Beatles The Beatles in Mono (Box Set)
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Legacy - Beyond Hurt Beyond Hell
Public Image Ltd. - The Flowers of Romance
Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans
Future of the Left - Travels With Myself and Another
Yob - The Great Cessation
Zu - Carboniferous
Coalesce - Give Them Rope She Said V2.0
Michael Jackson - Off the Wall (Special Edition)
Coalesce - Ox
Sonic Youth - The Eternal
Tweak Bird - Reservations
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Isis - Wavering Radiant
Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Gallows - Grey Britain
Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Graf Orlock - Destination Time Today
Trash Talk - Trash Talk
Death - ...For the Whole World to See
Ladyfinger(ne) - Dusk
Kylesa - Static Tensions
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair
Rumplestiltskin Grinder - Living for Death, Destroying the Rest
Megasus - Megasus
Portishead - Third
The Lonely Island - Incredibad
The Swell - Tonnage
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
The Bronx - The Bronx 3

Movies:
It Might Get Loud
District 9
Inglorious Basterds
Humpday
Moon
The Hurt Locker
Food Inc.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Public Enemies
Tokyo
Up
Tyson
The Hangover
Drag Me to Hell
Star Trek
Anvil
Crank High Voltage
I Love you Man
Watchmen
Gomorra
The Wrestler

Books:
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
The Cartoon Guide to Physics
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers
The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram Your Genes for Effortless Weight Loss, Vibrant Health, and Boundless Energy
Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution
Game Feel
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Body by Science: A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008
Fretboard Logic
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Understanding Comics
The Road
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
Hip: The History

Games:
Batman Arkham Asylum
Trials HD
Peggle (Iphone)
'Splosion Man
Battlefield 1943
Ghostbusters
UFC Undisputed
Fallout 3
Resident Evil 5
Death Tank

...Harmonix Designer Emails (#2)

Dan Teasdale

Welcome to the designer email thread, Mr. Brian Chan! In honor of him joining the thread, I have a topic that he might have some idea on how to solve:

Item Hoarding


As a collector, I find myself hoarding powerful weapons and never using them "in case I need them later". I did it with airstrikes in Mercs 2, I did it with nukes in Fallout, and there's probably a bunch of games that I've repressed doing it in.


Is this good? Is this bad? How do you think designers can solve this, or at the very least balance a game where people won't use the most powerful weapons?

Brian Chan

Thanks, everyone, for presenting me with such a warm welcome. I'm looking forward to learning a great deal from all of you. And thanks, Dan, for asking me something I can actually answer (I'm still in that muddle of new terminology and culture shock that comes with switching workplaces [and cities]).


When a player finishes a game with "leftover" items, it can be either a positive or negative indication. On the positive side, the leftover items suggest that the game presents choices, with the items representing the path not taken. If players vary as to their leftover items, even better-the game presents meaningful choices and allows for alternate solutions. On the negative side, leftover items might signify poor communication to player of item utility or scarcity. That is, the player might not have used the item because he or she didn't understand its value or how common or rare it was.

The problem is summarized by the notion that, if players cannot experiment, then they cannot plan. By providing safety nets for experimentation (and failure), designers can discourage item hoarding.


I like when a game provides the player with some sort of consequence- free sandbox in which to "try before you buy." Often, games do this via gated tutorials. In a game where balancing is achieved via scarcity or resource cost, it's nice to give the player "freebies" so as to whet their appetite. And, if an item is a higher- magnitude version of another item the player is already familiar with, then this fact should be made abundantly clear to the player.

A few games solve the scarcity problem without sacrificing balancing- by basing the economics on (easily) renewable resources. In Bioshock, I don't mind testing out new plasmids because EVE is relatively plentiful. In World of Warcraft, all resources can be translated into time, which is a resource that the game's players don't seem to mind spending prodigiously.

Chris Foster

I thought I came to Harmonix after past jobs strategy games and MMO's so that I didn't HAVE to think about balancing uber items of destruction!

I can think of a few tools to balance hoarding versus wanton nuke-spamming: consequences, limitations and scarcity.

Consequences are ways to say that using a superweapon isn't all wonderfulness and smiting, but that there are potentially painful tradeoffs at work. If a super item is going to create lasting negative faction somewhere in your game, or hurt your character/base while crippling someone else's, then you can make people think more strategically about its use.

Limitations are ways to make sure a superweapon isn't always useful in every situation. I think there are a bunch of limitations that aren't appropriate here, since if a weapon is too limited, it's by definition NOT super. I'd be more interested in limits that make the weapon harder to use but no less potent, such as a missile that is slow moving and therefore somewhat easier to avoid, or a weapon that requires prolonged manual control to hit its target in the most destructive manner possible.

Scarcity is a double-edged sword, as Brian called out. Having plentiful resources in your game, but a significant cost for the best weapons, can be a pretty potent balancing factor. You can see this in everything from Civilization to Death Tank. (And if you haven't played Death Tank multiplayer, stop reading this and play it now.)

Dan Teasdale

I'm going to channel a conversation Sylvain and I had after I sent the email, and in turn steal his thunder. Hopefully I'll misrepresent it and he can come in and make it sound more awesome.

So, the biggest problem I have isn't on the spamming end - making something less appealing to use is kinda easy. My problem is when things are so powerful in a way that's not a direct tie to my standard weapons, with the direct example being airstrikes in Mercs. I'll swap my normal weapons up to the most powerful instantly, but I'll hardly ever launch airstrikes unless:
* I've cornered myself in a save and have nothing else to use
* The game forces me as part of a mission objective

Sylvain then brought up Halo, which solves this problem so elegantly that I didn't even realise they'd solved it. Essentially, restricting you to two weapons means you can never hoard a weapon. If you get a superweapon, your incentive to use it is that you'll be able to pick up another weapon soon, so you'll happily spend the small amount of resources.

Thinking forward to Fallout 3, they end up in this weird mushy area. You have your inventory, and when it's full you'll start burning through some of the cooler things in order to make room for other cool things. The problem with that though is that there's still enough room to carry lots of weapons, so the "superweapons" you're burning are things like medical supplies and stimulants.

(As a side note: It's unnerving how many pacing and design problems Halo solved compared to how revolutionary people think of it as being - especially so considering how much designers didn't enjoy it past the first few levels (myself included). Say what you want about the level design issues in the second half or the cookie-cutter narrative, but things like balancing health for encounters rather than levels, or getting players to experience more cool things by reducing their amount of choice, these things have ended up changing how people balance all types of games.

Funnily enough, designers never give Bungie never credit for it because of the other issues in the game. At the same time, Half-Life did the exact same thing but flipped (standard mechanics, amazing narrative innovations) but it's the game that people reference in terms of the turning point of FPSes. For mechanics designers, it's mildly depressing food for thought :) )

Chris Foster

While waiting for Sylvain to take back what's rightfully his, I'll chime in with this observation.

Your Halo anecdotes remind me that good game mechanics are really like good film editing. When I studied film in college, one thing that was hammered into me is that bad editing -- like an jump-cut, or someone facing left talking across the room to someone who's supposed to be looking at them but is ALSO facing left -- immediately draws attention to itself. However, good editing is invisible editing; it works so well that no one realizes it's working, and all of its subtle emotional and psychological manipulations occur while no one is looking.

When a game mechanic does exactly what is necessary to produce fun, then it's likely that no one will notice that the mechanics are even there; they're too busy having fun. And while that can be a little tough on the designer's ego, remember that the flipside is someone calling you out for your BAD design decisions. I'll call it a fair trade.

Sylvain Dubrofsky

Thanks Dan! I realize at this late hour that the deadline for this email is tomorrow and you typed up a lot of stuff I immediately thought of from my own gaming experience so I won't have to lose too much sleep :)

I remember finishing Half-life 1 having used primarily pistol and crowbar throughout the game. I had all this ammo left over for all these cool weapons that I barely used. The same thing happened with RE 4. I must have had 30 grenades when I finished that game!

Halo had a nice natural solution for the problem. As an aside I am a fan of the series (especially Halo 1 and 3) and think the innovations the game generated are often overlooked - primarily: checkpoint saves, dedicated melee and grenade buttons, 2 weapon slots, dual wielding, regenerative health and the FPS-style driving controls.

I agree with the Brian in the previous email that I prefer getting each new weapon (or any item really) in an environment where I can freely experiment with it - AND that fact is made clear to me. Also agree with Chris that Death Tank rules :) I find if I get too many weapons in Death Tank I get overwhelmed so I tend to only concentrate on 3 or 4 powers at a time.

The biggest improvement in this area was a personal change. I've changed my tune since I was younger and started "trusting" developers more. By this I mean that I will now use my best/funnest weapons first and trust I will continue to get ammo drops such that I won't be stuck with just my pistol and melee weapon. This trust worked very well in Half-life 2 - they had very well paced ammo caches and the tension of getting low with my best weapons had a nice release when I found the next cache of ammo.

...E3 2009 Mega Post

E3 2009 was amazing. Started out by watching the Microsoft Press Conference with the other Harmonix employees in our lunch room. We all knew all the Beatles would be represented onstage and that we would have HMX employees demoing the game live. It went over really well:

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/launch.php

An hour later I hopped in a plane for LA and showed off the game to press and fans for 3 days straight. I have sung those 10 Beatles songs enough to last a lifetime now! And I still can't nail the low harmony in I Saw Her Standing There...Speaking of Harmonies, I'm happy to say that was one of the features I worked on. Wired has a nice writeup for how it works:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/06/beatles-rock-band/

I also got the chance to go out a bunch with my old friend Darion (his blog is linked to the left). Thanks for the good times and letting me crash at your place for 2 nights.

I guess there's video out there on Fox news, G4, and the Xbox dashboard that people saw where I'm singing/demoing the game. But all I have today are pics!


We has parties every night after the show. Here I am on the first night playing with Giles Martin!

Got this from Joystiq.com. It's me and Nate playing with some conference attendees.

This group was awesome. I loved watching them slowly learn to harmonize.

The calm before the storm of the first day. We had 3 booths (Wii, Ps3, Xbox 360), a psp setup, and a rest area with meeting rooms. Oh yeah and a huge theater that was like Abbey Road Studio 2.

Setting things up on day 1.

We also had this huge list of all 700 Rock Band songs.

The inside of the theater where presentations were done every half hour.

We also had a Lego Booth and this area in the main hallway. This one was for the Pepsi sponsored contest where people could shoot there own videos.

That's the actual car from the movie!

Darion took me to a club called Einstein's. Unfortunately he couldn't get in with his sneakers so I went in quickly to check it out. Cool place!

In my very small amount of spare time I walked around and saw Eliza Dushku signing posters for the game Wet.

...The Beatles: Rock Band

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/trailer.php

See what I've been proudly working on :)

...E3 next week

I'll be there demoing The Beatles Rock Band. I'll post some links soon :)

...a couple early reviews for Rock Band Unplugged

http://kotaku.com/5270546/rock-band-unplugged-review-its-the-frequency-kenneth

http://psp.ign.com/articles/986/986116p1.html

If you have a psp and like Rock Band you should pick it up. I'll be at E3 next week where we'll be showing this off (in addition to The Beatles!).

...some recent pics (Including GDC and Harmonix Bowling)

So I was just in San Francisco for GDC. Meet lots of friends, had great food, and enjoyed awesome weather.


Helen was thirsty at the airport.


Had some drinks with my friend Pete on top of the Marriot. How come I never did this when I lived here? Beautiful view...


Virgin Megastore is closing :(


But Virgin America airlines just started and pretty much rules. Time flies when surfing the web.



Hmx bowling day! We all made outfits in a couple hours and spent the rest of the day bowling....cool zep inspired shirt.



A couple more awesome shirts...



Mitch (on the right) was on my team - the Amazing Jason Kendallpins


Speaking of Jason Kendall...I saw his band Megasus play in Providence. If you get a chance to see them I highly recommend it.

...I'll be in SF next week for GDC 2009

For those going to GDC I recommend Dan Teasdale's talk Friday morning: https://upload.cmpevents.com/GD09/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=607061

I've seen it twice now and it's a good one.

..,best of best of music lists

This sites got you covered in terms of what people think is the best music:
http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/

...Kindle and E-readers

Something I've been thinking about lately:

So I have a prediction. Within a medium time-frame (4-7 years), e-readers and digital books will do to books what the ipod and mp3s did to cds. That is, they will become good, cheap, and easy enough to use that it will be super mass market and the minority of people will actually be buying physical books.

I will probably be interested in an purchasing an e-reader and reading books electronically (in parallel with normal book reading) but not until they get way better. Here's some of the things that will have to happen to get me interested:

- MUCH cheaper. I'm talking $100-$150 range.
- Bigger screen that is practically edge to edge.
- Much longer battery life - I don't need another device to plug in ALL the time.
- Ability to get subscriptions automatically downloaded to the device easily (I want magazines monthly and the local paper daily).
- Color screen so I can read magazines and comics.
- Ability to buy physical books and have them come with the electronic version.
- I may be willing to live without some of the above if the device easily surfed the web via WiFI.

...the Beatles game has a link!

http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/

...Top of 2009

Interesting year of purchases last year. Probably the least amount of gaming I've done in 10 years...I also think it was an off year for games. Not the best year for music or movies either imo. Still there were some good things:

Music
Torche - Meanderthal
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
The Bronx - The Bronx 3
Triclops - Out of Africa
Future of the Left - Curses

Honorable mention:
The Death Set - Worldwide
Cancer Bats - Hail Destroyer


Movies
Slumdog Millionaire
Milk
Wall-E
The Dark Knight
The Wrestler

Honorable mention:
Burn After Reading
Mongol
Iron Man
American Teen
Forgetting Sarah Marshall


Games
Gears of War 2
Left 4 Dead
Rock Band 2
Braid
Super Smash Bros Brawl

Anything missing?

...it's halfway through it

So by all accounts it's been a crazy winter. So far it's been record snow fall records for a single day and for the month. Boston has welcomed me with weather as bad as can get and I have survived.

I have learned so much about living in cold weather...the biggest change being that I now goto the gym more as opposed to walking home all the time. Oh yeah, I've learned the real reason why old people move to Florida from here. It's really easy to bust your ass on the ice out here. I haven't fallen yet but it's bound to happen eventually.

In other news I probably have to get braces...the Tom Cruise similarities keep coming :) <--brace-face.

Some pics:






Some party and post-party pics. That place was like the Nakatomi building....Yippie-Kai-Yae



It started with the Lake Freezing...somehow I found this fascinating.

Oh look, how cute it snowed a bit.


Yay, a reason for the cold!


WTH!? This is pretty much how it's been for the last month!

I saw a band called Fucked Up at the Middle East. The show was great, highlighted by when the large singer jumped up and grabbed a ceiling pipe, only to have the pipe burst and spray out water...

...things to review later (updated constantly)

So some stuff I haven't got to (and am waiting for a new template). Stuff I recommend in bold.

Music:
Tonnage - The Swell
The Bronx - The Bronx 3
Descendants - Milo Goes to College
The Nerves - One Way Ticket
Black Elk - Always a Six, Never a Nine
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Portishead - Dummy
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
Young Widows - Old Wounds
Black Flag - Loose Nut
Joy Division - Les Bains Douches
Joy Division - In the Studio With Martin Hannett
Does It Offend You, Yeah - You Have No Idea What You Are Getting Youself Into
Devo - Oh No! It's Devo
Coalesce - 012:2
Aerosmith - Rocks
M.I.A. - Kala
Blondie - Parallel Lines
Earles and Jones - Just Farr A Laugh
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Cancer Bats - Hail Desroyer
Melvins - Nude With Boots
3 Inches of Blood - Fire Up the Blades
The Beatles - Love
Sigur Ros - ()
Local H - 12 Angry Months
Guns N' Roses - Lies
Van Halen - Van Halen (remastered)
AC/DC - Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap
Mission of Burma - Vs.
Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
The Death Set - Worldwide
Fugazi -Steady Diet of Nothing (remastered)
Idiot Pilot - Wolves
Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies
Torche - Meanderthal
Elvis Costello - This years model (rhino version)
Evangelista - Hello, Voyager
Triclops - Out of Africa
The Breeders - Mountain Battles
Fight Amp -Hungry for Nothing
Cancer Bats - Birthing the Giant
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV
Joe Lally - Nothing is Underrated
Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
The Hives - The Blank and White Album
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House
Girls Against Boys - Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby
Disfear - Live the Storm
Black Mountain - In the Future
Future of the Left - Curses
*Shels - Laurentians Atoll
*Shels - Sea of the Dying Dhow
Akimbo - Navigating the Bronze
Chavez - Better Days will Haunt You
The Police - Outlandos d'Amour
AC/DC - For Those About To Rock
Ont Blod - Grizzly Twister
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs
High on Fire - Death Is the Communion
A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers
Austerity Program - Black Madonna
The Very Best of Herman's Hermits
Against Me! - New Wave
Patton Oswalt - Werewolves and Lollipops
Gallows - Orchestra of Wolves
Pig Destroyer - Phantom Limb
Neurosis - Given to the Rising
Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris
Pissed Jeans - Hope for Men
Halo of Flies - Music For Insect Minds
The Cure - Faith
The Jam - This is the modern world / all mods cons
Black Flag - The complete 1982 Demos
Public Image ltd. - Public Image
The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
The Hope Conspiracy - Death Knows Your Name
Modern Life Is War - Witness
Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks
My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything
Totmoshi - Ladron
These Arms Are Snakes - Easter
Death Proof (OST) - Various Artists
Melvins - A Senile Animal
Unsane - Visqueen
The National - Boxer
Battles - Mirrored
Ho-Ag - The Word from Pluto

Movies:
The Wrestler
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaire
Synecdoche, New York
Milk
Religulous
W.
Burn After Reading
Pineapple Express
The Dark Knight
Wall-E
Wanted
Mongol
Stuck
Iron Man
American Teen
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Girls Rock
The Signal
In Bruges
Cloverfield
There Will Be Blood
Atonement
The Savages
I am Legend
No Country for Old Men
Control
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Shoot 'em Up
Stardust
Superbad
The King of Kong
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Simpsons Movie
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Ratatouille
Death at a Funeral
Sicko
Black Book
28 Weeks Later
Knocked Up

Books:
The Road
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
Hip: The History
Outliers: The Story of Success
Cobain Unseen
Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
My Stroke of Insight
Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What To Do With My Life & Started Driving a Yellow Cab
Right is Wrong
American Hardcore
Songwriters on Songwriting
Michael Moore's Election Guide
Black Sabbath's Master of Reality
How Do You Work This Life Thing?
Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles
Nirvana's In Utero
Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone
Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures
Where Does the Money Go?: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
A Voyage for Madmen
The Tipping Point
The Game
Blink
What to Eat
All I need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned From the Toxic Avenger
Noam Chomsky - Failed States
Douglas Coupland - JPod
David Sklansky - No Limit Hold 'em: Theory and Practice
Einstein
Buddha (vol 1-8)

...what WAS Star Wars about?

http://vimeo.com/2809991

Brilliant...