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also near Seattle - just read an article about arena net (Guild Wars 2) recording audio there ( http://www.arena.net/blog/video-audio-team-field-recording-trip )

Since we're on the topic of games

ArenaNet (Guild wars): http://www.arena.net/contact.php

Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire) http://www.ironcladgames.com/contact.html

Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft) http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=0

Firzxis (Civilization IV) http://www.firaxis.com/support/

Electronic Arts (lots of games) http://www.info.ea.com/company/company_prlist.php

Valve (Steam: Counterstrike, other games) http://www.valvesoftware.com/contact.html

Activision (Gun) http://www.activision.com/index.html#contact|en_US

And code for WINE.

ArenaNet (Guild wars): http://www.arena.net/contact.php

Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire) http://www.ironcladgames.com/contact.html

Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft) http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=0

Firzxis (Civilization IV) http://www.firaxis.com/support/

Electronic Arts (lots of games) http://www.info.ea.com/company/company_prlist.php

Valve (Steam: Counterstrike, other games) http://www.valvesoftware.com/contact.html

Ask for either native Linux port or Wine-compatible Windows binaries.

While I'm all for open source and regarding hardware drivers I wouldn't want it any other way, let's not forget that open source does not have to be pushed around at the application level at the expense of usability. Professional-level applications are critical for the use and expansion of Linux, and proprietary software vendors should be encouraged to develop their software for Linux, not alienated by being badgered to give away their source code. Currently, there is a heated discussion on the Debian list regarding PCB and CAD software availability. One camp (me) is encouraging users to write to software houses and to request that they port their software to Linux, with the other camp rejecting all contact with proprietary software vendors unless it is a demand for the source code. Currently, myself and other engineers cannot use Linux at work because we must run proprietary engineering software, such as Solidworks in my case. For those who want to help, please write to these companies and let them know that we are interested in their software on Linux:

Intuit (Quicken, Quickbooks) http://www.intuit.com/contact/ (requires registration)

Adobe (Photoshop, Flash CS3 Professional, Captivate, Dreamweaver, Studio) http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Sony (Vegas Studio) http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/corporate/contacts.asp

Autodesk (Autocad) http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=1073074

SolidWorks http://www.solidworks.com/pages/company/SolidWorksOfficeWorldwide.html (requires registration)

Sage (Act!) http://www.act.com/company/contactus/

Nuance (Dragon Naturally Speaking) http://www.nuance.com/help/contact/

hardin-soft (BM-Win Plus (mailing address correction software)) http://www.hardin-soft.com//forms/feedback.html

Daz (Bryce (3D modeling and animation)) http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/support/rnlogin/-/?p_sid=vOwOJN6j&p_accessibility=&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=&p_li=&p_next_page=std_alp.php (requires registration)

ArenaNet (Guild wars): http://www.arena.net/contact.php

Ironclad Games (Sins of a Solar Empire) http://www.ironcladgames.com/contact.html

Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft) http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=0

Firzxis (Civilization IV) http://www.firaxis.com/support/

Electronic Arts (lots of games) http://www.info.ea.com/company/company_prlist.php

My personal problem is that I need Solidworks, so for emphasis I'll repeat their address here:
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/company/SolidWorksOfficeWorldwide.html

Please write to these companies and let them know that we need their products on Linux. Copy the list and write to one company a week. Thanks.

Do you write to the game developers and let them know that you need support for Linux? Here are a few addresses to get you started:
ArenaNet: http://www.arena.net/contact.php
Ironclad Games: http://www.ironcladgames.com/contact.html
Blizzard Entertainment: http://us.blizzard.com/support/webform-us.xml?gameId=0
Firzxis: http://www.firaxis.com/support/
Electronic Arts: http://www.info.ea.com/company/company_prlist.php

http://www.arena.net/

As an observation, yes all their talent has filtered away. They can be found at ArenaNet.

http://www.arena.net/about/team.html

The way I see it, Guild Wars has the gameplay I would have expected for a Diablo 3.

WOW!

Interesting that they have a few ex Blizzard people!

Mike O'Brien, Founder and Programmer, was also a company director of Blizzard, where he worked for four and one-half years. He was most recently the team lead and lead programmer of Warcraft III, and personally developed the game's 3D rendering engine. Mike was the original creator and architect of Battle.net and was lead programmer on that project. He was also a senior programmer on StarCraft and Diablo, as well as the author of the network code for both games, and was a programmer on Warcraft II. Mike was featured as one of the 25 most influential people in the game industry in PC Gamer's September 1999 cover story, "Game Gods."

Patrick Wyatt, Founder and Programmer, was previously Blizzard Entertainment's Vice President of Research and Development. He was most recently the team lead and lead programmer of Battle.net. Previously, Pat was a senior programmer on both StarCraft and Diablo, and wrote the multiplayer code for both games. He was also a producer and senior programmer on Warcraft II, for which he wrote both the networking and multiplayer code, and producer and lead programmer for Warcraft I. Pat also worked on Lost Vikings, Battle Chess, Rock and Roll Racing, Death and Return of Superman, and Justice League Task Force. Pat was employed at Blizzard more than eight years.

Jeff Strain, Founder and Programmer, was the team lead and lead programmer of Blizzard's massively multiplayer role-playing game, World of Warcraft. He was also a senior programmer on both Warcraft III and StarCraft, and a programmer on Diablo. Jeff was the creator of the StarCraft Campaign Editor and was employed at Blizzard for four years.

Though I don't like the comparison because it gives the wrong idea, I sort of understand it. You seldom are really aware of your level/XP, as they advance well as you complete the storyline quests. It's easy to get started with, and has a pretty good story with it.

Also of interest: This game is the first project by developers ArenaNet, formed by a core of developers that all originally worked for Blizzard. You can visit their site for more info.

ArenaNet: http://www.arena.net/
GuildWars: http://guildwars.com/

Really, I can't say enough good things about this game... everyone I've introduced to this game has become hooked, no matter what they're gaming background. Seriously, quit reading this and give it a shot. Now. Click away.

Here is an interesting article on cheating in MMORPGs.

I was looking forward to Guild Wars however since it is being created by NC Soft I will now skip that one too.

Actually Guild Wars and City of Heroes are published by NC Soft, but are created by ArenaNet and Cryptic Studios respectively. And there is a world of difference...CoH is pretty much the antithesis of Lineage 2 in terms of MMORPG philosophy: a shipload of character options, fast-paced and exciting combat, no crafting, and no PvP (yet). So don't hold Lineage's suckitude against the other dev teams...

NCSoft is acting as a publisher here. The only titles developed by NCSoft is Lineage and Lineage II. Of NCSoft's other titles,

Guild Wars is being developed by ArenaNet , a group composed primarily of former Blizzard employees who worked on Diablo that left in the Vivendi Universal bankruptcy debacle over the possible sale of the games division (including Blizzard). They could have picked a name further from BattleNet, though.

Tabula Rasa is developed by Destination Games, the Austin, Texas group headed by Richard Gariott composed primarily of people that got fired from or left Origin after EA scrapped the Ultima Online 2 project. They were actually far into Tabula Rasa before being signed on with NCSoft.

City of Heroes is developed by Cryptic Studios based in San Jose, CA.

Finally, Auto Assault is developed by NetDevil .

All of these developers are completely autonomous as far as design goes. NCSoft is only the publisher and the billing gateway. For the sake of the independent developers that just happened to have signed up with NCSoft, please don't confuse their works with that of other developers.

Keep in mind that Blizzard experienced a similar defection about four years ago. Patrick Wyatt, Mike O'Brien, and Jeff Strain (One was a biz guy, the other two wrote battle.net and worked as leads on diablo and starcraft... if memory serves) took off to form a startup called TriForge. They then became Arena.net and finally were swallowed by NCSoft. They are now working on Guild Wars.

So, Blizzard has survived a previous walkout... they have since churned out Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, a few expansion packs, and are nearly done with WoW. Will they survive this? I believe so. I'm wondering if they will be able to come up with original content, or if it will be infected by suits who continue to pimp out the the Warcraft/Diablo franchise ad infinum.

Seeing as my using OmniWeb to view arena.net resulted in a quick glance at the requested page (which looked fine) and then a bounce to ArenaNet Error: Unsupported Browser, I thought I'd respond in kind (note: I didn't actually send HTML email; I had to replace some of the hyphen characters with just bolding the topics so that I wouldn't get blocked by the lameness filter):


To: webmaster@arena.net
Subject: ArenaNet Error: Unsupported Webmaster

Why am I getting this instead of a friendly, congratulatory email?

You are here because the webmaster you are using is apparently too lazy to create pages that work in most browsers, regardless of their support for the full HTML 4.0 specification, including Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Most likely, you're losing a decent hunk of viewers because of this.


Why does that matter?

In the pursuit of giving web surfers the kind of experience that you want them to have, as opposed to simply letting them control the experience for themselves (as would tend to be suggested by the HTML and CSS standards), you tried to use the best technology available, which I heartily commend. HTML 4.0 and CSS are examples of some of the best and most widespread standards-based technology available for presenting interactive media to the world. However, you have decided that, rather than simply using these technologies and letting the user decide if and how to implement them on the client-side, your webserver will detect browsers that you haven't tested with and will send the user of said browser to a completely useless page rather than actually delivering the content that the user requested.


What should I do?

If your webmaster can't figure out how to get pages to display at all in browsers other than those created by Netscape and Microsoft, you might want to hire a better one.

If you are running a smart webmaster who has simply gone astray from the vision of the web, you will want to either ask them to change their policies or follow the advice above.