f13.net

Next time you're going to be featured on NPR on a talk show about online games/worlds, mention it beforehand so I'm not finding out when I'm in a car channel surfing. Had I known I could have caught more than 5 minutes of it and been at home to more easily crank call you and give a shoutout to myself (and maybe Lum).

I demand a transcript.

I want to hear how the ideas he's peddling sound when they have to be explained to mouthbreathers.

Chill gents (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6525563)

Realmedia or WMP, eh? Might as well make me choose between herpes and syphilis.

Wait an hour or so and I'll upload an MP3.

Can you encode it as FLAC please? I don't want to lose the subtle nuances in Raph's voice.

Impatience won out. I chose syphilis. :|

Edit: Interesting, although nothing particularly new to most of the people around here. Raph made his usual points about going after different markets, casual games, long tail, etc. Some of the talk about the Wii is interesting, particularly the point about how using it may look to an outsider compared to couch-jockey control schemes.

MP3 file ~32kbps (8.7 MB, low quality) (http://f13.net/media/videos/NPR - Talk of the Nation 20061122 32kbps.mp3)
MP3 file ~64kbps (14.3 MB, medium quality) (http://f13.net/media/videos/NPR - Talk of the Nation 20061122 64kbps.mp3)
FLAC file (46.9 MB, high quality) (http://f13.net/media/videos/NPR - Talk of the Nation 20061122.flac)

BTW, does anybody know how to turn a cached streamed WMA file into a regular WMA file? I have the streamed audio in my IE Temp folder but when I copy it out it won't play in WMP but when I click on the URL, WMP knows to use the cached version.

Raphcasting

If anyone gets a transcription, lemme know. 

Clearly, you fail to visit my blog or have an RSS feed, because I posted in advance TWICE. :)

Oh, and on the subject matter -- that was actually the subjects that the show chose. They were on the "has the game market hit a wall?" "what about long tail and casual?" bandwagon from the get-go, because they themed around the Wii launch to some degree.

You have a blog? :rimshot:

What's a blog?

Rough crowd. Rough rough crowd. We love ya Ralph just keep on hanging on.

I just want to know when he is going to stop talking and release a game that doesn't suck (http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/).

I can't tell if people are serious with that comment anymore. I'll just assume it's all a big joke now, and pipe in with... When are UO beta CDs being sent out?

Also, any transcripts yet? Dagnabit.

Not everybody in science need be an engineer.

It's LC, he's being serious.

Did SWG suck?  I'd say yes, but not on all fronts.  The part of SWG that Raph K was likely at least partly responsible for, the virtual worldly aspects, worked just fine in SWG.

The error, I think, was in the choice to place greater developed emphasis on the virtual world instead of an action game.  It wasn't that the MMORPG community wasn't ready for a 3D better Ultima Online, it's that most of the players SWG would encounter were looking for an action adventure game to complement what was an action adventure movie series.

Main thing I learned from SWG was that giant brand names bring with them a curse of powerful player expectations.

When people begin to understand that SW.G broke new ground in new ways then the industry may begin to move forward. Were all aspects perfect? No, we are all aware of the defects. core things like Oh combat . But crafting was new and different, the social skills, dancing etc was very different and fun if not very powergaming friendly. Ya, a lot about that game was broken, but there was a lot of good, new stuff that hasn't been duplicated. You go Ralph !!!

There's a ... uh ... thread ... for that.

Someday every thread will be about SWG.

I'd like to think Sir Raph is using his SWg worly experience for his current project... any hints?

When we interviewed him two months ago, he stated that the earliest we'll hear anything new is GDC. So, as long as that's still accurate...

Hey, there must be something left to talk about in 2007, beside Vanguard's clusterfuck.

You have summoned the HRose!

Complaining about SWG design decisions nowadays is like complaining that Lum and Tweety sold out.

They did sell out.  The bastards.  The succesful, happy, financially secure bastards.

 :roll:

Lum and Raph are going to partner for Get Off My Damned Lawns Online.

No, really. You, in the Hello Kitty Darth Vader suit. Off the lawn.