/em teabag

The very first assignment I had on CoH was animating the 'teabag emote'. Matt Miller's first introduction to me was me timidly poking my head into is office and inquiring "What exactly do you mean by a 'teabag emote'".

A few days later, the CEO of the company stopped by my cubicle and asked to see this teabag emote he'd heard rumors of.

Matt some time later confessed that he had trouble telling me apart from our IT guy, Gary.

I love your writing Manticore

The first Halloween after starting at Cryptic, I had the chance to help out with a live event. I was allowed to pilot Manticore for the night, awkwardly field questions directed to Sean Fish, and spent about 9 hours in Pocket D giving every player a personalized, highly coveted yellow name. I was also dressed as a pirate and about as dismally sick with the flu as I'd ever been in my life...but there was no way I was gonna miss out on the chance to play a signature character.

I spent a lot of time that night relaying messsages to Sean. I was so jazzed to be piloting a sig, but felt really bad that so many people thought I was Mr. Fish.

Devil Car

I began working on CoH, shortly after Issue 7 launched. I know it was after Issue 7 launched because on my trip from Colorado to Los Gatos my car's engine was completely destroyed by "The Sisters" outside of Evanston, Wyoming and I spent a week holed up in a Motel 8 playing I7 while the local mechanic replaced the engine. I spent my first few months living in one room of an ancient farmhouse in Santa Cruz, for which I paid $250/mo. I dare anyone living in the bay area to find accomodations for that price. The commute on I-17 over the Santa Cruz mountains destroyed two of my tires. The Sears Automative mechanic showed me the 8-inch chunk of missing rubber, which explained the odd thunking noise. They also managed to break my sway-bar while trying to align my tires. Shortly after this, my electrical system became possessed and systematically began to blow out fuses. It was around this time that I discovered a 1993 Toyota Corolla cannot be shifted out of Park unless the brake light is on.

The license plate the California DMV initially tried to issue to me ended in '666'.

I'm your biggest fan

I was working at 2015 in Tulsa, OK when CoH launched. Prior to that, my only experienc with MMOs had been playing Meridian 59 pretty hardcore...enough to know that MMOs were a dangerous drug for me. I was able to avoid MMOs since. A few of my co-workers at 2015 tried to lure me into City of Heroes and I was only able to resist the temptation for a couple of months. I eventually started playing right about the time they all stopped to start playing this other MMO called World of Warcraft...which has since faded into obscurity.

To say I was hooked would be an understatement. When 2015 folded, and I began looking for work I took a job with NetDevil. I'd be lying if I didn't say that Auto Assault being an NCSoft title (meaning that one of my CoH accounts would now be comp'd) didn't have some tiny, tiny part in my decision to take that job. Yes, the studio was awesome, Auto-Assault looked like it had the potential to be a pretty cool project, there were a lot of great people there, and living in Colorado had been a dream...but in the back of my mind I was thinking "I can play as much CoH as I want...for free!". I know I drove many of the NetDevil guys with my rabid fanboisms. "In CoH, they do this. In CoH, they do that."...but in fairness, I heard just as much "In WoW, they do this..." from them. We all take inspiration from the things we enjoy.

A short time later, when the opportunity to work for Cryptic Studios on City of Heroes/City of Villains presented itself, I took the job. I moved my family to the SF Bay area in California...hundreds of miles away from family, because I finally had the chance to work on a game that I really loved to play. Prior to this, I'd always made decisions based on how I felt about the future of the company, what the benefits were, cost of living, how close it was to family. But this time, I wanted to try something different and work on a game that I really, really liked to play.

BABs

Today I and 8 other people at Paragon Studios were let go as part of restructuring. I was completely shocked by this. It's the first time I've ever lost a job outside of the whole studio collapsing. I've never been basically told we no longer need you here. Looking back over the past few years, I have an amazing amount of memories revolving around City of Heroes, Cryptic Studios, and Paragon. I'd like to share some of them.

New/Used Games

I played the Batman: Arkham Asylum and X-Men Origins: Wolverine demos on the 360 today, and as Batman's not out yet, I decided to go and pick up a copy of Wolverine. I also wanted to pick up a copy of Fallout 3 for my brother (Happy Birthday bro!)

So the family and I headed to the local mall and I went to the game store there, who shall remain nameless. This store had a plethora of 'used' games for sale, easily twice as many 'used' games as new games.

As a developer, I know that the people who actually make games only make money off of new copies that are sold. So after a bit of hunting I managed to find the games I was looking for. When I took them up to the counter, I was given the hard sell:

"You know we have both of these games as used copies?"
"Yes, but I'd rather pay the extra $5 and make sure the developers get some money."
"You could save yourself some money..."
"I'd rather they be able to continue making good games"

Yeah, I'm an idealist...and I do actually say stuff like this in real life.

I realize that this chain makes a lot of money by selling a new game for a bit of profit, buying it back for $20-$30, and then reselling it for $54.99...over and over again. I can't blame them for wanting to make a profit, and I can't blame gamers who go into a store to buy a game, see two nigh-identical copies of the game, only one being $5 cheaper...of course it seems like a win-win for everyone involved. Except for people like me who rely on game sales to pay our rent.

But what really chaps my ass is that even after I explicitely asked for a new copy of the game, and paid for a new copy of the game, when I got home I realized that one of the games I'd purchased is clearly not new.


There is no shrink wrap, the price tag is affixed directly to the cover, and instead of the official XBox seal the case is simply taped shut with a strip of white tape.




Now, when I say I wanted a new game, what I meant was I wanted a new, unopened, guaranteed-that-at-least-some-of-the-money-I'm-handing-over-will-find-it's-way-into-the-hands-of-the-people-that-made-the-game game. With the game in this condition, I have no assurance that this isn't a second, third, or fourth hand game. I know that this case as at least been opened.

It's possible that the box was opened, the disc stored safely away from the display shelves, and then everything re-assembled when I purchased it. But as the copy of Fallout 3 has not gone through this treatment, I simply can't know that this game has not been used.

I will be returning both games tomorrow and buying them from another source from now on.

And for those of you who still want a deal on games, I would direct you to this:
http://kotaku.com/5332358/best-buy-now-matching-gamestops-used-prices-on-new-games

Moving

I haven't been updating as much lately as we're in the process of moving. We've been living in half of a house for over 3 years now, and with the addition of another son, we've really outgrown the place. That's obviously cut into the amount of hobby time I've had, so I've completely stalled out on finishing my controller.