I just read this article @ gamasutra; Sony, Activision Skeptical Of In-Game Ad Potential[^]. And I just have make a comment about In-Game Ads(Mostly ranting, not really related to the article;)) …

I have always been pro In-Game ads(dodges the incoming rotten eggs & tomatoes). A lot of peeps don’t really share that view with me. But bear with me..
What I mean with In-Game ads is not ads for “Always Coca-Cola” on the loading screen, or a Huge Ronald McDonald in the background of every splash screen in the game.

My idea of In-Game ads is to incorporate them just like real life ads. On billboards, TVs, public transportation, tagging etc.
I know what most of you will say to this.. “But that don’t fit in my new innovative fantasy game, Lobster of the Kings!!” And I agree… It could work if you were selective with your ads and managed to incorporate some of it into your fantasy world. E.g. In the faraway land of Nike, they make these incredible magic shoes that make you run faster and longer!!
But then you would have to customize your whole game after ads.. It could work for a little while, but then peeps will be very tired of the magical Nike shoes shoving up in ALL fantasy games in the future.
I guess in fantasy the best option is to put it on a flash screen while the game is loading or something.. Or just scrap that Tolkien-clone#999999999999 and make a Sci-Fi or something new instead

Anyways.. Kybernesis will focus mainly on making Sci-Fi games set in a dystopic Cyberpunk setting. And in this kind of setting, billboards and other kinds of ads are perfect!
Imagine walking around in a Cyberpunk world with huge animated billboards showing ads about Coca-cola or McDonalds. And shortly after you actually see a Coke machine or a McDonalds Restaurant which you can actually interact with. Buying yourself a coke or a burger.

Now that’s what I want with In-Game Ads. And it wouldn’t break any illusions or immersiveness on the players part at all!!
It’s kind of Google AdSense. You can customize the ads so it will fit your website, why not do the same with In-Game ads?

So as I said earlier… I don’t think the In-Game Ads idea should be scrapped, as long as you include into your game cleverly, instead of making it an annoyance!

Looking at our sad, sad excuse of a site @ kybernesis.com[^], and the fact that Joomla[The CMS we use] has just released their new version, I have been thinking of migrating the site over to Joomla 1.5.

So I started up a test site with Joomla 1.5 installed and started configuring and preparing for migration. I used several forum posts @ joomla.org[^] for help and other sources on the net.
I’m almost out of hair now from all the pain and frustration it has given me so far. It looks like the different Joomla versions are as compatible as different Java versions…. Not compatible at all!!

Then I stumbled over this blog by Christopher Price[^] and I decided to take Joomla out in my backyard and shoot it in all my mercy.
So now I have decided to make this blog site of mine into the main site instead. Which means I’m gonna migrate the Joomla site over to this Wordpress solution of mine instead.

So I started to look around for some tools to help me in that task, when I realized… The main site has next to NO content!! :O
The good news is that all the migrating I need to do, is to reroute the main address to this blog address instead.
At least here I have something to show for, albeit not so much about Kybernesis itself.. So that will have to change..

The final decision though, is to make a portal kind of site for this blog using Wordpress, where one can choose to view Kybernesis rants or developer Rants
So don’t be too shocked if you start to see changes happening here in the next few days/weeks.

Oh… And I did a major facelift of my blog site yesterday too!! Okay, maybe not THAT major.. It was only applying a theme and shuffle the widgets around.
And I am sure you have noticed that I have added an Amazon Associates widget and an Google Referral AdSense button. No income yet, but I hope it will improve in the future. Need monies to get this company going after all, and all $$ are good $$

Bit-tech.net has posted a really interesting article, Staying Independent[^], by Mark Morris of Introversion[^]. Where he shares his thoughts about why Introversion ended up going Indie and why they don’t plan to change that fact.

It’s a nice read and I recognize myself in a lot of the reasons why they decided to go Indie.

So I decided to make a mailserver for kybernesis.com, and went to google-world and searched around some to see what I could find of tutorials/howtos or help for this.

After some… Errrr.. Rather, A lot! of browsing around and reading tutorials & howtos up and down, I settled on going for a Postfix, courier-imap, clamav, Spamassassin, amavis & TLS build.
And I found a neato tutorial for it too!! Written by the Linux guru, Falko Timme @ Howtoforge[^].

The howto was incredibly easy to follow, and it was one of the few really updated ones out there, that also told you how to do this with debian packages.
I tried some other howtos too, but they all ended up in me starting over again, with a new one. Till I found this one, which let me set it all up and tweak it to something I was satisfied with, during one evening. I also added squirrelmail which added new challenges, but wasn’t that hard to get working once I got the hang of it.

I ran into several problems though, but that was not because of Falko’s howto, but due to me trying other howtos that messed up my system a little… Most noteworthy here was a bug within saslauthdaemon which made it impossible to start or re-install. So… I guess I should post the solutions of the problems here in case someone actually read this and have the same problems.

Courier Authdaemon bug
Courier Authdaemon: /usr/lib/courier/courier-authlib/authdaemond: line 31: /usr/sbin/courierlogger: No such file or directory.
This apparently comes from a bug within the Authdaemon package. I searched around a bit to find the solution for this one, but managed to find it @ Launchpad[^] .
This site mentions 2 possible solution, I recommend trying the first one first, then the second one if that don’t work for you.

rblake wrote on 2006-10-22: (permalink)

This problem caused me quite a headache today as well.

I would advise against editing the installation database, but would suggest the following:

The problem is related to the courier-authdaemon. Instead of removing the knowledge of the install system (security upgrades will be ignored!), manually remove the authdaemon:

sudo dpkg –force-remove-reinstreq -P courier-authdaemon

Then continue the upgrade as normal, if necesarry selecting the courier packages manually once the upgrade has completed.

Works perfectly now here!

———————

HaroldAling wrote on 2006-10-12: (permalink)

Ok, this is how I fixed it:

1. backup /var/lib/dpkg/status to a safe location
2. remove all courier entries from /var/lib/dpkg/status (nano it, search=ctrl-w)
3. sudo apt-get upgrade
4. sudo apt-get install courier-imap

I now need to reconfigure courier, but at least it’s working again!

The first option worked for me, the second didn’t, but I list both here in case one don’t work for you.

Squirrelmail – “Error: Connection dropped by imap-server”
This error showed up, even though I had checked that the IMAP server was up and running and working properly with Telnet localhost 143.
The solution I found was simply just to send a test email to the address I was trying to login with.
Cause the error comes from the fact that the mail directories on the server weren’t created yet, since they don’t get created before you get a mail.
Sending a test mail creates the needed directories though, so that should solve that problem.

Squirrelmail – “Unknown user or password incorrect.”
When setting up an IMAP system with virtual users in a MySQL database, it’s easy to end up with this error message.
You see, Squirrelmail only handles a few authentication methods, and I was using SASL which is not supported by Squirrelmail.
My solution here, was to keep Authentication from Squirrelmail to Plain login, while I encrypted the password in the DB with Encrypt(which uses the SASL setup).
After I figured this out, all went perfectly well..
It’s not too secure though, since the password you write to login to Squirrelmail will be logged on the server in plain text.

Procrastination must be an Indie game developer’s worst Enemy!
I’ve been procrastinating all January, delaying the start up of my new company “till tomorrow(tm)”.
Well… That is gonna end!!

Today I will make all the papers for registering Kybernesis ready for posting first thing tomorrow. And I will register for Game Institute[^] classes, not because I need it(I can find most of the info I need online), but because it will help my bad case of the Procrastination disease!

I will start a todo-list and start working towards the goals I put on it.
One of the goals will be to keep this blog updated at least every other day!
I got some unfished tales about my endeavors of making a Linux web & mail server for the company lying in the drafts. I should get that finished and posted up.
I also got some more on my 3D-modeling refreshing effort.
I should dive deeper into DX Studio… Since it is really promising and might work for our first few games at least….
I need to finish The Proposal for my first game idea, and then get working on the Design Document. So my poor Concept Artist can get something to work from, and not just some diffuse explanations from the top of my head…
I should start to put the scribbled ideas I have for a short story, into something coherent. Who knows? I might be able to finish it during my lifetime… (Note: I’m a horrible writer! But are working on improving.).
I even have a great idea for a webcomic, and an artist who could pen it all for me too… But that’s low-priority atm. Maybe I’ll pursue it further when I got some of the more important stuff going.

And of course… I need to start planning the development process of our toolset! The one we’re gonna use for making all our games.

So much to do… So little hours/day.. I almost wish I didn’t have a day job right now, but that would mean no money, which in turn ends with no Kybernesis… So I must persevere!

I just read the article @ Gamasutra The China Angle: The Year of the Addicted Gaming Rat[^], and just HAD to write some thoughts around “Divorce China Style”.

This article first made me a little shocked, then a little sad about how things are evolving in the virtual world. But then I started thinking a little more about the subject.

Why would this shock me and then make me a little sad? After all, it’s inevitable! A lot of people meet in online communities like MMO’s, Facebook, Myspace, IRC and hook up in Real Life. And a good percent of these I am sure end up in a marriage.
And as all real life marriages, couples share stuff, so why not virtual assets too? I mean, they could build a huge house on their bought island in Second Life, or spend 100’s of hours in any online game, acquiring phat lewt, or even use RL money on ebay or powerlevel services!
There so much about online communities that can be translated into RL money, and time… And as we all know, time = money
So I actually settled on a “But of course!” feeling in the end of the article.

But then I kept thinking…. And here is what scares me a little. Imagine in one of the MMO’s out there, two players meet in-game, they live on separate sides of the world, and have no plans whatsoever to meet in RL. But there is some common interests between them, and they like each other “virtually”
So they decide to get married in-game, as so many players do in online games.
And like RL marriages, they start sharing virtual assets like housing, phat lewt and might even give each other their account details so they can help each other level.
Then comes the day when they don’t like each other as much as before, or they might have drifted apart as often happens in online communities, so they decide to have a divorce… What now???
Who keeps what? Who gets the house? Who keeps the phat lewt and the mules and the different accounts they might have shared?
Since this is no legal marriage, RL lawsuit won’t get anywhere. So what then?

My thoughts right now is that there’s a possibility future MMO’s might need to enforce virtual laws. Or even make lawyers/judges/courts to settle virtual lawsuits!
Just take a minute and imagine a virtual world where you can be sued!
I guess it would solve PK-problems though… :p

NextGen game. Everyone has heard the expression, it’s THE new thing! It’s the future! etc. etc. etc.

Now… I must say I have been disappointed by the so-called NextGen games that has come out so far. Cause I thought NextGen games called for innovation…. Or am I the one misunderstanding something here?

For example, take Bioshock, which is advertised to be a NextGen Game. What is Bioshock? To me it was a casual version of System Shock 2 with better graphics and a cool enough story to keep me hooked. What’s so NextGen about that? System Shock 2 had a great story too, and I was more hooked to that game than I ever will be with Bioshock.
And the better graphics.. Sure! Bioshock had lovely graphics, but my problem here is that it had TOO nice graphics. It was too perfect and glossy, though very nice as Eye-candy. But eye-candy isn’t really NextGen now is it?

The problem with todays so-called NextGen games is that they are most often old recipes with better ingredients. There is so little innovation nowadays, that after playing an AAA FPS or RTS or any genre, the next game you try in the same genre is gonna be a clone with a twist.
Sure, a good story helps to get players hooked, but 90% of the time they will sit with a feeling they’ve played this game before.

So, what do I want from a NextGen title?
I want innovation. I want something that comes out of my monitor, rattle my brains around and make me go WOW!!!
Natural Motion[^] has done that. They have made a NextGen character behavior system called euphoria. Which is based on DMS(Dynamic Motion Synthesis).
As they have written on their own site: “Based on Oxford University research, Dynamic Motion Synthesis creates high-quality 3D character animation in real time by combining artificial intelligence, biomechanics, and dynamics simulation.”
Check out the IGN preview of the new Indiana Jones game[^] to get a good description about what euphoria adds to the game experience.
That’s something that made me go WOW!! And that’s just from reading a preview.
Star Wars: Force Unleashed[^] will also have euphoria implemented, and I already drool just from seeing the teasers @ Gametrailers.com.
Enough advertisement of Natural Motion’s euphoria :p

What I’m saying is that better graphics isn’t the future anymore! We have come to a point where there’s no need for better graphics, it’s time to start thinking new ways of making fun and innovative game play.

The sad part here is that the real innovators today are the Indie Game developers. Cause they don’t have so much to lose by experimentation. While the big companies HAVE to go mainstream to make sure their game will bring in enough money.
The game industry is suffering from the same as Hollywood.

For a deeper dive into this subject, check out Steve Gaynor’s blog[^] about Game Noir. Very interesting read about today’s Game Industry and why they are afraid of innovation in their AAA titles.

I’m just happy that LucasArts have come back to the Innovation part of the Industry with the new Indiana Jones and Star Wars games.
A shame they’re only for consoles and not PC..

Yesterday I decided to fresh up my 3D Studio skillz, since I haven’t dabbled with it in years, and every game developer should know *some* 3D modeling.

First I found an enormous resource of free models online, but most of them were for non-commercial use so I continued my search for some good tutorials instead. Though I kept a few of the models for use as placeholders till I get some 3D models of my own(or from my team) to work with.

Then I stumbled over 3D-palace[^]. They got tons of pay-to-learn tutorials, but also a wealth of free ones. The free tutorials are incredibly big and are grouped into Beginner, Intermediate and Higher Level.
Since I’ve dabbled in 3D Studio before, I went with intermediate and found the interesting “A Complete Sci-Fi dock” tutorial.
I didn’t get to start it off yesterday, since I found it just before I went to bed, but I plan to check it out tonight. So stay tuned for my impressions about it tomorrow!

I also found this neat site with tons of links to free 3D tutorials and 3D models @ CGlinks[^]. So if you’re like me and want to refresh your 3D skillz. Head on over and knock yourself out.

I’ve been playing around with DX Studio[^] a bit, and I’ve gone through all of their tutorials by now.

I must say, this 3D editor/Real-time 3D engine almost seem a little too good to be true.. I’m half expecting that something will show up to destroy all the positive parts of it at any time while playing around with it..
It still has some limited physics capabilities and their 3D isn’t state-of-the-art [<Sarcasm>oh noes!!:o</Sarcasm>], but the DX Studio team are working on implementing more as we speak..
And about the team, they listen to their users.. I mean, if you want a feature you’re most likely gonna get it implemented within reasonable time! That’s just astonishing by itself

Anyways, as I stated in my initial post I’m currently working on starting up my very own Indie Game Developer Company and I’m therefore trying out different 3D engines/tool sets to see what I would like to use.
I plan to make a small 2D game first of all to test out the 2D part of DXS. And then I will proceed with a small 3D game as well..

So if you’re interested, just follow my developments in this blog and I will also post update on the main kybernesis[^] site.