McGnome: Life, Game Development, Travel and More

My return...

2009-05-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have let this sit for too long again. I will be posting again very soon.

On The Road Again...

2008-08-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

So far, a lot of my work time is being taken up by travel. This next week I will be in Indianapolis for the mighty, mighty GenCon. I will be showing off Storm of Zehir to some press and the gaming public. It looks like visitors will even get a chance at some hands-on with SoZ. I will be packing some OEI schwag along, purely as a defensive maneuver, of course.

As always, my week was busy. I have been working on localization and art scheduling, for the most part.

So I finished the S.M, Stirling book, Dies the Fire. Took a while to read this one due to my schedule, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Moving on to the the next in the series and Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide is on deck.

Haven't had much time for any gaming lately. I have a craving to play some Dawn of War, and I would like to play some more 4th edition D&D to explore the rules for any possible future development we may end up with... but time, or the lack thereof, is getting in the way as usual.

Oh well, it's 4:00 AM here. Star Trek is coming on so I should end my rambling for now.

Monday, Monday (La-laaaa lala la la)

2008-07-28T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Monday. The first day to a busy week for me. Been at work just about 11.5 hours now, so I am taking a bit of a break.

I took last week off and ran away to ComiCon. Overall it was a great time but oh, how the 'con has fallen. The place was packed beyond crowded. Among my little group of friends, most of us had to miss three or more events because the lines were so long or the rooms filled up.

On the good side, though, I was able to sit in on the Jim Butcher spotlight event. He's a great author and is the genius behind The Dresden Files. He also has a fantasy series out that I will have to dig into.

I was able to sit in on an event where Will Wright was demoing Spore! I hadn't thought much of the game - honestly, I hadn't checked much into it. But when he went into the game and started to show off the civilization building side of things -- Wow! I want to play that game! I won't go much into it... you are going to have to find out for yourself.

I got the chance to read a lot of the S.M. Stirling book. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend.

I will cut this blog short. I need to get out of here and go feed my dog, Mooch.

There's No Place Like Home

2008-07-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

Just got back from E3 a couple hours ago. Like many businesses in America, it has been down-sized. E3 is much smaller than it used to be. That being said, it was a great show. We demo'd Storm of Zehir about a buhjillion times. Matt may say we demo'd it 50 times or so, but he would be lying. It was a buhjillion. I counted.

Anyway, the show went well. Everyone that saw the game was impressed. Matt did a great job demoing the game and I did my best impression of Vanna White.

The Atari people were great and took good care of us in the booth - even if they did go get In-n-Out Burger without us. That's OK though... They were all from New York and seemed to have an almost visceral craving for the heavenly burgers. I will have to have some tomorrow and Saturday, and Sunday to make up for it. Maybe I will send some burger wrappers to the NY people ;)

Enough about E3 for now. I will post some pics in the next few days.

I am almost finished with Victory of Eagles. Another great book from Naomi Novik's Temraire series. I will be starting a series by S.M. Stirling next.

Well, tomorrow is my first day back in the office, so I should sign off for now.

Press Start to Continue

2008-07-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

Ok... it's a less than auspicious start to this blog. I apologize for the delay but, for those that know, things have been a bit busy for me lately.

So I have been working the last few weeks as the Assistant Producer on Obsidian Entertainment's Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (SoZ). I am really enjoying the change of pace and duties. The downside is that I have a lot less time to interact with the NWN2 community. As a result, my forum time has migrated to the wee hours of the morning, with short bursts of activity during the day.

The next month or so will be exceptionally busy for me. Starting Monday, I will be up in L.A. with Matt Rorie (former game reviewer-turned-Obsidian Marketeer) showing SoZ to the press at E3. The game game is looking great and I think it brings a new dynamic to the Neverwinter Nights franchise. I think with SoZ, our designers have done a great job at showing what can be done with the Electron Toolset. While there will always be some people that don't like a game you release, I think the modders will be pretty happy with the systems and tools we are putting in place with SoZ.

Then, after a short break with Batman, I'm off to San Diego for ComiCon. This is mostly a personal trip, but I will probably spend some time with some fans and friends of Obsidian. They are the reason we are in business, after all.

Last year I was able to give a couple T-Shirts away to some people dressed in KOTOR2 costumes. This year, I won't have T-Shirts (they seem to be taking forever), but I will have some signed copies of NWN2 with me. We'll see if I can find Darth Nihilus again. If you see me there, come say hello.

I'll be back at Obsidian for a couple weeks, then I'm off to the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. I probably won't have time for sight seeing, but you can bet I will be partaking of some German food and drink. I have been alcohol-free for the last couple years, but I may have to make an exception while I am there. It's been 11 years since I have been to Germany, so I am looking forward to this trip.

For this weekend: I'll be heading out to see a movie screening and, hopefully, I can get some motorcycle time in. I have been working long hours so I have been driving the truck. I also want to pick up Naomi Novik's new addition to her Temeraire series, Victory of Eagles.

More to come...

2008-05-19T15:28:00.001-07:00

Okay, I intend on blogging here... hopefully a bit more than on my professional blog.