Posted by Rafael Diaz at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, here at Champlain I get to blog for homework. Seriously, i do. My responsibility in media class has us blogging weekly about the demons of modern media, having us take one news story and pick it apart. Here's mine for this week:

http://kotaku.com/5145182/the-secret-language-of-world-of-warcraft

So, I'm honestly not sure which of the two i should comment on, the kotaku post (Kotaku being a hardcore gamer blog) or the ladies news report. Honestly? Their both biased as hell.

Lets start with the NBC report. First off, this isn't even news. The lady is reporting on World of Warcraft speech (WoW) which, I'm pretty damn sure is just slang, not news. News is like...Black President now elected, or bombs dropped on American City, Thousands dying, but the news today is gamers have a "Secret Society" where they have their own "Secret Language". Load of crap, really, but lets move beside that point.

This article manages to skim over a couple of minor points as to what specific words mean, and what their significance is to the culture, but the piece seems to half heartedly educate where it could cover good points. The point of the news presentation isn't news to begin with either. It seems almost like a curious highschool girls giggle fest over an outsiders culture. "ohh, they say kek instead of lol, ohmigawd thats so weird hahaha". Smirth would wag his index finger. Bad reporter, no cookie.

Moving on, we then have the opposing piece, the one written by Kotaku. He tries to sound reasonable, but the article also skims the surface. He makes the same points i do. The article is not informitive, its not strong, and its shallow. But the blog poster comments on precisley what the wow player was saying, translating the WoW speak. I feel like he's adding flame to the fire just by translating and re-writing what the man has said.

Really, WoW speak is a way for the anti-social to put up more walls and barriers. As a gamer, I find WoW speak to be horrid. Whenever i'm at a dinner table and someone brings up WoW, everyone their who plays breaks into a conversation about the latest path, scrambling the conversation up with this language. The report shouldn't be on the translation of the language, but about the community and culture, the diversity of it, and what the language does to break up average conversations.

Maybe im just too hopeful, maybe I'm just bitter of the pieces of my time that have been destroyed by the bull-crap of WoW speak. Regardless, thiers something lost in a conversation every time someone pulls up WoW. Its just a downer, really.

Haha, im not a fan of WoW. I should blog about that some time. Anyways, you know where to catch me. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Network!

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, long time no see ya'll. Gotta let you all know ahead of time theres no photos in this blog, but I guarantee it's filled with as much humor and personally written truth as every other one.

So a while back I submitted a concept to MTVU on a game about College debt, my game wasn't selected, but I'll gladly put it up for you all to check out.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcz95vg5_15w39wdfh

So even though I didn't win I still got a sweet concept doc. Which is sweet, and a concept doc.

I've also completely fell in love with Kanye West's new album. Its incredible. I recommend a listen.

Its a quick update, i know, but its something you should give a shot, most certainly.

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

a lot of people like to ask girls who make video games what its like to be a girl that makes video games. From everything i can tell, its no different then being a guy in video games. Except, you know, you're a girl.

But they're truly are some motivational women in gaming, and most of them work across the street from me. The EMC, as I mentioned earlier, is pulling everything they can together to make the world a better place through gaming. Its so cool seeing these people at work, and what they can do. Incredible, really.

Here's the ring leader, Ann Demarle.

To sum up Ann in one word: Incredible. To sum her up in two, "Incredibly Busy". Ann put together every project this school has been on, and helped higher the influential people currently working at the EMC. Shes a visionary, and believes so much in the power for students to create change. I can safely say that if it weren't for Ann I probably wouldn't be here today.

Ann's right hand girl is Sarah. Sarah's awesome, she spends her time making sure everything is in line with the EMC, and with the students. Shes like the a combination between Mary Poppins and Princess Leia, keeping the kids in line and keeping the organization moving forward.

So while the project on making an educational game for libraries is wrapping up to close, the more interesting projects just started up. The most interesting one being the UN project. That project is being supervised by the wonderful miss Heather Kelly. She climbed on board most recently, dropping out of the games for entertainment biz to work on games for change instead. Truly inspirational.

She's also a little silly, like your's truly XP. Some time soon I'll do an article on the guys at the EMC, but for now I think I'll play some Megaman 9.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, the official fable 2 website is up, you should check it out to unlock some awesome in game items: http://fable2.xbox.com/experience.aspx?lang=en-US

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So the new semester starts and I’ll tell you it’s been a whirlwind. The first major bummer is that Jaimie moved out. Seriously, how much does that suck? Too commemorate, here’s a blog post and a pic for commemoration.

We’ll miss you Jaimie! She’ll be up and around to visit though. But with one major bummer comes one tid bit of awesome. Cyrilla (or as I like to call her, Cyrillerella) moved in with us!

Just this week I went to hang out with my buddy Logan. He came back for RA training, and his girlfriend was up visiting this week.

One of logan’s big things is sun glasses. He really likes them. We went to a sunglasses hut and tried some out.

I have a ton more stuff to show you guys, like my friends that came back recently, my many jobs and professors. Stay tuned, I’ll start updating twice a week!

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have a gambling problem. I picked up the special edition version of Fable 2 and got the Fable pub games

I'm starting to get good at the gambling mini games, if i keep going on this route I'll have plenty of good weapons and items before fable 2 comes out.

Aside from that my friends and I have been making back and forth sends on music lately. I'll send you a mini list of whats on my top 3 right now.

www.myspace.com/frankmusik
www.myspace.com/sayhitoyourmom
www.myspace.com/thedecemberist

I'm digging frankmusik the most right now. He's incredible.

We went to the burton sale this weekend with my friends Cyrilla, Mike and Ken, it was like a carnival of consumerism

Cyrilla is silly. I actually got some wicked good deals. I bought a 160 dollar back pack for 30, 90 dollar shoes for 15 bucks, and snow pants for 40 dollars. Awesome. Yeah, we e-gamers shop and go snow boarding and such. Pretty awesome.

Anyway, thats pretty much the jist of last week. Join in next week, same blog time, same blog network.

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I saw the new batman movie. Pretty awesome. I have to say it was just about everything I'm looking for. But the question stands: who is gonna be the next batman villian? Some people say it'll be two face and someone else, My brother thinks its the Riddler, and I've got another friend who thinks its Catwoman. Personally, I'd love a film featuring Harlequinn, the joker and Robin, based on "A Death in the Family". BTW don't check the wiki, may contain spoilers!

So my brother visited this weekend. He's...similar to me:

When asked "What super power would you want?" His response was "Liquid Pants".

My brother's pretty special ^.^

That friday I had spent in the game lab with my buddy Keith. Keith's one of the best artist in the grade below me. He's an awesome guy, and tons of fun to hang out with:

He's also a pretty big Naruto fan. Speaking of which, I've been trying to catch up on Naruto lately. I'm waaay behind, but I found a good website to catch up on it. I'm reaching the 100's in episodes now.

Keith and I spent the night working in Maya and ordering fast food. I like working in Maya with friends. When you do it by yourself its so slow and boring, but if you have a good friend to talk to its a lot easier. I recommend to any E-gamers reading this that you pick up a copy and start practicing! Its really important you start modding, scripting, coding and modeling as early as humanly possible. The more practice you get the better!

Speaking of which, here's a heads up for all you E-gamers: Check out some indy games! If you've never played an indy game before i suggest you start looking around at this website:

http://www.indiegames.com/

Its the best place to get started, and if you have an Xbox 360, pick up Braid. It's coming out this Wednesday, and its tottally worth the live points. When you get a chance try your hand at playing an indy game or two. And if you really like them, try making one yourself.

Anyway, I gotta be off. I'm working on an indy game myself!

- Rafi, E-game Hokage.

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, what happened this year? E3 was a flop. A major flop. It's been such a disappointment! There were a couple of good smatterings here and there. The new prince of persia is amazing, if you haven't checked it out you should:

As for the game we've been working on, it's been going along very well. Auston's been doing his programmin' deal:

And Peavey's art has come along swimmingly.

We actually managed to pump out an alpha a while back. Pretty cool. One of our professors actually worked for X-play at one point, so he gave us the professional treatment. Here is auston playing the alpha:

I'm still working on the whole "Making Do" thing. I'm trying not to buy anything commercial or unnecessary, so only food, clothes and medicine. I find myself indulging in things like candy and such more often, but I'm still doing really well. I've managed to save a ton of money, but I might not get to do fun stuff like go see the midnight release of Batman tonight. I guess its OK though, because its always best to see films with friends. Spinner has a really nice 1080p TV in its lounge. The guys and I hang out there a ton.

I'll try and post again some time this weekend. My friends and I are having a little maya fest this weekend back at the school. I'll definitely be blogging about that.

See you soon!
- Rafi

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This may come across as old news for many people, but i heard about a program this British guy did called "Making Do". Throughout the entire year of 2007, he decided that he would not purchase any consumer products. None. I started thinking about that, and whether or not a gamer like myself could do the same.

Crazy when you think about it. That means no games, consoles MP3 players, books, DVDs movies, nada, nothing. Not one thing to watch or do. Something about that simply comes off as insane to me. I'm not sure if i could do it. I'm considering the following:

Wizards of the coast produced the new 4th edition of dungeons and dragons, which means all these new books will be coming out. Its a new system, and a new rule set, so you can imagine the wealth of books to be released soon.

Fallout 3, Fable 2, Rock band 2, Viva Pinata 2, Street Fighter 4, Braid are all coming out soon. The Batman movie came out, Hulk and Ironman are in theaters (neither of which I have seen), and then there's concerts! Flowbots are coming up to Burlington, MC Frontalot is supposed to go on tour in the winter season, and E3 hasn't even gone through yet. You can imagine the wellspring of games about to be announced.

Could I do it? I mean really, could I? No games, no books, no nothing...I'm really curious. Oh, and then there's his book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sold-Out-Survived-Year-Shopping/dp/1856753085

I'd have to not buy that too XP.

But I'm curious if I'm capable. I think I'll give it a shot and not buy anything all of July, just to see how it goes.

I mean there's always the internet. You can get a lot of stuff for free there, and easily too. I mean, not illegally of course but...You know what I mean.

But then there's the big question of "Is it worth it"? It's important for me to keep up on tech, gaming and media. I like movies, I like games. Is it OK if I rent movies? or games? or anything? What about entertaining foods? non-necessity foods? Like Mountain dew, or Oreos?

I think I'll give it a shot this month. See what happens. Maybe I'll blog about it.

Posted by Rafael Diaz at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)