Flash of Steel header image 1

40 Years, 1 million hits

April 23rd, 2012 by Troy Goodfellow · Me

Last week marked a couple of milestones for me.

First, and probably most shockingly, I finally turned 40. It wasn’t as stressful a birthday as my 39th was for a number of very personal reasons, and I would have been content to let the day pass without much comment. But 80+ Facebook greetings, some nice emails, IM and IRC messages…people will say things and then there is no escaping the fact.

Second, Flash of Steel passed one million lifetime visits. Now Rock, Paper, Shotgun probably does that in a month. It took me much longer, and though I am addicted to checking my stats, I don’t put a whole lot of stake in them except as trends. I know that if I wrote more often, I would have passed this threshhold months ago.

So, on the birthday front, special thanks to all friends and family that have gotten me this far. Special thanks to that handful of die-hards (you know who you are) that helped me through a few difficult transitions – there are more to come.

On the site front, thanks to everyone that comes back regularly to read even when I update slowly and everyone that comments intelligently and politely on my posts. It means a great deal to me to have an audience that respects what I have tried to do here and that hasn’t harangued me to write more than I have the last 18 months.

I probably won’t be writing in this space in 40 years time, but I will try to hit 1 million visits sooner – and that will mean more updates. I have a lot of stuff backlogged, some of it in reply to what smarter people are writing for money.

→ 9 CommentsTags:

Three Moves Ahead Episode 165 – Beware of Falling Samurai

April 21st, 2012 by Rob Zacny · Podcast, Three Moves Ahead

ThreeMovesAhead

PC Gamer staff writer Tom Senior and freelance writer Phill Cameron come to Rob’s podcasting island, bringing with them rifles and steam-powered ironclads. Things swiftly turn violent as they discuss Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai, and some of the Total War series’ longstanding contradictions. How does balance function in Fall of the Samurai, and how does the campaign structure let down the setting? Why does the AI behave as if it’s not sure if it’s in a game, or a history sim? How does Fall of the Samurai change the role of gunpowder weapons?

Listen here.

Rob’s Fall of the Samurai Review
Phill’s review
Tom’s review

Register at Idle Thumbs then join us in the episode thread! (In coming weeks, all discussion will be over there and podcast posts will be closed to comments.)

RSS here.
Subscribe on iTunes.

→ 2 CommentsTags:

Science in Strategy Games: Master of Orion series

April 16th, 2012 by Troy Goodfellow · Feature:Science

What this is about, and a list of the games.

I am not going to talk about Master of Orion 3, because I had no interest in playing that again. But revisiting Master of Orion 1 and 2 reminded me of many things I had forgotten about both games, and confirmed a lot of suspicions I had about the series’ importance in setting the science tone.

When SimTex made the first MOO game in 1993, it was probably run with a subtle marketing campaign that made it Civilization in space. Both were Microprose titles, after all, and if people liked conquering the world and discovering new things with scientists in the past, why not in the future? But SimTex wasn’t the type of studio to just cut and paste and MOO elaborated on the empire building subgenre in some very important ways, especially in how research and science were used. There were some big changes between MOO 1 and 2, as well, which I think reflect changes in expectations for strategy games in general.

But let’s start with Master of Orion.

As I noted in the National Character series, the idea of having races with fixed and immutable attributes was not an a priori assumption of strategy game design. In fact, you can probably credit SimTex and MOO with introducing the idea of a racial bonuses that would continue throughout every game you played, every galaxy you conquered. Biology was destiny. And in Master of Orion, these types of bonuses applied very heavily to scientific research. Yes, the Psilons had a generic racial bonus, but each race also had its own bonus connected to specific types of technology, and these were outlined in the manual. [Read more →]

→ 15 CommentsTags:

Three Moves Ahead Episode 164 – PAX East 2012 Panel: Strategy – What’s Changing, What Needs To

April 12th, 2012 by Rob Zacny · Podcast, Three Moves Ahead

ThreeMovesAhead

We heard the people, and we brought Three Moves Ahead directly to the masses who gathered at PAX East. But what if you missed it? Will we punish you for your lack of dedication? Yes, but you can still listen to this episode. Listen to Rob forget to introduce himself or the panel, a panel that includes Troy, Julian, Paradox’s Chris King (Victoria II), Stardock’s Jon Shafer (Civ V), and Hasbro’s Rob Daviau (Risk Legacy). Why is this such a good time to be a strategy gamer, and how can we make it better?

Listen here.

Register at Idle Thumbs then join us in the episode thread! (In coming weeks, all discussion will be over there and podcast posts will be closed to comments.)

RSS here.
Subscribe on iTunes.

Comments Off on Three Moves Ahead Episode 164 – PAX East 2012 Panel: Strategy – What’s Changing, What Needs ToTags:

PAX East 2012

April 10th, 2012 by Troy Goodfellow · PAX

One of these days, I am going to have to do one of these shows just as a gamer.

PAX East was last weekend, and there is something special about consumer facing shows. Yes, in any large crowd there will be a healthy dose of rudeness, weirdness and schadenfreude, and maybe an audience born on the internet will have more than the normal amount. Still, going to PAX is a reminder that the games audience looks very little the game development or games journalism communities. Size, shape, race, sex…it was very America only with more cosplay.

I really like PAX East. I went to the inaugural one in 2010 and it was an event that still stands out for me in a lot of ways. And there were a few eerie parallels this time around. I had fun, though.

I spent most of the show tied to a booth showing off two Paradox published titles – War of the Roses (Fatshark Games) and Showdown Effect (Arrowhead). No prize for guessing which game I was assigned. My role was to shuffle people through the never-ending-line to play the game, talk to them about War of the Roses, and answer their questions. I also did a few media appearances, but saw few of my old media friends for very long. Glad that those who stopped by did. (Now you know what PR does at these things. If you want to know the other stuff we do, read my boss’s article on the corp blog.)

I didn’t get to see much, of course. I was working, and except for a quick run of the floor to check the vendors on the final day, I saw zero panels or cool games. So if I go as a fan, I get to do those things. But I also don’t get paid for going.

Anyway, despite the fact that nothing ever runs perfectly, the Paradox team was in good spirits through the event and I would like to think it was a successful one for them. They remain a lot of fun to hang out with.

It was more fun, though, to see Julian Murdoch and Rob Zacny, two good friends I haven’t seen in a couple of years. There was boardgaming, there was drinking, there was a commitment for me to get to Rabbitcon this year. The Gamers With Jobs people are uniformly nice and adult, as fits their name, and there was some great food at the final dinner. And Zacny knows his cocktail bars.

We had our panel on the final day of the show and attendance was surprisingly good. I was sure we’d get no more than 30 or 50 people. We had well over a hundred guests. The panel (Me, Julian, Rob, Rob Daviau, Jon Shafer and Chris King) was a lot of fun considering how little any of us really had prepared. The show was recorded and will be Episode 164 of Three Moves Ahead. We will definitely do it again next year, but I’ll moderate and let Rob Zacny rant. We need to take turns at this.

I can think of probably a half dozen ways my weekend could have been better, and gel inserts are number one on that list. Maybe number two… But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy myself or feel productive. It was a worthwhile professional event and a great personal time.

Hope to see more of you next year.

→ 3 CommentsTags:

Three Moves Ahead Episode 163 – Fifty, Alive, and King

April 6th, 2012 by Rob Zacny · Podcast, Three Moves Ahead

ThreeMovesAhead

Rob welcomes freelancer Rowan Kaiser and designer Jon Shafer to talk about Crusader Kings 2. They swap stories, discuss the impact of making a family-based strategy game, and question whether there’s all that much crusading going on here.

Remember to attend the 3MA panel at PAX East this weekend, at 4:30 on Sunday in the Cat Theater. Spread the word!

Listen here.

Rowan’s review for GameSpy

RSS here.
Subscribe on iTunes.

→ 12 CommentsTags: