Hm.  I was all set for an evening of a little World of Warcraft, just the thing to get a little break from my non-stop Oblivion playing.  Here I was, just in the middle of doing one of the cool storyline quests involving the great dragon, Onyxia, when the server up and crashes on me.  It was at the end of a very cool in-game event but now that the world server is down, I'm sure I won't be able to complete it.  Hopefully customer service will come to my aid.

Certainly Blizzard has had their share of problems to go with their phenomenal success... but we're approaching 2 years since the launch of the game!  Yet long queues and server instability is still quite common, and the expansion pack is many months off at best (rumors I hear from various industry folks now peg it at 2007).  The new changes made in their latest 1.10 patch are very unfriendly to casual players like me (in fact, the reason I was doing my Onyxia quests is because our usual 15-man Blackrock Spire trips are now forced down to 10-man, a direct blow to casual players).  Overall I get the sense that Blizzard is riding the tiger and holding on for dear life.  The game is so good in so many other ways, I do wonder what behind the scenes is going on to cause this kind of trouble for them. 

Well, I guess that means Onyxia will live to see another day, and I can go back to closing the gates of Oblivion...

Sometimes the game industry can be exhausting... but in a good way.  I just got out of a 6 hour meeting that started at 4 PM... a great meeting, tons of good stuff hashed out, and quite productive overall.  Times like these make me realize how much I love my job, that a meeting like that just gets me really gets me fired up to tackle the next challenge.  It also makes me appreciate my wife who understands when I need to rearrange schedules on short notice to accomodate a crazy schedule. 

I really can't wait until I can talk about the project I'm on.  Maintaining silence is important, but I'm practically bursting at the seams with all the cool stuff that we've got going.  Once the veil of secrecy is lifted I'm looking forward to discussing a lot of the process and development issues we are tackling here on the blog.  I've got no clue how far away that is though...

As mentioned earlier, I'm playing the heck out of Oblivion.  BTW, note the always auto updating Gamercard on the left column now!  Ain't technology grand?

Anyways, I'm finding I make very slow progress in Oblivion, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Every time I think I'm going to maybe get a little closer to my destination, some cool new subplot falls in my lap, or I discover a new little dungeon out in the wilds and decide to explore it, or just get sidetracked picking herbs.  I'm quite compulsive about picking herbs, it seems. 

Oblivion is the true heir to the great Ultima games of old.  The Elder Scrolls series has always been leaning in that direction, and almost got there with Morrowing, but now I feel has really come into its own.  The game world it creates is living, breathing, and wonderfully open ended.  The best games I've ever played really transport you into an alternate world... Ultima V and GTA: San Andreas were particularly excellent in this regard.  I could wander around Los Santos spraying tags, being a paramedic, stealing cars, and just generally immersing myself in this alternate world, completely ignoring the actual game missions.  It is compelling in a way most games just cannot touch.  Hooray for the guys and gals over at Bethesda for creating such a complete world -- and hopefully they'll get the sales to match the great critical acclaim the game is already receiving.

Hm.  Well.  My posting frequency here has not been what I'd like.  I'm going to try the experiment of writing more often, but (much) shorter entries.  Not that I have very lofty ambitions for this blog but if I never update it, it's not doing any good for anyone.  So we'll see how it works out.  I imagine it may be a little less long-winded, but more rambling.   :)

Meanwhile, Oblivion is rocking my world.  360 version is beautiful and has me sprawled out on the couch playing it.   Level 8 Nightblade now and I just can't quite seem to follow the main quest because the world is so compelling and open.  I'm a huge sucker for open worlds.