Morning Coffee 168 - E3 Edition

Yesterday, was Microsoft's big reveal for Xbox 360 this coming holiday season. If you're not a gamer, please move along, nothing to see here. Also note, I work @ Microsoft, but not in the games division so this is only my thoughts on yesterday's announcements.

• While several "hard-core" games were showcased - Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Fable 2, Gears of War 2 and the surprise announcement that Final Fantasy XIII - the rest of yesterday's briefing screamed "we're not just for hard core gamers!"  Call it the Wii effect. Even the title of the main E3 Press Release was Gameplay for Every Passion.
• Honestly, my favorite announcement from yesterday wasn't game related at all - it was the announcement of Netflix on Xbox 360. I've been hoping for a flat rate subscription plan since Video Marketplace first launched. Soon, I'll have it.
• I'm not sure what I think of the New Xbox Experience yet. On the one hand, the whole cartoon avatar thing isn't really my bag. Plus, isn't it quite the Mii clone? However, the ability to share photo and video viewing experiences - even with cartoony avatars - and the flashy + engaging navigation mechanism looks like a real improvement. Here's hoping they improve the performance of navigating hard drive content (games library, gamer pictures, etc).
• Congrats to my friend Matt who's been very involved in the development of the new Primetime game show channel. I'm not that interested in "1 vs 100", but I think the potential of that game model is pretty huge. If they created a Jeopardy game for Primetime, I think my parents would by a 360 right away.
• Music / party games seem to have been the primary focus of the press briefing. I'm definitely getting Rock Band 2 (AC/DC woot!) and I think my wife would like Lips (she usually sings when we play Rock Band). I want to see how the "wireless interactive microphones: Featuring stylish interactive motion sensors and lights" will work. Guitar Hero World Tour looks cool too, but I'm not re-buying all new music hardware.
• You're in the Movies looks like a hoot, plus it doesn't really look like a game, so much as a "party activity". For example, while there are minigame winners or losers, "winning" takes a back seat to the final movie result. I'm guessing this will be big with the kids.
• Speaking of kids, Patrick is really looking forward to Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. He loves anything related to building, and building fantastic vehicles is a core part of the gameplay. As for Riley, I think she's getting old enough to enjoy Viva Pinata - she enjoys watching Patrick and I play - though I'm not sure we need the new Viva Pinata.
• Geometry Wars 2 and Portal: Still Alive, both coming to Xbox Live Arcade. 'nuff said.
• Not really "new" news, but XNA Community Games launches this fall. I've got a creators club membership, so I'm able to experiment with this now - it rocks, though the available games are pretty shall I say "unpolished" at this point.
• Halo Wars not coming until 2009. :(
• No new Bungie news, but their website is counting down to *something* tomorrow. I guess we'll find out then.

Lunchtime Coffee 158

• My friend (and hopefully my next representative) Darcy Burner is leading a group of congressional challengers in publishing A Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq. I haven't read the plan itself in detail, but I sure like what I'm hearing about it.
• Speaking of politics, Obama's speech today "A More Perfect Union" was fantastic.
• Bioshock is getting a sequel. 'nuff said.
• There's a new version of FolderShare out and I've got mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I've been a regular user of FolderShare for a while so it's nice to see it get a face lift. On the other hand, it's been over two years since Microsoft bought FolderShare and we're only just now getting a new version, which is literally nothing more that a face lift - this version introduces no new functionality at all.
• I was hoping to geek out vicariously via someone else's hacking around with Singularity. Luckily, Matthew Podwysocki provides just such an opportunity.
• Looks like "Prism" is the new CAB. Glenn Block has two extensive posts covering a project overview and their first drop. I think it's interesting that the Prism team is focused on building a reference implementation, and letting the framework eventually fall out. Reading thru the description, it sounds awesome. However, based on the massive increase of inbox throughput I'm experiencing since I accepted the new job, I can't imagine I'll have time to play with it. Maybe Matthew will start playing with Prism too! (via Sam Gentile - btw, thanks for the kind words on the new job Sam!)
• Speaking of Sam, he points to a series by Bob Beauchemin entitled LINQ to SQL and Entity Framework: Panacea or evil incarnate? With a title like that, who can resist reading the whole series? Err, I can because LINQ 2 SQL & EF performance just fell off my radar entirely. However I gotta agree with Sam's point that he "can't think of anyone more qualified than Bob" to tackle these questions.
• Tomas Restrepo blogs his dev environment PS script as well as a PS fortune script. Personally, I use Chris Tavares' vsvars wrapper for PS, though I'll gladly take an "official" PS based dev environment.
• I wonder if Ted Neward will get jumped for admiring Mort the way Nick Malik did. Given that Ted called himself Mort while Nick compared Mort to agile developers, I'm guess Ted will have to go back to his Vietnam analogy if he wants to create controversy.
• Speaking of Ted, I agree with his point that conferences are about people. As a python pre-newbie (I figure I'll reach full newbie status by the time I actually start my new job), I spent most of my PyCon time connecting with people rather than trying to learn technical stuff. Also, I love Ted's WHISCEY acronym.
• Speaking of PyCon, my soon-to-be new teammate Srivatsn Narayanan blogs his thoughts on PyCon. I'll try and get to my PyCon thoughts soon.

Morning Coffee 138

• In writers strike news, the WGA has made side deals with Worldwide Pants (aka Dave Letterman's company), United Artists (aka Tom Cruise's company) and The Weinstein Company (previously known as Miramax). The WGA strategy of divide and conquer seems to me making slow progress. Update: The Weinstein Company was founded by Miramax's founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein after they left Miramax. But Miramax is still around. Thanks to GrantC for the correction.
• They're still two games under .500, but the Caps completed a season sweep of the Eastern Conference leading Ottawa Senators last night. They're only 3 games out of the top spot in the (admittedly very weak) Southeast division
• Big tech news today isn't coming from MSFT-land. Sun is buying MySQL and Oracle is (finally) buying BEA. Both deals seem like pretty significant culture clashes, though Sun/MySQL seems like the better fit of the two.
• There's a new draft of Service Modeling Language 1.1 available. If you'll recall, this used to be called the System Definition Model, part of the Dynamic Systems Initiative. Hadn't heard anything from those folks in a while, good to see they're making progress.
• Stephan Tolksdorf dropped me a line to tell me he was able to "vastly simplify" FParsec, and as a result it now runs on the current version of F#. Awesome!
• Speaking of F#, Scott Hanselman has a new F# podcast, this time interviewing Dustin Campbell. Check out all of Dustin's F# posts.
• I didn't know about the "Copy as Path" feature in Vista. Why is it hidden?
• I was a big fan of the WDS deskbar shortcut feature - a feature that is missing in Vista. Enter Start++ by Brandon Paddock, which adds shortcuts to Vista's search box. It also supports "iPhone apps" and scripting. But JScript? Where's the PowerShell love, Brandon?
• EA released the source code to the original SimCity under the GPL. Bil Simser is digging into the code and it looks like he's going to port it to XNA. (via Ozymandias)
• Wes Haggard has published the source code to CodeHTMLer on CodePlex. He took two updates from me: the F# language definition as well as the ability to choose the font when not using PRE tags.

Morning Coffee 124

• While my blog was down last week, I finally finished Gears of War. I played thru on hardcore, but had to throttle back to casual to beat the last boss. I'd like to try and finish on hardcore, but I've moved on to Dead Rising - another game from last year I never had time to finish. I'm almost done the main play mode, though I understand there are other play modes that get unlocked when you finish it.
• I'm forbidden from buying any new games before Christmas, so Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed and The Orange Box will have to wait. My next game will either be Blue Dragon, which a friend let me borrow, or R6:Vegas, yet another (but the last) game from last year I never got time to play.
• I'll skip the "giving thanks" jokes and point out that Visual Studio 2008 and .NET FX 3.5 have shipped.  Soma has the announcement and both Scott Guthrie and Sam Gentile summarize what's new. The Express editions are available from the new Express Developer Center. The VS SDK doesn't appear to be released yet, but I'm sure it will be along in due course.
• Speaking of VS SDK, CoDe Magazine did an entire issue on VS Extensibility which you can read online or download as PDF.
• Nick Malik took a bunch of heat back in June for what some thought was a redefinition of Mort, one of the Developer Division personas. Now Paul Vick thinks it's time to retire the Mort persona, primarily because of the negative connotation the name carries. His suggestion for a replacement is Ben (as in Franklin). And did you notice how similar Paul's description of Mort is to what Nick described? I'd say some folks owe Nick an apology.
• I said Friday I was going to take a closer look @ OpenID and OAuth. There's an intro to OpenID on their wiki and Sam Ruby's OpenID for non-SuperUsers seems to be the canonical source on implementing OpenID on your own blog. Frankly, reading the OpenID intro reminded me a lot of WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile. Does OpenID have the equivalent of an "active" mode?
• Likewise, the Beginner’s Guide to OAuth series of posts by Eran Hammer-Lahav is a good intro to OAuth. The phrase "Jane notices she is now at a Faji page by looking at the browser URL" from the protocol walkthru makes me worry that OAuth is vulnerable to phishing. Having one of the OAuth authors call phishing victims careless and wishing for Karl Rove to "scare people into being more careful and smarter about what they do online" makes me think my fears are well grounded. I'm thinking maybe OAuth and OpenID aren't quite ready to nail down WS-*'s coffin.
• In researching OpenID, I came across this presentation hosted on SlideShare. I had never seen SlideShare before - it's kinda like YouTube for presentations. Sharing basic presentations is kinda lame - there doesn't appear to be any animation support, so the slides are basically pictures. However, they also support "slidecasting" where you sync slides to an audio file hosted elsewhere. That I like. I have a bunch of old decks + audio, maybe I'll stick them up there.

Morning Coffee 66

Yesterday's Morning Coffee was canceled on account of rain. In my living room. It's fixed now.

• Andre Vrignaud writes about MS Research's new High Capacity Color Barcodes technology. As he points out, there's some fascinating gaming potential for these barcodes because they have such high capacity (something like 2kb per square inch) and can be read without special equipment (a camera phone should work).
• According to a Pew Research Center report, Daily Show/Colbert Report viewers are significantly better informed than Fox News viewers. On the other hand, they're only slightly more informed than O'Reilly Factor viewers or Rush Limbaugh listeners so it seems like a wash.
• Speaking of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, you can now download them from Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace. But at $2 160 points an episode, it's cheaper to set my DVR.
• I recently re-discovered Remus Rusanu's SSB blog. He went dark for a few months there, but he's recently posted a new version of his Service Listing Manager utility, presented SSB at DevConnections and showed how to implement a managed stored proc to receive SQL DDL event notifications. Event notifications is one of those features I didn't even realize was in SQL.
• Dottie Shaw, one of the program managers on my project, has started blogging. That leaves two team mates and one project member still not blogging.
• Yesterday, I stumbled into some other teams morale event. They were bogarting the cafeteria, so it wasn't like I was crashing it or anything. Normally, I wouldn't hang around some other teams party, but they had a projector, an Xbox 360 and two copies of Guitar Hero so I had to hang out and watch them play head-to-head for a while. That looks like a fun game.
• Chris Anderson writes at length about the primary enemy of Long Tail economics: "the absurdly complicated and expensive process of rights clearance". His case in point is the coming DVD release of WKRP in Cincinnati, which has replaced the dozens of songs used as background music with "Muzak-style songs that could be licensed in perpetuity for a small flat fee" that apparently "sucked ass".

Good Week for Hobbyists and Students

Both XNA Game Studio Express and Microsoft Robotics Studio shipped their 1.0 releases this week. So once you're done hacking a robot to mow your lawn, you can relax by debugging your latest game on your Xbox 360. W00t!

Santa, please bring me a few extra hours per day so I can play with this stuff!

A Few Short Takes

I did say I was going to go a little dark when I took the new job didn't I? Things have been hectic - my brother's getting married in just under two weeks and I'm working on getting my part of my new project's Business Requirements Document (otherwise known as the BRD) done before I leave on vacation. The BRD process is fairly odd for this project - for one, the project team is writing it instead of the business unit. Given that we're building infrastructure, many of the "business" elements of the BRD are not particularly appropriate. But we're muddling thru. In a meeting with my boss's boss's boss last week, he stressed the need for delivering incremental value. In other words, the need for using an agile process which is cool as far as I'm concerned.

I have a couple of longer posts coming, but here are a few short takes for a Monday morning:

Windows Live Writer

Everyone seems gaga over the new tool, so I downloaded it. Pretty cool. I'm writing this post using it. Typically, I write my posts in FrontPage SharePoint Designer and paste them into the dasBlog web editing interface - I'm pretty particular about the HTML that ends up on my blog. So far, Writer seems up for the job. And I love the Web Layout editing mode. Does have some bugs and missing features. For example, it has spell check, but not background spell check. And as Scott pointed out the category list is totally broken when you have a lot of categories. Writer has an SDK, and one of the examples they suggest building with it is "Tags from tagging services". I'd like to have a simple text box where I could enter categories as tags, and have it automatically create any categories that aren't already on my site. I've already got a side coding project going, but I'm almost done so maybe I'll take that up next.

XNA Game Studio

I was researching some Xbox stuff for a customer several months ago and got wind of this plan. I can't wait to see it running. I recently picked up Frank Luna's Intro to 3d Game Programming: A Shader Approach based on Dave's recommendation. I figure most, if not all, the source code will be obsolete in the XNA Framework world, but the concepts are spot on so it's been a good read.

One aspect of this announcement that I haven't seen talked about yet is the impact on the mod community. Many games today ship with an SDK - here are examples for Dungeon Siege, Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. Of course, the idea is that modder's get a popular game and industrial-strength game engine to build on for almost no cost and the game publisher expands the value of their game - any mods require the original game to play. Wouldn't it be cool if you could mod Halo 3? And combined with Live Anywhere, the possibilities are enormous. I can't wait to see how this evolves.

New Machine & Vista

For the first time in my nearly 8 year MSFT career, I have a desktop machine. And it's a nice one - a Dell Precision 690 workstation. 2x dual Xenon CPU, 2x 160GB SCSI Hard Drives, dual link DVI outputs for driving twin widescreen monitors - dual is very big on this machine. Pretty much the only skimpy part of this machine is the RAM - only 2GB. But I'm not running x64 (yet) so that's not a huge deal (yet).

Of course, such a screaming machine runs the latest Vista build. I'm also running it on my laptop - with Aero Glass even, thanks to this driver. The combo of latest Vista build + latest Office build is pretty sweet.

With new machines and new operating systems, I've been spending significant time installing. The Dell box turned out to be a real pain as it only has the SCSI drives which are not standard on the WinXP install disk. I'm dual booting XP/Vista on both machines, but I had to create a custom slipstreamed XP install disk to get my Dell workstation up and running (Vista installed without any extra work). But now I've got the baseline install imaged - thanks to BootIt NG which I've spoken highly of before - I shouldn't ever have to do that again.

Hawk Eye on Xbox 360

Last weekend, I finally got around to picking up an Xbox 360. Things have been a little busy this week so I haven’t had a ton of time to play it. I bought Oblivion and Kameo, but have spent most of my time playing Xbox Live Arcade. Seems sort of stupid to shell out $400 to play Hexic and UNO, but it actually a compelling experience for a number of reasons. First off, they’re games you can play for 10-15 minutes at a time. Playing Oblivion for 15 minutes is pointless, but it’s perfect for a Live Arcade game. With two kids, 15 minutes of play time is much more common than 2 hours. Second, you don’t have to get up to put in a game disc. Sure it’s lazy, but aren’t we all lazy sometimes? Third, I can play them in front of my kids. Fourth, they’re cheap and easy to download on Xbox Live Marketplace.

Marketplace is a thing of genius. My son Patrick’s favorite is the Cars movie trailer in HD. Being able to download demos is awesome, rather than keeping track of the discs that come with OXM. For example, I’ve downloaded every racing game demo there is so Patrick can play them. He hasn’t got the hang of it yet (he is only three) but since it’s a demo it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care that he keeps racing the same car on the same track. (He did see the new Cars game at Blockbuster the other day, but it’s for the original Xbox and not on the back compat list.)

Finally, the ability to play music and look at pictures from a standard XP machine is pretty cool. The User Experience for lots of photos and music isn’t great, but the end result is worth it. My wife quipped “I could watch this all night” as we looked at a slide show of photos we’ve taken over the past three years while listening to some of custom tunes. I don’t have a Media Center as I’ve been waiting for HD cable support. However, I know the MCE experience for navigating thousands of songs and photos is much better than Xbox 360’s, so I might make the switch early. Plus, I would also get support for remote video viewing – something Xbox 360 doesn’t support for reasons that escape me.

All in all, I'm really digging the Xbox 360. Only downside is not enough time to play.

The Inform Language

I got interested in computers when my dad started bringing home a terminal to access his companies mainframe over a 300 baud telecoupled modem. The first terminals were paper-based, then we moved-on-up to a VT100. I got interested in programming because I wanted to be able to build my own game like Adventure or Zork. The rest as they say is history and some 20-25 years later I work for Microsoft. I never actually built an adventure game, but if I still wanted to, apparently Rory is teaching a sesson on Inform which apparently is a language for building Interactive Fiction.

Sounds like Code Camp is going to be a blast. Note to self, bug Rory for his slides.

MechAssault 2 Conquest

First it was Halo 2's online stats, game viewer and RSS feeds. Now, MechAssault 2 introduces the concept of Conquest. While Halo 2's online gaming experience is awesome, it doesn't lead anywhere - each game is completely unrelated to the others. But with Conquest, each battle impacts the ownership of planets in the galaxy. Each player joins one of the five houses and then can participate in the galactic war. Planet ownership is based on the results of battles fought there. You can see the current map of the galaxy as well as war updates at any time. (But no RSS feed for the war updates - what's up with that?)

The only bad thing is that MechAssault 2 doesn't appear to have any per game stats like Halo 2 has. Wouldn't that be a great experience - Halo 2's game viewer and per game stats combined with MechAssault 2's conquest metagame.

Halo 2 Stats

I hadn't realized how cool the Halo 2 stats site on bungie.net is until Scott blogged it . This really brings the online experience to a new level. It's so cool, that I had to create a new flair for my blog linking to my stats page (I also put up a link to my games RSS feed). Granted, my stats so far are pretty lame - I've only played one multiplayer game so far and I came in 5th. (I did spend most of last night playing the campain.) Maybe the public nature of the stats will drive me to improve them. I haven't joined a clan yet, but when I do I'll create a flair for that too.

The coolest thing about this is that it sets a new bar for online experience. ESPN Video Games and EA Sports are nowhere near this level of detail, but I imagine they are taking notice.

Halo 2

I didn't join the midnight madness, but I did pick up Halo 2 at the company store today. There was a line around the building before the store opened this morning, but by lunchtime it was down to a 15 minute wait. Like many others, I was on the multiplayer beta, but I'm guessing nothing compares to the real deal. I'm not going to get a chance to play until tonight :( but I sure am looking forward to it. Quick reminder - my gamertag is RayTracer, though I'll probably start off w/ the single player campain.

I wonder how many Xbox owners called in sick today?

Xbox Live on MSN Messenger

I've been playing a bunch of Rallisport Challenge 2 since I got back from Tech·Ed. I haven't seen many of my Xbox friends online when I've been online, but I just setup the MSN Messenger / Xbox Live integration. Cool idea, but none of my friends are online right now, so there's not really anything to see, yet.

On a similar note, Cory (who provided my Xbox Live Flair) has an app called Xbox Friends where you can see your friends playing habits in addition to their current status. For those who don't have it, I can save you the bother of installing it to find out my habits - all Rallisport Challenge 2 all the time!

Update - I also signed up for Xbox Live Alerts as well. This isn't as useful as there are a wide variety of alerts types and I have to have one delivery profile for all of them. I want to be notified in email if there is new downloads, but on MSN Messenger if a friend logs in. This appears to be an MSN Alerts wide issue - alert settings are per alert provider, not per alert type. Not very useful to be notified in email that a friend was online...yesterday.

It's all a Platform

I used to say that everything we build should be a platform except for games. What's interesting is that games are becoming platforms in their own right. Dungeon Siege has the freely downloadable Siege Editor which allows you to "rework nearly every aspect of the gaming world, making Dungeon Siege not only a game, but also a platform for those who wish to create their own spells, dungeons, and even entire worlds." There are several projects that do just that. And Dungeon Siege II is coming later this year, which looks amazing (all trailer graphics were rendered with the game engine). If RTS is more your speed, Relic - developers of Impossible Creatures - has their developer network which provides both a companion tool for enhancing Impossible Creatures as well as the Impossible Creatures SDK "which includes source code from the IC engine that can be used to create Total Conversion Mods for IC" (Relic Developer Network requires registration). Of course, there's also the Allegiance source code which was released a few months ago.

I guess the new viewpoint is that everything we build should be a platform, including games.

Two Gaming Notes

I'm way behind on blog reading as well as writing, so maybe other have covered these, but I feel compelled to mention them anyway.

Microsoft XNA is an odd name (we sure have a fascination with the letter 'X') for a very interesting looking game development platform. You can check out the videos to see some idea of the capabilities, but trust me they're pretty impressive (of course, they are pre-rendered - I wanna see them render in real-time on my machine). In addition to the graphics capabilities, they're bringing Xbox Live to Windows. And the FAQ implies that the XNA will be part of the DirectX SDK & Xbox XDK, meaning that there won't be any additional cost for it. I wonder how this toolkit will impact the non-industry programmer. i.e. can I use it to make 3D games?

I've blogged before about my interest in machinima - which is frankly why I'm interested in XNA. Now, Lionhead studios and Activision is coming out with The Movies, a simulation game where you get to manage a movie studio. What's cool is that you can actually make little movies (according to the FAQ, average length is between 30 seconds and three minutes, but you can make full-length movies if you have the patience) Horror movies and westerns have screenshots, but you can make sci-fi, action, comedy, romance, thriller and romance movies as well. I don't get much game time these days (I've gone back to work my way thru the original Splinter Cell before buying Pandora Tomorrow) but I know this is one I'll get as soon as it comes out.

Finished KotOR

It took 30 hours of game play, spread out over a month and a half, but I finally finished Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It's easy to see why this game received so many Game of the Year honors, it's the best game I've ever played. And what's even cooler is that I want to play it again, this time as a bad guy. The whole light vs. dark side conflict works very well and I'm really curious to see how the game progresses when you're more Vader than Anakin.

I can't wait to see Bioware's next XBOX effort: Jade Empire. Between that and Fable, this should be a good year for RPGs on XBOX.

Live on XBOX

After months of having my XBOX hooked up on my big screen TV but far away from my cable modem, I finally broke down and bought a wireless adapter for it. I had been thinking about wiring the house and/or buying a Media Center PC. However, Media Center doesn't support HD inputs (AFAIK) and HD PVR via cable or satellite should be here shortly. So I decided to skip the wiring job and go straight to playtime.

My gamertag is "RayTracer". (Buy me a beer at the next MSFT conference and I'll tell you why.) Many thanks to Cory for hooking me up with a gamertag graphic to live on my home page.

Let me know if you want to hit the ice, the mountain, the streets or the sky.

Entertain Me the Way I Want To Be Entertained

Talking about the Matrix movies and game got me thinking about the way I am entertained. I'm used to being entertained on opposite ends of the interactivity spectrum: passive movie watching and active game playing. I think you could generate more interesting experiences by intermixing those two extremes. For example, my favorite games are ones with a great story. You could watch someone else play Halo and still enjoy the experience. I hear Crimson Skies is the same way. So why can't you choose to passively experience the story without getting involved in the game play, if I only care about the story? My wife has no interest in playing Enter the Matrix, but she'd like to see the story.

I also really like sports games (esp. hockey). Many sports games are adding "owner" modes where hire staff and sign players but don't control the game play on the field. That's pretty cool. Microsoft's XSN Sports lineup doesn't have those modes, instead the focus on online leagues and tournaments. While most of that experience is very interactive, how about having a XSN "SportsCenter" where you can see highlights from other games in your league? Maybe even cut away during breaks in the action to show highlights from other games in your league that may be going on at the same time. Those features are passive, but they would add immensely to the game experience.

Some of these techniques start to get into the realm of Machinima - making movies using gaming engines.

Anyone else interested in this? What are the good tools and engines that work with Managed DirectX?