Wednesday, January 30, 2008

GDC Update and pandering for handouts

Some of you may have noticed that I was going to give a GDC talk on Bungie's community efforts for the Halo series. Unfortunately, I had to cancel the talk. One of the reasons for doing so is that GDC is way to close to my wedding on the 29th of February.

Naturally, I'm quite disappointed at this, because I had been really looking forward to giving the talk. You can cheer me up by hitting up my wedding gift registries at Target and Crate and Barrel and buying me a gift.

Sure, it is pandering at its worst, but hey, a few people have asked, and at least one of them weren't just morbidly curious. And at least you can see what kinds of thing we had fun scanning in those two stores when price doesn't matter. Someone already bought me a giant beer stein.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Good for EA!

I don't often have good things to say about EA, but the letter that their communications office sent to Fox News about a recent segement they ran about Mass Effect was refreshing. EA asks the news channel to correct their report regarding the many inaccuracies it had about Mass Effect's sex scenes.

They could have ignored it, they could have sent a lawyer after them, but instead, they stood up for their studio and called Fox on their crappy reporting.

It is about time EA showed some good corporate citizenship with regard to this kind of ignorant "journalism" (if you can even call it that). Now, just leave Bioware to do its thing without interference and you'll be in my good graces again.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

A fun little game

Hit the link to check out a little game my fiance pointed out to me. The object is to bounce the ball to the exit using the various little physics toys. You can even make your own levels.

A fun little diversion, if you're waiting for something to compile, for example.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Dammit, I am not your friend

Today I was lucky enough to have a few free hours to play Halo 3, something I haven't been able to do in a while. I had a pretty fun time. Now, I'm used to getting lots of friend requests and messages - the flaming head in game can raise a few questions. I usually just delete the friend requests, and move on.

But today, two guys would not stop sending me friend requests. I don't like to block people unless necessary (although I regularly use the "mute asshole" button). These guys sent me like 15 friend requests. What made this unique is that they sent them one at a time, after I declined their previous request.

I finally just had to block them, because it didn't look like they would quit doing it. But seriously - who does that? Just because you know my gamertag or see me in game doesn't make me your friend. If I decline your request, that's my way of saying, "no, thanks, I don't know you, so you don't go on my list." I could even understand a followup message - some people just want to add me to ask me a question. But sending me requests each time I say "no"?

Are kids just not used to hearing the word no anymore? Bah, whatever, I know. "Just block them, and can I has recon instead?" Still, you'd think they'd want to spend time enjoying the game instead of trying to follow me around like a lost puppy.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Welcome to 2008

Well, it is 2008. I'm getting married at the end of February, Halo 3 is doing well, I still enjoy my job after doing it for 8 years, hopefully that trend continue.

I have one resolution for the New Year: I'm going to try and come here more often and post. It is really quite stupid that I constantly think of neat things to chat about, but then never actually post them.

With that in mind, I'm going to try a little experiment. One of the things I do every week is update the Halo 3 Bungie Favorites on bungie.net. Now, I don't actually pick the Bungie Favorites, I'm just the guy with the admin privs to actually make the changes. However, because I often make forum threads for items posted that don't already have threads, a lot of people assume that I'm the one picking them. As a result, I get a lot of files sent to both my gamertag and on bungie.net asking to post their stuff. I never look at them.

However, I figure that since people are sending me this stuff anyway, I might as well try an experiment. I'm going to start collecting all these things people send me at achronos@gmail.com, as it is fun to abuse the absurd space gmail gives you. I'm going to mostly ask for screenshots, because I can quickly look at them. If I get some good stuff, I'll put it up somewhere, either here on a blog dedicated for that. If things work out, I'll check it every few days and post some new shots and link back to your service record on bungie.net. So, send me those images!

Oh, by the way, please note that the URL for this blog is now www.achronos.net. The old "tomachronos" blogger one will still work, but as I said, I'm trying to sack up and be a little more chatty outside of my usual bungie.net trolling.