Wednesday, June 30, 2004

"One direction, only way to go..." I think that this week has been one of the best weeks of the year, in terms of getting a lot of stuff knocked over. The absence of school has left me with a lot more freedom, which is great, because I'm now getting into things that had always previously been "too much trouble". Apart from working on theOtaku.com itself, I've already mentioned a few of the other things that I'm getting involved with lately. Although online work can be tedious at times, I still find it very theraputic generally. There is something highly satisfying about overcoming big hurdles, on a creative level. Know what I mean? It's like the first time you teach yourself how to format a page in HTML or something. It's hard to teach yourself these things, but when you look at the final product you feel very satisfied. One of the other great side-benefits to having more time for the Internet is that I'm able to see what others are doing in more detail, too. And that's always a great pleasure for me. The fact is, I not only love having conversations with people, but I also love to see their creative work and passion. For example, I've been reading a lot more RPGs and fan fiction lately. And I've been getting more involved in creative collaborations with others. It's incredibly rewarding and exciting to surround yourself with talented and creative people, in order to reach a common goal. I'm also really pleased that others are doing the same thing; getting together in groups and coming up with ideas. Whether it's a web site, or an RPG, or even an art competition...it's all good. I just thought I'd bring that up, as it's something I've really been thinking about a lot lately. In other news, it's been surprisingly quiet at home despite the fact that the holidays are here. My siblings haven't really been bringing many of their friends here, which is pretty good in my book. As for me, I really never bring friends to my home. I would usually much prefer to go out somewhere, or to visit someone else's house. It's generally not terribly exciting at my place, if only because there are always too many people here. I mean, you can't really just relax with your friends when you have a billion people going past you all the time, right? ~_^ The only weird things to happen to me on these holidays have been the occasional embarassing encounters. You know, like when you walk past the sofa and your sister and her boyfriend are under the blanket getting all smoochy, but you don't realize until you're too close to make a swift and quiet getaway. Why do I always walk in when those things are happening? It's damaging to my still-abundant innocence...

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Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Dot Com Dilemmas. I'm looking at starting up an entirely new web site...as in, my own ".com" outside theOtaku.com's network. If only registering a domain wasn't so expensive with my ISP ($85 registration fee and $12.50 monthly management fee -- isn't that insane?) Oh well. Maybe I can come up with the cash, since I'm pretty motivated to do this new project. I tend to consider these ideas, even long-held ideas, and think "no, I have to stop myself because I can't stretch myself too thin". But really, I think I've been too unwilling to be a bit more flexible in the way I operate things. With OtakuBoards for example, Desbreko did an amazing job with totally organizing our entire avatar library. And Charles has always done a good job with staff management. There's no reason why these types of roles can't be further extended. Afterall, we now have moderators who essentially operate our Fan Art section on a day-to-day basis. If this concept can be extended further (via OB), it'll free up my time enough to devote myself to theOtaku.com and N-Sider and my own new project. So, who knows. Maybe I'll get there. Karmi: It's good that OB has plenty of loyal fans...yes. ^_^; PT: Ohh yes. Actually, I hope you come online soon, I have something funky to show you. ~_^ Mimmi: Have you been eating too many waffles lately, Mimmi-chan? ^_^; You're right though, there are plenty of opportunities out there. Baron-san: Mm, well, the domain isn't registered yet or anything. So I want to wait 'till that's taken care of. After that, I'll tell you. ~_^ DDG: You're right, it is insane. But a solution presented itself yesterday (which I'll talk about later), so it should be no problem. I think it's mostly costly because it goes through my ISP and they (Telstra) make everything expensive. V_V; Tony/Semji-kins: I think it's just the ISP I'm with. The big problem with registration is also the fact that I don't have a credit card or anything. And on the Internet (especially internationally), that makes things difficult. But it's sorted out now, luckily. Baron: Well, that's sort of what I'm doing. The only concern I had with that was that I really wanted to do something totally seperate from theOtaku. But really, very few people here know Velegant subscriber sites by name, you know? So I don't think it's much of a problem (not that I want to stop visitors here from going there, I just mean that I want to emphasize that it isn't related to my work here).

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Saturday, June 26, 2004

How to Kill Adam. I've received a few PMs in the last week or so about Kill Adam: Volume II. These PMs are basically all somewhat different, but they're asking similar questions. Most noteably, people are wanting to know if I can give them any information about the second volume, so that they can plan their own characters. Since there is a bit of confusion about this, I thought I'd spend a moment to discuss a few important points, for those who have any interest in signing up. Firstly, if you want to develop an original character...that's up to you. The process is a good thing regardless of whether you're chosen to participate or not. But I want to say that right now, I'm not sure if I will be allowing original characters into Volume II. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. Primarily, Volume I focused on several key characters and events in the story. Some characters (like Persona, Ann Dominion and Jeanette Marie-Diaz in particular) had some airtime, but very little compared to others. This is mostly because I wanted to emphasize certain things in the first volume (and if you read it, you'll get a better idea about that). Volume II will be different in the sense that it will be a little more linear. Right now I'm intending to have the chapters unfold in a linear sequence, but, much of Volume II will consist of flashback scenes that go deeper into the history of various characters, as well as their former involvement with Adam. The "present day" part of the story will actually only cover a few chapters (it will primarily involve Jamie, his son, Adam and two new characters, Hattori Hanzo and Yasuo's daughter). Granted, new characters are being added. But the key difference is that because I created the RPG, I've had at least one of these characters in mind for a while. So, the characters will actually have several established reference points from Volume I. Know what I mean? For example, Yasuo's daughter will be a "new" character. But if you read Volume I, you'll know that she was featured prominently in one particular chapter. Basically, my idea is not to allow people to develop their own characters from scratch...but to take existing character "templates" and "fill them in". Does that make sense? So, say you want to play as Hattori Hanzo. In order to be a candidate to play as him, you would need to understand that he's not a totally blank slate; most of his past is already completely determined and pre-existing. Your job, will be to take what exists and build on that with your own unique ideas. I think this could work really well if people put in the effort and if they have the interest for it. It's a bit like the chapter system. With that system, I tell you how it starts, where it's set and basically where/how it ends. So you have a set of broad goals. It's your job to go from point A to point B in any manner that you like. That is the fun of Kill Adam, I think; and it'll feature a lot more prominently in Volume II. So all I'm doing with Volume II is taking that concept and using it with characters. The cool part is that you don't need to spend time coming up with your own character. Instead, you select the new one that you like...and you "fill in the blanks". The person who I feel best achieves that will be able to use that character. Just to note, also...right now only two new characters have been confirmed (the ones I mentioned above). But this doesn't mean that I won't add more. The main thing is, I don't want to bog the RPG down with too many characters. This eliminates the possibility for every character to be explored in detail -- and that's no good. Kill Adam is a character-driven story, so each personality is very important. I hope that clears a few things up. Also...CrH might have told you that I've given him a job. I think now would be a good time to tell you that CrH is working with me to develop an Official Kill Adam Site. The site will include all the sign-up info you need for Volume II, as well as a full soundtrack listing and cast & crew information. It'll also include wallpapers and other funky stuff. Along with CrH, I've got Tony helping me out with the in-thread HTML, which is a huge help. I'm also hoping to get hold of an expert artist, to help me with another aspect to this RPG...which itself will be a major innovation in RPG storytelling, I hope. So stay tuned.

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Friday, June 25, 2004

Midnight air. Well, school is now officially over for the semester. It's about time, too! Everything is going pretty well at the moment, including all the redesign stuff. I mentioned that there was something I couldn't reveal until Friday...well, if you click here you'll find the full details. As mentioned, this doesn't relate to the "Otaku" side of what I do on the Internet. It's going to be an interesting relationship. I am glad that we ended up coming out with something that was much more like a partnership, as opposed to a raw takeover. So that'll be fun.

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Monday, June 21, 2004

Big things. Whew, it's only been one weekend since the end of classes and some big things are happening already. One of them is something I can't talk about on here until Friday. After that, I can discuss it. The other stuff just relates to the fact that I'm now finally getting some time to jump into the web-based work that I've had little time for over the last few months. In particular, I've begun spending some heavy time on theOtaku.com's new design. Tonight I spent a good six hours working on it, although I've trashed 90% of my work. I've built a super-funky foundation for the design, but getting some of the specific elements organized is driving me a bit nuts. It's okay though, this always happens when I begin a large design. I just have to get a few major elements going...but so far, even at the early stages, I think things are looking promising. I believe that this version of theOtaku.com will definitely be the best. Obviously we're always trying to improve...but it's my hope that this time, there will be a really large and obvious substantive difference. I mean, it should be like going from something more fan site-ish, to something far more professional. At least, that's the goal. ~_^

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Saturday, June 19, 2004

It's over...almost. Well, my classes are now over. I still have one final thing to do -- the Test of Knowledge, which is basically a week-long final project. It replaces exams for us. But that shouldn't be too much of a problem. It feels so good to actually relax for once -- to know that I don't have some giant urgent thing that I need to be doing research on. It's nice. So, this will mean that I can start really investing a lot more of my time into the fun stuff -- web stuff. I have plenty to do, but not so much that it's going to take away from my vacation. Other than that, the last couple of days have been relatively uneventful. I had Foxtel Digital installed on Friday (after almost a three month wait) -- this is something that Australians will probably be familiar with. For those of you in other countries, Foxtel is basically a cable TV provider. And they've recently introduced wholly-digital services across the country. Apart from the new channels and such (many of which I won't watch), it's the simple features that are most cool. Stuff like program reminders, auto-tune and Box Office (a system where you pay-per-view your movies). Still, most of that I won't use very often. I just don't watch TV avidly enough to support that. However, I am really pleased with certain aspects. For example, the new Club V channel. It's so cool; Club V used to be a TV show on Channel V (Aussie equivalent to VH1 or MTV) and it basically covers electronic music of various genres. Well, now Club V is an entire channel...and it has no actual "shows". So it's 100% music clips, 24 hours a day. I really like that. And the fact that the sound is "CD quality" provides for some added coolness. Club V is also kinda unique compared to Channel V. I mean, when you're watching a clip, it will flash all kinds of cool animated graphics over the screen...which will tell you about the album that the song is on, about the artist history and so on. It's really nice. There are also some 30 "audio-only" channels, called Air. Each channel is kinda like a radio broadcast, in high-quality digital sound. It's cool, in the sense that you can just choose your genre-station and let it play. The fact that the music is as good as a CD is also a great benefit... a lot nicer than regular radio, for sure. So really, those are the main things I've been using the service for. It's good to have a bit more variety (and now we do actually get VH1 here; MTV's been on here for a while). Also, one of Foxtel Digital's new channels is TechTV. I think it's great that this channel is now available here. Although I don't think I'll be a frequent watcher, it certainly has various elements that interest me. Tonight I watched that show X-Play for the first time (which reminds me very much of GameSpot TV -- which I didn't particularly like). It was kind of interesting, because I thought X-Play's reviews were fairly well written, considering what the format of the show is. The review of Tenchu 3 was actually quite funny, especially when the host talked about the stupidity of the enemy A.I. "...like this guy, who is faithfully guarding an empty corner." So, it was a nice way to end the week. ~_^

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Thursday, June 17, 2004

Organic food sucks and I'm never going to eat it. Yeah, sure, it sounds a little extreme. But when you spend two weeks -- and dozens of hours -- researching organic food packaging, see how you feel. ~_^ I'm basically 95% complete on this particular project. I just have to put a few things together in terms of documentation, for tomorrow. Phew. Anyway, it's been an interesting week. Kill Adam: Volume 1 has finished and I've seen some great comments about that. It's good to see that people are supportive and that they read the work in there -- although Kill Adam is my RPG, it simply wouldn't be what it is without the heavy involvement and commitment from everybody who participated, particularly Shy, as he has worked more closely with me than anyone else in terms of developing a story and creating the focus. Volume 2 will bring with it many enhancements, some of which I've previously mentioned. The biggest part of it hasn't yet been revealed though (except to certain people). When all is said and done, it's going to end up having been a very unique project. I hope that if nothing else, it inspires others to do some cool things with their RPGs, but you've heard all that schpiel before. ~_^ The main thing is, this is an RPG that I've become increasingly excited about as it's progressed. One of the things that I'm really interested in next time around (apart from the most critical aspects of characters and overall narrative), is music. I was talking to Alex earlier on, about music and its relationship with movies. Music and sound are really 70-80% of the experience when you watch a movie. I remember going to a design conference where an ad producer explained this fact and demonstrated it in a very specific way; he played a clip of Jaws, where the shark attacks a woman at night. He played it with no sound, then with a goofy/funny soundtrack, then with the real "Jaws theme". As you can imagine, the changes in sound made all the difference; they fundamentally changed the meaning and perception of what was taking place on screen. Obviously, the written word is something else. Unlike a movie, you're actually using your own imagination to visualize what's going on. Kill Adam 2 won't change that, in the sense that it isn't going to be 100% visual or anything. However, the addition of music could represent something very critical -- particularly the addition of high quality samples, which will obviously work best for those using broadband. The music will be optional for both the participants and the reader (the reader will not be forced to download the MP3s, as they won't be embedded in the page itself). But for those who choose to do it, they may find that it makes a difference. I will be interested to see the effects of that. In the case of the first RPG, you can see that I've used a music track for the ending credits. It is my hope that a combination of rich description and rich audio will help to further immerse some readers and give them a heightened sense of the emotional value of a particular scene in the story. Before Volume 2's sign-up goes live, I might talk a bit more about what I have planned, in terms of what hasn't yet been mentioned -- one thing I should mention, is that Kill Adam 2 will definitely feature a "cast and crew" rather than just a cast. This is because I'm relying on three people (including myself) to actually develop the "technology" that the RPG will use. In that sense at least, I want to encourage some RPG creators to look at collaboration in a different way; you don't just have to collaborate on story, you can also collaborate with web designers and graphic artists. I really hope that this is one type of relationship that will increase over time, as people become more comfortable with using HTML in posts. Anyway, I'll end this post on that rambly note. Summer's going to be great in Adventure Arena, as there's some huge stuff on the way (and Kill Adam is only one tiny example -- quite a few people are planning some awesome new stuff).

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Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Kill Adam: Volume 1 concludes at your local cinema. Be sure to purchase the DVD. "Every limb of his body is a lethal weapon..."

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Friday, June 11, 2004

Would you like fries with that? Just to clarify something I mentioned in my previous post...when I said "premium", I did not mean to imply that one day we will suddenly shut everything down and say "cough up". When I talk about "premium", I talk about adding further optional services onto what currently exists. What those services are, I cannot say -- I can only say that they've been discussed on various occasions. But if we do launch a premium service (and at some point we probably will), it will not affect anyone who currently has myO/OB accounts. And it won't affect anyone who joins in the future -- it will still be free to use all of our sites, including OB, myOtaku and all of the portfolio sites. So, nothing will change for anyone. I want to be very clear about that. On that note -- just as a matter of principle -- I don't believe that it is unfair or unreasonable to transform our "brand" into something that actually makes money. I'm sure that if Adam and I could actually produce a business from what we do online, we would jump at the chance. Afterall, who wouldn't want to have a career doing what they love? But this does not -- and never will -- mean that we would alienate anyone. Everything we do is carefully planned. So we would never do an IGN-esque thing where we say "Oh, sorry, now you can't visit this page that you've always used, because it costs money". That's just not our style and it never has been. It would more be a case of saying "if you want to access all of these new, premium-specific features, you'd have to sign-up to a paid account". And even then, I think you'd find that anything "premium" we do would be a lot more accessible than what many other sites are doing. Again, it's just the way we do things. Of course, having said all of the above...I do not want to presume anything or give you the wrong impression. I understand that a lot of entertainment sites (particularly web hosts) have slowly crept in with fees...and they've forced people onto lesser and lesser services until finally, you have to pay just to register. So I know that this fear is not unfounded, based on your experiences elsewhere. Of course, here is not elsewhere. ~_^ At the end of the day though, I hope that those of you who hate the idea of paying for something online understand that this network is a highly expensive endeavour. The fact that we're essentially offering you a product for free (myOtaku) is pretty darn good, considering that it cost time and money to engineer from the ground up. So please be aware of that. But again -- and just to make sure -- I am in no way suggesting that our services will one day cease to be free. Everything you can use now -- in addition to some new services that come along -- will always be free. There's no question about that. But at some point we may decide to offer some new, high-tech service that won't be free. Whether you decide to make use of that will be entirely up to you at the time. ^_^

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Thursday, June 10, 2004

Otaku's evolution. Someone was talking to me about my posts relating to theOtaku/OB earlier...and since I really had nothing to say in this update, I thought I'd talk about that. Actually, I probably spend a lot of time talking about the network here on myOtaku. But really, there's always so much going on and a lot of it doesn't get covered in any "official" announcements. Adam, Justin and I tend to be pretty quiet about the things we are working on, though it usually ends up that I provide a few vague hints and comments here. It's interesting to think that I'm still here after all this time though. I had originally imagined that I'd have no time at all for the network once my tertiary classes began. Of course, that was probably naive of me...both because I devote whatever time I can to the network, but also because it's not so easy to just drop everything and leave. Moreover, it's difficult to leave something that you've contributed so much time to over the years. theOtaku.com/OB/etc would have to be the single longest commitment I've ever made to an online venture. And there are a lot of opportunities that I would not have had, were it not been for this place. For that I'm very grateful. It's interesting to see how things have developed though. When I think about where we were only a few short years ago...I don't think we could ever have imagined our current position. That's not to suggest that we don't have a long way to go, though. With myOtaku in particular, I think that Adam, Justin and I have really begun to realize the potential of this network. There are so many places we can take it and so many things we can do with it. Considering where we've been, I think the next steps are pretty obvious. And we've definitely had several discussions about where we'd like to take things in the future. Some of those are probably okay to talk about (like better myO/OB integration and the potential for "premium" services in the future). And some are probably not okay to talk about, if only because they're a bit far out and undecided. One thing I will say though, is that some people seem to have the impression that OtakuBoards v7 is where it stops. In other words, there is an impression that there's nowhere else to go. That's partly my fault; I had said that V7 would be the last version change until the next edition of vB is available (or until some major new redesign is done -- something I have no plans to do at the moment). But having said that, the cool thing about OtakuBoards is that it can and will always change and improve. Upcoming forum modifications are examples of that, as are additions of new skins and interactive features. But beyond all of that, OtakuBoards will always be about the people and the discussion. To some extent I think people have the view that V7 died a little bit, because it's a bit more sober than previous versions. Those people are right, in the sense that it's definitely a lot more sober. But right now V7 is in the best position, from my point of view. It's a lot more sane and a lot more intelligent than it used to be. And that's a pretty difficult thing to achieve, considering that we've historically had a pretty young userbase. Anyway, I don't know everything about our future, but I think that there are plenty of good things to look forward to. If you feel you were left out because you missed the pre-v3 stuff...don't worry. The best is yet to come. Again, I seem to have managed to produce a pretty rambly post. But hey, when you have nothing to talk about, it's not that bad...right? ~_^;;

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