Very Vague Impressions From My Trip to Valve
I had the unique pleasure of spending sometime after work today in Bellevue, Washington with Valve Software. It had been quite a while since the last time I was up, to playtest Half-Life 2: Episode 2, so I was excited to come back, this time to play the upcoming co-op shooter Left4Dead. This marked my seventh trip to Valve and unfortunately my first without my good friend Steve, who was out of town.
Without going into really any detail at all, I think Left4Dead is shaping up into a good game. I've never played an online co-op game in the past that has felt very engaging to me, so Valve is taking on a big challenge in creating a game that is going to live or die by the success of the online co-op experience. As always, Valve is putting a lot of time and effort into the details to make sure it is an experience worthy of the label. The game is certainly gorgeous (of course I was playing it on, like, the beefiest computer on the planet!) but Valve has never relied on its graphics to sell a game and this is no exception. They have so far crafted an experience that will keep you on the edge of your seat, ready to shoot anything that movies, while forcing you to rely on the help of your teammates to traverse through each map.
Aside from playing the game, the highlight of my trip was finally getting to meet Jess Cliffe, co-creator of the best multiplayer game in the history of gaming. I've had the chance to meet a lot of people at Valve who have been there since the early days, but I had never met Jess before. The fact that Jess is now working on Left4Dead shows that Valve is really pouring a lot of their top resources into making sure the game is as good as it can be. Thanks again to Valve for the opportunity to visit, I always enjoy it.
We're Gonna Take 'em Out a Whole New Door
Since coming up with my snarky anti-Obama designs a couple months ago, I've been testing them out on CafePress and Ebay to see how much interest they can generate. I've found it to be really difficult to get any exposure on CafePress, which is only one of two hurdles to get over in being successful there (the other being the high cost per item). It's still a great model, but I think I can do better in my case. Ebay has been a good way to test out the product. For a week I ran my three stickers on Ebay to get more exposure. As each order came in, I ordered one off CafePress and sent it directly to the buyer. Unfortunately due to the cost of CafePress, Ebay, and PayPal, they were the most expensive stickers on Ebay and due to their shipping method, they took about 2 weeks to arrive. However, the strength of the product prevailed and they were relatively popular. So popular, in fact, that I've invested in a bulk order from MakeStickers.com. This allows me to keep my costs down and ship in less than half the time.
I'm an engineer by nature and by trade so I really love to create a well thought out processes, and I'm pretty proud of the one I concocted for shipping stickers. I took some cues from Joel Spolsky's How to Ship Anything article in that I knew I had to have a plan or doing this every day was going to get really frustrating really fast. I like my system because it scales well; I can ship a single order in about a minute. The most I could possibly conceive getting in one day is around a hundred orders, which isn't even two hours of shipping time. So I'm satisfied.
There were several key things that I put in place for this system. It started by finding 11x4 inch envelopes with windows. This is key for two reasons. First, 11"x4" envelopes can be shipped with a standard 42 cent stamp assuming it weighs less than one ounce. So this saves on shipping (an 8.5"x11" envelope would have been more). 11 inches is wide enough to hold the sticker and a standard sheet of paper folded hot-dog style. The second reason these envelopes were clutch came with some experimenting. I knew that I couldn't write out the shipping address on every single envelope, so I needed a way to print it (and easily, at that). Luckily, PayPal's "Transaction Details" screen is structured in a way that makes this possible. I just highlight the information on the screen, copy it to OpenOffice Calc, and with a little formatting, the address appears in the envelope window after folding the paper hot-dog style. Luckily, most of the formatting remains on every paste, so I just have a template I can paste each order into.
The rest of the system wasn't hard to figure out. I ordered return address labels from VistaPrint for dirt-cheap (with the American Flag on them; a nice touch) and a stamp that says "Do Not Bend" from the USPS, which I'm told the Postal Employees will generally follow. Oh and the icing on the cake, Purple Heart stamps. Very appropriate given the subject matter. All in all it takes me about 5 seconds to prepare each envelope ahead of time with postage, return address, and rubber stamp. Then it takes about 30 seconds to prepare and print off a receipt. Then it takes about another 25 seconds to get the receipt into the envelope and seal it. Voila!
So far I've only purchased large amounts of my "Don't Drink the Kool-Aid" and "Change is All You'll Have Left" stickers. I really like the Jimmy Carter one but it just isn't generating enough demand yet. I'll probably try selling them on Ebay again in a few weeks and see if anything has changed. Maybe the market for people buying Anti-Obama bumper stickers doesn't remember Jimmy Carter (like me, for instance). I don't see demand for the others going down at all. It may be that Obama's recent feigned interest in Conservative values is going to persuade the middle-right to his side, but I think it's more likely that they'll see through him and the far, far left will be offended/betrayed. Maybe not offended enough to buy a sticker, but we'll see. At any rate, it certainly looks like more people are putting down the Kool-Aid.
If you're looking for stickers, they're easy to find! Check out CafePress.com/JimmyCarter for the Jimmy Carter sticker and my Ebay page for the others. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback.
Mild Dissatisfaction in an Elevator
Driving home the other day, I got the spontaneous notion to drop by Blockbuster and see if they had the new Guitar Hero yet. I was a little cautious to buy it because of the $50 price tag; I wanted to make sure it would be worth the money before taking the plunge. I hadn't read any reviews on it but I thought it was possibly something that would get old quickly. And since Blockbuster is extraordinarily lax on late fees, I thought there was a good chance I would be able to get enough GH goodness to satiate my appetite with just a rental. As it turns out I was right.
I have to say I'm a bit disappointed by the game. There are a few glaring faults that make me feel like this should be more of a $30 game than a $50 game. It's too bad, too, because I have always loved Aerosmith's music. I'm also a big fan of Guitar Hero, so I was pretty excited when I heard it announced. My disappointment comes from the following faults:
- No Co-op career mode
- Short track list
- Presentation is rehashed from Guitar Hero III
- Difficulty is significantly reduced
- Crowd claps off the beat during Star Power segments
The rehashed presentation was the first thing that I noticed. The menus look the same, the default characters are all the same, the menus and game structure are all the same and even some of the messages that appear on the loading screens are the same. This just shows a lack of effort on Neversoft's part, which is discouraging. In fact, the one thing that is different from the main menu is that there is no option for Co-op Career mode. Debbie and I really enjoyed playing through GH3 in Co-op Career. There is still a co-op mode, which is good, but we were limited to 8 songs (and not great ones at that) until I spent some time unlocking songs. It may be something that people don't care about, but I certainly did.The track list for single player is reduced to 31 tracks, which is a little more than half of Guitar Hero III. About 19 of these are Aerosmith songs. I was glad to see "Dream On" and "Rag Doll" make the list, but there are some glaring holes as far as I'm concerned, including "Cryin'" and "Janie's Got a Gun", which are great songs. There are some decent selections in the vault, but it still leaves me wanting more. Couple the short track list with the decreased difficulty level and it makes for a short experience. I still haven't been able to beat the last 4 songs in GH3 on hard, but I ran through GH:Aerosmith on hard in about 4 hours without having to retry any songs (save the guitar battle, which I suck at). This is particularly disturbing because I hadn't heard of a lot of the songs on there, I was site-reading.
The last point might sound a little nit-picky, but it actually gets extremely frustrating. Neversoft has added a clapping sound to Star Power segments of the game. The idea is that the crowd is clapping along with the beat. The sucky part is that the crowd doesn't clap along with the beat! They clap at the same tempo no matter what song you're playing! The result is that Star Power segments end up being extremely difficult, having to try to pick out the actual beat over the sound of the crowd. I really find this to be a huge problem and I won't be happy if I see it in the future.While I wasn't satisfied with the game, that isn't to say it was an unpleasant experience. I'm definitely glad I rented it and I will be playing it a considerable amount over the next couple of weeks (sorry Blockbuster :-P). I love Aerosmith and there are some great songs in the game. In addition to the Aerosmith classics, there are one or two great songs by other bands, including Cat Scratch Fever and Sex Type Thing. Another cool feature was the interviews with the band and the history lessons. But, like, 10-minute-VH1-segment interesting, not $50-video-game interesting.
Will I be buying it? No, at least not until it's $20 and probably not even then. It's not an experience worth $50 as far as I'm concerned. I like the idea of band-specific Guitar Hero games (as long as they're as good as Aerosmith) but I hope Neversoft spends a little more time on the next one. Until then, I'll keep renting.
