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We look at the hard numbers of the biggest sector in the tech industry, have a skeptical discussion around YouTube coming to the aide content creators & debate Google+’s new UI design.

Then we fail to make even the most obvious Kickstarter sound compelling & wrap it all up with a little technical disaster vamping.

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The post Faux Use Protection Program | TTT 223 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Trailer Picked Up and Brake Controller Installed | Rover Log #2

chris — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 17:51:17 +0000

Heading north to get the brake controller installed for the trailer & things go really well! I ended up taking the trailer with me & I give you a first peek at the new digs before we move it & make a mess!

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The post Trailer Picked Up and Brake Controller Installed | Rover Log #2 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Traveling in the Future | FauxShow 222

chris — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 13:07:20 +0000

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Angela and Chris discuss a couple major projects that being worked on for the future of our airways. Everything from making our Back To The Future dreams come true to drone delivery from Amazon & getting internet to areas that can’t support a full infrastructure.

Email angela@jupiterbroadcasting.com your computer based PORN SKIT! Yes, write your own potentially horribly geeky porn skit and email it in. Send in a pic and/or link and IRC nick.

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The post Traveling in the Future | FauxShow 222 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Talkin’ Tox | LINUX Unplugged 30

chris — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:06:42 +0000

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Two developers from the TOX project, an open source secure Skype killer join us to discuss their new project, the future, and how they hope to become your new messaging system.

Plus getting more battery life out of a Linux laptop, the Steam problem, and your feedback.

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FU

Tox

NaCl (pronounced \”salt\”) is a new easy-to-use high-speed software library
for network communication, encryption, decryption, signatures, etc. NaCl\’s goal is to provide all of the core operations needed to build higher-level cryptographic tools.

Mailsack:

The post Talkin' Tox | LINUX Unplugged 30 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The Default Solution | Unfilter 70

chris — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 23:21:32 +0000

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The shutdown showdown marches on, as both sides double up on the hothead nonsensical rhetoric. But behind the scenes the debate is taking a new direction. A cool analysis of the situation reveals several options are available to settle the standoff. We’ll look at those options, and why big money is preparing for default.

Plus a critical look at the unlimited amounts of money about flow into American politics, the recent military raids in africa, your feedback, our follow up and much much more.

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NSA is CRAZY

Ex-NSA/CIA chief Hayden jokes of putting Snowden on kill list

“I must admit in my darker moments over the past several
months, I’d also thought of nominating Mr. Snowden, but it was
for a different list,” Hayden said during a cybersecurity
panel hosted by the Washington Post.

As the audience laughed, US lawmaker Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman
of the House Intelligence Committee, offered Hayden his support:
“I can help you with that,” he said.

NSA’s $1.5 Billion Data Center Waylaid by Electrical Nightmare | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

“The failures that occurred during testing have been mitigated. A project of this magnitude requires stringent management, oversight and testing before the government accepts any building,” an NSA spokeswoman told WIRED by email.

But the Wall Street Journal reports that there is disagreement about whether the proposed solutions will work. The Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing construction of the data center, and the electrical system itself was built by architecture firm KlingStubbins, which is a joint venture of three companies: Balfour Beatty Construction, DPR Construction and Big-D Construction Corp. Although the contractors have a fix in place, the cause of the surges — known as “arc fault failures” — is unknown.

Obama administration decides NSA spying is ‘essential,’ but oversight of NSA is not

While the National Security Agency (NSA) has largely escaped the government shutdown, the panel investigating NSA spying practices haseffectively been frozen. Politico reports that as of Friday, the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies lost its staff to the furlough associated with the government shutdown.

The group, which is largely comprised of intelligence community and White House insiders, was initially scheduled to remain running during the furlough. However, former acting CIA director Michael Morell declined to attend a scheduled meeting Tuesday, citing the shutdown: “While the work we’re doing is important, it is no more important than — and quite frankly a lot less important — than a lot of the work being left undone by the government shutdown, both in the intelligence community and outside the intelligence community.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to strike down a law prohibiting unlimited campaign contributions.

Supreme Court Again Weighs Spending Limits in Campaigns – NYTimes.com

“The latest case would go even further than Citizens United,” he said. “It would say anything goes: there are no rules in terms of how to finance campaigns.”

The challengers take issue with separate overall limits of $48,600 every two years for individuals’ contributions to all federal candidates and $74,600 to political party committees. (Federal law continues to ban direct contributions to candidates or political parties from corporations and unions.)

“These limits,” said Erin E. Murphy, a lawyer for Mr. McCutcheon, “simply seek to prevent individuals from engaging in too much First Amendment activity.”

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Shutdown Showdown

Back in force: Debt limit deniers

“Tough luck,” these people say. The nation spends too much as it is. Blocking a debt ceiling increase will provide the radical shock therapy the nation desperately needs to start living within its means.

“We have 10 times as much tax revenue as we’ve got annual interest on the debt obligations,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said in an interview, offering the key talking point of the debt limit denial caucus. “So if the president does not want us to default on our credit or obligations, we won’t.”

Other members say they based entire campaigns on not boosting the borrowing limit.

“I ran on not raising the debt ceiling,” said Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.). “We will not default. And I think it’s a lot of hype that gets spun in the media.”

China’s Watching: Stop talking about default

If the dollar were suddenly to lose reserve status, the United States of America would face catastrophic inflation. All the dollars that the Federal Reserve has been creating, at about $85 billion each month, would begin to be dumped right on our heads, and the dollar would become virtually worthless.

More importantly, China has moved aggressively to replace the dollar with its Yuan in all its many, many international trades, including those in Saudi Arabia, Russia, South Korea, Australia, and many other traditional U.S. trading partners. China, with vigorous support from Russia and reluctant support from the other mega-economies in Asia, especially India and Japan, is using treaties which require acceptance of payments in their currency, the Yuan.

John McCain Calls Out Tea Party Lies, Says GOP “Did the American People a Great Disservice”

“To think that we are going to repeal Obamacare, which would have required 67 Republican votes, of course, was a false premise, and I think did the American people a great disservice by convincing them that somehow we could.”

US House Revives ‘Supercommittee’ as Debt Default Looms | Defense News | defensenews.com

The chamber voted mostly along party lines, 224–197, to create the “Bicameral Working Group on Deficit Reduction and Economic Growth.” The proposed 20-lawmaker panel would comprise 10 members from each chamber and would be tasked with recommending discretionary spending cuts, “changes in the statutory limit on public debt” and identifying other spending cuts.

Republicans want spending cuts and domestic entitlement program changes in return for a debt-ceiling increase. They say most modern presidents, including Obama twice, have negotiated over the borrowing limit.

The 5 creepiest things about how the Koch brothers engineered the shutdown

This weekend, The New York Times revealed how the Koch Brothers and Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese engineered this here shutdown we’re dealing with right now, and how they’d been planning it ever since Obama was reelected.

Banks prepare ‘war rooms’ in case US defaults on debt

The Dow slid nearly 160 points Tuesday, wiping out any gains it made in the past month.

Oh no… GMO?

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The post The Default Solution | Unfilter 70 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Just Getting Started | Plan B 2

chris — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:43:38 +0000

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Is Bitcoin an environmental disaster? Recent reports claim Bitcoin mining draws as much power as 31k American homes. We bust the FUD.

It seems obvious to us, but lets face it, people just don’t get it. It’s early days for bitcoin, calling the last weeks events “the end of bitcoin” is just straight up FUD and we’ll break it down.

Plus why those of you worried about deflation just aren’t seeing the big picture, the important new bitcoin loving merchants, and Litecoin could save us all.

All that and so much more!

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— Discussion —

OKCupid starts accepting Bitcoin using Coinbase!

We’re proud to announce you can now find true love with Bitcoin by using OKCupid! This is one more step forward for bringing Bitcoin to the masses – one date at a time.

Blockchain.info, a site that tracks data on Bitcoin mining, estimates that in just the last 24 hours, miners used about $147,000 of electricity just to run their hardware, assuming an average price of 15 cents per kilowatt hour … That’s enough to power roughly 31,000 U.S. homes, or about half a Large Hadron Collider.

Myths -Bitcoin mining is a waste of energy and harmful for ecology

No more so than the wastefulness of mining gold out of the ground, melting it down and shaping it into bars, and then putting it back underground again. Not to mention the building of big fancy buildings, the waste of energy printing and minting all the various fiat currencies, the transportation thereof in armored cars by no less than two security guards for each who could probably be doing something more productive, etc.

As far as mediums of exchange go, Bitcoin is actually quite economical of resources, compared to others.

Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Architect: Meet The Man Bringing You Bitcoin (And Getting Paid In It)

New bitcoins are generated, or \”mined,\” when computers succeed at solving increasingly complex equations. Bloomberg recently described this mining process as an \”environmental disaster\” because of the energy required to power the machines working on the problems.

The bitcoin mining process incentivizes people to be as efficient as possible and use as little power as possible to create bitcoins and to validate the transactions. The more efficient you are, less you spend on electricity and the more profitable you\’ll be. In the future, I expect to see bitcoin mining in places where electricity is free or cheap. You could put solar array in the Arizona desert attached to bitcoin miners and instead of trying to ship that electricity all over world, you could ship Bitcoin all over the world. The output of bitcoin mining is heat. You\’ll see bitcoin mining happening in places where people need heat anyway. I could imagine bitcoin heaters that, in addition to generating heat, generate bitcoin.

21 million coins isn\’t enough; doesn\’t scale

There are just over 2 quadrillion maximum possible atomic units in the bitcoin design.
Comparing 1 BTC to 1 Dollar is a bit disingenuous. We subconsciously make this connection in our minds when watching markets and a BTC’s price relative to the dollar, but in terms of money supply, ~21 million total bitcoins isn’t quite what it seems. 1 BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshis (A Satoshi is the smallest unit of measurement within bitcoin).
In the future, with further adoption, we (potentially) won’t be thinking of exchanging in whole bitcoins, but in tiny fractions of bitcoins (bitcents, millibitcoins, microbitcoins). In normal inflationary currencies, the number of currency units in existence consistently increases, supposedly to match the demand for these units and prevent the value from increasing. Bitcoin scales by dividing bitcoins into tiny fractions, not by increasing the total supply. Other mainstream currencies don’t have the capacity to divide to this degree, nor would there be any need to since the smaller units would consistently lose purchasing power.

Do other Crypto currencies like LTC and PPs act as a new type of inflation to bitcoin? IE, while there are a set number of bitcoins, they are going to be numerous general purpose crypto-monies.
[Gimp-developer] Added Bitcoin donation option

There has been demand for a Bitcoin donation option for some time already. We had delayed that option because we couldn\’t really use Bitcoins per se – I still do not know about any place where plane tickets are for sale, and these are our biggest expenses overall.

But there are finally some reliable exchanges popping up, which are located in countries where the responsible treasuries regulate them like any other exchange (i.e. not the Cayman Isles
More recently I chose to delay adding the address due to the current Bitcoin hype, with prices well over USD 200 – I didn\’t want GIMP to appear like an opportunist who\’s just after quick money.

Bitcoinary

Bitcoinary a peer to peer exchange and reputation system. Trade Bitcoins with trusted people.

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I just started mining bitcoin and litecoin, both on CPU, and
I have found that you can mine bitcoin and the system will
run just as smooth as if you did not mine, while litecoin will
make you system very jaggedy. Therefore I\’m mining litecoin
when I am not using my computer and bitcoin when I am
using my computer.

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The post Just Getting Started | Plan B 2 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

FTP Treasure Trove | TechSNAP 105

chris — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:58:17 +0000

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A treasure trove of data was found on an open FTP site, leaving AMI BIOS users open to attack.

Plus a look at PunkSPIDER, a batch of your questions, and so much more!

On this week’s of TechSNAP.

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New distributed web application vulnerability scanner linked to search engine

HyperionGray have announced a new project, where they have connected their open source distributed PunkSCAN webapp scanner to an Apache Hadoop Cluster and set it loose on the Internet
The goal of the project is to highlight the abysmal state of security on the Internet
The scanner finds sites that are vulnerable to SQL Injection, Blind SQL Injection, and Cross-Site Scripting
This information is then stored in a database, and is searching using PunkSPIDER
You can search by keyword in the URL or Title of the site and search by vulnerability types
PunkSPIDER Search Engine
PunkSPIDER is similar to another online search engine we have discussed previously, SHODAN is an online index of banner messages and version info
Additional Coverage

How power failures can corrupt Flash SSDs

Researchers at Ohio State University have conducted extensive testing of Flash SSD drives to determine how they react to unexpected power failures
By creating a worst case scenario that involves many concurrent writes of incompressible data, and a direct loss of power (cutting power between the PSU and the SSD rather than cutting power to the PSU), the researchers were able to enumerate a number of possible failure scenarios
The possible failures they looked for were:
- Bit Corruption – Random bits in the data set incorrectly
- Flying Writes – The correct data written to the wrong block/sector
- Shorn Writes – A write is interrupted while overwriting a sector, leaving the sector with some of the new bits and some of the old bits
- Metadata Corruption – The Flash Translation Layer (FTL, the complex firmware on an SSD that makes the NAND Flash chips appear like a regular hard drive) metadata is corrupted
- Dead Device – The SSD no longer functions at all
- Unserializability – The disk is in a state where writes were completed out of order
Researchers tested 15 different SSDs and 2 regular spinning drives
They did not release the manufacturer names or model numbers
Additional Coverage
Paper
Erretum Insert
A case of a similar problem? SSD suddenly only 34kb

Source code and possibly private keys for AMI BIOS/Firmware leaked

Security researchers Brandan Wilson and Adam Caudill found some interesting things on an open FTP server in Taiwan
On the FTP site they found numerous goodies, including internal emails, system images, high resolution PCB images, and Excel sheets loaded with private data
In addition, they also found a directory named ‘code’, that contained the source code and a private key for the AMI Firmware
According to AMI, the FTP site belongs to one of its customers, and the private key that was exposed is a testing key they use for all of their images, but they instruct all of their customers to generate their own keys and not use that testing key in production
It is not clear if this is the case, one or more manufacturer making use of the AMI Firmware are using that testing key
If that key is trusted in the wild, it means someone with access to this leaked source code could make a malicious firmware update that would be considered valid, it would also mean that the entire UEFI trust system for the affected machines could be invalid
“The worst case is the creation of a persistent, Trojanized update that would allow remote access to the system at the lowest possible level,” Caudill said. “Another possibility would be the creation of an update that would render the system unbootable, requiring replacement of the mainboard.”
“This kind of leak is a dream-come-true for advanced corporate espionage or intelligence operations,” Caudill wrote. “The ability to create a nearly undetectable, permanent hole in a system’s security is an ideal scenario for covert information collection.”

Feedback:

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The post FTP Treasure Trove | TechSNAP 105 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Ubuntu 11.10 Preview | LAS | s18e06

chris — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:15:31 +0000

The security breach that rocked Linux to it’s core has expanded, and we cover the breaking details.

Then – It’s our preview look at Ubuntu 11.10. Are they are on the right course? Or is this release turning into another disaster? We find out!

All this week on, The Linux Action Show!

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Episode Show Notes:

Runs Linux:

Marcos Garcia software enables entire Industries, to Run Linux!

Android Pick:

Linux Commands
Android Picks so far thanks to Madjo in the IRC Chat room!

Linux Pick:

BSD Pick:

Many computer systems around the world have been possessed by penguins; some have even been possessed by dead rats. In light of this, it is desirable to exorcise these evil spirits, and replace them with a nice, friendly daemon
More to the point, there are a number of dedicated server hosting companies which only offer Linux; being able to remotely replace Linux with FreeBSD makes the offerings from these companies available to those who want to run FreeBSD.

News:

Ubuntu 11.10 Preview:

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The post Ubuntu 11.10 Preview | LAS | s18e06 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

WebOS 3.0 In-Depth | LAS | s17e06

chris — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:34:59 +0000

We’ve got our hands on the latest edition of WebOS and we go in-depth!

Then – Find out why VirtualBox has pulled ahead of the pack, and why your Linux box uses so much POWER!

All this week on, The Linux Action Show!

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Episode Show Notes:

Runs Linux:

The HP TouchPad, runs Linux

GoDaddy.com adopts Linux Professional Institute Certification

Android Pick:

Ubuntu One Files App for Android

Android Picks so far, thanks to Madjo in the IRC Chat room
https://bit.ly/LASAndroidPicks

Linux Pick:

DOSBox

Linux App Picks so far. Thanks to Madjo!

NEWS:

Facebook bans KDE’s photo uploader; all uploaded content inaccessible.

VirtualBox 4.0.10 is OUT, improves Gnome 3 Support

Synaptic Dropped From Ubuntu 11.10

Nailing the Cause of Recent Linux Power Issues

the nD a new gaming handheld, Runs Linux

Two new Ubuntu-powered Tablets

WebOS 3.0 PREVIEW:
Download the SDK
WordPress for the TouchPad
Review: HP TouchPad [part 1]
TouchPad Unboxing
HP TouchPad Videos

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The post WebOS 3.0 In-Depth | LAS | s17e06 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Champions / Marvel | MMOrgue 3

chris — Sat, 28 May 2011 03:00:49 +0000

In this week’s MMOrgue, we’re digging up the dirt on the world of superhero MMOs! Join us as we don our capes and tights to take a look at the latest troubling reports from inside Marvel Universe Online, as well as examine the effects that SOE’s network security issues and subsequent outage have had on DC Universe Online.

Last but not least, we examine the announcement that Atari is parting ways with Champions Online developer, Cryptic Studios. What has motivated this divestment, and what could this mean for the studio’s future and existing projects?

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Show Notes:

First, to respond to some feedback:

“The dark theme and name do not suit the show’s content.”

First the obvious reasoning behind the name: Everybody talkes about MMOs, and everybody considers themselves an expert worthy of a name and brand. Hence, MMO-everything is taken. I kid you not.
More importantly, the concept of looking at the inner workings of a living industry is very much in line with the idea of cataloguing and studying our dead.
- I chose this theme and name to illustrate a scientific and analytic approach to the stories that will be covered herein.
- The communities, technologies, and professionals of this industry are very much the heart, lungs and brains of any MMO. Without analysing what motivates and drives any of these, we potentially lose sight of the whole.
And lastly, the MMO industry is a dangerous place. Covering titles and technologies that are dead, and finding out what put them there, is something that WILL be covered on this show.

“You need a co-host.”

If this was a show about sharing the latest press releases and announcements, I would be inclined to agree. Finding commentary and conversation on such topics is easy, and flows best between separate minds.
- However, as this show is 100% editorial driven, the content is created from the mind of its host. Increasing the number of minds involved would only fragment the content and any opinions contained herein.
That said, there will occasionally be important industry events which either slip my radar, or about which I know too little to accurately form an editorial opinion.
- In these circumstances, I intend to invite “correspondents” to join me on air to discuss those particular situations. If you feel as though you would like to become a correspondent, please contact me by posting at jupitercolony.com, or by emailing jeremy@jupiterbroadcasting.com, to start a discussion on what content you would like to present to our audience.

DCUO and SOE outage

Infographic
On May 2nd, SOE went dark. Then hundreds of thousands of gamers cried out in frustration, and never went silent.
It took almost two weeks to get the network, and all of Sony’s games, back up and running and (apparently) secure from further invasion. That outage is estimated to have cost SOE a total of $171 million.
And this is AFTER a fiscal year that ended in March, which reported an annual loss of $3.2 billion for the company.

What does this rough patch mean for the future of DCUO?

Nobody at SOE is making any official statements yet, other than to say that DCUO’s population is currently “very good.”
In the past 3 months, there have been two replacements among the DCUO project’s upper management that were made from within … existing execs taking on extra responsibility instead of promotions, or new hires.
And this after the project suffered a round of layoffs in April.
It is likely that subscriptions will see a noteworthy drop due to the outage. Even with the incentives being offered by SOE by way of apology.
- This comes down to Consumer Confidence, which is fancy way of saying “people don’t like to be jerked around.”
- SOE has a large overhead, capable of supporting a few rocky patches. Even so, they’ve been known to shut down games (Matrix Online).
GOOD NEWS: Apparently this outage scared SOE into being more interactive with their customers, and their forums are now ablaze with Dev Posts at regular intervals sharing REAL info instead of SOE’s standard practice of silence and mystery.
- Let’s hope it lasts.

MegaServers

Just days before the SOE network outage, it was announced that ALL of the existing DCUO servers would soon be merged into a few instanced networks called “MegaServers.”
Through the use of “phasing” technology, players will still be participating in areas that will have reasonable populations.
The benefit of this is to allow all of the back-end queueing for Raids, Duos, Alerts, and PvP to work across ALL players (on a per-platform basis).
The idea of server mergers has always been seen as a bad thing by the MMO press. It indicates a population decline, and a lack of interest.
- This MAY be different, as this sounds more like a fundamental tech shift, and not just a run-of-the-mill merger.
- However, it is still addressing an issue that would not be present if the game had a large and active population of gamers (queue times for instanced content).
Community outcry of “name collision” issues, and lack of solid responses from SOE, are causing additional schisms and rage among players.

Champions Online – Atari divests itself from Cryptic

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34704/Atari_Drops_Champions_Online_Developer_Cryptic_Studios.php

First, rumor killing:
– Nothing is happening YET. Atari has only announced their INTENT to divest. They have not announced that they are seeking a buyer, nor that any change of staff will occur as a result of this decision.

Atari is making a Bad Choice

Investing in casual markets
- Casual / Facebook games do not create brand recognition, fan loyalty or press.
- As this market continues to mature, games will become more and more complex and impressive until their development budgets rival current standalone titles.
- Long-term investment in this area will continue to require more and more finances to remain competitive. It is not a quick and cheap money-maker market.
Profits continue to rise
- 17.3 million prior year, 7 million this year, next year = ??
- While actively developing at least one unreleased title – Neverwinter
- Early indications that Champions Online move to F2P has resulted in huge increase in profits, which only occurred in Q3 of 2010.
Foundry Tech
- No other MMO has created such a successful and robust UGC tool, and it is now available to be ported to all titles using the Cryptic Engine: STO, CO and NWO.
- Giving the power of content creation to users opens up new doors to new types of gamers, and creates a powerful sense of community.
- Other MMO devs would probably love to get their hands on this technology…

Independence for Cryptic?

In today’s MMO landscape, no Dev survives alone.
They all need a publisher, and most publishers end up owning the Dev studio
- Blizzard was acquired by Activision in 2007
- Bioware became a part of EA in 2007
- Turbine, the biggest example of a successful “indie” developer, was purchased by Warner Bros in 2010.
To date, no major developer has managed to leave its parent publishing company, and survive. In fact, it’s such a risky prospect that studios typically just dissolve rather than even attempt it.

So then, who buys Cryptic?

I think it’d be a bit presumptuous for me, as a gamer and not a financial analyst, to try and make an educated guess on this one.
MMORPG.com has a couple good editorials that cover most of the major candidates in this area. Check the show notes for details, as I don’t have much else to add to the discussion at this point.
- “Who Should Buy Cryptic?” — Western buyers
- “Cryptic’s Future Unclear” — Eastern buyers
Fans of Star Trek Online are hoping that the company is acquired by CBS, the IP holder of the Star Trek franchise.
- Would CBS be interested in entering the online gaming arena? They haven’t yet.

Future of Neverwinter IP?
Possibly the biggest question mark in all of this…

Atari holds publishing rights on all Dungeons & Dragons products until 2017.
A lot of money and time already invested in the project, including a co-publishing deal with a line of novels written by R.A. Salvatore, and a deal with Wizards of the Coast for additional tie-ins.
Unlikely that Atari will let this one go completely.
- It will either get pulled from Cryptic and given to another studio with Atari maintaining their publishing oversight, or a new deal will be worked out to keep Atari on board in spite of their divestment from the studio.
- Either option discounts the title from being a bargaining tool in obtaining a new investment partner.

Marvel Universe

F2P

Attempting to live under the title of “First ever AAA F2P MMO in the West, at time of launch”
- Color me completely unimpressed.
- First of all, you can’t CLAIM a title like “Triple-A” without having a product. At this time, with the total lack of game footage, screenshots, timelines for beta/release, or even branding… what is here to lay claim to?
- This just sounds like empty hype, from a company that has already started disappointing us with overblown hype for their other unlaunched MMO, Jumpgate:Evolution.

No Character Customization
Rank this as my “most worrying” concern for this title.

On the one hand, it will allow players to jump into game as iconic well-known superheroes from the Marvel franchise.
- A lot of people will find this appealing, as evidenced by the outstanding sales records for single-player superhero titles like “Ultimate Alliance.”
- Developers at Secret Identify Studios claim this will make everyone feel more heroic, and “we won’t be merely ‘sidekicks.’”
  - EMPTY CLAIM — CO allows heroes to feel like heroes, and even have their own Nemesis with minions and a base. What sidekick has that?!
On the other, how many Wolverines and Hulks will be roaming around? Or will each server have only one instance of each? Where’s the “massive” in this MMO, if that’s the case?
- And how about progression? If you have to unlock the powers of your favorite superheroes, how do you explain them losing their abilities at the start of the story?
Possibly one of the biggest selling points of superhero MMOs to date, has been character customization. CoX and CO had it in droves, and DCUO’s comparative lack of options brought them a lot of criticism from MMO players and press.
- This is a technological step backwards, and will only work if this is NOT a true MMO as we’ve come to define it.
- If this is just another “X-Men Legends” or “Ultimate Alliance” with robust online matchmaking services, then it could work.
- But any form of persistence, progression and community, will be lost without personalization of your avatar.

Written by Bendis
This has the potential to make me excited.

Brian Michael Bendis is the godfather of Marvel’s “Ultimate” universe, and creator of some of the most critically acclaimed stories ever to spring from comic books. Including “Avengers Disassembled,” “House of M,” “Civil War,” and “Secret Invasion.”
He claims to be writing stories for MUO that will portray some of the most iconic moments from each characters’ lore, and re-imagine them into events that players will experience in-game.
Not much else to say about it, really. Bendis has never really done anything ‘wrong’ (except, arguably, killing off Hawkeye… ) so it’s great news for the story side of the game.
Between this, and the news that R.A. Salvatore is writing for Cryptic’s “Neverwinter,” it could set a precedence in the industry to bring in more established high-profile writers to flesh out the story of an MMO. Nothing wrong with that at ALL. There’s a reason they are high-profile after all… it’s because they’re AWESOME.

https://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/5187/page/1
https://massively.joystiq.com/2011/05/02/the-daily-grind-do-you-think-marvel-universe-is-an-mmo/

—————

Man… this whole episode was a lot of bad news, wasn’t it? And here I was hoping that superheroes were a HAPPY topic of conversation…

Well, maybe next week will turn some of that around…

+ RIFT feedback and discussion
+ 2KGames enters the MMO arena, through a partnership with XLGames (Lineage)
+ Bioware talks Mass Effect MMO

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