Cassandra Khaw | The Verge

EVE Online has a god named Bob

2015-03-31T08:40:50-04:00

It started with a joke. Or more accurately, a bizarre jeer.

“Early on, [members of the EVE Online corporation Adhocracy] started taunting the lower classes saying Bob is going to smite you if you’re not participating in our gameplay style. And it started to take,” declares the man only introduced to me as Proc Diadochu. His manner is warm and effusive, his smile open even when discussing the virtual death of dozens.

It’s Sunday on the last day of EVE Fanfest, an annual convention dedicated to CCP Games’ sci-fi sandbox MMO EVE Online, and we’re talking about god. Specifically, a god named Bob. According to Diadochu, Bob presides over the game’s wormholes, unstable space anomalies connecting two disparate star systems. He’s a vicious deity who requires appeasement in the form of deaths, particularly those who transgress against the non-player characters (NPCs) in his realm.

“He prefers it when the acolytes of Bob find them and kill them.”

“He loves players who are player-versus-environment-focused because they’re focused on killing his NPCs, his Sleepers. He prefers it when the acolytes of Bob find them and kill them,” Diadochu confides.

The exact time of its origin is unclear, but over the years the use of the epitaph began to spread from corporation — in-game organizations run by players — to corporation, and the Church of Bob slowly coalesced. Diadochu, along with others, eventually came to develop the lore and a variety of scriptures, including the plainly named Book of Rob and the Gospel of Onimuru.

“There are three brothers in the Church of Bob: Bob, Rob, and Stan,” Diadochu explains. “Rob was the Blood god, and Bob was the god of Wormholes. And things like that and…”

“What about Stan?” I ask, puzzled.

A flutter of a hand, and a laugh. “He’s just Stan. He didn’t get a role.”

An Eve Online monument in Iceland

Diadochu is personally responsible for the Gospel of Onimuru, which came into being after a serendipitous joke caught on in the wormhole forums. Drawing inspiration from his study of theology, he modeled his work on ancient Christian scriptures, imitating word usage and structure where possible. The result is a curious melange of real-world mythology and fragments from EVE Online‘s existing narrative: a story about a man named Jorym, his son Onimuru, and how a representative from an intergalactic empire was mistaken for divinity. It might feel like an outlandish amount of detail for what is essentially a niched meme, but the acolytes of the Church of Bob seem to delight in the absurdity.

“The main tenet is to be a PVPer,” Diadochu tells me with shrug. The idea, he continues, is to be mindful of one’s activities, and to dedicate every death to Bob’s name.

He goes into detail about some of the common tributes: honorable duels, the carcasses of expensive ships, jettisoned janitors sent hurtling into an indifferent sun, and fleet battles dedicated to Bob’s name. Like everything else about the fictional church, there is little logical continuity to this inventory of potential sacrifices. They’re just ideas to be played with. A touch of emergent flavor. Yet, at the same time, there is also something poignantly familiar about the whole endeavor.

“Religions don’t have to make sense,” he remarks. “A lot of religions are built around trying to explain things that we don’t understand. And as wormholers, we don’t really understand why things happen the way they happen.”

“Religions don’t have to make sense.”

In the absence of precedence, people will build their own mythologies, a concept that has proven especially true with EVE Online. There is no ostensible end game with the seminal sci-fi MMO. No optimal playing style, or storyline to pursue to its inevitable end. Instead, players are left to decipher the limits of what can be accomplished. The consequences of that decision have fueled headlines in media outlets like The New York Times and BBC, as well as the fascination of a public that barely understands the game.

This quiet captivation with EVE Online is, in part, thanks to developer CCP Games’ careful tending. Over the last decade, the Icelandic studio has done its best to integrate player content into the game and the media surrounding it, building in-game memorials, physical monuments, and even comic book collaborations based on player stories. Most recently, the company solicited voice recordings in a bid to produce a trailer capable of exemplifying the essence of the game.

The resulting video was somewhat awe-inspiring.

What’s most impressive, however, is how attentive CCP is to even the smallest detail. Galactic News Network is an in-character news broadcast, which showcases the titanic intra-player struggles that take place on a regular basis. While mostly focused on the macro, it hasn’t lost sight of the smaller things, including the chicanery of Bob.

“I talked to CCP Loki yesterday,” says Diadochu, referring to the producer behind the Galactic News Network videos. “I said, ‘Look, do you know we have scriptures for this stuff?’ And he said, ‘I want you to send all that you have to me.'”

No confirmation has been made as of yet as to whether or not Bob might feature more prominently in the videos, but it isn’t an impossibility — his acolytes have been featured at least once on the bite-sized show. And while the Church of Bob waits to see if CCP will absorb their doctrine into official lore, they still have a BBC journalist to canonize as the voice of their holy texts.

Gameplay Trailer: EVE- Valkyrie footage from Fanfest 2015

How Blizzard is taking on gaming’s hottest genre

2015-03-24T08:51:47-04:00

“It’s like Smash Bros.,” my teammate muses between Heroes of the Storm matches. “Except with DotA. And fan service. And …”

He hesitates. “And silliness.”

Blizzard has been long overdue for a foray into the fiefdom of Defense of the Ancient-esque titles, an offshoot of real-time strategy games that sees two five-person teams fighting down three lanes to be the first to overrun the other’s base. (Otherwise known as MOBAs, short for multiplayer online battle arena.) Heroes of the Storm is the company’s big attempt to take on the massive successes of League of Legends and Dota 2, titles that command huge, rapt audiences, making them among the most popular — and lucrative — games in the world. The irony is that the company was inadvertently responsible for grandfathering the original Dota, a mod for Warcraft III, which was in turn inspired by a custom-designed map in Starcraft, Blizzard’s seminal sci-fi real-time strategy game.

That said, the World of Warcraft developer is making up for lost time with incredible exuberance and no small amount of cartoony style. Heroes of the Storm takes characters from franchises like Diablo and Warcraft and puts them together into what Blizzard calls a “team brawler”, essentially a more approachable take on the often daunting sub-genre of online action-strategy games.

It’s sometimes hard to take Heroes of the Storm seriously. The game, which is currently in closed beta, does things like dress Abathur — the spidery Zerg Evolution Master from the Starcraft universe — in adorable onesies, and turn dwarven heroes into lollipop-wielding lords of confection. The games are short; 10- to 20-minute bursts of frenetic activity, at most, a paltry time span compared to the 40-minute average of a League of Legends or Dota 2 match. The growing stable of maps are also bright, outlandish, and populated by over-the-top narrators.

As for dying, that’s mostly an inconvenience measured in seconds.

Juxtaposed against heavyweight names like League of Legends and Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm can come across as a little rudimentary, perhaps even a tad shallow. Tonally, it’s most reminiscent of Ronimo Games’ Awesomenauts, a 2D sci-fi battle arena with the aesthetics of an ‘80s cartoon show. But that’s not a bad thing.

Heroes of the Storm straddles that knife edge between competitive sports and the “one more round” compulsiveness of simpler games, like Angry Birds. There is no earnest requirement for cat-like reflexes or encyclopedic knowledge of team synergies, although both are never bad to possess. No demand to memorize buy orders, or what item suits which character best in what situation. You don’t even need to learn how to deliver the killing blow. Heroes of the Storm jettisons many of the genre’s staples — gold and items being the obvious examples — in favor of a brisker, more arcade-y feel.

Which is also what makes Heroes of the Storm so interesting. In a congested landscape of clones, Blizzard’s upcoming title feels incredibly distinctive. Part of this can be attributed to the roster of playable characters. Every Blizzard aficionado in history has, at one point or another, wondered if Kerrigan could take on Diablo and how a dialogue between Raynor and Uther would resolve. Heroes of the Storm fulfills that curiosity and then some, reimagining inside jokes (Elite Tauren Chieftain is a real band comprised of Blizzard employees) and non-combat pets as battle-hardened combatants. It’s like fan service turned into a game.

There is no thematic coherence to the cast either, which might initially come across as jarring if you’re used to the tenuous narratives that string together most of the genre. But this allows the developers the freedom to gleefully introduce ridiculous costumes, and characters that fall way outside of the standard RPG trifecta. (Abathur fights primarily by attaching symbiotes to his teammates while the Lost Vikings, who can be controlled manually, each have an attack corresponding to a different button.)

The other half of that equation is tethered to the game’s approachability: it plays like it’s meant to be fun right out of the box. Dota, and all of its derivatives, are complex beasts filled with esoteric systems. These are games intended to be learned over the course of months and years, rewarding diligence with incremental advances in skill. Great, if you’re willing to put in the time. Less so, if you’re leery of vitriolic communities or spending more than a thousand hours learning the ropes.

Even the greenest newbie can provide value to their team

Certainly, these intricacies exist in Heroes of the Storm, but there’s also a sense that such masteries are optional. You’ll undeniably benefit from committing the nuances to muscle memory, but even the greenest newbie can provide value to their team by breaking treasure chests and ferrying the contents to a ghost pirate. In that respect, Heroes of the Storm comes across as a curious hybrid of Dota and the old Warcraft III custom maps, the latter being unique playing fields that use assets from the main game. These varied from tower defense variations to role-playing games based on the iconic Final Fantasy series.

The inclusion of map objectives is a subtle way of keeping matches snappy. Cursed Hollow, for example, not only requires players to beat a path to the enemy’s stronghold but also to collect Tributes for the menacing Raven Lord. Gather three of these trinkets before your adversaries can, and their defenses will take a massive hit. Similarly, control over places of worship in the Sky Temple will cause laser beams to tear through your opponents’ fortresses, speeding their destruction. Consequently, it’s impossible to turtle — a notoriously ineffective strategy involving heavy defense with little to no offensive play — the way you might in a game of Dota 2 or League of Legends.

Heroes of the Storm differs from the competition in other areas as well. In-match gold and items have been replaced by talents, which can be selected on-the-fly to change your loadout. Many of these adjust how existing skills and attacks function, while others introduce new variations — panda girl Li Li can choose between an area-of-effect heal or a damage-dealing dragon, to give an idea. All of this lends wonderfully to the fast-paced tempo of the game. The only caveat? You need to earn access first.

Similar to League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm features a persistent leveling system of sorts where you can advance both the heroes you’ve purchased and your account itself. Leveling up the former allows you to unlock new tiers in their talent trees, amass gold, and even new cosmetic variations. Leveling up the latter grants you more general advantages: additional slots for daily quests, gold, and more free heroes to try.

All of this feeds elegantly into the cycle of covetousness that Blizzard has installed. You don’t have to finish the daily quests, nor do you have to level individual heroes. But if you do, you earn opportunities to experiment with new ideas, new characters, new looks, new ways to play the game. It’s a formula that Blizzard has been working on for years now — World of Warcraft and Hearthstone both boast similar systems — and it is being used to great effect here.

What’s even more intriguing is how the developers seem to be working to minimize what is the worst part of the genre: the toxicity of its communities. Anyone who has spent any time playing Dota 2, League of Legends, or any of the other variations that currently exist today, can probably attest to the snarling fury that subsumes these games. People get angry when they play. Extremely angry. Racial slurs, sexist insults, personal attacks, and threatening behavior all mix together in a noxious stew of pure hate.

Heroes of the Storm mitigates some of this by cutting off communications with the opposing team, reducing interactions to, at most, a last-minute “good game” at the end of the battle. The design choice parallels Blizzard’s controversial approach with the free-to-play card game Hearthstone, which completely eliminates conversation in favor of emotes, a decision many seemed happy to see. The limited dialogue between teams can help to reduce even intra-team griefing; it’s harder to lose your temper when you can almost pretend that the opposing side are just extremely clever AI characters.

There are other smaller touches, too. Kills are team-based affairs; Heroes of the Storm makes no distinction between who contributed damage and who dealt the final blow, preventing arguments about stolen glory. Likewise, multi-kill announcements are player-agnostic, declaring only a team’s achievements instead of one person’s skill. And while Hero League lets players carefully pick their perfect team composition, Quick Matches allow players the freedom to choose their heroes without external scrutiny, or anyone bullying them into decisions. The result is a game that enforces the notion that the team should overshadow personal vanity, a conceit often woefully missing from other similar games.

Heroes of the Storm isn’t a League of Legends killer, not even close. To be honest, I hesitate to even describe it as a gateway drug to the massively popular genre. Although Heroes of the Storm could serve as an excellent introduction, it feels like Blizzard might be trying to do something more than capitalize on a trend. Instead of a replica, it’s almost like the developer is trying to build a new entity over the same bones — the same way modern RPGs riff on their bygone predecessors, and how first-person shooters still carry Wolfenstein 3D in their genetics.

And that is definitely a good thing.

Heroes of the Storm is currently in closed beta, with a full release on Windows and Mac expected later this year. You can sign-up for the beta right here.

Watch this bush burn for 11 hours in bizarre Exodus film promotion

2014-12-24T08:10:01-05:00

Ridley Scott’s elegiac Exodus: Gods and Kings has a new promotional video of sorts: an 11-hour-long performance starring the iconic burning bush, a sweeping orchestral score, and endlessly scrolling text extracted from the Bible. That is the entirety of it. At no point does any semblance of action surface from this dull but aurally impressive sequence. We aren’t even accorded the luxury of hearing the foliage narrate the passages. It’s unclear as to what 20th Century Fox was hoping to accomplish with this video, but it does at least make for some easy listening.

Scott’s modern-day $140 million interpretation of the titular exodus stars big names like Christian Bale and Sigourney Weaver. Although ostensibly based on the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, the movie took certain liberties with the source material, with its usage of alligators and an action-hero Moses. Despite these issues, the Bible-inspired tour de force did extraordinarily well in the box office with a $24.5 million debut. Exodus: Gods and Kings is already out in theaters.

Google and Microsoft step in to oppose Marriott Hotels’ Wi-Fi-blocking petition

2014-12-23T23:52:45-05:00

A petition to grant hoteliers the right to block personal Wi-Fi on their premises is being met with staunch opposition from the biggest technology companies. Google and Microsoft are among those who have filed objections, noting the illegality of any devices capable of interfering with radio signals.

Marriott has been fined for blocking wi-fi connections before

Recode writes that hotel company Marriott International and the American Hospitality & Lodging Association had petitioned the FCC to allow hotel operators to utilize equipment to manage their networks, regardless of whether it may result “in interference with or cause interference to” devices used by guests. This followed a $600,000 settlement case in October, when it was discovered that the employees of Marriott’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center were using a jammer to block off internet access.

Microsoft laid out its arguments against the petition in the filing, stating that a Wi-Fi hotspot set up by a hotel guest is authorized to operate in the unlicensed spectrum, and pointing out that “wilfully excluding these other authorized devices from using that unlicensed spectrum, under the guise of mitigating so-called threats to the reliability (performance) of an operator’s own network, violates Section 333,” which bars “wilful or malicious interference” to radio signals.” The company also pointed out that by restricting the ability to set up their own connections, Marriott would be forcing the customer to pay to access the hotel’s own Wi-Fi, having already paid their mobile operator for the ability to set up a hotspot anywhere.

The hotel chain had argued that it wasn’t breaking the law, but was protecting its guests from “rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber attacks and identity theft.” But Marriott’s arguments are weak, as there are several examples that show guests are far safer jumping onto their own personal Wi-Fi hotspots than they are connecting to a potentially compromised hotel Wi-Fi network. In November, for example, Kaspersky Labs discovered a group of hackers targeting high-profile business executives who were working from luxury hotels.

This Better Call Saul trailer gives the best look yet at the Breaking Bad spinoff

2014-12-23T07:58:02-05:00

After months of coyness, we’ve finally got a clear look at the upcoming Better Call Saul. Unlike previous glimpses of the Breaking Bad spin-off, AMC’s new 30-second trailer shows a more coherent montage of images from the life of amoral rascal Jimmy McGill, who eventually reinvents himself as the Jewish lawyer Saul Goodman for the “homeboys” who want “a pipe-hitting member of the tribe.” Here, we see Jimmy dramatically declaring that someone will atone for an undisclosed sin, Jimmy gagged and dropped onto the ground, and Jimmy being advised that his line of work can result in one being “so caught up in winning” that they “forget to listen to their heart.” The premiere will air in February over the course of two nights: Sunday, February 8th and Monday, February 9th at 10PM ET.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere reads you a story for his weirdest publicity stunt yet

2014-12-22T22:21:26-05:00

Seasonal shots have been fired. T-Mobile’s flamboyant CEO John Legere stars in this promotional video for the holidays, which features him solemnly reading a “magical story from the land of #Uncarrier.” It opens innocuously enough with T-Mobile-branded Christmas decorations, before cutting to Legere reclining in a plush chair, pipe in hand. Set to the tune of “The Night Before Christmas,” the tale begins with an outline of T-Mobile’s strengths, but soon progresses into a bombardment of insults aimed at the competition.

It’s an odd video, this isn’t startling behavior from Legere, who is notoriously brash and ready with scathing descriptions about his peers. In the past, he has taken to calling AT&T and Verizon “greedy bastards,” and even demanded that they “stop the bullshit” in reference to traditional subsidy models.

FCC may fine Sprint $105 million for ‘cramming’ customers

2014-12-17T07:20:03-05:00

The Federal Communications Commission is looking to fine Sprint $105 million for “mobile cramming,” which involves customers being billed for unwanted services like spam SMS messages or daily horoscopes. National Journal writes that nothing has been finalized as of yet and FCC commissioners are still reviewing the situation. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also “mulling over action,” according to National Journal. A Sprint representative noted that the company does not “comment on rumors and speculation.”

If the FCC elects to take action, this will result in Sprint tying AT&T for the largest cramming settlement in history. The rival telecommunications company was fined $105 million for similar allegations in October. $80 million was set aside by the FTC to establish a reimbursement program, $20 million for individual states, while another $5 million for the FCC itself. AT&T was also required to develop a system that would ensure customers are informed and provided opportunity to consent to third-party charges.

Dr. Dreidel is the dreidel that beats all others

2014-12-17T07:10:01-05:00

Well, we’re peepin’, and we’re creepin’, and we’re writin’
Just look at what we caught: a wooden Dreidel that’s just bangin’
Now it’s time for me to have my impression read,
About this instrument printed with Dr. Dre’s head,
You never seen Hannukah like this befo’
With Hebrew letters on sides times four,
At the same time with the Beats guy’s pics,
You know, and I know, we all want some of this sh*t,
To add to our collection, but dejection
Is incoming, Hannah Rothstein ain’t selling
it to me, or any other dude
But if she does, we’ll make sure to tell you too

-Dreidel is a “G” Thang

American artist Hannah Rothstein is putting a new spin on Hanukkah with her Dr. Dreidel, a clever marriage of pop culture and Jewish tradition. The laser-etched wooden instrument features four different images of Dr. Dre, each selected to correlate with a Hebrew letter and “the aftermath of the dreidel’s spin.” Although the item was conceptualized by Rothstein, the packing and laser etching was done by Chris McCoy of you3Dit.

This one-of-a-kind creation is not currently for sale, but Rothstein has said she may consider production. Given the internet’s enthused reception, there is definitely hope of hearing some fly beats by Dreidel.

From space to cats to moms to Colbert to uh
From space to cats to moms to Colbert to uh
From space to cats, TLDR’s like all about those
So jus’ chill, ’til the next episode

Twitter and Foursquare could be teaming up in 2015

2014-12-17T00:54:48-05:00

Twitter and Foursquare might be going into business together in 2015, according to a source for Business Insider. The partnership would introduce geo-based features similar to Foursquare’s venue check-ins and local recommendations, along with location-specific content. The new functions may make an appearance as early as the next quarter.

Business Insider writes that an unnamed Twitter spokesperson called location a “vehicle of discovery,” but declined to confirm the partnership. Similarly, a Foursquare representative refused comment. Twitter appears to be keen on exploring the advantages of location-based data. It recently ran tests to examine the impact of location and has even hired David Blackman, who previously worked as Foursquare’s lead geographic infrastructure engineer.

BMW is working on cars your smartwatch can park

2014-12-16T04:16:31-05:00

Come CES 2015, luxury automobile maker BMW will be showing off its recent advances in autonomous vehicle research, including the smartwatch-operable Remote Valet Parking Assistant. The i3 research vehicle is equipped with four “advanced laser scanners,” which can map and identify hazards within an environment. This data can be used by the i3’s on-board assistance system to automatically trigger brakes when needed.

Additionally, BMW claims that the information gathered by the scanners can be combined with the digital site plans of a building to allow for independent navigation. Using a smartwatch, users can activate the parking assistant and have it automatically steer the car towards a space in a multi-story car park before locking the vehicle in anticipation of a summons. The announcement follows a demonstration from CES 2014, where BMW introduced a self-driving car at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Audi showcased similar technologies last year, except that the company’s vehicles required the use of a venue that has been specifically fitted with laser scanners. In contrast, BMW’s Remote Valet Parking Assistant can potentially function in any structure, so long as an architectural blueprint is available.