Geek Woman : One of the things many female players enjoyed in Guild Wars was the costuming (Armor Sets) will we have lots to look forward to in GW2?

Kristen Perry: Absolutely! One of the hallmarks of character customization in Guild Wars has always been mixing and matching armors and GW2 is no exception. The armors are organized now a bit differently in light, medium and heavy weights. I think one of the most exciting facets of this new structure is that any one profession won’t have to be limited to their role, they can choose to wear anything from their weight category. This offers a lot more flexibility for customization than was available in the original Guild Wars. In Prophecies, a profession had a set amount of armors to choose from which was later expanded with more campaigns, but this locked in what was available for the player to wear. GW2 allows anything from the entire weight class, and this means not only a greater design variety, but greater armor numbers right up front.

Geek Woman : From what I have seen so far the outfits look a little more rustic than in the Original Guild Wars, is there going to be a trend to get grittier and less glam in GW2?

Kristen Perry: When we started designing in weight classes and less specific professions (though they still will be appropriately represented) we noticed that pieces had to play nice together more broadly. No longer is any one detail trend locked into a profession. Oddly, this has given us a freedom to design with magic and fantasy in mind, but also with functionality. With our various professions needing their identities and the general populace of the world needing looks from everything from social level to regional culture, we designed a little of everything. As a by-product of this, the world is indeed potentially grittier. This isn’t just out of intentionally trying to give it edge or wear and tear (though we have that, too), but to give it personality. A blacksmith from the human race will look different than the blacksmith from the charr or norn. It will be appropriate to the race’s ideals and design sensibilities. It will have age or maintenance to it. It may be heirloom, it may be brand spankin’ new. So yes, out of function and variety, some outfits certainly got grittier. This doesn’t mean that everything will be, there’s just more to offer. Glam will still exist with gusto.

But really, sometimes you just want a sturdy pair of sensible boots, eh?

Geek Woman : I especially appreciate details in the female avatars such as the accessories like jewelry and shoes. For example in some games the feet and shoes disappear entirely into the environment. What challenges are there in making the footwear on the female characters remain visible in the various textures in the environment?

Kristen Perry : Well, really, we try to tell them not to wear high heels in sod, but the ladies like their fashion, so whatcha gonna do. Aside from that, I’d say that’s now up to the players and how they dye the footwear. With our increased poly count and a bit more pixel real estate, we have more leeway to put in details. A favorite feature of mine for boots is to build out the rim of the sole, as sometimes the silhouette will really make that nuance sing, which is icing on the tailoring cake.

We’ll have incredibly ornate designs just like we’ll have simple and comfortable. I suppose the biggest challenge is in whittling down the ideas into a sane production schedule. Then again, when considering shoe collections, perhaps sanity is optional…

But if you don’t want the boots to blend into the sand, don’t dye them saffron!

Geek Woman : The Elementalists in Guild Wars were stunningly beautiful and won our Annual Best Female Avatar, two or three times at womengamers.com What can you show us, or tell us about the Elementalist so far? GW Elementalist vs GW2? Will they have any special accessories such as tiaras or jewelry that we can look forward to?

Kristen Perry: Ladies, everyone can be beautiful! It’s been a long-standing tradition to design jewelry into outfits, and rest assured, some Eles will have bling of various forms as will others. This can be anything from the special design of fancy buttons to brooches to hair barrettes and other accessories on your outfit as they always were. As separate pieces? We don’t know yet, we’ll see. But there’s a wide variety of decoration for every armor weight class. Perhaps light armor bling may be more ornate overall, but that won’t stop medium armor wearers from having sleek, stylish, mayhaps more functional items and the heavy armor folk sporting their wares. Breastplates count as adornment, right?

Geek Woman : What will the novice Elementalist outfit look like, and is it going to be the purple and white that seems to be the standard?

Kristen Perry: There’s more to consider than profession in GW2 as we have multiple races to consider. Given that we’re trying to have quite a visual variety even in the starting areas, there are colors to consider that help give a cultural flavor to your chosen race story. So a red, a green, a purple for example, in one race might not be the same as another in the beginning. When it comes to professions, they will have general palettes as well, but it’s important to note that overall there’s a lot more to visually balance than just what the humans gave us before. We’re still sorting through our paint chips and styles.

Geek Woman : Characters in an MMO put on a lot of mileage in a game in many different situations, such as the lighting, weather and conditions. Is it difficult to prepare the artwork and design for characters that are so multi dimensional? and even emotional?

Kristen Perry : Oh, though we have to make sure our designs work with the environment, that really isn’t a direct constraint aside from general guidelines. Sure, if there is a specific regional armor required (like the Vabbian was in Nightfall, for example) that will reflect those dimensions as needed. Largely we need to create more neutrally-balanced designs. This means things like managing the noise levels in our patterns, pattern frequency or toning down the specularity to feel realistic in most situations.

When we create a design we will try to view it in a variety of environments to see that overall it plays nice. In addition to that, it’s my job to make sure the dye system represents as much as possible a vast array of desirable colors that help show off the outfits in their best light. Some slight intentional tonal variations might occur from the artists’ work on any one specific armor, but overall it’ll stay in a specified range as far as our texture creation is concerned.

But for the game, there is definite preparation. For example, both in real life and game life, there is no true white. Even the whites of the eyes or the white of the monitor screen you’re looking at isn’t really true white, it’s just representative of white. True white is stuff like looking into the blinding sun or an atom blast, and that just isn’t practical when you’re trying to take down a river drake. But in game terms, the shirt I might texture will really technically dye to be a very light gray. This is because when it gets into all the lighting effects (as in, any lighting effect), usually whites will blow out and become annoying to look at. So just like the game itself has a palette in overall art direction, so too within that palette are other visual language considerations that create a range. The trick is to get the texture to dye light enough to feel like a bright white without blowing out in the game environment.

One of the more interesting tidbits about the dye system is that we made a conscious effort to apply dyes appropriately for their materials. Since cloth is more easily and naturally dyed in a variety of colors, it has the potential to be the most saturated. Leathers will dye a similar color that will feel like the cloth’s color counterpart, but it will come with a natural hue that you would expect with a natural material. Metals will be naturally even more desaturated. —However, breathe, you dye enthusiasts out there! Just because there’s a tendency doesn’t mean it’s absolute. Copper metal, for example, can be quite bright and saturated, as can other natural tones in metal and leather. Cloth can be desaturated as well. What I’m saying is there will be choices and we’re making sure there’s plenty to sort from to make your character awesomely customized.

What all that means for our creation of the armors is that we have a pretty set neutral position to create textures that will be flexible in many environments while set up for many dye options. It’s both difficult and not difficult when you know the rules. On one hand, you definitely know what doesn’t work and will break the system. On the other hand, you get to play MacGyver and try to invent something new and inspiring within limited creation range. I enjoy the challenge.

Geek Woman : One of the fun asides in Guild Wars is the spontaneous dance parties, does dance wear figure into the designs of GW2 at all? There have been some very memorable GW dancers in the past.

Kristen Perry : We pull from many different categories of style and it’s certainly within reason that somewhere someone pulled from dance. Heck, in Nightfall when I designed the Elementalists, most outfits came from ballroom dancers mixed with tropical sun dresses and some ancient Egyptian royalty’. And seriously, considering that some of the reference searches were anything from much more revealing to downright translucent, my designs were conservative in comparison. ;P

For GW2, depending on the race, I tried to pull from just as much variety for outfits. I love taking at least two directions and seeing how to meld them together. For example, the norn blacksmith has an outfit inspired with the strength of the Celts with a nod to the strap proportions of old style German folkwear with the tailoring and detailing of Clydesdale saddles and tack.

To sum up, don’t worry, there’s a lot of flavor! Folks will find designs to choose from for just about any function, dance included.

Ew chunks. Ok, this is guy game. Don’t waste your time or money on this one. Even if you are a guy. It started out with the visage of the Hermit Tarot card as the logo for  Visage Games. I liked that, and that was it for this entire game. Then the game’s weird control scheme began to reveal itself in the tutorial. Push down R3 to Aim? Are you serious? And then we are expected to remember that L1 and R2 together turn the character into Chaos Mode where he is all aflame. The controls are counter intuitive. But the ticket was to just mash away at the buttons as you would expect. X for Jump, Square for Attack.

The game is unremarkable except for the awkwardness it requires for you to play it. There are groteaque monsters to fight. There are flames and explosions aplenty. But they erupt randomly without any sense of the satisfaction of blowing things up. The scenery changes oddly from what looks like a fantasy environment, to an urban street. You don’t expect to see cars and mordern buildings, yet there they are like some clashing mash up. It doesn’t work. It’s ugly and seems to be a hash made from the worst bits of God of War and Infamous. Read more

Make your own animation

Gym: Want a new summer look? Tired of your Aion character’s appearance, but don’t want to start all over? You can change practically everything about your avatar. With dyes, or even more drastic measures like plastic surgery can fresh up things in your game. If it’s a make over and a work out she needs then you can now change your face and body shape in Aion. You can change your appearance by visiting to the Daevas of Appearance. The Daeva of Appearance in Sanctum, Maenia, is found in the Angelic Frippery Shop on Divine Road. The Daeva of Appearance in Pandeamonium, Himingleva, is found in the Angelic Frippery Shop on Prosperity Road. You can try out the various looks there before you make up your mind.

To do it you’ll need a “Plastic Surgery Ticket”. Those are available for purchase by going out of the game to where it says My Account and then clicking on the tab that says Store. Then another tab takes you to Aion. There you will see a button for Character Customization which is $9.99 and the one for Gender Change is $14.99 US. Then to use your ticket you go back to visit the Daeva of Appearance in one of the Capitol Cities. If only it were all that easy in real life.

Tan: The Daeva of Cosmetics in Sanctum, Tigares, is found in the Angelic Frippery Shop on Divine Road. Does he look like Adam Lambert to you?
The Daeva of Cosmetics in Pandeamonium, Sjalfi, is found in the Angelic Frippery Shop on Prosperity Road
Players are able to purchase Color Spray from the Daeva of Appearance in their respective capital cities. Color Spray changes the color of the player’s skin.

Laundry: Players can dye their armor various colors by purchasing Armor Dye from the Daeva of Dyes, in both Pandaemonium and Sanctum. Benes is a Daeva of Divine Clothing in the Angelic Frippery  on the Divine Road in Sanctum. She can imbue her clothing with the power of Aether. There are also a line of traditional costumes from different areas of the world, such as Chinese, Ancient Chinese, Korean, Japanese, European, and US.

Of course you can alway pick up some dye in game with game gold to change the color of your armor. There are a variety of hair dyes to purchase the normal way in game. In Sanctum I found the shops in the area near the Artisan’s Hall to be very interesting to explore.

Make your own animation

Just Cause 2 is a breath of fresh air after many disappointing games. It is well worth a purchase. Just Cause 2 is truly a sandbox. It’s about 400 square miles of lush tropical jungles and picturesque mountain ranges in this beautifully rendered open world. You will enjoy a third person action – shooter that plays a lot like Mercenaries 2. There were several games that claimed to be open world last year like Infamous and Uncharted 2 which really weren’t. Underneath it all, to get anyplace you had to follow a linear proscribed pathway. Unfortunately there is no female avatar in Just Cause 2, at least in the single player experience so far. What a shame!

The character can go entirely three dimensional. I believe they are the first on the PS3 to do it all this well. Scale upward and drop downward efficiently and across great distances with the grappling hook. It’s very reliable, and those never are um, Hello Tomb Raider. Use the parachute to fly off buildings and mountains, base jump or para-sail. You can use vehicles, motorcycles or choppers and sprint, infinitely. Use the Black Market chopper pilot to Extract you as well. You can boat almost everyplace, you can travel up channels right into the cities, or roam beaches that look far too good to have been an after thought. He swims well, there is even scenery under water.

There is so much stuff to do in this game you don’t know what to look at first. It’s really addictive, and a great summer title. I wish there was two controller co-op. But, “Hey developers when you make a summer game release think DATING!” Video games wouldn’t be so contentious in our lives if we could sit down together on the love seat and take out an army, romantically. Read more

Make your own animation

There have been quite a few games I have played in the past that were both annoying and wonderful at the same time. Yakuza 3 has equal measures of both frustration and fun. For the arm chair otaku for whom all things Japanese are all good then this is a game to be savoured. For the person who is expecting a fighting engine that works – then the expectations are too high. Why it is that the Yakuza games have stayed firmly rooted in the PS2 era can’t be guessed. The depth of detail of the reproduction of Japanese daily minutia is what makes this game so special – to the enthusiasts anyways. And yet they haven’t put in newer technology to reboot the franchise – yet.

The code of the Samurai plays throughout the theme of the game. The story is far from simplified pablum like Heavy Rain. Here in Yakuza 3 you have a rich novella, riddled with blood and betrayals. It’s something you can immediately understand and relate to. And instead of being hindered by some sort of politically correct hypocrisy, this character acts on his feelings. He brings the smack down on the bullies and at the same time his dream is to open an orphanage with the dirty money. Yakuza shows us the analogy between Robin Hood and honor among thieves, which even with western minds we can comprehend.
Read more

As a gamer and a journalist I can consider myself a mercenary. A damn low paid one. I don’t have any particular allegiances to any one console or company. I’m an independent writer and  I am objective. I do have favorites occasionally and I do hold a well deserved grudge. But it may be time to bury the hatchet that I’ve held for Microsoft since 1979. Thirty years of hating is probably plenty.

What turned me finally? Gears of War 3. Hearing the female voice hollering “Get Your Head Down!” was the music to my ears. It’s enough to make me try to convince my partner that we need a pair of 360′s to play this game. A strong solid playable female avatar has been  far too long in coming to shooters. It might be worth while to lay aside an old argument to find out. Developers it can be done. I Told You So. Thanks Cliffy B.

Kevin Butler’s rallying speech about gaming contrasted with the low energy of the rest of Sony’s PS3 presentation at E3, which lacked lustre right from the beginning. They lead with thier 3D movie announcement. It wasn’t big news to anyone hearing that you’d be able to download 3D movies from your PS3 to your 3D TV. Wearing your glasses. Very ho hum after the Nintendo 3DS announcement which sparked so much interest.

As they progressed to talking about the new PS3 wiimote which is blandly called “The Move” it did get slightly more interesting. Sorry Sony to have a device named after you, you have to invent it. Kleenex, Tampax. Not due to the disco – flashy Move hardware. We know motion control is fun, we found that out three years ago. And we also found out that you need a strap on the wiimote. I wonder how long it will take for the first Move to go through a TV set? The strap and the Move with the disco ball look plasticy and cheapo.
The third party titles that came up for PS3 gave it some momentum. The PS3 attracts harder core games which will step up the motion control action above the collection of games for the Wii. Again no special kudos for Sony there either. The hottest games I saw were Medal of Honor, Twisted Metal, Socom 4, Killzone 3, and Resident Evil.

If nothing else the PS3 is turning out to be a durable appliance. It runs the games, DVD’s, Blue Rays and will even outlive your SD or HD TV and be capable of 3D content delivery. After a few years in, the XBox 360 started having the Red Ring of Death issues. Some may forget that there was a 50% failure rate on that console for years.

And even though it was mentioned that the PS3 is finally turning a profit, Sony has lost a lot of ground with gamers. The Xbox Live network is an all out success and is the industry standard fo multiplayer gaming in spite of the hardware. Like an old bycycle Xbox fans will drive those machines to the ends of the earth. Sony has failed to nurture the kind of core community that XBLN has.

An enormous example of this fail was the Sony E3 booths on the PS3 Home. It was hollow, vacant and empty. There were large rooms lined with kiosks that held a logo or a screen shot and did nothing. Seven trailers were there to look at, and nothing much else. At the Grand Tourismo booth you could see the cool auto seats for the demo, but your character couldn’t sit in one. There wasn’t a playable demo there that I saw. You would have to navigate back to the main menu and download demos normally to play those. If you view all 7 trailers you get admitted to a VIP area that promised more content. But again, there was a developer interview video, and nothing else. There were tables and chairs. The tables had items on them, but you could not interact with them or take a seat.
I can’t easily convey how large the stadium was in there. It was promoting a soccer game and a chairty. It was a huge, cavenous empty space. Only one video was there to look at.
The Home E3 experience took about two hours to walk through and try to find what you are supposed to see. Most of that time was spent wandering dead ends, clicking on things that did nothing, and finally wondering where the hell the content was.

In my various explorations of spiritual practices I came across Yoga and Chi Gung breathing techniques. It was fascinating to see these age old healing principles integrated into a new video game by Ubisoft. To your health!

As the game industry press nodded off to the usual boring Nintendo conference, we all thought we were being returned to 1986. Mickey Mouse and vintage black and white comics were shown made into a side scroller. That 100 year old material was referred to as “fresh”. Then another Zelda came out and they said it was a “new game experience”. And then they tried to show off yet another version of Metroid. Sure they top the numbers charts each year by re – releasing the same IP’s over and over.

Everyone almost fell off thier chairs when they finally made a big reveal.

The 3DS. It has a 3D screen on top which will play 3D games and movies. No 3D glasses are needed. An impressive list of 3RD party developers was rattled off. The new device will also have a double camera which you can use to take 3D digital photos. It will have wifi and the usual connectivity.

Then they sent out about a hundred sexy models with the new 3DS chained to their metal belts. And then game play stations lifted up out of the floor with the new Zelda playing on them. What a presentation!
They did actually have an innovation. A very well kept secret. Perhaps even something revolutionary. Again.

Another new E3 game with a female avatar in the mix.