Friday 29 October 2010

Blade & Soul: G-Star 2010 Teaser Trailer

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G-Star isn't too far away now (November 18th), but NCsoft released a short teaser trailer to get us all excited for the Blade & Soul playable demo. The video doesn't show much admittedly, but it is just a teaser...

Monday 25 October 2010

Guild Wars 2: Amazing New Concept Art

A few days ago, at the New York Comic Con, ArenaNet released a slideshow that showcased some of the latest concept art for Guild Wars 2. Among these amazing images were a few that stood out, my particular favourite is the image below. The guys at ArenaNet said that each dungeon in the game will have its own unique armour set, so I can only assume that the image below is one of those dungeon sets, but don't hold me to that, I am merely speculating. But one thing I do know for sure, is if this makes it into the final game, I definitely want this set!

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And here is another awesome piece of art; think I might make this one my phone wallpaper >:]

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This is the full slideshow that was shown at Comic Con:


Oh also, given that this is a Guild Wars post it is still relevant, I got my 10th point on the Guild Wars Hall of Monument calculator, which means I get the Fiery Dragon Sword I was after! Managed to do so by getting 20 miniatures in my HoM, and adding M.O.X. to my statues to give me 3 much needed points.

Sunday 24 October 2010

Blizzcon 2010: Diablo III Round-up

Yo people, sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I have been really busy this past week with university work and the like. Anyway, that isn't important, what is important is the latest Diablo III footage that was shown recently at Blizzcon 2010. I know I'm a bit late to the scene, seeing as this has been floating around the internet for the past few days, but I thought I'd just do a quick round-up regardless.

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I put a few videos below that show off the new Demon Hunter class; the first is the cinematic trailer for the Demon Hunter class, and the two videos below that are gameplay of said Demon Hunter. Enjoy!





Friday 22 October 2010

Christ Church Commemoration Ball 2011

If you are reading this post, then chances are you have found your way here via the Christ Church Commemoration Ball 2011 website that I created. I had initially planned to have my own website/portfolio up by now, and for the Christ Church site to link to that, but you know what they say about "the best laid plans of mice and men".

That aside, I should probably briefly introduce myself to those of you still baffled as to why you are here and who I am. My name is Alex Noon, and I am a Game Design student at the University of Westminster; I also do Web Design on the side. This blog is part of an assignment for one of my University modules, but at the same time, it's an insight into who I am, so I figured it's the next best place to link people to given that my website is not yet up. As for why a student from the University of Westminster, is making a website for Oxford, well you can thank my brother (Christopher Noon) for that; people in high places and whatnot.

With a bit of luck, my website will be up and running soon, so the Christ Church site will no longer have to redirect you here. But until then, this will have to do.

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Monday 18 October 2010

Self Promotion 01

Ok, so I have been getting a bit caught up in this whole blogging thing, and before I run the risk of veering too far off course, I had better do a university related post, just to show that this is still work related, and not just an excuse for me to talk about what I love.

Anyway, given that the first few weeks are all about preparation, and getting myself ready to send stuff off to the industry, there isn't much I can post about other than exactly that, my preparation. But I am actually going to gear this post more specifically towards my name, logo and business cards.

Although I did these designs in the summer holiday, they are still very much related to what I am doing right now, so just because I was ahead of the game, doesn't mean I shouldn't get credit for my work, right?

Anyway, I decided to create my logo based around my Gamertag/PSN ID, which is 'Arekkz'. In fact, I use Arekkz on/in everything; I have it on my shoes (only on my custom Nike ID shoes), in any game I play that enables you to name your character, on forums, or websites such as Twitter, Last.fm, etc. Basically, anywhere you see Arekkz, you can be sure it's related to me. So I set about creating a logo based around my name.

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As you can see from some of the ideas above, I went through a few variations (there were many more than the ones you see above, but I decided to just show the final few) before I actually came to something I liked; and more importantly, something I'd be happy to show others.

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So with the logo designed, I set about constructing my business card. I knew that I wanted to keep it simple and clean (hah, 'Simple and Clean', that's an Utada Hikaru song! XD), and I knew the colours I wanted to use. So with all that in my head, it wasn't too hard to put the pieces together and create something that not only looked professional, but stood out at the same time.

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So with the card designed, I sent them to Vista Print, and had 250 cards made on their best quality card. They were even nice enough to send me a free card holder! So now that I have enough business cards to last me quite a while, I have no excuse not to network. I always carry 10 cards in my wallet, after all you never know where you will meet people. In fact, I already gave out 5 cards when I went to Eurogamer Expo a few weeks back, so that's something that can go towards my 'self promotion' on this module.

Anyway, that's about it for this post, but if I have time tomorrow, I might do that post on Castlevania, Final Fantasy XIV and Naruto that I said I would. But that's only if I get all my work done first, because tomorrow looks to be a busy day.

But until then, take it easy~

Sunday 17 October 2010

G-Star 2010

It's just a quick post from me today, because I had work today, and as a result I have Uni. work that I need to do this evening.

But I just thought I'd bring up G-Star 2010 (November 18th), or more specifically NCsoft and what they have to show at G-Star this year. There are two MMO's that I am currently anticipating, both of which I have been waiting for for a very long time, the first being Guild Wars 2, but I'm sure you gathered that from my last post, and the other being Blade and Soul.

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Blade and Soul looks amazing from what they have shown so far, but they have yet to show any solid chunks of gameplay, only glimpses here and there, however this year, at G-Star, they are bringing with them a playable demo of Blade and Soul!! Which means quite soon we will be able to get a real look at just what this game is made of; here's hoping it doesn't disappoint (but it's NCsoft, and they are awesome, so I'm sure it will be amazing). Here is the video they showed at last years G-Star 2009:

Saturday 16 October 2010

Productivity at its best...

Here I am, back again, and I have to say, this whole blogging thing is growing on me.

So University has officially started now; it started two weeks back, but I am officially in work mode now, and coursework has begun, meaning I can officially say goodbye to any vast amounts of free time I may have had. This term I have three main things to focus on: my final year project, my group project and my project for the module which required me to write this blog. For my final year project, I am going to be developing a 3D platformer using the Nintendo Wiimote as the controller, and that is all going to be done in C++ and I'm going to be using the Ogre 3D engine. The group project I am working on is a 2D RTS game developed in Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, meaning that one is going to be done using C#. And finally, the project for the module that had me write this blog is in two parts: part one is this blog, so that is already under way, and part two is my online portfolio/website, and that I will start probably next week. So it's all go, but that's what I'm here for, so I've just gotta knuckle down now.

This morning has been quite productive actually, I decided to set time frames in which to do things, which seemed to help motivate me more, and I actually got it all done (I procrastinate a lot you see, so it seems from now on I'm going to have to put time frames on everything!). I woke up early this morning so I could watch Smallville before I started my work, then once that had finished I got onto programming for the group project. I managed to create an RTS-style selection box that allows the player to select units that are on screen, then I put in some custom sprites because circles to represent units are just boring; so now the player can drag a box over the two units on screen, and click where they want them to move, and they will move. Considering we aren't having our first team meeting till Monday, I think that is enough to get us started; at least until I do all the other things on my 'to do list'. Then once that was finished I spent the next hour working on my draft project proposal for my final year project. So I thought I'd take a break until after lunch, update my blog, then this afternoon I need to get to grips with the Ogre 3D engine.

Hopefully, if I finish my work in good time today, I might actually get time to play some games; I've been really busy the past two days and I haven't had a chance to play anything! My copy of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm arrived on Thursday, and I have yet to get into the story mode, I still have Castlevania Lords of Shadow on the go, and I am currently playing Final Fantasy XIV (although
TwoSixNine and I have been discussing FFXIV and we both agreed that given how busy we are at Uni. right now, we might have to quit it for now), not to mention I have Fable III coming in 2 weeks!

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Also, on another note, the Guild Wars 2 Hall of Monuments calculator went up last week, so I was able to officially see what my efforts in Guild Wars 1 had earned me in Guild Wars 2. I currently have 7/50 points; not that impressive I know, but I took a long break from Guild Wars and only recently came back to it two months ago, so I had a lot of catching up to do! However having said that, those 7 points do still entitle me to a complete set of armour when I start the game.

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I'm not aiming to get the full 50 points, nor am I even aiming to get 40, 30 or even 20 points, given that I don't have the time to work on it right now, but I am going to try and push up to 10 points. Having 10/50 will give me the 'Guild Warrior' title, and will also earn me the 'Fiery Dragon Sword' which is pretty cool.


But in order to do that, I still need to complete my Asuran armour set for my Assassin, and get a couple of tokens so I can upgrade my Heroes' armour, but that is something I can do here and there, so fitting that into my busy schedule shouldn't be a problem.

For those of you that haven't yet seen anything of Guild Wars 2 (what have you been doing?!?) then here is their manifesto trailer:


Anyway I think that is enough for now; if I finish my work in good time and get a chance to play Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm later, then I might do another post on my thoughts on the game. In fact, I think I'll do a combined post on the three games I said I am currently playing: Castlevania, Naruto and FFXIV.

But until then, take it easy~

Monday 11 October 2010

Eurogamer Expo

Right, I have put this off long enough, so here we go, my post detailing what I got up to at Eurogamer Expo.

Eurogamer Expo, for those of you that don't know, is the UK's biggest dedicated video games event. It is a means for the public to play some of the most anticipated games, hear from some of the world's most talented developers and get involved with the industry via the GamesIndustry.biz Career Fair. So I went along on Friday 1st October as a member of the public, but returned on the 3rd October as a volunteer, and it is that which I am going to be talking about.

See shortly after volunteering to help out at the expo, I received an email from the organiser asking whether anyone was interested in working alongside Bethesda and the Splash Damage guys to help them demonstrate their game 'Brink', and seeing as this is a game that I have been looking forward to ever since seeing the live stage demo at least years Eurogamer Expo, I jumped at the opportunity. So there we have it, not only was I going to be spending Sunday helping demonstrate a game I actually like, but I'd also be doing so alongside the developers of the game, meaning this was the perfect opportunity to start networking!

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My job throughout the day was simple, I was tasked with helping people out if they looked confused or stuck while playing the game, telling people what they should be doing in order to complete the specified objectives, resetting the game back to the character customisation menu after a person had finished playing the demo and finally monitoring the queue to ensure no sneaky pirates try and jump the line. Each demo run lasted about 20-30 minutes, meaning once people had been shown to their seats, and they knew what they were doing, I had plenty of time to talk to the Splash Damage guys (the developers of the game).

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Throughout the course of the day, my friend (who is also on my course, and thus in the same boat as me) and I spoke to most of the staff, and asked them various different questions ranging from employment possibilities, life in the industry and what they'd be looking for from potential employees, and they were more than happy to answer our questions; they were a great bunch of people actually, really friendly and 'down to earth'. So at the end of the day, I gave out my business cards to a few of the guys, and got theirs in return, so this way, I have a means of getting in contact with them regarding potential employment. In fact, my friend and I are currently in the process of updating our CVs, sorting out our covering letters and whatnot so that we can both apply to them quite soon.

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So, that is the end of my report on Eurogamer Expo, meaning I am done for this week; next weeks post will probably relate to my sending off of my application, and perhaps other companies that I have looked at. I shall see what the week holds.

Just before I go, I thought I'd share Brink's cinematic trailer from GDC 2010 because it's just awesome! (Despite the fact that my tutors are probably the only people reading this, so I'm not exactly sharing the video with the world, but I'll do it anyway!)


If you don't know about the game already, then check out the official site for more information!

Saturday 9 October 2010

The Beginning...

Ok, right, let's see, where to start...

Basically, I'm a Game Design student in my final year of university, and it's time to get serious. This year, whilst juggling my final year project, coursework from different modules and general life, I also need to start getting my act together, because I'm going to have to start applying to for jobs; after all, I wont get into the games industry otherwise!

So one of my modules is designed to help get me ready for, and into, the 'real world', starting with getting my CV up to scratch, and then my portfolio. As part of this module, I have been asked to write a weekly blog which will detail what I am doing to get in contact with different companies, and how my application to said companies is going. So on a weekly basis, I will update this blog, detailing what attempts I have made to apply to different companies, or what I have done to improve my portfolio, etc. I guess this is my tutors' way of keeping me in check, but at the same time, it will be beneficial to me as a means to reflect on what I've done, or something like that.

Anyway, I still need to write this weeks entry, but I shall do that later (later doesn't necessarily mean today!), but it will detail my volunteering at Eurogamer Expo!