Weekly Update: The Return to Los Angeles
Saturday, January 5th, 2008
Back in Los Angeles
As of around 7 pm last night I’m finally back in Los Angeles from a stint back in the old country (i.e. Kentucky) visiting family and friends for the Holidays. I had originally planned to be back on Sunday but decided to come back early on Wednesday. After driving 2 hours in a zero visibility snow storm on I-71 N to Columbus Ohio for a 6 am flight, it ended up being canceled, sending me back 2 hours through the snow to Kentucky to re-evaluate (Note: Never fly Skybus). Luckily I was able to get a flight out the next day around 3 pm (EST) with a short stop off in Denver, Colorado and eventually ending in Burbank, California.
Yesterday was a blur with 90% of the day taken up by Travel, once I landed in Los Angeles I shuffled through a pile of mail waiting at my place, picked up my dog, went to Best Buy in Sherman Oaks for an impulse shopping spree just before they closed:
(begin splurge)
120 GB Hard Drive for Xbox 360
Medal of Honors Heroes 2 for Wii
Beowolf for Xbox 360
iHome for iPod
(end splurge)
Then headed to the studio at Infinity Ward, checked some email, opened some packages that arrived after I left, and try to lessen the impact of Monday when everyone returns to the Studio from holiday.
Got a cool package from a mature Call of Duty 4 clan called 2old4duty from the website http://www.2old2play.com/; who brewed up some “Lobby Fuel” Holiday Ale specially branded for Call of Duty 4 and IW. When my new camera comes in I’ll be sure to take some photos of the COD4 branded booze for you guys to check out. So THANK YOU 2OLD4DUTY! It’s much appreciated gift!
New Years Resolutions
My previous post outlined my new years resolutions, which I’m happy to say I’ve been doing a pretty good job of keeping / preparing for. I fully plan to take more pictures, and have already ordered a new digital camera (check it out) to get the job done, and will be picking up a new video camera for some videos. I’ve been focused on returning every email that comes in (to my hotmail at the moment) and will carry that over to my work emails when we get back to the studio officially on Monday.
In addition, I’m hoping writing up these Weekly, and eventually Daily Update blog posts will help me achieve my “Blog More” resolution and force myself to update more frequently. Hopefully giving you guys a bit more insight not only on the facts but some “how to” and “how come” information about those facts, giving you a inside look at how things play out behind the scenes hopefully.
80GB PS3 Joining the Collection
As you may have noticed in my gaming collection listed along the side of this blog; there is a severe lack of Sony representation happening, with just about every other major console being represented. Well, of course I have a PS3 at work that I use and stay updated on with all the Sony happenings, but I’ll finally be adding an 80GB PS3 to my gaming collection at home.
I plan on picking up tomorrow, and hope this will help me stay more in touch with our PS3 community and the status of the PS3 Network even when I’m not at the office. It couldn’t be too soon either, with the recent announcement that Warner Bros. will be going Blu-ray exclusive as of May 2008 despite the fact I already own and fully supported HD-DVDs. The new was disheartening to say the least, as I personally prefer HD-DVD’s capabilities and performance over that of Blu-Ray, but with some of my favorite titles being Blu-ray exclusive (i.e. 28 Weeks Later, 28 Days Later, Die Hard Collection, Resident Evil) it was becoming apparent I had to at least get a Blu-ray player at one point or another.
So as soon as I have my personal PSN account set up, I’ll be sure to let you all know my PSN Username.
On the Note of High Definition Movies
I’ve recently become addicted to Amazon.com, mainly due to being bored out of my mind in Kentucky after a week and turning to online window shopping to appease me. However that’s not the point, the point is for you High Def junkies, Amazon.com is having a Buy One Get One Free deal on all their High Def movies, that’s right format warriors, BOTH HD-DVD (link) and Blu-ray (link) movies are included.
With the new Blu-ray player entering my collection I decided to preemptively stock up with some of my favorites thanks to the sale; adding the following to my collection:
- X-Men - The Last Stand (Blu-ray)
- Live Free or Die Hard (Blu-ray)
- 28 Days Later (Blu-ray)
- 28 Weeks Later (Blu-ray)
- Die Hard with a Vengeance (Blu-ray)
- Die Hard 2 (Blu-ray)
- Die Hard (Blu-ray)
- Hot Fuzz (HD DVD)
- Children of Men (HD DVD)
- Waterworld (HD DVD)
- Dante’s Peak (HD DVD)
- Mercury Rising (HD DVD)
- Backdraft (HD DVD)
The Blu-ray deal was sporting a much larger (and better imo) selection with 5 pages to choose from vs. the HD-DVD’s 2 pages of mostly older titles. I was able to score the entire Die Hard trilogy on Blu-ray plus some zombie flicks for good measure.
Despite the recent announcement and finally folding and buying Blu-ray myself, I’m still an avid HD-DVD supporter, and I reluctantly buy Blu-ray as in the long run I’m hoping some major announcement will be made at CES this week that will change the tide a bit and bring more production studios over to HD-DVD as I feel its a much more reliable format.
PS3 Servers
On a game related note, the PS3 Matchmaking / Database servers for the PS3 version of the game have been producing a lot of headaches over the Holiday break due to the increased traffic and players online in record numbers. An issue we’ve been making sure the server providers are addressing and are working on at this moment.
A little background info: Infinity Ward doesn’t host or maintain any servers itself at the studio, which is a common misconception among gamers. We develop the game, but multiplayer servers are handled by outside parties for each platform. For example Xbox 360 version uses Xbox Live servers at Microsoft, PC uses dedicated servers by server admins, and PS3 users servers provided by DemonWare (a company we pay to host and maintain them).
So whenever there’s an issue I make sure I’m contacting the appropriate parties and making them aware of it and passing along any updates, feedback, or information between them and the community whenever applicable. So understand that updates from them typically take longer than updates you’d receive if it was an Infinity Ward issue that we could personally address.
Regardless, I appreciate all the feedback and emails I’ve gotten over the break that has helped me stay on top of the issues while out of town and out of the studio. There’s a few dedicated tipsters who are great at dropping me a line whenever there’s issues so I can immediately address, thank YOU!
In Conclusion
It’s been a hectic week, due mainly to canceled flights and cross country travel. I’m stoked to pick up a PS3 tomorrow and dive into some of it’s exclusives I’ve been missing out on (i.e. Drake’s Fortune / Ratchet and Clank), and finally playing more heavily online with Call of Duty 4 and our PS3 community!
