Exclusive Interview: Zach Wigal of Gamers Outreach Foundation, Microsoft MVP award winner
When I last spoke with Zach Wigal, founder of Gamers Outreach Foundation, he was just finishing up a Halo 3 tournament in January to raise funds for his community.
I caught up with Wigala few weeks ago and learned he has just earned the Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award.
Wigal said he only became aware of the program a few months ago after doing an interview with Chris Erickson of 360StyleCast podcast and added that…
Gaia Online to include in-world instant messaging
I just received a message from Gaia online today that asked a strange question: “Hi Lucy, What do Neopets, MapleStory and Habbo all have in common?“
Out of curiosity I logged into my Gaia Online account to see what Kate Pietrelli, an account manager for TriplePoint (Gaia’s PR agency), is typing about and, sure enough, along the top of the page is the option to send an instant message my fellow Gaians…
Gaia Online becomes new market for virtual resource
Gaia Online just announced the release of celebrity-inspired items for Gaia users. This week’s items now allow registrants the opportunity to dress up their avatars as Snoop Dogg or The Incredible Hulk with hairstyles, purple pants, green fists and more. This marks the first time fully licensed celebrity-branded virtual items have been sold in the virtual world.
In a partnership with virtual goods sales and distribution system Virtual Greats LLC, Gaia Online will allow users to collect or “snare“ quality celebrity items each month to create…
PlayXpert partners with Vivox for in-game voice service
PlayXpert, which provides in-game community solutions, has joined with Vivox to bring its users in-game voice calls. Now PlayXpert users will be able to make high quality voice calls to other gamers from any game, allowing them to communicate more effectively.
Gamers will be able to enjoy the feature after they register for PlayXpert’s services. Beyond gamer-to-gamer chat, PlayXpert will offer other more sophisticated voice services including a private guild channel chat.
The advanced voice functionality should…
The quest to create cohesive MMO worlds
With the increasing popularity of MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games) and the growing user community, the technologies behind them have to evolve in order to accommodate hordes of players living and interacting in a virtual world. As hundreds of thousands of users conduct raids and battles, powerful computer clusters have to keep track of every move and action users make. As the users keep on coming, companies have to figure out ways of keeping these worlds running smoothly.
While different companies employ different architectures to simulate these virtual environments, all of them are working to develop a solution in which all the players could really share a single virtual world. In case of the popular World of Warcraft, Blizzard uses what they call “shards,” which are copies of the same world running in different machines. Users of WOW, which now total over 9 million, are distributed amongst these shards to…
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RE: Lego Harry Potter on its way
Oh I seriously and genuinely hope this is true! XD" MORE »
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RE: How To: Create a Japanese Playstation Store account
I love to download some of these demos. Hungry for them." MORE »
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RE: In-depth Advance Wars: Days of Ruin CO impressions
>> Tabitha would easily murder Forsythe, especially once she unleashes her COP. She’s the reason why I don’t play Wifi anymore. Uh, the metagame has…" MORE »
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RE: A few of our favorite Lovecraft-inspired games
Eternal Darkness was an incredible game." MORE »
