Yes indeed, you heard it here first. On episode 14 of the Gatebuzz podcast I pointed out:

Im sitting here still breathless, still drooling over the graphics. 1UP.COM was understating thing when they said “the footage I saw of Stargate Worlds, while brief, was certainly nice to look at” … the footage was gorgeous. There was a little over 3 and a half minutes of total video footage, probably 1/2 of which is the actual interviews. So, that means under 2 minutes of actual in-game footage and I am hooked.

I would suggest taking a look at the recent “anatomy of a sound” video podcast from CME, where Nick LaMartina discusses creating the ambient sound for a location in the game. We see a very basic test-setup with a grey-uniformed, shaven headed soldier with P90 on his back, and Nick moving him around to demonstrate how the ambient sound system for the game will work.

The demo that folks saw at GDC, I assume is the same one that is cut into the GAME TRAILERS interviews with Dan Elggren and Demetrius Comes. It shows that same test soldier running around in the environment of several worlds. What it also included was a few gorgeous panoramic camera angles, and sweeping cinematic camera shots to establish the environment. An atlantis style puddle-jumper was clearly visible in the foreground early on. The Creative director at CME - Chris Klug - has a background in the visual arts … and it shows in-game with shots like these. There was an epic feel to them, a saturated colour palette that was rich without being garish, and beautifully modelled and rendered scenes to explore. The decision to use the Unreal Engine 3 was clearly a good one, given what we can see on the GAME TRAILERS website.

Well, today there were 2 pasts from Khatie:

Feb. 28th, 2008 at 7:29am, Khatie wrote:

So after speaking with the powers that be, we can’t show the trailer in its current state but there were LARGE portions of the trailer shown here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31116.html?type=

and here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31116.html?type=

I am sorry for not being able to release more yet but… we’ll get it to you eventually.

I feel like I let you guys down.

Then in a later post, after being asked why the full trailer couldnt be shown:

Feb. 28th, 2008 at 7:48am, Khatie wrote:

It’s finished for what it was used for (to show press at GDC) but, there are portions that aren’t yet finished (the player character you see running around in the trailer is a place-holder, not final) and so they want to wait until all elements are final before revealing it to the broader public.

The podcast community heard it first, by a full day, 200 downloads of that particular episode and counting! So, be sure to subscribe (either to the email notification, with your Zune, with iTunes or another podcatcher) as Alison, Fenrir, Uplink and I work to bring the latest in timely news & buzz … and here’s hoping that we score a few exclusives in the coming weeks too!

There are two kinds of notification available:

• Basic
• Enhanced

Any user who enters an email address is signing up for the Basic notification - you will be notified in plain-text that a new podcast episode has been published, with a snippet of the show notes in the email that is sent out.

Enhanced notifications go to users who have registered on the Gatebuzz site. Registered users will receive an email containing the whole show notes for new podcast entries. In addition, registered users may manage their subscription through their profile here on the site, allowing the selection of either plain-text or HTML emails, and the ability to sign up for notifications about other categories of post (News, Podcast Episodes, Site Updates, etc) as well.

So, if you want to receive an email when something happens here on the site, either sign up as a user or, click the “Sign up for email notifications” link and enter your email address.

The site has had a major overhaul to improve both the load-time (it should load a lot faster than before) and make better use of screen real-estate. It’s been tested on Windows (in Firefox and IE 7) and on my Mac (in Firefox and Safari) and all seems to look good. Let me know if you notice any glitches.

I’ve added the ability to rate posts and podcast episodes. They all have a small “5-star” rating on them, simply mouse over and click your rating and your vote will be logged. I will be particularly interested in seeing your ratings on the podcast episodes!

ESAK players often see the game world as a great stage, full of things to see and people to meet. They love teaming up with people to get to the hard-to-see places, and they relish unique experiences.

Breakdown: Achiever 33.33%, Explorer 80.00%, Killer 20.00%, Socializer 66.67%

The Bartle Test was originally designed for players of MUDs (multi-user dungeons) but continues to have applicability to virtual worlds of all kinds–especially MMORPGs. The test attempts to measure a player based on what they enjoy most about a game, based on four axes:

The Four Bartle Catagories

• People with high Achiever scores tend to prefer collecting points, levels, treasure and accomplishments that set them apart from other players–or simply present challenges.
• People with high Explorer scores tend to enjoy finding all of the unique areas of the world, often enjoying the immersion of the experience. Finding a place with unique monsters and seeing what those monsters do is usually more fun for an Explorer than defeating the monsters themselves.
• People with high Killer scores prefer the player-versus-player aspect of any game more than anything offered by the environment. They often relish the adrenaline and challenge of pitting themselves against real players.
• People with high Socializer scores enjoy interacting with other people, forming organizations, and finding cooperative solutions to the challenges within the virtual world.

From the main Stargate Worlds forums:

Originally Posted by Ledaye
Okay, so here’s a name: Anat. You might also want to research Egyptian funereal texts.

Mythology

Anat is described as a major goddess of fertility, sexual love, hunting and war.

In the Egyptian myth of the Contest between Horus (Heru-ur) and Seth, Anat and Ashtart appear as daughters of Ra and consorts of Seth/Baal (Note: In Egyptian myth it was Seth, who they equated with the Canaanite deity Baal). As a warrior Anat confined herself to slaying the enemies of Baal. She may also be Rachmay, one of the two nursemaids of the gods. She is also the twin sister of Myrrh. She participates in the confrontation between Baal and Yam-Nahar. In a missing portion of the text she slays Yam and other enemies of Baal. Although Baal personally overcame Yam, it is uncertain whether or not he fought Lotan, the Leviathan of the Old Testament, but it is known that Anat “crushed the writhing serpent, the accused one of the seven heads.”

Burial

What’s interesting is the reference to Myrrh - humans were stuffed with precious spices before burial after the removal of organs (to prevent decomposition). Myrrh and cassia (a fragrant bark similar to cinnamon) were placed in the abdominal cavity, which was then sewn up.

Some Conclusions

It is possible that the reference to Anat “crushing the writhing serpent” might be a previous victorious confrontation between Anat and Apophis. Since Apophis and Ra were rivals, this would be likely given the close relationship Anat is implied to have with the Supreme System Lord Ra.

Anat seems to have been closely allied with the System Lords Seth and Baal and has clearly been to war on behalf of Baal, perhaps even them both.

Anat and Hathor seem to have similar roles, with regard to sexuality and fertility, but Anat was clearly the more dangerous and military minded of the two while Hathor was more popular and enduring. Anat vanishes from the pages of history where Hathor lived on, equated with Aphrodite/Venus. Both appear to have been Goa’uld queens (”one of the two nursemaids of the gods”).

What is interesting is the reference to Myrrh, however. This suggests that her military mind was seeking foot-soldiers, and that Anat may well be the mother/originator of the Jaffa. (sister of Myrrh, placed into the abdominal cavity).

That is, the archived podcast episodes have been moved to a new media server, and are now back online. Thanks to all who offered mirroring services - its great to see the flood of support from the community of listeners!

I’ve seen a HUGE spike in the number of visitors arriving at the site, and downloading the podcast since CME officially named me fan-site of the week. We’re talking 5-10 times the normal number of visitors. Its wonderful exposure and I’m very grateful for all of the comments that have been sent in to me via email.

I’m close to the limits of outgoing bandwidth for the site right now (thanks CME for the exposure!). I’ve archived episodes 1 - 6 of the podcast for the moment and left the latest episodes available. Old episodes will come back, I just need to conserve bandwidth for a few days! I have to say, what a wonderful problem to have!

Episode 9 is scripted but there were some hardware glitches this evening that stopped me recording. I’ll get it out tomorrow night, I promise!

When I started the podcast I knew that there was a possibility of people tuning in and listening from literally anywhere. I was browsing through my site stats and wanted to share these maps - see if you can pick out the dot that is you!

I have to say, as web hosting companies go, mine ROCKS. Things during November were looking good - I was all set to stay within my bandwidth allocation. I knew the podcast was growing and my projection was that I would be OK during December, and might need to think about upgrading the hosting account sometime in January.

Wow.

First of all, it looks from the stats like Episode 3 of the podcast is head-and-shoulders more popular than the rest, perhaps that was due to a certain prediction I made?

Then, the popularity of the podcast has taken off faster than I could have predicted. (I <3 all of my subscribers, you know who you guys are!) I upload episodes and literally within minutes am seeing downloads from the feed. That is the sort of thing that will keep me on the air! Seriously, its a question of supply and demand ... I am seeing a demand, and happy to maintain the supply for you all.

So add together popularity in general, with a single episode that's running at over 130 downloads as we speak and about 20 to 25 meg per episode and you have a recipe for busting through 7 gig of bandwidth in less than a month. Yes, that’s right. Over 7 gig of bandwidth in about 3 and a half weeks. My web hosting company kindly turned a blind eye to their quotas as I sailed right past them, and in return I pulled out the credit-card to upgrade the hosting. Let’s see if you can bust the new limits people!

(and yes, that is a challenge!)

So, thankyou to CQHost and thank you to all the listeners who’re making this such a fun rollercoaster ride. Keep on listening!