This week Too Human has released (August 20th), a game that has been development for an epic nine years by the development team at Silicon Knights and published by Microsoft.  The release hasn’t come without it’s controversy, with mixed reviews coming in early this week about the game.  Since the game just released today in most stores our data isn’t really there to indicate if Too Human will come out of the game with a splash or a thud.   Whatever the case may be, it will be interesting to see how this pans out.  My bet is that this game will be a hot topic for weeks to come.

Team Fortress 2 has been in the news this week because of their free Heavy Update to the game, which added new maps as well as new weapons and achievements to the Heavy class.   Valve has stepped it up another notch by allowing everyone to play Team Fortress 2 for free this weekend.  If you haven’t already, check this game out, it is one of the best online multiplayer FPS’s out right now.

Last but certainly not least, the drums of WAR have begun as we get closer and closer to the release of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.  The excitement for this MMORPG has increased with the developers dropping the NDA for the game, the announcement of the Warhammer Online release date and finally announcing that Open Beta starts on September 7th.  At gamerDNA we’re very excited about Warhammer Online, so you can count on some fun and exciting WAR announcements coming in the coming days and weeks.  Next week we’re hoping to launch a free Warhammer guild theme, so stay tuned and check out our free guild hosting in preparation for the new custom theme.

That about wraps it up for this week’s update. Soon we’ll be talking about our new Warhammer Theme as well as our upcoming visit to the Penny Arcade Expo next week.  See you next time!

Member Profile Changes/Enhancements

1. Tweaked the badges page in the profile section to have more information.
2. The quiz master achievement badge has been reset. In order to qualify again, you have to take all 4 of the quizzes.
3. Implemented a new gamerDNA Trait signature image file. Get to it in your Badges page of your profile… You can chose between four versions, each emphasizing one of the quizzes with your results. Here is an example of it using mine:

   

4. Made some tweaks to the Twitter and Last.fm boxes on the profile page.
5. Fixed a problem where item lists in the character pane of the DNA panel were all linking to the same item description (the One Ring). They now link to the proper descriptions.

Guild hosting changes/enhancements

1. A new images roll-up has been added to the guild hosting. It is activated by default, and available via the image gallery tab. Any images uploaded into a gamerDNA profile and attached to the guild will appear on that page.
2. The guild leader can also add a picture strip to the guild homepage showing the most recently added pictures.
3. Cleaned up the guild hosting pages so that the buttons are readable in all cases and template selections.

General Site Changes/Enhancements

1. All Bartle results for existing members have been converted into the new system so that retaking is not required.
2. Any call to a game with no icon will return a default icon.
3. Added new footer links that point to the B2B site.
4. Built out OpenID Login and trust pages for the identity provider. (can’t see this yet but soon!)
5. On the quiz landing page, clicking the quiz title now takes you to the quiz homepage.
6. Made tweaks to the company blog including redirects, some side bar gadgets, some new plugins, etc.
7. When Darkfall was added, a data issue was preventing the theme picker from working properly. This has been corrected.
8. Fixed an issue where IE7 was sometimes failing to display the quiz results page.
9. Fixed a bug where users who were giving respect were not getting the proper fame. It has not been corrected to give fame in the correct manner.
10. Made multiple tweaks and enhancements to the quiz results pages to clean up text wrapping, positioning and some more general copy.
11. Made some SEO enhancements to the member page so they will appear better in search engines.
12. Made some of the forum icons transparent at the request of the user community!
13. Fixed a rounding issue in the quiz system to make the test results more accurate. You will need to retake your quizzes to take advantage of the higher resolution.
14. The numbers of people reported to take the quizzes was not right. We corrected the counter.
15. Fixed an issue where the next button was jumping around on the quiz page when some answers were selected.
16. Quiz badges now properly display the avatar. The issue was that the sizes and file types weren’t uniform, now there is a process to complete that correctly.

    Note: In order for your badge to show the avatar for a quiz, you must visit your results page and that will re-generate the badge correctly.

17. Fixed some typos in the gamerDNA bot quiz responses at the request of the user community.
18. Fixed a few display bugs in the Activity feed.
19. Added the mini profile popup to the quiz results pages, so that mousing over a gamerpic shows the user profile information.
20. Fixed an issue in quizzes where the meta-takeaway was not reporting consistently making it seem like your traits were changing. It now sorts correctly.
21. Corrected an attitude question that said GuildCafe… should be GamerDNA.
22. Fixed some 404 errors on the homepage for images. These were hidden images that couldn’t be seen.

Coming down the line

A lot of outstanding issues here… but things everyone should continue to be aware of:

1. Blogs will be converted into experiences and turned off.
2. Users will be prompted to rename themselves if they don’t conform to OpenID naming standards
3. We are aware of performance issues and looking into them.
4. Guild Roster updates eminent.
5. Still working on the search engine performance and bringing it back.
6. Working on challenge gadget performance and bringing it back.

GamerDNA has proposed a presentation on this subject at the upcoming South by Southwest (SXSW) conference.  If the subject interests you, please vote for our entry at this years conference clicking here: GamerDNA SXSW Presentation — and voting it up.  Comments are also very welcome and helpful, as they’ll help the panel committee understand why the panel is important.

This is also an opportunity to raise the profile of the people who make up the GamerDNA community–because we’ll be talking about our own members and what we’ve learned about games and gaming from YOU.  Be a part of shaping the way gamers are perceived by the industry!

(more…)

If you want to customize Darkfall, it has has slots for 4 images that can be replaced with your own, to randomly change the image in the top left corner. By default the theme has 4 different dragons in that position by default. You can also replace the 4 large background image as well… the only thing static are the gray boxes with boarders and tribal edges. So have fun with it! Leave any feedback in the comments!

Dream of Mirror Online features a fun and beneficial “personal relationships” system. Everyone, in some way, depends on others, and when you nurture those relationships, you’ll not only make great new friends, you’ll enjoy the benefits of having someone to back you up in any battle, and perhaps even some exclusive special abilities as well.

In Dream of Mirror Online, your characters are able to develop three types of close human relationships: Teacher and Student, Friends, and Lovers. Anyone can develop these relationships, but other relationships are predestined - depending on your birth date and your Chinese zodiac sign, you’ll be connected to certain players by the red string of fate. You may find yourselves to be relatives, rivals, or even a true love via these fated connections - and who knows what may happen after that? It’s all up to your initiative!

The theme comes in orange or blue, sun or moon and displays one of up to five DOMO figures at random. The randomizing images is a new feature and this is the first theme to take advantage of it. You can also customize it even further so that it works with other similarly styled clan/guilds. Enjoy!

Some of the games used in the analysis include: Rock Band, Guitar Hero III, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto IV and Call of Duty IV.

Profile Enhancements & Changes

1. Added ICQ as an AKA that you can specify in your gamerDNA panel.
2. A message was added to quiz section of the DNA panel temporarily to explain where the quizzes have moved to (in case people are looking for them). This will be removed later.
3. Added the ability to add a level to Guild Wars characters in your DNA Panel.
4. Fixed a bug where experience embellishments were being blocked in some cases.
5. Fixed a bug where users who were giving respect were not getting the proper fame. It has not been corrected to give fame in the correct manner.
6. Hover for WoW characters in the DNA Panel fixed for Safari users.
7. Previously, if you deleted an image there was no feedback that the delete happened. It now notifies properly.
8. Fixed an issue where the guild theme styles were conflicting with the DNA panel when adding a character.
9. New badges section added to the member profile page that holds all your dynamic quiz results sig images.

General Site Enhancements & Changes

1. New B2B site has been deployed, it isn’t live yet, but will be shortly, focusing on the GamerDNA Alliance and providing additional information about the program and members.
2. New quiz system has been launched! For more details check out the Quizzes 101 post.
3. Old quizzes were removed/altered to work with the new system. the MMO Personality test will be added back under the new system in the coming weeks.
4. New buttons and icons have been added to the forums, replacing the old GuildCafe style.
5. More themes added to the guild feature bar showcasing FPS themes.

Guild Hosting Enhancements & Changes

1. We removed the Guild Radar gadget from the guild directory so we can redevelop it with the new quiz system data to be more accurate and relevant. It will be making a return shortly.
2. We Added a new page option for guilds. If your users have Xbox Live gamertags, you can enable a sub-page to your guild that lists out a wall of GamerCards. Check it out by going to the “pages” tab and activating it! It looks like this (my test guild as an example):
3. Cleaned up some design in the Games page of the guild hosting management to better match the current site style.
4. Cleaned up some design on the guild hosting management screens for the pages configuration.
5. Special characters in character names now display correctly in on the guild rosters.
6. Fixed an issue where the cursor was not activating in the guild charter textarea. Users had to switch to the non-rich editor… however that has now been fixed.

That is it for now! We continue to crank on some tweaks from last night, so if you have problems hitting the site, it might be us.

1. Quizzes are no longer in your DNA Panel… they are on the Quizzes page.
2. Every quiz you take, gives you a dynamic signature that is available in the badges section of your profile. Check mine out!
3. Every quiz you take contributes to your gamerDNA traits. As you take each quiz, the resolution of it gets better and better, and as we add more quizzes we hope to make it more and more accurate. Here is what your trait panel could look like. We will also be introducing a dynamic signature for the trait panel as well shortly.
4. There are numerous traits in the system, and as we add more quizzes to test other behaviors, we will add them. In your GamerDNA traits, we display the top six traits that you show the largest propensity towards. This is refelected as “More” or “Less” of that trait. So if you are more inclined to certain things, that trait is “+”. If you are less inclinded to certain things, the trait is “-”.
5. When you complete a quiz you also get players with similar results that match you, and you also get lists of games that potentially match you as well based on your results.
6. If you are not registered, and you take a quiz, but registering afterwards, your results are saved… so if you are an unregistered member, you can still give them a try! You do have to be registered to use the dynamic signatures.

So go take some quizzes! I hope everyone has fun with the new system. As I said, we will be ramping up adding quizzes as we go a long and hope to offer a dozen or so quizzes eventually that test across all sorts of genres and behaviors. As always, we are interested in feedback!

The night started off with a great speech from Mr. Baer about the his work on creating the home video game system, many of them you may know of today.  Ralph is credited with creating the Magnavox Odyssey, the light gun, and the Simon.

Steve “Fatty Chubs” Sopp was able to get his original Odyssey (complete with the box!) signed by Ralph Baer (Seen below)

After Ralph finished his speech, Harmonix rolled out the yet to be released Rock band 2 and allowed everyone in the crowd to go up and play the game with the new instruments and new tracks.  Fatty Chubs and myself (Sam “QforQ” Houston) took the stage and rocked out to  “Kids in America”, with Fatty Chubs on guitar and QforQ on bass. Click here for a picture, taken by Jon Radoff.

Click here for a link to a short video shot of the gamerDNA guys playing Rock Band 2, shot by Harmonix’s own Rob Humphrey.

The Rock Band 2 instruments felt great with a lot of small but significant improvements that make the game experience better than the original Rock Band.  I’d say we’re definitely excited about Rock Band 2 which is set to release for the Xbox 360 next month.

That about wraps it up for today’s “gamerDNA Life” glimpse into the offices here at gamerDNA.  In the future you can count on more posts about what games we’re playing at the office and news about what gamerDNA is up to these days.  Stay tuned!