My wishlist for further improvement to Borderlands multiplayer

With the recent update to Borderlands, the multiplayer connectivity and stability has been fixed. Now that I can actually enjoy online games, I have a wish list for some other changes I would like to see:

Borderlands improves PC multiplayer

Back in my review of Borderlands, I had a huge complaint against the state of multiplayer on the PC. It just didn't work and for a game I purchased with multiplayer in mind, it was disappointing. News came down today that its fixed:

Multiplayer connectivity has been improved; users should no longer be required to forward ports to host or join multiplayer games. (source)

After reading this, I immediately jumped into my Linksys router's settings and dumped all of my port forwards. I jumped in the game and I was able to join the first game I tried without a problem. Its amazing what a simple change can do. I am feeling a little Borderlands action in my future (I haven't completed playthru 2 yet).

Steam can learn from Netflix

I love Steam, but I hate misleading press releases. Valve, Steam's overlord, announced that they now have 25+ million users. Unfortunately the details are sparse. There is no indication of what "active account" means or how many are purchasing games on a regular basis. It's difficult to believe these numbers don't include accounts that have long gone dormant. The only vague number given is that ~10 million people have a profile, indicating some sort of buy-in into the Steam platform.

During the last calendar year the platform surpassed 25 million active accounts, up 25% from the prior year. Of the 25 million accounts, over 10 million of those have profiles in the Steam Community.

In addition to the millions of new accounts created during the year, the peak number of concurrent users eclipsed the 2.5 million mark during the month of December, pushing Steam's average monthly player minutes to more than 13 billion.

Contrast this information with the recent Netflix end of year report:

Subscribers. Netflix ended the fourth quarter of 2009 with approximately 12,268,000 total subscribers, representing 31 percent year-over-year growth from 9,390,000 total subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2008 and 10 percent sequential growth from 11,109,000 subscribers at the end of the third quarter of 2009.

Net subscriber change in the quarter was an increase of 1,159,000 compared to an increase of 718,000 for the same period of 2008 and an increase of 510,000 for the third quarter of 2009.

Gross subscriber additions for the quarter totaled 2,803,000, representing 34 percent year-over-year growth from 2,085,000 gross subscriber additions in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 29 percent quarter-over-quarter growth from 2,180,000 gross subscriber additions in the third quarter of 2009.

Of the 12,268,000 total subscribers at quarter end, 97 percent, or 11,892,000, were paid subscribers. The other 3 percent, or 376,000, were free subscribers. Paid subscribers represented 98 percent of total subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2008 and at the end of the third quarter of 2009.

At a glance the reports look similar, but Netflix has two subtle differences.

First, Netflix breaks down year over year and quarterly growth in hard numbers, not percents. This is an important distinction as it gives a clear picture of where the platform is heading. Steam on the other hand only provides a current number and percent growth.

Secondly, Netflix identifies the number of accounts that are riding on their various free offerings and trials. The Steam report has no indication of how many accounts were brought on board through free game offers or "required by game" installs.

Other than labeling all 25 million Steam accounts as "active", there is no real sense of the power of the platform. With the Netflix report, we get a much better feel for how subscribers are using the platform and how Netflix is growing.

Valve is more than generous with data collected from Steam (hardware surveys, heat maps, etc.), but its starting to feel like marketing overdrive when they are talking about the status of the platform. Hopefully, Valve can take a queue from Netflix and realize that granular subscriber data is not the end of the world.

Dancing with George RR Martin: Update on A Dance With Dragons

Its ironic that I found this post from George RR Martin this morning as I sit snowed in as well:

Snowing like hell in Santa Fe today. I feel like Jon Snow on the Wall. White everywhere I look, and still coming down.

Of course, I'm writing about Meereen, where the weather is hot and muggy, oppressive. If the snow keeps falling, I better take it as an omen, switch to a Jon chapter tomorrow.

The good news: finished a chapter today.

The bad news: it's one I've finished at least four times before.

This time, though, I think I finally got it right. We'll see. Still whacking at the Meereenese knot.

I took an especially vigorous hack two days ago, by switching to a new POV. It seems to have helped. Helps to have a pair of eyes on the inside rather than the outside here. And back story works better in recollections than in dialogue.

Let's hope that when next week comes, I still like what I did this week.

Writing, writing...

This is not an earth shattering update, but its an update none the less. And for George RR Martin to talk about finishing something, anything with A Dance With Dragons is good news.

Return to the Galaxy for FREE

Any player that has previously subscribed to Star Wars Galaxies will be able to play the game free of charge between February 1st and March 1st.

No, this is not out of the kindness of SOE's heart.  Its an offer to promote their upcoming Galactic Civil War expansion: Forces Under Siege.  This would be the expansion where SOE finally realizes that there is a galactic civil war occurring during the Star Wars classic time line.

Any old-school player (that means pre-NGE) will probably remember little to nothing about the galactic civil war from the original game, because there wasn't one.  Sure, Rebels and Imperial scum could chase each other around and spam knockdowns, but it was for no gain to either faction.  It was nothing more than a constant gankfest at each of the spaceports.  It sucked.  No, it really, really sucked. 

However, the new expansion approach to the GCW isn't going to tempt me back into the game.  I only mention it because its a free month of play for a MMOG, a Star Wars MMOG no less.