DeAno's Perspective: The Google+ Takeover

Google+ comments are live on YouTube, which is a great thing that provides easier threaded commenting and more control over where your comments go and who can see them, and for the content creators provides more ways than ever to monitor discussions around their videos, stop racist/homophobic trash from ever appearing on their videos at all, makes audience interaction easier and more seamless than ever, and generally provides a better experience for all involved.

This hasn't come without complaints, so I thought I'd go ahead and address the main issue that I see popping up, as well as clear up a critical misunderstanding.

The main issue/misunderstanding that I'm seeing from people goes something like this: "I don't want a Google+ account!  All I want is a YouTube account!"  Let me make this totally 100% crystal clear: There is no such thing as just a YouTube account.  Back in 2011, VP of Product Management +Bradley Horowitz said in an interview with Wired that Google+ is Google.  People either forgot or thought that he was kidding, so let me lay it out for you.  If you think of +Google+ as just a social network or basically Google's version of Facebook, you're not seeing the big picture.  Google+ is the backbone for each and every service/product offered by Google.  Everything from YouTube to Google Calendar to Gmail to Hangouts to Blogger to Android to Maps to Drive - everything ties back to Google+.  To not want a Google+ account is to not want an account on any of Google's services whatsoever - they are one and the same.

If you choose not to use the social aspects of G+, so be it!  No one is forcing you to even touch the stream, and there are millions of G+ account holders that opt not to.  It's there for you if you want it, and if not it's really not that big of a deal.  The important thing that you need to realize is this how it's going to be from here on out.  Google+ is Google, and that's just the way it is.

TC Summit 2013

Photo by +Michael Banks 

What an amazing week!

Actually, let me back up.  This amazing week actually happened about a month ago.  See, back then I was in Google's Rising Star program for Google+, having a high product knowledge and an equally high disposition to share that knowledge in the Google+ Help Community, assisting other users in their G+ journeys in any way I could.  I'd been in the program since its inception and was just doing what I do.

About a month ago I get an e-mail from the Community Manager for G+ +Natalie Villalobos who wanted know if I'd like to become a Top Contributor for the product.  That's pretty much like being in the minor league and being called up to the majors, so because I'm not an idiot I accepted straight away!  A bit of paperwork later (including a NDA), and within 48 hours I was a newly branded TC...right along with my buddy +Kim Beasley as I quickly found out.

Photo by +Michael Banks 

Happy to be apart of the program, I quickly got to know the other TCs in my group that I didn't know already and got to work helping to provide the #BestHelpOnTheWeb that the TCs are famous for.

The next day, I get another e-mail from Natalie, this one an almost "by the way" sort of thing, explaining that Google was having a summit for their TCs and that they'd be flying us all out to the Bay Area for a few days...and that it was happening in three weeks.

Yeah...this is pretty much the point where I had to get out of my office and walk around for a bit and process what was happening here.

Fast forward to September 30th, and the good times began!

First thing was first, though - while there were fifteen G+ TC's there for me to meet, three in particular were extra important. The four of us have been friends on Google+ for a long time and became TCs around the same time period - we all took this journey together and it led us all here.

+Kim Beasley, +Ayoub Khote, +Michael Banks, and Yours Truly.
The Fabulous Four 

That accomplished, it was time to party! It was an amazing experience being able to meet with the rest of the crew, talk to Product Managers and give feedback directly, and even pick up a few new toys!

The Google Goodies!

Your highly motivated and truly dedicated team of TCs represented +Google+ well. We were the loudest, we had the most energy, and we were always front and center. There's not a single person who was there that doesn't know who the G+ TC 10X Mafia is!

Front and Center!
Photo credit: +Ayoub Khote 

Anybody can be a Top Contributor - it just takes a lot of work and a lot of love.  Basically a TC is a fellow user with a high level of product knowledge that uses it to help other users in the official Forums and/or Community.  TCs are chosen by Community Managers or suggested to CMs by other TCs, who look for consistency and the quality of a person’s answers.  

Being a TC is a lot of hard work, but there are some perks (like being able to attend the TC Summit).  You’ll tend to learn of new products and features long before anyone else, you have the ear of Product Managers and other Googlers actively looking for feedback for future changes/additions to the product, and a whole lot more!

You can go here for more information on the TC program, and if you think you have what it takes to join our ranks feel free to apply!

It truly hurt to have to leave my friends and come back home (I started missing our CMs the instant I'd left their presence), but it's good to know that we are all just a Hangout away and in two years we're doing it all over again! I'll leave you with this summation from +Ayoub Khote.

"We are the crazy ones, the loud, the proud, the happy dancers, the new kids on the old block... the ones who do things differently -- we're not fond of formality... You can join us, be annoyed by us, admire or vilify us, but the only thing you can't do is ignore us because we will change things... we will push a louder, prouder, Googlier help experience, and while some may see us as the crazy ones, we see wonder, because we who are crazy enough to be loud and proud, to make noise and not care, to not stop until we have answers, and to be more than a team, but be family? We can change the world, and our sense of wonder and joy are the things that will ensure we do." 

Your Google+ Top Contributor team.

To Live And Die In L.S.

Sorry I've been a bit quiet these past few days.  I've spent 41 hours in San Andreas with my buddies Michael, Franklin, and Trevor in a grand adventure that was full of excitement, trepidation, drama, danger, and ultimately triumph.  Through their eyes I've base-jumped from mountain tops, robbed jewelry stores, woken up drunk on a beach in my underwear surrounded by dead bodies, driven an ATV out of a cargo plane, and much, much more.

Grand Theft Auto V is the culmination of every lesson that +Rockstar Games has learned as they've made games this generation - you can clearly tell that they've taken the best aspects of everything and put them here.  Example: the constantly weakest point of every GTA game I've ever played has been the shooting mechanics, but for this one it felt so good that I did something I would have never dreamed of attempting in previous games - turning free-aim on; and it felt great.  

Gone also is the slightly floaty driving physics from GTAIV and in their place is some of the best driving in any open world game I've ever played.  Driving was a joy, plain and simple.  Every car feels different, but just as important is who's driving because each of the three main characters have varying levels of skill behind the wheel.  If you're driving with Franklin, you'll pull moves that you wouldn't even try with the other two because he's the only one that can handle it.

The map is huge and highly dense; you'll never be far away from something interesting to do or see.  Random events also spice things up quite a bit - I was once driving up north to participate in a race on the water and happened upon a fairly ugly car crash that only had one survivor.  Ended up deciding to help her out, and turns out that she was a very capable driver that quickly became my go to driver for any heists I had going on.

Ah yes...the heists.  These set pieces will require lots of planning and forethought and were easily my favorite missions in the entire game.  I won't give any of them away (except for the jewelry store thing I mentioned earlier), but I will say that they were incredible.

Another thing I particularly enjoyed was the writing and the voice acting, which is absolutely top notch.  Each of the characters have their own personalities and viewpoints, and even when working together it's not unusual to have them bickering with one another.  During a particularly long drive to a small town north of Mount Chiliad, Michael and Trevor had a conversation/argument that had me laughing so much that I had trouble keeping the car on the road!

I could wax on for quite sometime, but I'll sum it up by saying that this game is simply amazing and stands with +Naughty Dog's The Last of Us as being one of the finest games I've ever experienced.  In short, games like this are why I'm a gamer.

Fantastic job, +Rockstar Games.  Next up, GTA Online - see you all in San Andreas!

Grand Theft Auto Online Revealed

Wow.  Just wow.  Before I even get into this, if you haven't seen the reveal trailer, that's where you need to start.  Don't worry, I'll wait.

As exciting as that is, it's easy to not fully understand what +Rockstar Games is doing here, so I'll break it down.  First off, it's important to understand that while Grand Theft Auto Online access comes free with Grand Theft Auto V, it's actually an entirely separate entity that will change and evolve all on its own.  Yes, it uses the same map and assets from GTAV (for now, anyway), but it's really its own thing - if you're thinking of it as just the online mode for GTAV, you're not seeing the big picture.  You'll be able to create your own character that you'll access via the same character switcher that we've seen in the previous GTAV gameplay video (remember that fourth empty spot?  This is what it's for), and once you're in that online world you can use your in-game cell phone to call up your friends and have them join you, even if they're currently playing just the single player.  You can do minor robberies on your own to earn cash and reputation, but to get the big bucks you'll have to form a crew and plan a heist.  There's also different ways to spend downtime, doing things like races, base jumping, tennis, golf, and more.

Some other points that need to be mentioned:

• You can set bounties on other players if there's someone you really want dead.
• You'll need to deposit your money in banks because if you don't, you can be mugged and robbed.
• NPCs react to your voice when you speak into your headset (your character's mouth will even move).  Example: if you're doing a robbery and you're shouting at someone to hurry up and give you the money, they'll move a lot faster.
• You can also invest your money in the online stock market and even bet on the outcome of online matches.
• While some missions are always there, others will be totally dynamic.
• You can customize cars and they are yours, but they can be destroyed or stolen...but if you've insured it, the car can be replaced for a fee.
• When I say that the world is dynamic and consistent, I mean it.  If some of your friends (16 people exist in a game world at any given time) are in an epic police chase, you can turn on the TV in your apartment and watch what's happening in real time.

Earlier on I mentioned that the world of GTA Online uses the map and assets of GTAV for now, but Rockstar has already alluded to the fact that the world of GTA Online will expand.  I wouldn't be too shocked to see San Fierro and Las Venturas added to the mix at some point in the future.  While GTAV is a current generation title, I also wouldn't be shocked to see a stand-alone GTA Online come to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 at some point in the future.

This is the most ambitious thing that Rockstar has ever done, and I really can't wait to get my hands on it when GTA Online becomes available on October 1st 2013.

Gamescom 2013 Is One Week Away!

On Wednesday August 21st 2013, the annual Gamesom convention will kick off in Cologne, Germany, but the press events will happen a bit earlier.  Sony's press event will be on the preceding day at 8am PDT, which you can watch on PlayStation Home or at the Gamescom page on Sony's site.  Microsoft will also be holding theirs a day early, but I haven't been able to confirm if there will be a livestream of it (if you find one, feel free to let me know!).

Yesterday I recorded a DeAno's Perspective video that outlined some of my thoughts going into this, which I've embedded for you below.

 

We should see a more information on both announced and unannounced games at the event as the battle for your eighth generation dollars heats up.  I said in my video that I didn't really care about Nintendo, and I still don't (let's be honest - they're not in this fight), but I'm hoping to see some positive news from them as well.  At this point, though, it'd pretty much take a Wii U2 to get my attention.  As far as Microsoft and Sony are concerned it's anyone's ballgame, so let's see how this all plays out!

Family Sharing Is Nothing To Cry Over Missing: It Wasn't What You Thought It Was

I fucking knew it.

I'm presuming that most of you, either through a previous post of mine or some other method on the Net, know that Microsoft took off all the DRM and online checks that the Xbox One was set to have.

Most gamers were happy about this, but there's also quite a few that were excited about many of the features the XB1 would support that it now doesn't/can't.  Some are rather benign like not needing to put in a disk for games (buy the digital version: problem solved), but one rather substantial feature the upcoming console would no longer support is Family Sharing.

As most gamers understood it, this feature allowed you to have ten different people on a special list and everyone on that list would have access to all the games you'd buy via a shared games library.  Anyone could play it at any time and when they were done someone else could have a go.

XB1 gamers were already assembling their ten players and planning who was going to buy what game so that all of them would be able to play everything, but I had serious doubts about this feature.  There was simply no way in hell publishers would go for it; I knew there just had to be a caveat.

There was.  A Microsoft employee laid it out via a blog entry in which he bemoaned the fact that this wouldn't get to happen.  I'll quote the relevant section for you below:

"First is family sharing, this feature is near and dear to me and I truly felt it would have helped the industry grow and make both gamers and developers happy.  The premise is simple and elegant, when you buy your games for Xbox One, you can set any of them to be part of your shared library.  Anyone who you deem to be family had access to these games regardless of where they are in the world.  There was never any catch to that, they didn't have to share the same billing address or physical address it could be anyone.  When your family member accesses any of your games, they're placed into a special demo mode. This demo mode in most cases would be the full game with a 15-45 minute timer and in some cases an hour.  This allowed the person to play the game, get familiar with it then make a purchase if they wanted to.  *When the time limit was up they would automatically be prompted to the Marketplace so that they may order it if liked the game."

Did you get that?  Family Sharing was nothing more than a glorified demo, like the full game trials that PlayStation Plus does all the time.  Ten of your friends wouldn't just be able to play the full game from across the country - they'd get at best an hour of game time before having to buy it for themselves.  Just like the PS+ Full Game trials, your progress would be saved along the way and if you chose to buy the game you'd pick up from where you left off - that's the only benefit this had over a regular demo.

I know some of you were looking forward to the features of the XB1, but I'm happy they went ahead and made the changes now.  Can you imagine the shitstorm had the details of Family Sharing come to light when that feature was still on the table and people were using it as a selling point for the console?  Or worse yet - no one found out about the details until after the launch?  It would have been an unmitigated disaster!  So just sit back and relax knowing that you didn't miss out on some game changing feature; it worked out better this way, Xbox gamers.

Question time: Are you going to get a next-gen console this year?  If so, which and why?  Hit up them comments and let me know!

E3 Is Next Week!

The big show is right around the corner now.  I know that MS dropped a hell of a bombshell yesterday that I should certainly have words about, but I'm going to wait until after the press events when we have more details; at that point I'm digging in.  If my understanding of Microsoft's game policies on the Xbox One are even halfway accurate, then you can be certain to see a rant here in very short order.

Anyway, that's for another time.  What are you guys/gals looking to see next week?  Let me know in the comments!