BY HAROLD GOLDBERG

As I stood gawking in this round, but dungeon-like environment, I spied three Jagex employees holding court. Around them were about 10 journalists from Europe and the U.S.

Most everyone kept asking tech-oriented questions, and to me, this was the kind of stuff that could well have been reserved for press releases. Me, I wanted human stories to go with the tech that makes this upcoming browser-based MMO run.

Specifically, I wanted to know how the narrative in the game and in the many upcoming quests would suck me into the world of RuneScape 3. But I had been having a degree of trouble finding that out (as you’ll see from these earlier installments).

So I piped up about the story. As if they were waiting to be asked, narrative designer David Osborne, head of audio Stephen Lord and executive producer Phil Mansell talked animatedly about a one of the quests.

“We’re putting a new story line up for vote by the community,” said Osborne.

“One of the options is pirates. Not just pirates. Zombie pirates!” exclaimed Mansell.

I liked that a lot. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rotting bums. But what if the community votes for another option?

Mansell took a moment to think. “Well, we’ll try to get zombie pirates in some other way, down the line.”

It was a small moment of narrative discussion, maybe a minute during a quick 10-minute roundtable discussion. It was just a mere nugget of information. But it was creative enough to give me hope that I’ll enjoy the story in RuneScape 3.

Zombie pirates, I thought as the day went on into evening. I walked out into the night where the peacock who lives on the grounds stood in the shadows.

“Zombie pirates!” I said to the peacock.

And this is kind of what he said, perhaps in hearty approval, perhaps just killing time as he waited for a mate.

Harold Goldberg is the founder of the Circle. He also writes for the New York Times, Boys’ Life and other publications.

BY HAROLD GOLDBERG

Cheshire, England  

So there we were in this Game of Thrones-like locale outside of Manchester, England. In the bowels of PeckfortonCastle, I came upon a room with so many computers, I thought I was in a startup in San Francisco – except the ceilings were dauntingly higher than any loft’s.

The press had just been listening to a sometimes-hard-to-follow speech about the wonders of RuneScape 3, which will use HTML 5 to enhance its graphics. Now, it was time to see an Alpha version of the game.

First, I could see that I could adapt and change the interface to my own needs. But what struck me more? The graphics were exponentially better than what’s playable now in RuneScape 2. It’s stunning to see a level full of detailed, giant mushrooms and toadstools, and you can climb high on them to battle various creeps. The whole environment is tinged in shades of foreboding green and purple. It reminded me of the underrated (and much condemned because of a financial scandal) RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur. Whatever you thought of Amalur, the idea of getting that level of artwork in a browser-based game is impressive indeed.

But the Jagex employee who stood near to help answer questions had a bit of a language issue. So when he needed to be loquacious, he was more like, say, Don Draper after sex, a man of a few words.

I was still in need of an succinct explanation of what the story is in RuneScape 3, and how the narrative will inspire my appreciation for the game. I still hadn’t gotten a detailed explanation or an elevator pitch.

In an effort to stop what Jagex must have felt is the buzzkill of respawning, the developers gave us nearly unkillable super-characters. This was great to check out the weapons and magic power interfaces and for battling various demons with various spells and weapons. But it required little skill.

I moved around the dark room to find another worker and asked him about the issue of bots and botters in the game. And then I asked another. Both assured me that botters would be diminished with the new release. That indeed was a relief to hear, and I hope it happens.

But I was still on a quest to hear more about legend and story and characters. I proceeded further into the bowels of the castle into a round room that looked like a dungeon but actually was a private bar usable for debauchery when wedding receptions and parties occur. There, I witnessed something I didn’t expect at all.

To be continued…

Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle.

Last week at the Essex Restaurant, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Neal Edelstein, the producer of  “The Ring” (along with David Lynch’s excellent “Mulholland Dr.” TV movie). Mistakenly, I thought Edelstein had a game to show me. Instead, he brought an iTunes app called “Haunting Melissa.” Shot in Canada, it’s a carefully filmed, episodic Blair Witch-like horror story that also features some elegant outdoor shots that remind me of a Terrence Malick film.

So why constuct an iTunes app for the movie rather than something for YouTube or Machinima. “I like them, but I don’t want to deal with banners and bullshit,” said Edelstein.

And why not add gaming elements? Edelstein sat forward in the booth and said, “I love games, but I think that the element of interactivity can take you out of the story. For this one, I wanted it to be more of a movie.”

That’s completely understandable. While I always believe a very good movie can be enhanced by a very good game, the Hollywood-meets-games path can be a rocky road indeed. I spent a fair amount of time in “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” on this topic, following the arc of hopes of gamemakers to create interactive filmic content since back in the 1970s. It rarely works well (although when it works as Telltale’s The Walking Dead game, it’s wondrous). The new “Star Trek” game proves that it’s still difficult for developers who love a branching experience to work in tandem with film people who know a linear experience.

Yet there are unexpected, game-like elements in “Haunting Melissa.” On the interface in one of the clickable chapter photos, you’ll sometimes see a ghost in the window. And sometimes, the ghost won’t be there. It’s just another thing that creeps me out about “Haunting Melissa” – in a good way. The first eerie chapter full of things that go bump in the night is free. Put those Beats on!

Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle. He has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair and Wired.

In this episode of Full Circle we visited the Museum of Modern Art in downtown Manhattan, whose newest exhibit on Integrated Design includes 14 videogames.

We also made some (pretty bad) jokes about Electronic Arts’ exclusive deal with Disney to make Star Wars videogames for the next few years, and talked about Polygon’s examination of the cosplaying community through Alexa Ray Correia’s recent article, “Anatomy of a Cosplayer.“

Circle members, what’s on your radar? What articles have you read recently that you really liked, or written recently that you’re really proud of? Let us know, and we’ll feature you in the next episode!

Cheshire, England – Walking through the greenest of forests in Tarpoley, a rural town between Liverpool and Manchester, I pass daffodils and bees and newly unfolding ferns. I muck about the ruins of what may have been a cook house, and a singing blackbird flies out of a broken window. It’s the sunniest of afternoons as I approach an overlook to see for miles, brambly heaths and wide pastures with sheep, and down below, pheasants fight manically for the affections of a female and for territory.

Here at Peckforton Castle, it’s all about nature and a fantasy environment. Despite its high brick walls, awe-inspiring falconry shows and generally majestic nature, the castle is kind of faux, having been built just 200 years ago by the largest landowner in the county,  Baron John Jervis Tollemache. Weddings are held here almost daily, and once just a few years ago, a groom had a fight with the management over a few hundred pounds difference in bar bill.

After drinking 20 double vodkas, he, according to the BBC, cried, “No one crosses Max.”

Enraged and perhaps egged on by his new wife, the drunken lout set fire to one of the wings in the castle. Many rooms burned to the ground despite the efforts of 100 firefighters, and the arsonist is now jailed.

All of this could have been made into a quest of sorts in RuneScape 3, the latest iteration of the free to play, browser-based MMO with a sword and sorcery narrative. A deep look at this summer’s RuneScape 3 release is the reason I am present here at PeckfortonCastle.

Because it was first offered without need for a physical disk, RuneScape was ahead of its time as a browser-based online role playing game. Over the years as the two brothers Andrew and Paul Gower oversaw its growth, it became a go to first MMO for teens, a kind of fairly troll-less environment one enjoys before moving to World of Warcraft. Later, it was besieged by botters, essentially, cheaters who use software to get in-game currency and upgrades, and then sell it for real-life cash. Botters have been the subject of various rants by long-time lovers of the game, and I wondered how JagEx would address this issue publicly during the course of the day-long event.

So, still jetlagged, I sat curious in a cathedral-like space, one of the rooms one can have one’s nuptials, and very memorable ones (without arson) at that. The ceiling must have been 30 feet high and there a regal nature to the room, including stained glass windows from which shards of sunlight poked.

Today, there would be no wedded bliss. Instead, there would be nerdy game developer ecstasy as evangelizing employees from JagEx mixed with journalists from the U.S. and Europe who were inquisitive and, perhaps, waiting to be thrilled. They wanted see whether an HTML 5 version of RuneScape would move the game eons forward through enriched graphics and game design.

As he sipped from a Celtic pewter (RuneScape inscribed) tankard, JagEx director of design Mark Ogilvie read a handwritten missive from a book with blank pages. He touched upon the history of RuneScape, now over 10 years old. He added facts and figures, like 450 million hours of play since 2004. He talked about the Monty Python-like humor in the dialog and quests, very British. And he became enthused when he touched up the idea of the player’s ability to control the interface to make it what he or she wanted it to look like.

For someone who’d played RuneScape for just a while in 2005, I wanted to share his enthusiasm. As far as the freemium/free to play model goes, RuneScape offered more content than most. And it’s been a great first MMO for folks who want to get their feet wet.

But there was one thing that was missing: a hook, a phrase or a video that would put the story of RuneScape 3 into perspective. Ogilvie had mentioned a deep story of gods in the new game, and perhaps ardent players already know the full deal via message boards. But there was so much content in his speech, the sentences describing the precise nature of the story and why anyone would want to play had, like an ambling puppy, somehow gone astray.

Right after the speech, we were ushered into another sprawling castle lair, complete with what looked to be 100 computer terminals. Surely I could find out all now, everything from the story to the joy of the graphics. I could do so by playing RuneScape 3.

Right?

To be continued

Harold Goldberg is the founder of The Circle. He writes for The New York Times and other publications.

That’s why we’re so excited that that StoryBundle, an online pay-what-you-want ebook vendor similar to videogames’ Humble Bundle, is offering its first Video Game Bundle. Ten full length books and magazine spans are available for purchase in a variety DRM-free of digital formats here.

For a minimum of $3 you can get:

• The Making of Karateka by Jordan Mechner
• Generation Xbox: How Videogames Invaded Hollywood by Jamie Russell
• Kill Screen Magazine Issue 2: Back To School + Issue 6: Change by Kill Screen Editors
• Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson
• Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line by Brendan Keogh
• Confessions of the Game Doctor by Bill Kunkel

If you pay more than $10, though, you’ll also get:

• Videogames: In The Beginning by Ralph H. Baer
• The Making Of Prince Of Persia by Jordan Mechner
• 250 Indie Games You Must Play by Mike Rose

All in all, it’s a pretty sweet deal for a lot of great material!

by JORGE JIMENEZ

Injustice Gods Among Us is the game I always wanted. It’s a superhero fighting game that deals with a parallel universe with bad versions of Flash, Green Lantern and Superman. After proving to myself that I could save the world from an evil Superman, I figured trouncing some poor souls online should be a cakewalk right? I really should have known better.

Shazam has been my go-to or “main” as the fighting game community would call it. I held my own in local matches with buddies on the couch. I’ve heard much about Injustice’s King of the Hill (KOTH) matches, a winner-stays lobby with eight strangers. The neat thing about KOTH is that you can watch the matches as you wait. It sort of evokes the feeling of waiting around for your turn at a game of Street Fighter. This was an appealing thought, since most of my angst-ridden teenaged days were shape by the hijinx that happened in and around an arcade. My general strategy would be to spam Atlas Bolt, a move that propelled Shazam across the screen as a bolt of lighting. If you remember M. Bison’s Psycho Crusher, it is similar to that in its unpredictability — and annoyance.

With my plan set, I randomly joined a public KOTH match. I was second in line so I wasn’t able to properly assess the talent in the room. It didn’t matter; this was a Netherrealm game after all. I should be able stick to a handful of cheap specials and I should net a couple of wins under my belt. My match immediately started against a Catwoman player. I didn’t know what to expect from Catwoman aside from lots of jumping and quick attacks. It did not matter. My plan was set. Easy peasy, right.

I don’t recall ever seeing a 20-plus hit combo in any of my previous matches in Injustice. I just sat there bewildered as Catwoman tossed around poor Shazam. The chat exploded with laughter and insults as a 20-hit combo lead to a 17-hit combo which lead back another 20-plus hit combo. Catwoman had kicked Shazam through the icy walls of the Fortress of Solitude to end the round.

I didn’t land one hit.

Hell, my only plan was to hit this maniac with one, just ONE Atlas Bolt. This fiend managed to dodge it every time. The second round didn’t go as well for me either. I remained helpless. I tried blocking, then I would get thrown, which would lead to another barrage of seemingly unending combos. One of the players in the room had asked if I was even had a controller in my hand. Another suggested that I stop playing videogames entirely.  By the end of the match, I was able to sneak in a couple of jabs. I was out-classed by a superior player but, I’ll be damned if I let that son of a bitch get away without a scratch.

I decided to stick around the lobby to see how the other faceless smartasses fared against this player of inhuman skill. One by one, each person fell to Catwoman. The ass-kickings were varied. This beast took advantage of every piece of interactive background  by leaping off cars and tearing into these poor bastards. The voices that once hurled insults at me became unintelligible grunts of frustration when their turn came to face the Catwoman. This player went through the seven of us with ease without uttering a word into his or her microphone.

The player didn’t brag or call us names. I think that was the thing that annoyed us the most. No insults, no reaction to being insulted. Silent defeat, over and over again.

One voice shouted that this player was only good with Catwoman. This time around, it was Solomon Grundy that beat us, then Harley Quinn, then Batman. The voices that were once against each other were now united against this monster. We all would shout possible strategies and grimace at each defeat. We were determined the slay the Beast no matter the cost.

This intended casual 20-minute session turned into 90 minutes of bitter warfare between seven brothers united by defeat and shame against one true evil. The loudest voice in the group who had come close once or twice to a victory was facing off against this villain once again. The strangest thing happened; he was winning. This had happened before: someone would get a good start, but ultimately fall in battle.

We cheered him on, telling him not to waste meter on super moves and being smart about when to block. Soon the Beast’s health, who was playing Catwoman once again, was down at 50%, 25%, then 0%. The round was ours. Our champion, who was playing Harley Quinn, seemed confident yet cautious. We assured him that he had this. Our hero took the same approach as before, some well timed blocks and some pure dumb luck and … he won. We erupted in joyous glee, congratulating our champion for doing the impossible. We couldn’t believe what we had been through. We started as bitter rivals then allies with a common foe.

At that moment we knew what it was like to be superheroes.

A few minutes later as the next cycle of matches continued, our foe left still without saying a word. Perhaps our torturer got bored with constantly winning or was simply worn down after having played over two dozen fights in a row. I like to think that he or she showed us a kindness by leaving. This person saw how happy we were and didn’t have the heart to break us down again into whimpering losers. The remaining members of our party took part in a couple of fun matches. Hell, I even became King few times. We discussed the silliness of parallel universes. We even exchanged playful insults and gamertags.

We were friends now. We faced the silent Beast and lived to tell the tale.

Later that day I saw a friend request waiting for me. It was the Beast. I promptly declined. Screw that guy, I know where my loyalties lie.

Writer Jorge Jimenez is a long-time member of the New York Videogame Critics Circle.

Check out the Different Games conference on April 26-27 and the round table discussion of Beyond: Two Souls at TriBeCa Film Festival.

When most people think of arts in New York, theater will come to mind long before videogames do. But recently at the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village, videogames were a close second.

Exile, by Nastaran Ahmadi, is a 2013 Mentor Project Play running from April 3-13. It centers around the development of a game, also called Exile, and the personal struggles of Exile’s developer as she balances relationships, identity, and work. The main character, Sameera, is a videogame tester and aspiring developer in a seemingly stable relationship with her girlfriend Tamrin. But Sameera struggles with conflicted feelings over her Iranian heritage and identity, feelings that Tamrin, a publisher working on a nonfiction book with a rather negative view of Iran, can’t quite understand. Game design is her way of working through her complex emotions: Exile is set in a post-apocalypic Iran, where the player character can use her radioactively acquired powers to rebuild the region. Sameera’s feelings about her own game’s premise are as conflicted as those for her home country: she frequently worries that the plot is too “nihilistic,” but also insists that “that whole region just needs a do-over.”

Sameera attends E3, hoping to meet her game idol, a woman described in the first scenes in a way that, perhaps unintentionally, likens her to Jane McGonigal. Her name is Elly, and she takes an immediate interest in Sameera’s idea–and Sameera herself. The fallout from Sameera and Elly’s affair is a central part of the play. Interwoven with the story of Sameera’s personal and professional lives are scenes of an Iranian boy, apparently a character in Sameera’s game, who appears onstage in what appears to be a war-torn Iran. In his earlier scenes he’s alone, with a multimedia projected background shifting between desert landscapes, high-tech maps, and a plain black-and-white grid pattern that looks like Star Trek‘s holodeck when it’s turned off. These scenes are probably supposed to illustrate the simultaneous creation and existence of Sameera’s game world.

Exile is interested in games as a medium for empowerment. But the play isn’t really about videogames–it’s an earnest, thoughtful, yet at times convoluted meditation on identity and creation. Game enthusiasts would probably find a lot to critique — the brief look we get at Exile‘s game mechanics, for example, are a SoulCalibur-like recitation of “up-down-A-B-A” combos that lacks any real discussion of how it integrates with the game’s narrative. Yet Exile took a chance with videogames, and that’s a sight to see in and of itself.

Ultimately, Exile’s most compelling question is the one it asks by its mere existence: What does it look like to try to talk about videogames in an analogue medium? Exile can’t provide an answer that question. But it does represent one of the first attempts.

Transcript:

Welcome back for the second episode of Full Circle, from the New York City Videogame Critics’ Circle. Everyone in the games world has spent the past few days either at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, or playing BioShock Infinite. The game is easily the most anticipated of 2013 and already looks like a strong contender for Game of the Year. Without getting into spoilers, here’s what a few of our members think of it:

• Evan Narcisse of Kotaku writes: “Like Portal 2, BioShock Infinite is a sequel that builds on and maybe even surpasses the original game.”
• Jeremy Voss is still figuring out how to talk about the game. “Whatever misgivings I might have about the story and certain other aspects of the game’s narrative, one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Columbia is arguably an even more engrossing place than Rapture.”
• And be sure to check out Harold Goldberg’s feature in the New York Times Arts section: “The Nerd as Auteur in BioShock Infinite.”

If Twitter is anything to go by, one of GDC’s most important panels this year was “One Reason to Be,” where women in the games industry, including the Circle’s Leigh Alexander, talked about their experiences. The panel caused an outpouring of tweets with the hashtag #1ReasonToBe, a continuation of the #1ReasonWhy hashtag that trended a few months ago to raise awareness of sexism in the games industry. Later the same evening, however, a party cosponsored by the International Game Developers Association which featured scantily-clad female dancers sparked outrage and indignation among members. Brenda Braithwaite Romero, a game developer and another speaker on the One Reason to Be panel, told Polygon “I went home feeling super uplifted by the turnout and support for the #1ReasonToBe panel. I woke up to DMs, texts and links to news of the IGDA party. It really saddens me. I have been a long-time supporter of the IGDA. However, my silence would have been complicity. I had no choice [but to resign from the board]. And just hours after our panel, too.”

Another hot topic among journalists at GDC was the issue of review aggregation. What is it? Is it helpful for readers? This week Gamasutra broke the story that Metacritic, a site that averages review scores from across the web to create a supposedly definitive ‘meta-score’, uses a weighting system that many have found questionable. The system, according to Gamasutra, has six tiers, with outlets like Yahoo Games ranked higher than Edge Magazine. Metacritic has since responded reputing Gamasutra’s data, but the discussion about review aggregation, and what it does for the industry, continues.

There were a lot of journalism-related panels at PAX East this year, many of which our members participated in. There are more transcripts, videos and coverage here on our website. For now, that’s it for Full Circle. Join us next time!