Bethesda and Interplay: Death of Fallout MMO?

This morning as I was trying to find a way to check my brain out of a lecture that I'd rather now sit through, I started browsing IGN looking for recent news on the Fallout Franchise. For those of you who don't know, Bethesda who currently owns most of the rights to Fallout has been in a fight recently with Interplay over a Fallout MMO that Interplay was trying to develop back in 2009. Interplay was the original developer of Fallout 1 and 2 back in the 1990s (along with the ill-fated Fallout Tactics) and for some reason or another, with Fallout 3's recent success causing the rebirth of the franchise, Interplay decided that it wanted a piece of the pie.

Well Bethesda got its panties in a wad about this and sued Interplay for the exclusive rights to Fallout saying that if Interplay did develop and market the game that it would cause irreparable harm to Bethesda's bottom line. I have been hearing snippets about this argument for the last couple of years. Frankly, since I am not a PC gamer (I feel like adding that to my normal gaming routine would really confirm how super nerdy my life really is.) I was not too excited about the proposed Fallout MMO, but I have to say that it does kind of pain me that it may not happen now. This is about as much information as I can get about the settlement between the two companies: http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1216148p1.html

As per the settlement, Interplay will be allowed to sell the original Fallout games until next year, but after that? Who knows. Will Bethesda start to sell them even though it did not develop them? Also, will Bethesda pick up where Interplay left off with the Fallout MMO and finish developing it? I highly doubt that last one considering that Bethesda makes most of its money off of console game sales. But it would still be a lucrative venture. As long as it was GOOD they could make a killing on it, especially after the success of Fallout 3 and then Obsidian's success with FNV, as buggy as it was.

What do you think? What are your projections and what's your interpretation of the consequences of this settlement? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

I'm starting to feel like this and I really shouldn't...

It's too early in the semester for me to start feeling like this:

Unfortunately, after a great night of sleep and waking up this morning to buy an $80 textbook, I am starting to not give a fuck about my scholarly duties. 

Don't even get me started on work:

I know it's wrong, but I'm exhausted. I just want to hang out and do nothing for a while. Why is it that when I do have something to do I end up complaining about it and vise verse?

The Standards! There are too many!

I recently started back at the iSchool for my second semester of grad school. One down, two to go! Woot!

Anyway, I am taking a class on cataloging this semester, which is considered the "Holy Grail" of the Library and Information Science world. The inner workings of a library tends to revolve around cataloging books and items to be added to the library's collection. But what is most annoying about cataloging just happens to be the "standards." It goes something like this:

I'm sure that this applies to all fields of science, but this seems to be especially true in the Library and Information Science world. Just this morning, I was reading about a relatively new standard called "FRBR" or Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, which seeks to make the rules for using certain terms in cataloging more concrete. I thought that they were concrete the way they were. 

And with every new standard comes confusion and arguments within the community. For example, we have been switching from AACR to AACR2, and now I hear that they are working on AACR3? I dunno, it seems like a huge rumor that may not even be true, but seriously? Why do we need so many standards? And then there's MARC. I hate MARC records because they are so arbitrary and difficult to read. I have to admit that it is helpful to learn out to read them but still... do we really need another standard for cataloging? 

So step back FRBR backers! Also STFU and GTFO because I am sick of all of these standards. Also, it makes library school a whole lot harder so STFU and GTFO and keep your new "standards" to yourself.

Communist Art?

When I was in high school I was an exchange student in Germany for three and a half weeks. The area that I was sent to was part of the old East Block. During the time I was there I was horribly homesick and I felt like no one could understand what I was going through. I experienced terrible culture shock that only my move to Pittsburgh has been able to rival since. I was sixteen and in a country that was completely and utterly alien to me. It all seemed culturally backwards to me. There is only so much that high school German can prepare or NOT prepare you for.

But what I now wish I had paid attention to was the Communist art that I saw there. I want to go back to that I can contemplate them more deeply.

The purpose of Communist displays of art is to motivate the people, however, the images portrayed are usually of strong societies where people are working happily and have plenty to eat. These are often complete and utter lies.

I like Communist art for its irony.

Honestly I've been doing a lot of thinking about oppressive totalitarian regimes lately with the death of Kim Jong Il. I was hoping that things would start to change in that country with the move of power to his son, Kim Jong Un, but unfortunately, it seems that things will be staying the same for a while. I may not see the end of totalitarianism in North Korea in my lifetime and this worries me.