Welcome all!

[dtp_Betty]

Hello Hal, Hello Noah, hello all! ;)

Before we start discussing, I have a little goodie for you:

http://www.anaconda-game.com/public/ADOC/mata_hari.jpg

Bye-bye
Betty

[Noah_Falstein]

Thanks! But I could have sworn she was wearing an Anaconda shirt at the time.

[dtp_Betty]

Are you sure ;)?

Hi ho!

How are you - there over the ocean?

[Noah_Falstein]

I'm fine thanks, just a little frantic with last-minute preparations to travel to your side of the ocean, leaving tomorrow - I'm coming out to speak at the Lyon GDC and the Serious Games Sessions Europe that is being held concurrently, so this is a busy day.

I see Hal is also logged in. I hope we get a few guests!

[Steve Ince]

Hi Hal, Noah,

I don't remember seeing that booth babe. :)

I hope you guys are both well.

[Noah_Falstein]

Hi Steve!

I think she stepped out for a cigarette before you came by. Pity!

Noah

[Hal_Barwood]

Hello all from rainy Oregon:

I'm here, happy & relaxed, but wrestling with this forum software.

Testing, testing, tap-tap, is this thing on?

Hal

[dtp_Betty]

On and on and on... *sing* ;D

[Noah_Falstein]

Since the pace of questions is slow (a few in the Mata Hari thread so far) I'll share a memory I've been having. Almost exactly 20 years ago I was on a similar forum talking about my then-new game PHM Pegasus, on GEnie which was one of the dial-up online services in use at the time. I was doing the forum from a very nice hotel, the Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa, where several of us from Lucasfilm Games were doing a really fun brainstorming retreat. The technology to do online chats was so new that the hotel had never had a guest who had tried to use a modem and connect to a remote computer through their phone lines before. We had to work out a special method so that the computer could dial out from my room on the phone line and not have the operator break in. Now, I'm posting this from a local coffee shop and there are three other people around me using the wifi here. So some things have changed quite a bit, but it's still primarily text, we thought by now it would all be realtime video chat.

[Noone]

Think in a 5 years it can turn out to be a videochat though... The transfer speed is constantly growing...

[Noah_Falstein]

That's true. It was a 300 baud modem we were using then, and I can almost read text as fast as that - my current wireless connection is over 30,000 times faster.

[soundguy]

Hi Hal and Noah. Sorry i missed your session yesterday.

to be honest - it can be in video chat, today, already - There's at least one company i know (blogtv.com) that has this kind of thing.
Maybe we can have an adventure game conference there soon ?

Oded

[shae]

Text has many advantages over video or even voice. No need to tidy up before saying something. :)

BTW, Betty, you should've included a caption with that image. It's not necessarily obvious that it's Noah to the left and Hal to the right. (And you in the middle?)

(Reading at 300 baud! That's something I wouldn't mind having too.)