Lorne mentioned it briefly in the Eurogamer Expo talk. He didn't really give any detail, other than saying that he'd been working on Xmobb (though I can't recall if he actually referred to it by name) and it didn't work out.

That's it? It didn't work out? Come on Wil, we need to know more about this.

Let's just be happy, Xavier. It was a stupid idea with a stupid name to begin with.

Didn't other, bigger companies try something like this? I don't hear people talking about it. It sounded like a bad idea from the start - Who wants to watch online movies or YouTube videos with other people if you're not physically in the same room as them? There doesn't seem much point in that.

E: In the meantime, people are loving OWI and their games. He should've continued to put all his effort and funds into what's proven to work rather than into pointless distractions like Xmobb.

He's still very much involved in the process of Oddworld though, it's not like he's just abandoned it. I thought he'd allude to that before I met him but he really does seem like a passionate bloke. I guess everyone needs something to keep the busy. Even if it's something like Xmobb.

Well that's true. Also I suppose it was better and more productive than simply sitting around playing games or so, while you have to learn your lessons in doing business somehow.

But I still don't know why he thought it'd be a good idea.

I didn't even know what it was until then. It's not a terrible idea, it's just nothing new, and OW shouldn't be spending ANY time even THINKING about it.

Oddworld never were thinking about it. They're two separate entities.

Lorne then, whatever.

I'm not going to go into it, but the reason the company closed was nothing to do with the idea being bad. It was actually proper fun once you had enough people in a channel throwing videos at each other. A lot of people were interested in the behind-the-scenes business world. It just never got to the stage of marketing itself to the press or public.

Yep, I agree with you on this one...

I also think it was a dumb idea, and I'm probably one of the few people who actually downloaded it and tried it out for a while at different stages of development. I gave it a chance because I wanted so much to believe that all of the time and money Lorne was sinking into it was well spent.

The "crowd reaction" function was an interesting idea, I'll give them that. Could have done without the simulated audience though. I think a function like that would do well in a similar service like Livestream, even though most people voice their opinions in real-time anyway via the chat window.

Tinychat does the whole 'watching a youtube video together' thing now.

btw, I've read somewhere that Lorne studied photorealistic painting, is this right? Is there any of his work online?

I played around with it too but I got bored of it very very quickly. can't say I tested it a different stages of development so I might have missed the best parts.

Ouch this takes me back:
http://www.oddworldforums.net/showthread.php?t=10602

It might be way too late to suggest this, but if there's one Mudokon left or there's no Mudokons left in the game, then this song should play.

Revive!

It's ALIVE!

Continuing from the E3 thread:..
I am FOR the swinging spikey boulders. No spikey boulders + Quiksave = way too easy. Especially that late in the game.

Well there was a re-spawn point a screen away from each of the 2 puzzles in the first game. And the puzzles you had to do after navigating them were short and relatively easy... That made the glitches forgiveable for me. Not a lot was lost if the spike puzzle shafted me or if I got my timing wrong.

E: I remember there being much harder, similar puzzles in AE with having to roll under bonesaws where your timing window was incredibly narrow, except that quicksave nerfed their difficulty to make them a lot easier than the spiky ball & bat puzzle in AO.

I genuinely hated that puzzle with the doped up mudokons and those walls triggered by floor pads in AE. God damn that's an annoying fucking puzzle. Puzzle being used incredibly lightly.

I absolutely loved that! It was a nice bit of fun before you got to the final boiler level. It made the gameplay more dynamic, more varied. It was hilarious to play. You'd be running, almost through the barrier then BAMMM, it shuts on you and you're like 'shit!' You guys who're saying it's frustrating... jesus, games are meant to be challenging. You NEED to have these parts in games that feel unpassable. It makes you become better, it sets you up for the rest of the game. It creates a much bigger sense of achievement once you finally get through it!

I know someone at work, he spends all his time just playing video games. It's like he wants to get a game over and done with and just move onto the next one. When some of you are moaning about how some of the challenges are frustrating, and to be honest here some of you are complaining about pretty easy situations sometimes, I imagine you want to rush through the game, just to be done with it.

The doped up mudokons puzzle was good, and one of the funniest parts of AE - Only reason it may have been annoying to some was because the mudokons were unpredictable unless you were careful with your movements.

See, I like puzzles like that - They can teach you a lot about patience. IMO it's fine to make something challenging as a way to increase playtime, so long as they're fair to the player.

There's a difference between challenging and frustrating. There was little or no control or logic to those puzzles and I would often find myself getting through them quicker thanks to sheer luck and guesswork than actually trying to work through them.

It wasn't fun or funny at all. It was fucking annoying and felt like it was interrupting me and slowing down my gameplay.

For once I agree with Connell, I sometimes get through that puzzle in 30 seconds by accident where as other times it takes five minutes of careful manipulation and patience. It's bad level design if you run out of puzzles and just throw something in which takes little thought.

What about that situation where you turn a wheel and sand falls on mudokons and they start slapping each other to death and you gotta make your way to them and comfort them before they all kill each other..

Frustrating or challenging?

Fun!

It's pretty much a puzzle with a (generous) time limit. At least it isn't arbitrary and gives you a reason.

I enjoyed watching them die

It was fun to do that deliberately to the group of mudokons after Aslik's office at the end of Feeco. :P