‘Star Wars’ video game speaks for itself

It’s something that players of modern single-player video games such as “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” and “Batman: Arkham City” might take for granted, but an effect that die-hard fans of sprawling online role-playing games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Aion” will surely appreciate: The characters in “Star Wars: The Old Republic” can actually speak.

With more than 320 actors portraying more than 4,000 characters with 260,000 lines of dialogue, BioWare’s “The Old Republic” is poised to feature more voice acting than any other massively multiplayer online game in the galaxy, and that’s not even counting the thousands of beeps and boops sputtered by droids predating R2-D2.

BioWare, the Electronic Arts Inc. developer behind the “Mass Effect” and “Dragon Age” single- player franchises, has become synonymous with conversational gameplay that allows players to chat with other characters in the hope of unlocking missions, learning more about the plot, demonstrating morality and even forming virtual bonds — romantic or otherwise.

The developer is taking that virtual chatter online with “Old Republic,” which is set thousands of years before Luke Skywalker battled Darth Vader in a galaxy far, far away.

Unlike most other persistent multiplayer games, “Old Republic” is relying more on voices than written words to push its narrative forward with an unprecedented amount of spoken dialogue.

The highly anticipated “Old Republic” has already drawn comparisons to “World of Warcraft,” the behemoth online fantasy game from Blizzard Entertainment that boasts more than 10 million subscribers but little voice work. (“Star Wars Galaxies,” a “Star Wars” online game from Sony Online Entertainment, ended last week after eight years in operation.)

At the start of “Old Republic,” players pledge allegiance to either the Republic or Empire and pick from eight character types: a bounty hunter like Boba Fett, a smuggler like Han Solo, a Jedi consular like Yoda, a Sith inquisitor like Darth Maul, a Jedi knight like Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Sith warrior like Darth Vader, an Imperial agent like Grand Moff Tarkin or a trooper.

The possibility of 16 highly customizable protagonists — eight men, eight women — hyper-speeding through a virtual universe populated with thousands of talkative characters, as well as millions of other players online, presented “The Old Republic” developers at BioWare in Austin, Texas, and Lucas-Arts in San Francisco with several new challenges.

Unlike an animated film, the nonlinear nature of “The Old Republic” requires the voice actors to record several versions of dialogue, depending on whether players are moving along the light or dark sides of the Force, and because the game is ongoing, the developers are creating updates that will feature new content, including voiceovers.

“We tried to prepare the talent that this isn’t a normal voiceover gig,” said LucasArts voice producer Orion Kellogg. “Normally, actors come into the studio once or twice to record their audio. We’ve got 16 player characters alone doing tons of dialogue. They know they’re coming back. I think they like it because they’ve been able to grow into their role.”

The daunting amount of dialogue also technically tested “The Old Republic” developers.

They built a new system for organizing the audio, which was recorded in 17 studios spanning from Los Angeles to London, and created a method of compressing the audio so that it can be easily downloaded by players when they install and update the game.

'Star Wars: The Old Republic' speaks for itself

It's something that players of modern single-player video games like "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" and "Batman: Arkham City" might take for granted, but an effect that die-hard fans of sprawling online role-playing games such as "World of Warcraft" and "Aion" will surely appreciate: The characters in "Star Wars: The Old Republic" can actually speak.

With more than 320 actors portraying more than 4,000 characters with 260,000 lines of dialogue, BioWare's "The Old Republic" is poised to feature more voice acting than any other massively multiplayer online game in the galaxy when it launches Tuesday, and that's not even counting the thousands of beeps and boops sputtered by droids predating R2-D2.

BioWare, the Electronic Arts Inc. developer behind the "Mass Effect" and "Dragon Age" single-player franchises, has become synonymous with conversational gameplay that allows players to chat with other characters in the hope of unlocking missions, learning more about the plot, demonstrating morality and even forming virtual bonds — romantic or otherwise.

The developer is taking that virtual chatter online with "Old Republic," which is set thousands of years before Luke Skywalker battled Darth Vader in a galaxy far, far away. Unlike most other persistent multiplayer games, "Old Republic" is relying more on voices than written words to push its narrative forward with an unprecedented amount of spoken dialogue.

The highly anticipated "Old Republic" has already drawn comparisons to "World of Warcraft," the behemoth online fantasy game from Blizzard Entertainment that boasts more than 10 million subscribers but little voice work. ("Star Wars Galaxies," a "Star Wars" online game from Sony Online Entertainment, ended last week after eight years in operation.)

At the start of "Old Republic," players pledge allegiance to either the Republic or Empire and pick from eight character types: a bounty hunter like Boba Fett, a smuggler like Han Solo, a Jedi consular like Yoda, a Sith inquisitor like Darth Maul, a Jedi knight like Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Sith warrior like Darth Vader, an Imperial agent like Grand Moff Tarkin or a trooper.

The possibility of 16 different, highly customizable protagonists — eight men, eight women — hyper-speeding through a virtual universe populated with thousands of talkative characters, as well as millions of other players online, presented "The Old Republic" developers at BioWare in Austin, Texas, and LucasArts in San Francisco with several new challenges.

"When you're doing a game like 'The Old Republic,' the acting is like cubism," said LucasArts voice director Will Beckman. "You have to see these characters from every angle and be able to pull it apart and put it back together. It's definitely a challenge for our voice actors. It's a unique type of acting that takes a tremendous amount of imagination."

Unlike an animated film, the nonlinear nature of "The Old Republic" requires the voice actors to record several different versions of dialogue, depending on whether players are moving along the light or dark sides of the Force, and because the game is ongoing, the developers are creating updates that will feature new content, including voiceovers.

"We tried to prepare the talent that this isn't a normal voiceover gig," said LucasArts voice producer Orion Kellogg. "Normally, actors come into the studio once or twice to record their audio. We've got 16 player characters alone doing tons of dialogue. They know they're coming back. I think they like it because they've been able to grow into their role."

Besides the English, German or French spoken in the game, "Old Republic" features 21 alien languages. While the sounds of species like the furry Wookiees came directly from LucasArts archives, Beckman said he crafted several new alien languages, finding inspiration from existing and dead real-world languages, as well as audio effects.

Visually, when players are gabbing away, a glowing conversation cartoon bubble appears over their avatar's head. When they team up with fellow Republic or Empire devotees and engage in conversations, each player elects a response, but what's actually uttered is randomly selected, and players who win the chance to speak earn extra points.

"It is a big game, and it's going to feel like that when players are installing it," said BioWare audio producer Sandee Valle. "More importantly, it's going to feel like that when you get out there and start exploring the world. Hopefully, we're going to be adding to the game regularly with new content and voice work for many, many years to come."

You know what day it is edition

Because of the way Thanksgiving works in the USA, Ask Massively always falls on the holiday. Last year's approach was closer to my usual one, but you know what? This year, I'm just going for the straight dope. We all know what day it is, we all know what holiday we're celebrating, and in all likelihood we're all so stuffed with turkey that we don't want to think about anything other than slowly sloughing to the bathroom. So let's not kid ourselves.

At any rate, the important part isn't the paragraph I devote to ridiculous nonsense; the important part is the questions. And they're just past the cut -- questions about video personalities, loneliness, and last week's forbidden screenshot.

The problem here is that every one of us was hired for our ability to write, not our ability to be erudite and charming on camera, and several of our team members who don't regularly show up on the stream schedule have reasons that prevent them. For example, I very rarely have the time for the extra setup that's required of livestreaming, plus most of the games I actually play are probably not something people would want to see streamed. Rubi has children to deal with in the evenings and doesn't like other people watching her play. Matt is actually a collection of sentient lawn gnomes who cannot be captured on film. Bree can't get out a sentence without a curse word. You get the idea.

I do like the idea that someone pitched in the comments of allowing me to demoralize the contestants as a Dadaist Simon Cowell, though.

Unfortunately, at this time Massively does not have an official presence or supergroup in the game. This is, I admit, mostly my fault -- I do not have anywhere near the time necessary to properly handle such a group, and seeing as how a steady moderating hand is required to ensure that things don't go off the rails, I've kind of steered clear.

Gillnetters Target Up-Market Salmon

When Kirk Hardcastle thinks of wild salmon, he see strawberries and champagne grapes: delicacies requiring special treatment.

“They’re just as fragile,” said Hardcastle, a Juneau gillnetter who grew up in California’s wine country and married into an Alaska fishing family.  “If you have 10 or 12 people handling a strawberry from the time it’s picked until the time it winds up on your plate, what do you get? A bruised strawberry.”

For Hardcastle, salmon’s the same. After navigating thousands of miles through fresh and salt water over the course of years to finally spawn in their natal streams, these athletic, nutrient-rich fish should be treated extremely carefully when hauled aboard and processed.

“These fish deserve to be honored,” he said.

It’s with that passion and respect for wild salmon that Hardcastle and his wife, Heather, together with her parents and two close friends, have built a successful artisan seafood company. The couple can be described as meticulous about how they handle their catch. Some might say fanatical.

As co-owners of Taku River Reds (TRR,) a direct-market seafood business based in Juneau, the Hardcastles are setting new standards for the gillnet-caught salmon they sell, mainly to high-end restaurants and markets in the Lower 48 and Hawaii.

“We freak out if we see someone handling our fish by the tail,” said Heather, a second-generation fisherman who was born and raised in Alaska’s rain-soaked capital.

Picking up a salmon by the tail forces blood back into the body cavity which leads to faster decomposition and that smelly fish odor, according to Heather.

The Hardcastle operation is more than just about delicate handling. It’s a business ethic that ensures every step of the salmon’s ocean-to-table journey results in a product that commands top dollar and yields superior taste.

“The quality is the best that I’ve been able to find in the market. Not only the way it looks at first glance, but the flavor and the shelf life. It’s beyond anything I’ve seen,” said seafood industry expert Tom Worthington, a partner of San Francisco-based Monterey Fish Market.

Intravenous Pressure Bleeding

Taku River salmon appear perfect, of course, when pulled from the water. But unless proper steps are taken immediately, the quality can quickly deteriorate. TRR crew members not only clean and ice the fish as soon as they’re hauled aboard but they go one step father. Every sockeye, coho and king caught and handled by TRR under goes intravenous pressure bleeding. It’s akin to the embalming process used to preserve bodies except no preservatives or chemicals ever go anywhere near these highly prized salmon.

After a TRR salmon is brought on deck, a crewman slices it head off, removes the guts and inserts a hypodermic needle attached to a seawater pump into the fish’s dorsal aorta, the major artery that moves oxygenated blood from the gills throughout the body. The pressurized water flushes through the salmon’s circulatory system, forcing out nearly all the blood. Next, the crewman inserts the needle again, this time into the caudal artery, forcing any remaining blood out of the muscles and tissue and rendering a product that looks clean, smells like the ocean and remains fresh for about a week longer than non-pressure bled fish, according to the Hardcastles.

“The salt in the seawater pushed through the fish acts as a natural preservative so the salmon stays fresh a lot longer than it otherwise would,” said Dave Faulk, owner of Porterhouse, a luxury market that features meat, seafood, wine and cheese in Eagle, Idaho.

Pressure bleeding is labor intensive and time consuming. Very few gillnetters and only a few trollers invest the effort in it, said Glenn Haight, development manager with the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.

“What Heather and Kirk are doing is pretty cutting edge. They’ve carved out a nice niche for themselves and they deserve a lot of credit,” said Haight.

Discerning Buyers

Pressure-bled salmon tend to appeal to discerning fish buyers – some might call them food snobs -- who prize aesthetics as well as freshness and taste. Because a pressure-bled salmon carries practically zero blood, the fish appears nearly immaculate, lacking the dark-red lines down the belly or blood smudges that non-pressure-bled salmon commonly have.

“You can see belly burn within a few hours unless it’s pressure-bled,” said Worthington. “The blood is the first thing that goes sour.”

While pressure-bled salmon costs more, many consumers appreciate the higher quality and are willing to pay for it, Faulk said. In July, he was retailing TRR king salmon for $22 a pound and sockeye at $18.99 a pound. He purchased it from TRR at $10 per pound for kings and $7.50 for sockeye. The mark-up includes the cost of his freight, employees who fillet and sell the fish to customers, and other overhead.

“My customers are people who can afford pressure-bled salmon and who want top-quality fish,” Faulk said.

Photographs of the TRR crew in rain gear hang on his seafood case. People love to know that a pair of Alaskan families actually caught the fish that will be on their dinner plate that night, Faulk said. Elisa Jordan, the meat and seafood manager at Boise Co-op who spent several days fishing with the TRR crew a few years ago, said customers seem fascinated by TRR’s story.

“I tell them about a woman on the boat who, before she cut off the salmon’s head, said ‘thank you’ to the fish. These people are obsessed about treating the salmon with care,” Jordan said.

TRR’s niche seafood serves the growing “slow food” movement comprised of people who eschew fast food and mass-produced grocery products in favor of healthier, sustainably raised meat, fish, produce and dairy items, Faulk noted. Although obesity continues to expand America’s collective waistline, the slow food trend is gaining traction and TRR is grabbing a slice of that lucrative market, Faulk said.

TRR is what the industry calls a direct marketer. The company has cut out the middle man and sells directly to buyers, taking charge of most aspects of the supply chain.

Direct marketing is not for the feint of heart. It’s a risky proposition on multiple fronts, including: making the investment to buy a permit, boat and equipment; securing markets; battling Alaska’s notorious weather; locating and harvesting often elusive fish; resolving mechanical problems; securing and satisfying finicky customers.

And then, there’s raw, physical labor involved.

“It’s a lot of hassle if you have to fish all day and then come back and have to handle the processing, packing and shipping,” said Tyson Fick, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “The advantage is maybe you squeeze a little more money out of each fish. And on the restaurant side, you can tell customers exactly where you got the fish.”

The depth of work was apparent during an offload in Juneau’s Harris Harbor last summer. As the F/V Heather Anne pulled up to the dock after a three-day opener, sheer exhaustion showed on the crew’s faces. At least six more hours of hard work still lay ahead.  Remaining tasks included transferring the fish from the vessel to a waiting truck, driving the catch to a warehouse for sorting and packaging, and then driving the fish boxes to the airport for loading on jets bound for the Lower 48 and Hawaii. Accounting and boat maintenance followed.

Despite the work and risk involved, TRR appears to be holding its own. The Hardcastles and their partners, Len and Sheila Peterson, and Renee and Winston Warr, have taken things gradually, building their business one step at a time.

Still, the economic recession has not bypassed the company.

“When the economy tanked in 2008, our sales dropped considerably. We’re still rebuilding,” said Len “Pete” Peterson, who founded the company along with his wife, Sheila.

Student stabs 37 classmates with hypodermic needle in Puerto Rico

A 14-year-old girl went on a playground rampage with a hypodermic needle, stabbing 37 classmates, Puerto Rican officials said Thursday.

“She would stab one, run, stab another, run, like it was some sort of joke,” Education Secretary Jesus Rivera Sanchez said about Tuesday’s lunchtime attack on 12- to 14-year-olds at the Jose de Choudens middle school in the southern coastal town of Arroyo.

Health Department spokeswoman Margarita Casalduc said it was unclear if the syringe contained anything and further tests were needed to determine if it was contaminated. But the victims, accompanied by their shaken parents, gathered at a convention center to be tested for HIV and hepatitis C and to be given preventive medications.

Sanchez said counselors also were helping the victims and their parents.

Social workers were interviewing the alleged attacker to try to determine a motive, Justice Department spokesman Fidel Rodriguez said. He said no charges had yet been filed, but officials said she had been suspended from school.

Rivera said the girl first told investigators she found the syringe, but later said she stole an unused one while visiting a relative at a hospital and had planned to pierce her ear with it. He said it was not clear why she decided to attack her classmates.

A woman who answered the phone at the school said the director, Gloria Ramos, was not available for comment.

Clean River Project moving from Methuen to Haverhill for cleanup

After hauling 17 tons of debris and brush out of the Merrimack River over the last couple of months — not to mention 700,000 wayward plastic disks from a Hooksett, N.H., sewer treatment plant — it is time to move on, says Rocky Morrison.

The founder and president of Methuen-based Clean River Project Environmental Patrol said that while the group will continue collecting debris and the occasional sewer disks, the bulk of his non-profit operation will be moving downstream to Haverhill to start a project that began last fall of cleaning up the riverbank there.

Morrison, with the help of other volunteers and a host of corporate and municipal partners, over the weekend began moving storage containers, equipment and floating booms used to catch debris, from the makeshift headquarters behind Hughes Motors on Riverside Drive in Methuen to the Crescent Yacht Club in Haverhill.

If the work in Haverhill is as successful as the work along the Methuen stretch of the river, the riverbanks below Lawrence should start looking pretty pristine before too long.

Last week, Morrison spent a few hours on the river in Methuen, working with one of his volunteers who operated the SS Jenny Jones pontoon boat to corral the floating booms along the edge of the river. The booms encircled a tangle of garbage and debris — mostly tree branches and tree trunks — that had been collected in recent weeks.

"We had 12 booms in place at various locations on the river," said Morrison, as two employees from Enpro Environmental stood knee-deep in the river, hauling out debris and putting it up onto land.

"It's amazing what we collect," he said. "We find dead animals, hypodermic needles, appliances, and huge logs. We pull everything out of here."

As if on cue, he pointed to a dead turtle resting upside down on a piece of wood. A red cooler bobbed nearby. Bottles — both plastic and glass — floated amid the mess, as did huge pieces of Styrofoam.

Morrison said he has been working with the city of Methuen, and Enpro, which has a contract with Hooksett to remove the disks, on clearing the river since the disks first started showing up in March. Millions of them washed out of a defective sewer treatment plant and floated down the river and out to sea. They have been found up and down the Atlantic seaboard, as well as along the river from New Hampshire to Newburyport.

While Enpro is collecting the disks, Morrison's group collects everything else, placing it in Dumpsters or enormous piles for removal by Casella Waste Systems of Salem, N.H. The wood collected by the booms is sorted by size and given away as firewood once it's dry, Morrison said.

"Everything is separated and recycled," Morrison said, after he drove the Bobcat he uses in his construction business into the river and pulled out an enormous tree trunk — probably 20 feet in circumference.

He said his group has once again partnered with Casella as well as with Team Haverhill and Windfield Alloy Inc., for the riverbank cleanup in Bradford and Haverhill. He said he would leave two booms in the Methuen stretch of the river to continue collecting the disks, along with one of the group's four pontoon boats. But that the rest of booms, and everything else — including the three more pontoon boats — are being moved to Haverhill.

Casella Assistant General Manager John Augusta said his company began working with Morrison in Methuen and will continue working in Haverhill.

"We are supplying the rolloff containers and the trucking for free as a donation," he said. "We decided to give the community a hand. We'll be moving on to Haverhill with Rocky."

Morrison said that Team Haverhill offered $10,000 to hire his group to spearhead the cleanup.

"We'll be in Haverhill all summer," he said, "taking out trees, refrigerators, appliances and other stuff stuck in the mud and along the edge of the river."

The city of Haverhill will be taking the trash and appliances, much like the city of Methuen did.

"If we didn't have support from Methuen, we couldn't do this," he said. "In this business, you need to create partnerships."

Eric Karlstad, vice chairman of Team Haverhill, said his group thought it was important to clean the river after last summer's drought created low water in the river, which exposed tons of debris along the edge.

"Team Haverhill made a donation last year to ensure we had Rocky's group and all his volunteers to help doing the cleanup," Karlstad said. "He knows what he's doing. We have a lot of confidence in him."

Affordable Acupuncture opens its doors in Norwalk, CT

Affordable Acupuncture of CT has relocated after its successful first year in Stamford to Norwalk at 152 East Ave. Founded by Jody Eisemann, Licensed Acupuncturist and former president of the Connecticut Society of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (CSAOM), the clinic is the first of its’ kind in Fairfield County to offer acupuncture at an affordable price. Eisemann says the key to making it affordable is treating patients all together in a group setting, as it’s done traditionally around the world, which allows many more people to take advantage of this highly effective and ancient healing art.

“It’s actually been a dream for a long time,” says Eisemann. “I am very interested in the community acupuncture movement, which aims to make acupuncture available and at an affordable price to anyone.”

At her new location Eisemann is able to treat up to 3-4 people at one sitting, providing each with a full acupuncture diagnosis and treatment. She is able to treat an additional 4 to 6 people with Acu-Balance Auricular (ear) Acupuncture, a simple yet powerful treatment for stress, depression and other mood disorders. Acu-Balance treatments are inexpensive and do not require any diagnosis or intake interview as the same five points are always used.

With over 15 years of expertise successfully treating varied health conditions in her private practice in Fairfield, Eisemann has developed a special focus on quick and effective treatments for all types of pain. She notes that in China, in addition to treating specific medical conditions, most people visit the acupuncturist regularly to improve and maintain their overall well-being and as a preventative health measure.

Affordable Acupuncture of CT’s reasonable rates for acupuncture, both full treatment and just the ears, allow patients to come as often as they need to get well and stay well.

Through her clinic Eisemann hopes to reach out to anyone who has been told there is no solution, or they should learn to live with it, or assist those individuals who want an alternative to taking pharmaceuticals and/or surgery.

Acupuncture is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as an effective treatment for nearly four dozen conditions including acute and chronic conditions, stress and emotional disorders, women’s health issues (menopause, PMS, irregular menses, infertility, etc), digestive issues, post chemotherapy and radiation issues and sports injuries. Acupuncture can also provide remedial and preventative care for seasonal colds and allergies.

Eisemann explains that, unfortunately, many people have unfounded misconceptions about acupuncture, which prevent them from experiencing the medicine’s many proven benefits.

“Do the needles hurt?” she says. “Not really. The needles are like flexible cat whiskers and their ends are rounded and not sharp.” She adds that acupuncture needles are so fine you can fit almost 25 of them into one regular hypodermic needle. This is because the acupuncture needles are intended to stimulate, not to cut, as the hypodermic needles are designed to do.

Jackson police: Woman tossed hypodermic needles out truck window

A township woman was placed under arrest and charged with possession of hypodermic syringes and possession of drug paraphernalia on Friday night, according to a press release from the township police department.

At approximately 11:30 p.m. Friday, township police officer Jeremy Felder conducted a motor vehicle stop on a Dodge pick-up as it was pulling into the Hess station on Bennetts Mills Road.

During the motor vehicle stop, Felder observed the driver of the vehicle toss a small bag from the truck to the ground outside the truck. According to the police, the bag was recovered and was discovered to contain several hypodermic syringes, empty baggies and other paraphernalia commonly associated with heroin use.

Leigh Santillo, 18, was placed under arrest, transported to police headquarters and released on a summons/complaint with a pending court date.