Alright, I'm taking a page from dbaumgart's book and updating every Wednesday (or trying to). I'm also stopping the Monday Resource Sitrep and Tuesday Events Sitrep and just throwing them all in here, as well as a dose of goings on around GDNet. Uhm, just in case anyone doesn't know - sitrep is military parlance for "situation report".

GDNet Sitrep

Now then, I will direct your attention to this thread in the Lounge. I can't say exactly why yet, but rest assured there is indeed significance in my directing you thusly. We don't have much of a rumor mill around here so I like stirring the pot every now and then [smile] If you want even more hints, then Mark "Prinz Eugn" Simpson will oblige you.

There's been talk recently about starting up a discussion thread for polls. I used to do this several years ago, but stopped because the threads weren't getting much discussion. I've thought about starting them up again, and posting the results as I used to and opening the floor for comments. I'm not really in favor of having a thread running during a poll - I feel that will just lead to more arguments as people fight over what other people should vote for, and end up skewing the opinions of anyone reading it who hasn't yet voted. If anyone else has thoughts on this matter - post them here or in the thread. I'll probably try posting results again later this month or in July.

Have you checked out the new Intel Developer Zone yet? Let us know what your thoughts are, because the Developer Portals are going to be a big part of the site moving into the future. What you're seeing here is just a "first draft" almost, as we test the waters with various ideas over the summer. I know not many people are huge fans of Intel, but how'd you like to see an XNA portal? We have to start somewhere...

Resources Sitrep

Here are the new resources added this past week:

• Building Game Explorer Support Into Your XNA Project by Chris Charabaruk - Learn how to take advantage of Vista's Game Explorer in your XNA project


• Will Wright on Art Games by James Huck - Will Wright discusses gaming in the context of human development and as an up and coming art form.


• Hosting a C++ D3D engine in C# Winforms by Ryan Villamil - Describes a sequence of techniques for hosting an unmanaged C++ graphics engine in a C# Winforms or WPF application.


• Paris GDC Highlights by Drew Sikora - A look at the keynotes and some select sessions from this year's upcoming Paris GDC


• Book Review: Learn to Tango with D by John Hattan - We follow up on last week's free chapter from the D book with a full review.


• 3ds Max 2009 and 3ds Max 2009 Design Review by Kelly L. Murdock - We review the latest version of Autodesk's high-end 3D modeling tool.

Events Sitrep

Here are the new events added this past week:

• IndieCade @ Bellevue, WA, United States [Expo] - 7/10/08 to 7/13/08


• GCDC @ Leipzig, Germany [Conference] - 8/18/08 to 8/20/08


• Games Convention @ Leipzig, Germany [Expo] - 8/20/08 to 8/24/08


• New York Games Conference @ New York, NY, United States [Conference] - 9/25/08 to 9/26/08


• 5D: The Future of Immersive Design @ Long Beach, CA, United States [Conference] - 10/4/08 to 10/5/08


• fmx/09 @ Stuttgart, Germany [Conference] - 5/5/09 to 5/8/09