No Who spoilers, and an idea for MMOs, maybe...
Image created with the Keep-Calm-O-Matic.
It's amazing how much the new "Doctor Who" has changed. The camerawork is more frenetic, but what's really going into high speed is the writing. The opening to the latest UK episode is the most seemingly incoherent yet connected one I've seen in a while. You have to love an opening that includes, seemingly out of nowhere, "12,000 years later." It was a fun episode, and I think it had an enemy I'm starting to enjoy more than the Daleks, at least, for the moment. In fact, I'm starting to favor them slightly over Giger's "Alien" as the worst monster to be trapped somewhere with. :)
"City of Heroes" is going to have a 6th Year Anniversary celebration late this month, and it looks like they've got quite a few interesting things to offer. The Dual Pistols powerset has been out for a while, and I just noticed a new Veteran power: "Clear Fog of War." This shows you the entire map of the instance you're in, which does raise the question: "How am I supposed to tell where I've been?" This is then followed by "How will I find those bombs/hostages/glowy things now?" :)
The biggest offering is going to eventually be some updated graphics to make CoH/CoV look all shiny and new. You can still play with the old settings, of course. This got me to thinking: As long as an interface handles the relevant data (where I am, where you are, where Carl is instead of where he's supposed to be so the whole party doesn't die, etc.), why don't more online games offer different interfaces? Here are a few suggestions, mostly to bring the "old guard" of computer RPGs into the fold:
1. Bard's Tale: Granted, it'd be a bit more animated than the actual games, but if you marked out larger amounts of territory in an online game as your 10' by 10' square, you could pretty easily click and interact (talk, slice, ensorcel, etc.) with just about anyone. And it would give one's graphics card a huge rest.
2. Isometric 3-D: It can't be turn-based, but therein lies the challenge, right? Some might also say those playing like this might have an unfair advantage in seeing a larger area than others, but their armor and stuff doesn't look as cool to them, which is half the game's appeal, right? And I'm not just talking about WoW: Most superhero games owe continued subscriptions to giving access to the costume creator. :)
3. The Virtual Role-Playing Game Table. This one isn't going to be as the link suggests, and it probably wouldn't help graphics processors much, but what I envision could be interesting. Your main interface with others is a player designed person with a big "GM" on their shirt. They "talk" to you as the game goes on, telling you what you see and who is around you. Very often, decisions (like what you want to do before something kills you) are given countdowns by the GM. Miniatures on the virtual table in front of him move and fight as needed. When you die, rather than just respawning somewhere, you have the opportunity of paying a little extra via your subscription fee to buy the GM a pizza or caffeinated beverage to mitigate any inconvenience expiring might have. Fellow party members would be present around the table as well, with any private messages between players being shown as post-its being passed around.
Okay, the last one is more of a pipe dream crossed with the myriad attempts to virtualize chess I grew up seeing in gaming magazines (one from National Lampoon had an opponent who would attempt to cheat if you weren't paying attention). I also wanted to suggest one based on the old "Adventure" game from Atari, but other than choosing what color your pixel would be, character creation would be pretty dull.
And even if these aren't implemented, someone needs to write a clever application that can "see" when an attack roll is being made and show the result in dice form somewhere on the screen. A "natural 20" would appear to crush whoever you were fighting, of course. :)
Or perhaps I've been imbibing too much generic pink lemonade this weekend. I'm keeping that nose to the grindstone so I can have the comic back on track (and scarily enough, it appears to be working) while putting out some more ps238-related materials for Hollywood (yes, we're still at it. No, nothing's been signed. Con-sarnit). By the way, from both myself and my manager who have seen several proposals: Spellcheck. If nothing else, run it through Word or something similar and make sure those squiggly red lines aren't all over half your materials. Though I can't say it's meant success for me yet, I'm hoping there's some kind of point system that I'm scoring on that will tip the balance someday. :)
Onto the part of the blog that both stymies and celebrates human progress:
- So did any CostCo shoppers out there spot one of these fake product labels?
- If I ever get my hands on a time machine, my younger self is so going to grow up with these on his wall. Is it me, or does anyone else out there feel we were somehow cheated out of a ton of cool stuff when we were kids?
- It looks like you can get a lot of sci-fi visuals for about $5,000. It's a bit on the derivative side (with a bit of RoboCop, Dragonball, District 9, and the "Prototype" video game), but it's an interesting clip.
- A game sequel of sorts: Shrink it: Falling has you expanding and contracting objects with the goal of getting a smiley-faced shape to fall through the bottom of the screen.
- It seems to require a Wacom tablet, but Rhonda looks like a pretty interesting 3D program.
- This blog has some tantalizing images of Walt Disney World's abandoned "Discovery Island." The snake in the Diet Coke bottle is what I find most intriguing...
- What if YouTube were steam powered? Try your hand at keeping the video running without losing pressure.
- There are a great many things where it'd be cool to "press the button." Launching ships sideways is one of them.
- Though it has a lot of similarity to his song, "New Math," Tom Lehrer's musical lecture on decimal currency from The Frost Report on Education is worthwhile for any student of numbers.
- Playing something like a mash-up of Risk, Settlers of Catan, and World of Warcraft, Ultimate War pits dwarves, humans, and orcs against each other on hexagonal territories. Have fun stormin' the castle!