Allright, my turn ;)
Wow, can't loose a day or two thinking around here ;) A lot was said.
So here is what I think:
- by "mise en abyme", I mean the idea that I was drawn to is the fact
that you'd be playing online a game about being online.
Okay, let me refine that: the Gaia concept is a bit too stretched for
my tastes (and here I realize it is also a matter of taste, what we
are drawn to, etc).
With the AI thing, you're on your computer, you start a game, you
choose an avatar (not complexed at all - but then we can change that),
it is contacted by an AI - first there would be some classic "meeting
of two different cultures" fun, and some simulation time.
But very quickly. Because let's say you do 5 things for your AI and
then bam: it opens some documents that show that it hasn't exactly
contacted you by chance. It got your name from a bunch of documents...
that show that you're about to get into some serious trouble real soon
(a ticking clock for the tension).
By hacking some websites and interacting with your AI, you will stop
the problem - it will be a bit complex, nothing will be that easy,
your "enemy" will strike back and will give some hard times.
And once you're about to be done... bam, you find out this is all
about a global conspiracy and there is a lot more to it and that's
when the mutliplayer game starts. (and we'll get back to that some
other time).
The general idea goes - to me - further than the Gaia/environmental
idea. It is knowledge (if you want to start by a quote, according to
some translation, the first sentence of the Bible is not "At first God
created Heaven and Earth" but "at first, God created the speech.")
So through the battle over the internet, we can deal with the idea
that nowadays Internet is our source of all our knowledge, our
everlasting truth. What about when this truth is trying to be bent or
even rewritten?
Propaganda, ideology, it can go very deep... and very progressively.
Also one of the thing that I find appealing with this lead is that
that game could start very slowly and go very far. And being this
strategic/intelligent/simulation game, people could play for a long
time and for lots of different reasons. They could try all the
different "first level missions" to see which character/avatar they
feel the most comfortable with - and of course that avatar will evolve
in the game (but not necessarily fully controlled by the player btw),
able to do certain things he/she couldn't, have access to certain
websites, and vice-versa.
I feel an idea like that is immediate and can be played on different
levels, providing appeal for everyone.
- with the Gaia/spirit idea, I feel it is lacking of immediacy. And
why would Gaia have to go through the Internet? And why would a spirit
contact you through the Internet? You'd think they need something a
little more tangible. Plus, following the ideas of George Carlin (and
Epictet, as a matter of fact): if the Earth has a conscience, we
wouldn't be important, we wouldn't matter to it. We're a problem?
Okay, send in a few hurricanes, a few tsunamis, a couple of plague. It
should do the work. It wouldn't want to try to "moralize us". As
capitalism, humans can't be moralized. It's the number one paradoxe:
we're here because of the will to live. And with that comes the
necessity to die. So if Earth would/could/should think, we wouldn't be
much on its radar.
And also, with the idea of spirit, I found it a little silly. I see
little elfs dancing around my computer, I don't like it. Well...
actually it could be funny... but only for the stoner part of the
game ;)
To avoid this impression of 'gratuity', I think most missions
should have a
little brain effort (that gives an added value to the fact of just
doing
something on the web) and a reward that either unfolds the story or
give new
abilities to the player but that in every case reinforces the bond
with the
player by making him want to experience more.
Again, why limiting so much the range of possible actions? I think
variety is key here - giving freedom to gamedesign and storyline to
experiment things without putting too many boundaries. It will help us
find the ones that are enjoyable, and also allow the player to chose.
------------------ Here I want to push a little further the
mutliplayer idea. Because I feel that would be the real appeal of the
game. After you complete your mission(s), you enter the multiplayer
part (maybe with computer controlled characters at the beginning
because how fast the "real" team will be put together (or maybe my
question is really dumb - lighten me up on that, please)?
Anyway, that is when the whole conspiration for global domination (not
only environmental but political, religious, education, media, etc).
Let's say it could even be more progressive: first, the player
completes his/her first mission solo, then a mission for 2, then for
5, then for 10, etc. And everytime you had people, you uncover another
topic: politic, environment, education, media, etc. And of course,
little by little, it'd be better for the team to have several people
playing on the same topic and helping one another.
You get the general idea. And things like that could be really written
little by little, with the evolution of the world news, following what
is going on in the world. And it would be interesting to have close to
real debates about how to present news.
I don't know why, I thought I'd be longer ;) but it seems I'm done here.
Let me know what you think.
Michael
PS: sorry I'm a retard but what do IMHO and ARG mean?
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