Hypertext Experiment

I'm really excited to present a new experiment in hypertext that I've started - All The Myths Are True. Head over there now to check it out!

It's the end of another semester. And...

Writing Exercise - Klaus Schultz's music

For this exercise I reflected on the end of semester. Of course, for me it's a bit delayed, but that just ties into the overall end-of-semester stress that everybody has to face one way or another. Looking at this, I see just how much trouble I've lined myself up for, and recognise that I need to confront that face on and just get on with things.

I hope that I can find it within myself to keep up this blog. I've always been a fan of freewriting, which is what this blog has tended to focus on. But I also love to comment on the things that I read about gaming and games. This blog has really filled that niche, and my aim is to try and keep it up after I've finished up all my assignments.

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It's the end of another semester. And for the first time it's the end of my degree, as well. Well, sort of. I've been an undergraduate for five years. It's a really really long time to live as a poor student - and it's getting a bit old. So am I.

I have always had lofty plans for myself. Become a famous director, become a rich photographer, invent something everybody wants, change the world ... And here I am, 23, nearly a quarter of a century old, still in the strange in-between world of university.

And the crazy thing is that I'm about to sign myself up for another four years of it. I've had a burning desire to do a PhD for about three years now. My passion for it is so strong that I've actually convinced friends to go for postgraduate work, as well. And yet here I am, the most passionate of all of us, still stuck in undergrad.

I know that there's a lot of things that contributed to my being here - my father being diagnosed with brain cancer is a pretty big one. And I don't resent the situation, not at all. How can I? My life is what it is. But I do see it as a form of weakness within myself that I wasn't able to deal with what happened in my family and still pull off my degree. I suppose I just don't have that steel minded dedication that's required for that sort of achievement.

It's bizarre - when it comes to my family I will sacrifice anything, especially myself. But when it comes to my academic work I can't seem to get going. Maybe it's because I'm afraid that I won't be good at what I want to be? Or maybe it's because I don't really know what I'll do when I reach the end of my postgraduate studies, and so am sort of subconsciously self-sabotaging myself to prolong getting there?

Whatever the case, I've decided that this is the last time. It's why I'm now madly trying to scramble around and catch up on all of the assignments that I let fall by the wayside when I went back to the states to see my extended family. I refuse to repeat another semester. I need to move on, stop being an economic burden to my family and start being an economic resource. Or at least, make a positive step in that direction.

It's difficult though, and not just because I've gotten myself into a mire of half-completed assignments and a semesters worth of catch-up work. It's also difficult because I've recently realized how much I absolutely love film making. I used to think that I just loved film because of the analysis side of things - to look at the cultural trends at work within a narrative has always been fun for me. Strange, I know.

But recently I've had the pleasure of working with some really passionate and driven artistic people and have had a blast making some great films that I'm really proud of. At the top of the list are a documentary that I directed and edited, and a music video that I helped produce and edit. I have no problem sacrificing myself to the world of making movies, and I'm beginning to wonder if that's some sort of sign that I've signed myself up for the wrong career path. Maybe I'm meant to be a maker of things, not just an analyzer of them? And if that's the case, have I just wasted five years of my life by focusing on a secondary passion?

It's this sort of self doubt that plagues me. I know that we're living in an age where jumping between professions is easier than ever. I know that it's not necessary to sign yourself up to one particular industry or company and never ever leave it. But at the same time, it helps if you have the right tools behind you. And I'm terrified of reaching the end of my degrees - what will be nine years of my life - and discovering that I spent it all on the wrong thing.

I guess this is a reflection of my generation - we don't like to waste time. Well, we do, but not on the big things. We want to know now that we're on the right track. And I know that comparatively I still will be getting my PhD quite young - but not as young as my friends who are currently in their last years!

It's interesting - I've never really been one to plan out my life. I grew up moving countries every three years, never knowing where my next school would be or who my next friends would be. I was happy to let things happen however they might, to let life blow me along and to just enjoy the ride. But throughout that I had the certainty of a loving and supportive family. Now that my family is fracturing from stress and sickness, I find myself worrying more and more about where the future will take me.

All I can do is keep moving forwards, I guess. I've put myself on a path and I need to see it out till the end - that's just the way that I am. I've thought about calling it quits at the end of this year, but I know that if I do then I'll spend my life wondering about how things would be different if I'd gone on and done what I'd set out to do.

So it's time to stop letting life get in the way and get on with things. I need to catch up on my assignments, I need to cram in a semester's worth of work into a few weeks. I know I can do it -I've done it before through sheer laziness and bad planning. Sure, my reasons this time are a bit different, and I've got different responsibilities now thanks to the situation with my father, but I need to suck myself out of this mire that I've gotten myself into.

I just need to keep reminding myself that I can. And really, that's the hardest part.

I don't want any sort of recognition ...

Writing Exercise - Jamie Sieber's "Unspoken: The Music of Only Breath"

I love Jamie Sieber - her music is featured heavily in one of my favorite games, Braid. Braid is one of those fantastic indie games that really pushes your concepts of how games are meant to played. On the surface it's a linear platform puzzle game, but the player can, and must, manipulate time in order to progress throughout the game. It's a really fun play, as well as a beautiful one.

Anyways, onto the writing portion of this entry! I tried to imagine what sort of resolution my game narrative would have. I came up with a sort of cheesy "everything will be okay" one, but if there's anything a game like Braid has taught me, it's this: You can take a done-to-death idea (princess must be rescued from a monster) and twist it up to make it interesting and new again. It's this lofty goal that I am setting for myself with this game.

I've said before that I'm a gamer. I've also said before that I don't really have a cohesive online identity. I think I need to change that statement - I do, it's just not that different from my realworld identity. There's a lot of discussion these days about people spending too much time online and disconnecting from reality. I think the real problem is about having two identities and being an unified person - the trick is to try and be the same person online as you are in real life, and not to lose your identity in the information of the internet. The only way that I know how to do this is to try and balance my life between the fun escapism of games and the internet, and the fun things in the real world too. Time needs to be taken every day to go outside and glory in the sun, and the wind and so on. The real world shouldn't be a bad place with bullies and boring jobs - we should work to make it as attractive as an online existence, not just decry the internet and virtual realities.

It's this sort of happy, and utopic, medium that I think I would like to leave the players of this game aiming for. I'm not interested in making a game which portrays the internet as bad, or games as bad, but one that shows that consumerism interplaying with online identities can lead to some pretty negative stuff, and that there shouldn't be the massive separation between online and real world existences as there is right now.

--

I don't want any sort of recognition for what I'm doing right now. That part of my life is over with - I got enough recognition to fill up the needy void in a thousand empty online personalities in the early days. At this stage I just want to fade into the background - to open myself up to the earth and the sky and the wind, and get away from the technology which we've sacrificed our souls to. Except I can't - I'm too dependent on the stuff. I have it hardwired into my bloody soul.

Somewhere, there's got to be a happy medium. A way to live with the net, the addons and the programs, and not let them overcome you. Escaping commercialism is a good way to start the journey, and it's with this aim in mind that I step back into the spotlight. I begin the push to create a free net, easily accessible by all. Oh, I know it's not possible to create a completely free net - certain addons and apps are always going to be pricey and signs of status. There's no real way to combat that. But in today's world, it's fair to say that a great equalizer will be the access to the net. Freedom of information, to access it and to create it, is my main goal right now.

Luckily, this scandal with the corrupt government has opened up a lot of people eyes (both online and in reality) to the fact that the system is pretty rotten. Something needs to be done, and the corporations are realizing that they have a lot of power. I heard this morning that one has already begun offering a free information, no fixed plan option. It's a slow connection, and no equipment is included, but once the new government comes into office and starts offering basic equipment for free it's only a matter of time before the competing companies start offering free data packs. The competitive nature can only serve us well in this instance, as each company will compete to attract the largest clientele, knowing that they can at least control the advertisement spaces inside those VR channels.

So, slowly, we're pushing forwards. Some day we'll reach an equilibrium, a happy medium between living in the dirt and living in the wires. I just hope that people don't forget why we're doing it.

At first I didn't understand what I...

Writing Exercise - "IBM 1401 A User Manual" by Johan Johannsson

For this exercise I tried to think about the possible "secret" that the player has uncovered, that is causing him/her to have to hide from the government. I'm worried that this game is getting a bit heavy in terms of background information - obviously the format that I choose will have to be able to deal with a large narrative. This is where viral marketing will also come in handy - websites that belong to people who are jacked in, or to the companies who are selling contracts will help provide background information outside of the game.

---

At first I didn't understand what I was seeing. My processors couldn't quite take in and analyse the information - it was so far outside of what I was used to, so far outside of what I had come to expect. I guess that's what you give up when you turn yourself over to the machines. Your imagination becomes lazy. It's ironic, considering that it's in the virtual realities that your imagination is supposed to be free-est.

I had been doing a routine data-sweep of the net, looking for any troublesome activities. Any data-terrorists that needed to be taken down, any revolutionaries that needed to be discouraged from targeting a server. It's an ironic thing that our world is now so wired that even those who disagree with how we use the net still need to use it themselves in order to communicate. There are always tremors on the net, before an attack is going to happen. It's just a matter of combing through the data and finding the discrepancies.

I found something, alright. But it wasn't by any revolutionaries or data-terrorists.

There has been a government initiative to encourage everyone to jack in. There are sponsorship programs that allow the poor to join up with government funded providers. The terms are longer, the conditions more strenuous, but it allows the poor access to the net. The idea is that in the four years that you're bound to the government provider, you offer up 50% of your brain power to government processing. You become a mobile server, in a way. But at the end of your term you should have built up enough data-revenue online, written enough blogs and tweets and commented on enough pictures, that you should be receiving a pretty good income in order to sign up for your own individually chosen plan with one of the major providers.

But some people aren't making it all the way through their contracts. In fact - I research user information on some government sponsored bloggers, easy to spot because of their required logos - over 3/4's of them are abandoning their blogs before their terms are up. I do some digging. They're all dead.

Over the next few days I do some more digging. I'm not trying to be subtle about it, but I am, simply be the nature of all the work that I need to do. The search gets pushed to the bottom of my priorities, but it's still there, niggling at my processors.

In the majority of these cases, the individuals died due to some sort of brain hemorrhage. And that's when I piece it all together - the government is using their sign-ups to test out deadly software and viruses. They're mostly contained in their own networks, away from the premium data sites that need to be paid for, so there's minimal risk of a spreaded infection to people higher up the economic food chain. Besides, most people can afford some sort of protection on their plans - an extra chip or addon that filters out the nasty stuff. These charity cases can't, and their brains are wide open to being ravaged by the programs that the government is testing.

These people's brains are literally being fried.

The water drips down the wall...

Writing Exercise - "Kling Klang" by Kraftwerk

In this exercise I tried to continue with the character that I created in the previous one - the synchronised human cyborg superhero. What would make this character interesting to play? What sort of world would this character exist in? These are the issues that I set my mind upon at the beginning of this exercise.

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The water drips down the wall. The light is coming in sporadic bursts - probably from a sporadic broken neon sign outside the building that I'm trapped in, waiting and hiding. I take deep, slow breaths, try to reduce my heartbeat. I don't know what they can hear, what frequency they're searching on. They don't know how to easily find me, I do know that. I'm like nothing they've had to hunt for before. And up until very very recently, I was on their side.

They never thought that I'd go off mission - didn't even think that I could. They assumed that whoever made me programmed me to well for that.

And in one way, they're right. I'm not the traitor that everybody seems to think that I am. I'm running now because I found something out that I wasn't supposed to - isn't that always the way? Hopefully my own story follows the stereotype, and I'm able to get out of here, and publicize the information that I found. The information that is currently burning away at my processors it's so horrific.

My breathing is under control, my processors have cooled down, and I know that it's now or never. I begin to move stealthily through the abandoned building. This sort of slum is more and more common now. People just give up living, die in their sleep, and no one bothers to clean them up. They'll decompose soon enough, it's assumed. Beneath my heavy tread something squelches, and I avoid looking down, knowing that most likely I've stepped on the decomposing body of somebody who gave up a long time ago. A crack tells me that they probably died a long time ago, and that there's very little organic material left to cushion the sound of bones breaking.

This is what our thriving world has come to - decomposing bodies in abandoned buildings. But no one does anything because the only people whose opinions actually matter don't see the real world anymore. They move about in their virtual realities of choice, their eyes filtered by the environment dujour being pushed by the big companies. You can always spot these ones - their expressions aren't as downtrodden and hopeless as the people who can't afford to jack in, for one. But also, they're usually scarred with branding. Part of jacking in is signing up to a provider for a minimum two year plan. The brand gets burned onto your face or body for those two years. If you stay out the term of your plan, the brand dissolves. If you jump ship for a better offer from another provider, you have to get surgery to try and get rid of the brand. This usually goes horribly wrong. The indecisive ones are always easy to spot, their bodies are crisscrossed with competing crumpled logos.

The really rich are even easier for spot - for one, they don't have to leave their homes. They're so completely jacked in that they don't have to leave their homes to conduct their business, instead they control a robotic avatar that they send out for them. The robots gleam, their fluid casings sometimes transitioning as they glide along as their owners decide to change their appearance, either changing the chassis color or chopping off the hair or growing a tail. Even the really human-like robots are easy to spot though - there's something just a little bit off about them. Their eyes don't quite meet yours, their skin or fur or whatever is a little too reflective.

It's into this world that I step, pulling the hood of my sweater up in order to cover my distinctive hair. It's going to have to go, I think with a pang. It's been an identifier for too long, and the last thing I need now is to be easily identified. I need somewhere that I can go and hide out, and plan my next move. I need to figure out how to get what I know out there.

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The world of the game is obviously dystopic, abandoned in favor of a virtual reality. I like the idea of incorporating different "types" of people, as the player would need to figure out how to manage each type. Could the player sort of camp out in the home of someone who is completely jacked in? Or maybe there are some activists who take the player in, people who recognize the harm that being jacked in is doing to the environment and to the lower classes of humanity and are trying to rectify it.

I blink my eyes against the bright...

Writing Exercise - Stravinsky’s “The Rites of Spring”

On the topic of convergence, I'm reminded of Regina Spektor's song "Machine". "My eyes are bifocal, My hands are septjointed, I live in the future, In my prewar apartment, And I count all my blessings, I have friends in high places, And I'm upgraded daily, All my wires without traces, Hooked into machine ..."

As technology becomes more and more consolidated, it's only a matter of time before we do away with cramming more applications and possibilities into cell phones and start cramming it into ourselves, instead.

Of course, we are still human. And because of this there is a general anxiety about opening ourselves up too much to technology - there are too many cultural fears about introducing anything into our bodies, especially something which operates in a very different way to our own thought process. Still, if we were to open ourselves up completely to technology and the processes that we already rely on to make our lives easier, what would we be capable of?

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I blink my eyes against the bright stage lights as I wait for the man to finish talking and present me with my award. This sort of thing has become boring - there is none of the excitement that recieving public acclamation used to give me. It's like a boring dream on repeat that I just want to wake up from. Every minute that I stand here, on this stage, is a minute that I could be elsewhere, doing something else. Not that I'm limited to just the here and now - that will never be the case again.

I have become the multitasker extrordinaire. I can still remember what it felt like, after each addon was implanted, after each new possibility synched in with my brain and opened me up to the world. They say that we (well, you) only use ten percent of the brain. I am what can happen if we augment ourselves with technology to utilize the other 90 percent.

A lot of it is just storage space, really. It's only through technology and run commands that the cacophony of information stored on the grey matter hard drives can be directed and utilized, marshaled by processes into orderly forms of information and productivity. I am the most productive that a human being can be. If you can still call me a human being.

Oh sure, some of you know what I'm talking about, this feeling that I am describing. With your inset mp3 players, your bifocal eyes, your daily upgrades against viral infections. But none of you has the sheer amount of addons and apps that I do. That's partly because none of you are willing to take that step - to turn yourself over to the machine. There are still too many negative stigma's attached to being this networked. It's all down to those scary scifi's of the early 80's that were made when people were still scared of technology.

You need to open yourself up to what technology can do for you. Literally. Open up your body to it and just jam those circuits and processors in. I'm standing here on this platform, listening to this man talk about my works for the good of humankind, but I'm also surfing the net, commenting on a forum (under an alias, of course, carefully routed through three different isp's so that no one can trace anything back to me, because what a PR disaster that could be), I'm organizing my music directory, I'm scouring the crowd for threat, I'm listening to the police scanner and noting down the jobs that I'll go take care of as soon as this is wrapped up. I'm also resting a small portion of my brain - allowing it to go offline and running the protocols that it's responsible for with another part. Sure, there's the possibility of overheating or overtaxing the processors, but after all this time I've got the process down pretty well, and it means I don't sleep anymore. I just allow parts of my processor to go offline and rest, accessing the data through a more circuitous route.

There's so much more that I can do now that I've been upgraded, augmented, synchronised, converged. It's why I'm more than you all - why I'm better than you all. It's why I'm superhuman, a superhero.

Sometimes I think about going evil - god knows I'd be good at it. All it would take is a little bit of coding to rewrite my processes and thought pathways and I could rule this sorry rock. But that's a lot of responsibility - if I ruled the world then I'd actually have to rule it. I wouldn't be able to let a little of myself escape into the internet, into a world where no one can recognize my face (or lack thereof). It's easier just to do this, to do what the public expects of me, and to keep upgrading and slowly escaping.

---

I like the idea of turning this character into a game character. As the player progresses through the game world, s/he would be able to upgrade the PC body by utilizing technology found. Success in the game would be entirely dependent on how innovative the player is with the material - it's one thing to attach a gun to an arm, it's another entirely to be innovative and create a repeating crossbow launcher which sets the arrows on fire before launching them out of found wood and a flint set.

It is time for the culling's to begin again...

This piece of freewriting was done to Joan Jeanrenaud's Transition. I began by writing the word "avatar" in the middle of a piece of paper, and then word associated (well, concept associated) outwards from there.

It is time for the culling's to begin again. You can always tell when it's about to happen - there's a sort of frission in the fabric of vreality, and then like clockwork a few days later the troops descend. There's no way to tell who they'll target, so everyone begins to prepare. They descend, dark faceless blobs, and interrogate us one at a time, in our vhomes, in our vworkplaces. They intrude into our vlives and we can do nothing but take the time to respond. They grill us on our backgrounds, on our habits and hobbies. They ask us about our children, our families, the places that we like to go when the working vday is done. No one's sure what they're looking for, so you're never sure if you're the one that they'll take - absorb into their formless blobs and disappear you. Is it a population control mechanism perhaps? But if so, then what exactly are they looking for?

A friend of mine had a theory. I don't like to talk about it much, because he told me and then during the next culling he was taken. But he has this crazy idea that we're all living on some sort of server somewhere - that we've paid in some other world to have our consciousnesses uploaded, downloaded, copied over, whatever, into a virtual reality. And that the government that comes to cull isn't actually the government at all - it's some form of system software which routinely goes through the data and deletes any obsolete or rogue information. Anyone who doesn't do their job, or who's registry doesn't line up is obliterated from the system.

I hope he's not right, but i'm beginning to believe it more and more. The only thing is, if this is some sort of virtual existence, why would I have signed up for it? How terrible must my real life have been that I would have preferred this workaday, repetitive life?

---

While I liked this music, I found it difficult to write to. Or perhaps that is just my brain rebelling against doing any work - wanting to enter the virtual world itself and take a holiday from stress and responsibility. Unfortunately, as I came to think during this exercise, if we move to a completely digitalised existence then our responsibilities and stresses will just follow us there. Digitilisation as a form of escapism only works if it is an escape, and not the norm.

Getting out there

I love computer games. I love being thrust into a new environment and experimenting with the options available to me. I love how so many games these days are really pushing limits of storytelling and interfacing. And as I work on generating my own idea for a game, the difficulty of knowing how to get it "out there", into the public eye, weighs heavily on me.

Through the aid of the internet, writers can selfpublish. They can use blogs to publish chapters and try and generate interest, and with the rise of Amazon's Kindle, they can selfpublish whole books without having to go through the process of a picky editor.

Musicians can use websites like MySpace Music, or TripleJ Unearthed to get their tunes heard.

Aspiring filmmakers can release shorts or trailers on YouTube to try and generate interest.

But what can game makers do? Obviously if you've got a huge financial backing then you can just throw money at advertising, the way that EA or Lionsgate or Blizzard do. But these companies also already have a following - gamers are waiting for the next release even before it is announced in the expectation that it will be good.

But what about independent game makers? They can provide free trials of their games on personal websites, but that doesn't really raise exposure. If you're game follows the PopCap trend, you can try to release it as a Facebook app. But what about more complicated games? What then?

I think that this is where the video game development company Valve plays a very special role. In 2003 Valve released a digital distribution platform called "Steam". It's sort of like a free portable library - you buy a Valve game, install the Steam client, register your ownership of the game .. and in future, anywhere that you have internet you can download and reinstall the game. The client does away with the necessity of holding onto a hard copy of the game so that you can reinstall it.

There are of course many criticisms about this DRM method - for one thing, an internet connection is required in order to register your purchased game. There is no number that you can call or fax through information to. Still, I think that the work that Steam does in exposing indie games is more than worth the hassle of dealing with a DRM (of which, let's face it, there hasn't been a good one yet).

Games are purchasable through Steam. As of October 25, 2009 there were 928 games available through Steam - and these games aren't all produced by Valve. In fact, many of these games are independently produced games that Valve has seen and wants to promote.

This is a screenshot of the Steam store window, focused on indie games. Currently featured is the puzzle game machinarium, which is an old-fashioned point-and-click flash based adventure. Players play a robot that must return to the city to save its robot girlfriend. This game is developed by the same company that developed the immensely point-and-click Samorost games.

Once a game is on Steam, it can become popular very quickly. Easily distributed and easy to pay for, without being too expensive to make interested buyers think twice, along with a nice demo that entices players, games released on Steam have an obvious advantage. But how do games get to this point?

Well, to be honest, I'm not really sure. This article, written in July of 2007, shows that getting a game onto Steam is actually quite a difficult process. And while I would like to believe that this has become easier, which would be evidenced by the sheer amount of indie games available, the lack of information that I'm finding online seems to say that this is still, unfortunately, the case.

An alternative that I have seen mentioned is StarDock, which I do not personally have any experience with. But some research shows that it has a similar purpose to Steam in that games can be bought and downloaded digitally.

The conclusion that I'm coming to is that the way to market a video game online is the same way one has to market a blog or anything else - lots of exposure and getting links to your site, in order to slowly work your way up the Google search list. It's a shame that there isn't something a bit more direct or a bit more accessible for indie games freshly starting out, but at least there is the possibility of getting picked up by Steam or StarDock if the game begins to grow in popularity.

Million Dollar Homepage

I'm intrigued by the concept of the Million Dollar Homepage, and by how many companies bought into this. Because it is mainly companies, or organisations, that have spent the money to buy pixels on this homepage.

Looking through the list of buyers, I was excited to find some real names in there - until I realised that these real names belonged to people working for companies who were just trying to raise their profile.

This homepage sort of shows how extremely effective internet memes are - "There's this website that everyone is going to look at because it's a gimmick!" "Wow, what a way to get exposure!"

And get exposure they did - because the pixels are still up there, these companies are still getting advertising years after the "experiment" began. Sure, most of the links are now defunct, but it's still basically free advertising - especially when you realize that for $1 a pixel, these organisations bought ad space for FIVE years, on a website that people will still go to look at in interest.

It's rather ingenious, and it's also rather unfortunate that it's not really the sort of thing that can be succesfully redone. Maybe because people are a bit more desensitized to advertising online now? Or maybe because everyone (companies included) would just view another attempt as merely an imitation? And in our hyper mediated environment everybody would rather be "real" over "fake".

At least the creator of the page was brutally honest -this money wasn't going to charity, this money was going to cushion his university experience.

It's scary just how far companies will go just to get some focus on themselves. The internet seems to just make this condition so much worse. But it's not just companies that do this - countries do as well, as evidenced by the bidding war that goes on every four years to try and win the right to host the Olympics - or rather, the right to spend exorbitant amounts of money all for a weeks worth of events. And why? Because the Olympics, like this Million Dollar Homepage, is a sort of brand in itself that companies/countries want to buy into.

The courtship is slow. He approaches,...

Writing Exercise - Beethoven 0p.110 for Piano

I'm not really sure where this story came from - somehow I began with the image of a couple, and then the tone of their relationship followed the music. But again, not sure where the image of the couple came from, as the music begins slowly, certainly, and delicately, but not necessarily romantically.

---

The courtship is slow. He approaches, she daintily refuses. He backs off, she smiles and signals that it was just a ruse. And so their relationship begins. At first it is mostly social - they meet for picnics, go out for drinks, go and see a movie together. But as they get to know each other more and more, they become more comfortable with each other. They open up, they grow closer. When they wake up it is wishing that they were in each others arms.

When they move in together, their friends smile knowingly. "This is it," the girls whisper to themselves. "You can see how much she has blossomed with him. She's so much more confident now! She's so much more relaxed!"

Over beers, the men don't really talk about the move - they simply wink knowingly and mutter "Sure, he's gone a bit soft with her, but it's only a matter of time till he comes back to us".

They buy a puppy. it is a floppy creature that falls all over itself - its paws too big for its body. it is a mongrel, which he is unsure of but she loves, squealing at every antict that the puppy does. The puppy grows into a dog, and they recognise that their small apartment doesnt have room for it. so the make the move, intertwining their lives closer together as they sign both their names to a mortgage and move out into the suburbs, into a house with a large lawn, a swimming pool, a barbeque that they can invite their friends around to enjoy. as the dog lolls in the sunlight, they know that they have made the right choice.

things don't go well though, because his job is in trouble. he didn't have a problem when they were both working, but now he feels like a kept man. he starts drinking more, walking the dog less, making love less, until one day she comes home early to surprise him and finds him with not another woman, but passed out on a poolside chair at 1030 in the morning, the dog lapping up spilled beer beside him.

The fight is huge. he is wasting his life, wasting her time, killing the dog. their words are quick, their actions sharp, and he storms out of the house to a friends place. the friend comes the next day, apologetic, and gathers up a few of the necessary things - a toothbrush, and some underwear.

she is unsure what this means. did he leave for good? are they over? she throws herself into her work, into walking the dog when she is home, into cleaning the house compulsively, preserving everything that he left behind. she is afraid to pack up his things, because what would that mean if he came back?

---

And that is all I had time for! What a cliffhanger!

I have come to realize that when I'm freewriting like this I tend to write in first person, which is interesting, as this is a style that I tend to steer away form both in my own writing and in the books that I read. Perhaps it is the immediacy of free writing that steers me like this?

Interactive Television

The concept of Interactive Television is pretty interesting, but I'm not sure that it works. Well, let me rephrase that - we know that it works, but is it viable?

informITV paints a glorified picture of what Interactive Television can do/ will do. They write that the ultimate incarnation of Interactive Television is "a world of converged communications and interactive media services to connect, egnage, inspire, inform and entertain users. Digital networks are enabling new forms of integrated interactive media, combing the capabilities of the internet with the visual experience of the television to transform the provision and experience of information, communications and entertainment services." Which basically means that they view ITV as a sort of TV 2.0 - where the interconnectivity of the internet is available through the television. Which brings me to the question of - why bother interfacing these two things? Why not just go straight to the internet?

ITV doesn't really do anything for me - I much prefer the immediacy of being able to watch things on my computer in my own time. I guess this links into the attraction of the video-on-demand type of broadcasters. And while I've put some thought into subscribing to Foxtel IQ - which allows the viewer to record shows, like TiVo, I've always come to the conclusion that for less money I could just increase my internet quota and download everything I want to watch. The only real benefit to watching something on TV, as far as I can see, is the increase in screen size.

I think that ITV is really only marketable to generations who aren't as naturally inclined to turn to the internet for all of their entertainment needs. I guess things like BBC's "red button" are good incentives for viewers, as they offer extra content to those who pay a little extra money for the service. But compared to the multitude of extra content that is practically free online, it seems a bit like wasting money to me.

And I think that television companies know this - why else would they be airing "tweet-enhanced" shows? Because people are used to the interconnectedness of the internet, of being able to watch something and at the same time look up interesting background information about it. And while television is trying to compensate for this by introducing tweet-shows (which to me sound excruciating) they can't compete with the ease-of-access that the PC has. Using a TV control is just too clumsy and requires too much work!

One way to merge the interactivity that we are used to with the functionality of a TV is through touch screens - or rather, having some sort of wireless tablet that connects with your television which you could use to navigate and control the interactive TV-net.

Whatever the case, I think that the "microsoft man" who predicted that TV only has about 2-3 years to get it's act together was being a bit generous. As more and more people become more accustomed to the internet there will be less and less incentive to watch TV, no matter how many gimmicks are thrown on top of shows.

The wind is deafening - it always is,...

Writing Exercise -Thomas Koner

This writing exercise is done to the "music" of Thomas Koner. While listening to the sounds of the rushing wind, closing my eyes I felt like I was about to be lifted from my seat. 

Unedited - here it is!

---

The wind is deafening - it always is, here. I think of the cozy home that I have left behind and wish that I was there, now, in the warmth. Instead of here, in the cold, and the wind blowing so hard that ift feels like my skin is about to detach itself from my face. I think that if I didnt have to come out here how long my hair could be. I love the feeling of silky hair, the decadence of it. But I saw one girl grow hers out and then get whipped in the eye by it - the wind pulling her hair so quickly that she sliced her own eye. And I can't afford the time off and the recovery that that would require.

 

I need to be out here, every moment that I can. I drive my spikes down into the hard rocky ground, pulling myself slowly along the earth. I crawl, head bent down, so that there is less of me for the wind to catch and pull backwards. A sudden particularly strong gust buffets me and I lose my grip on the spike and begin to slide backwards. A bolt of panic rushes through me as my safety rope spools out - did I drive teh spike in deep enough? am I going to go flying off the edge of this cliff, and fall down into the canyon below? will me body smash apart on the giant shards of earth that lash out from the sides of the canyon?

no, i am safe. the rope snaps taut and my breath is forced from me. i lie, huddled, for a few moments, as i try to resume my normal breathing. the calming breathing that drives the sound of the wind from my ears and allows me to find my inner peace. i think of my son, who is hopefully right now safe at school. i think of how the work that i am doing will buy him a life better than the one that i was given. and i take a deep breath, fighting the wind to keep the air in my lungs, and begin the achingly slow crawl forwards, accross this dessert of wind, towards the plant where I will work for 9 hours, before heading back home accross the treacherous barrens to my home in the safe-bubble.

---

I found it hard to get back into the swing of letting my thoughts go and opening up the link between my subconscious and my fingers (which to me is what freewriting is all about), probably because it's been so long since I've had the time to shut down at all. As a result, this snippet is a lot more halting than I would like. In my mind I invisaged some sort of war torn strip of land that was impossible to build on due to the severity of the winds. The strip separated a plant or factory of some sort from the eco-dome that is built in the shelter of the canyon. Those who brave crossing the wasteland are paid extremely well for their work. For some reason, I reminded myself a lot of the narrative from "City of Embers" - perhaps because this society exists in some form of post-apocalyptic world.

Interactive Storytelling

I think we need to recognize that interactive storytelling is not a new concept. In fact, I suppose you could say that static storytelling (what I am calling the types of narratives that are pinned down in the pages of linear novels) are relatively new, in the history of humanity. Stories, fables and myths that were passed on through oral tradition are easily the first examples of interactive storytelling. It is easy to recognize that these sorts of tales are altered depending on the audience, on the environment, and on the message that the storyteller is trying to get across. Why else would there be so many different versions of the supposedly "classic" fable of Snow White?

So interactive storytelling in video games is nothing groundbreaking. Well, let me rephrase that. The programming behind interactive storytelling is exciting - imagine the coding! And the processing power that one might need for a world of "infinite" possibilities!

But it isn't surprising that interactive storytelling has entered the realm of video games. This format of gaming gives a sense of power to the player, even though the player's actions are restricted to certain parameters by the framework of the game. Randy Littlejohn writes in his article Agitating for Dramatic Change that the world presented in interactive fiction is "ripe with atmosphere, populated by intelligent actors, and supplies a dramatic goal/challenge for the experiencer and experiencer's allies, and counter-goals for the antagonist, and antagonist allies. What happens within this dramatic context is unpredictable."

While I agree that the worlds presented within interactive narratives are often very rich in detail, I disagree with the assertion that these worlds offer an unpredictable dramatic context. As I said before, the worlds of video games, and of other narratives, are frameworks that simply offer the illusion of unlimited choice. An example, you say?

When Oblivion came out in 2006, everybody was excited because it presented a "real" game world. You could choose any number of quest lines, or you could choose none at all. You could choose to wander around the world slaughtering everyone you came across, or you could stay in one town and do nothing every day. However, your actions are limited by the locations that you are able to access - for example, nothing exists beyond the game island, which you cannot leave. If you attempt to access content that the game is not ready for you to access yet (in order to skip to the end of the game, for example), you are killed by soldiers with whom you have not built up a strong reputation with yet.

A guard "escorting" you out of a house that you are not allowed to enter yet.

Certainly, one can argue that the limitations of the game world are no different to those in the real world. We can't suddenly decide to take flight in the real world, or to spontaneously turn everything we touch into gold. However, we do have more free will than that which is bestowed on us as players within videogames. Free will in interactive games is just an illusion that the gamemakers bestow upon us.

This doesn't mean that games aren't good, and I for one absolutely adore playing the interactive storytelling form of games. I find them a lot more satisfying than platform based games, that's for sure. But I do think we need to recognize that this form of media is not the epitome of what video game narratives can be. There's a lot of growth to come in this media, and I for one look forward to trying out every evolution and iteration to come.

A Person of Character

EDIT: I'm not sure why this didn't publish properly the first time, so here it is (again)!

The word "character" used to be used to describe somebody with moral or ethical qualities. Today it is more used to describe the personality, history, and story that combine to make a "person" in a fictional narrative.

Characters in films need to be well developed before they can be shown to an audience, otherwise the narrative tends to be boring or unbelievable. These characters are discrete, concrete individuals. Obviously, varying narratives can allow for a character's motives and actions to be ambiguous, however it is clear that there is indeed a character there, causing those things to happen.

In the case of video games, the definition of character is a lot more ambiguous. First there is the issue of PC's versus NPC's - characters that the player controls versus characters that the player interacts with. NPC's tend to be very similar to the types of characters that we encounter in films and books. They need to be, as they are driving forces to the overall narrative of the game.

But what about PC's? There are so many types of games that is difficult to come up with a definition of the term character that can be used across the genres. So I'm going to briefly look at two genres - RPG's and Shoot 'em Up games. Specifically, Fable 2 and Team Fortress 2.

In Team Fortress 2 the player is proved with a range of prebuilt characters that s/he can slip into. These are Pyro, Engineer, Sniper, Spy, Heavy, Demonman, Medic, Scout, and Soldier.



In this "Meet the Spy" promotional trailer released by Valve, we can see that each character has a collection of distinct traits that, added together, make a semblance of a complete character. However, these characteristics are unnecessary to the overall gameplay of Team Fortress 2, instead they are just fun quirks that add to the overall originality of the game. The names of each of these characters reveals just how superfluous "character" is - merely reflecting the function that each role plays in a match.

In Fable 2, character is the driving point behind the whole game. Focus is placed on the actions that a player chooses to make, which are able to change the entire game plot. Gender is flexible. Actions are broken down into "good" and "bad", "corrupt" and "pure", and when a player does enough bad actions to become evil, his or her appearance will change to reflect this, growing horns and leaving burning footprints in his or her wake. Likewise if the player chooses only good actions - their appearance becomes angelic, and they develop a halo. Eating a lot of pie causes fatness, while munching on celery leads to fitness.


The player can wander around a simulated world, taking on quests as s/he pleases, buying houses, doing jobs, getting married or sleeping around, murder or save whomever s/he likes. While the game does not offer infinite choice - after all, our technology is not quite that advanced yet - it does offer choice within the boundaries of the game. If one likes, one can completely avoid the main storyline of the game and spend time making money and buying houses instead.

In this form of game, the character is a shell that the player steps into and then defines, much more interactive than the static characters in movies. Certainly, characters in games like Team Fortress 2 are interactive, too, however their actions are limited to a specific range of possibilities, while RPG games like Fable 2 give the player an illusion of infinite possible combinations of actions.

And just for fun, here's the "Meet the Sniper" video, which only shows the Sniper character so isn't really a good example of all the characters available in Team Fortress 2. Also, he's Australian.

Characters on the Interweb

There are some people, like my housemate, who have a name that they use consistently across the internet as a username. It makes it easy to stalk people like this online, because all you have to do is find them once, and you've found them everywhere. Because of this, they have a consistent identity on the internet.

Myself, I never developed a nickname that I felt worked as an online personality. Well, there's my high school nickname, "Ser", but it's often too short to use, and it's pretty much my name, anyways. I feel sort of left out from the in-crowd of the internet, because I don't have a handle, a codename that allows me exclusive access into the "I use the internet so much I have an identity on here" club. Even though, really, I do use the internet that much.

Not having a cohesive online identity sometimes makes me feel as though I don't really contribute much to the web, which is interesting because the whole point of Web 2.0 is that everyone can contribute equally. It's communism for communication. However, not having a name with which to brand myself means that I am just a faceless entity, floating around and leaving comments on websites without anything to tie me down to. It basically makes me anonymous.

Then again, not having an internet identity also means that I don't have to be careful about what I do online. For example, I recently started a cooking blog to try and turn my use of cooking as a method of procrastination into something that is productive. For this blog I created a new email address, and thus a new online identity, in a way. Why did I do this? Because I'm not sure how well this blog is going to go, and there's no point associating myself to it if it turns out to be something I don't enjoy doing. Also, the people who I ravage skilfully in online games won't be able to track me down and flame my recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

It all means that I'm a little bit schizophrenic in my online personality. I change depending on what site I log onto, what name I've decided to use for what circumstance. While the anonymity is nice, I do feel like I'm missing out on being a contributing part of the internet.

Character Development

Two lines that indicate character development from the film Pleasantville are:

Jennifer: I said, No! I've read like one book in my whole life and I'm not gonna let you throw it on that fire!

Jennifer's character at the beginning of the film is interested only in boys and sex. She is failing classes at school. By the end of her time in Pleasantville, she has begun to enjoy reading, so much so that she refuses to allow her boyfriend to burn the book when there are riots against the town turning into color when people experience new emotions.

David: You don't have the right to do this.

David begins the film as a very meek nerd. His experiences in Pleasantville have allowed him to grow a backbone, and believe in something greater than himself. His sense of morals have become stronger, and he has begun to believe in his own ability to stand up for himself, and others.

Looking at Screenplay Structure - Serenity

In order to investigate the structure of screenplays, I've looked at Serenity, largely because it's what my housemate was watching on his computer last night. While there is the whole backlog of Firefly content leading up to this movie, I'm only focusing on interactions explicitly shown in the movie, for simplicity's sake.


Act I

The crew of Serenity are preparing for a new job, taking along River Tan, the traumatized "reader" who was rescued by her brother from a government facility, along in order to ensure a smooth job. During the robbery of a vault, River senses Reavers nearby, and warns the crew. An exciting chase scene ensues. Recovering from the bank job at a bar, Simon (River's brother) decides that it's time for the duo to leave the crew for the sake of their own safety. Meanwhile, River arrives at the bar and watches a video broadcast on the bar tv which triggers her into a psychotic episode, shooting everyone in the bar. Simon manages to shout out a safe word that causes her to fall asleep. Returning to Serenity, the crew get in touch with Mr. Universe - a techno-geek who uncovers that River's outburst was triggered by a subliminal message in the advertisement that River was watching. He is able to determine that River whispered the word "miranda" just before her outbreak.

The tipping point is River's psychotic episode, and the utterance of the word "miranda". It is a clue to her mental state and the experiments that the government conducted on her, and the secrets that she picked up thanks to her now psychic abilities. The film then becomes a race to discover the secret behind "miranda" before the crew, and River, can be arrested by The Operative - a man sent by the government to track down River and contain her.
Act II

When River suffers another breakdown, the crew is able to determine that "miranda" is actually an outer rim planet, rumored to be uninhabitable. Travelling to the planet means crossing Reaver territory, a suicidal act, and the crew decide to head to a mining colony where they have friends. When they arrive, the discover that the colony has been razed, and Shepherd Book, a former passenger on Serenity, has been killed. The Operative leaves a message for the crew, saying that more of the same will happen until River is handed over. Realizing that they cannot avoid what is happening, the crew decides to discover what exactly the secret behind Miranda is. In order to travel through Reaver territory the ship is remodeled to look like a Reaver ship. Succesfully making it through the Reaver territory, the crew discovers that Miranda is a perfectly habitable environment. However, the cities are empty of life, instead they are filled with decomposing corpses. The crew discovers a log recorded by an Alliance government search and rescue team, and uncover that a chemical substance was being tested on the population. The chemical was designed to suppress aggression, but it worked too well. As a result, the population of Miranda stopped acting, and simply fell asleep wherever they were and let themselves die. However, not everyone reacted the same way. Approximately a tenth of the population had the opposite reaction to the drug, becoming extremely aggressive and mentally unstable - these became the Reavers. Mal decides that this message needs to be broadcasted to the world, so that the truth can be known.

The climax to this point is the uncovering of the terrible secret which has been burning River's brain from the inside out. The crew literally has to pass through the belly of the beast when going through Reaver territory.
Act III

In order to reach Mr Universe to broadcast their discovery, the crew need to make it through the Reaver territory again, and then through The Operative's ships which await them on the other side. As they leave Reaver territory, Serenity opens fire on a Reaver ship, tricking the Reaver's into following them, and then attacking The Operative's fleet. A massive battle follows, as Serenity tries to make it to the planet where Mr Universe is located. Serenity crash lands, and is apparantly out of danger. A harpoon from a Reaver ship impacts the ship and impales the pilot, Walsh. Fleeing Serenity, the crew ends up setting up a last stand in a corridor to hold off the Reavers to allow Mal enough time to make his way to Mr Universe to broadcast the message. Discovering that Mr Universe has been killed, Mal is told by a robotic wife that there is a backup system in another part of the complex. Unfortunately, this message replays for The Operative, who follows Mal. Meanwhile the rest of the crew is losing ground the Reavers and retreats, sustaining lots of injuries. When the crew is unable to close the door behind them properly, and realize that they have left behind the med kit, River dives through the crack in the door, tosses the medkit behind her, and closes the door. Mal reaches the second transmitter, followed by The Operative, who attempts to stop Mal. A fight ensues, but Mal is able to outwit The Operative and transmit the message. He returns to the crew, and is informed that River is trapped on the other side of the door. Seconds later the door opens to reveal River, surrounded by dead Reavers. The Operative, having watched the transmission regarding Miranda, orders the Alliance fleet to stand down.

The film ends with the burials of the friends that have died along the way, and a return to the ship, where River takes control as pilot.

This third act also is fairly climactic, but as the crew is literally returning to the old world (ie; Mr Universe's control room to broadcast the message) anew (with a terrible message), I decided to split it up this way. This same story point happens again when River becomes the new pilot on Serentiy, and they continue on their travels.

Writing Exercise

This is my first attempt at the in-class free writing exercise. The song and artist that we listened to in class are to come. This is my first draft - the only thing changed is that I fixed some of the spelling and words that ran together because I was typing too fast to pay attention to spaces.

The sun rises over the misty town and the gloom begins to disperse. The fog is thick this morning, Jenniy is cold on her way to work. She tucks her pea green jacket around her frail form and wishes that she could afford something thicker, something without large worn holes in it, something new. In the gloom large shapes seem to loom quickly out at her, and she flinches as large letter box marches through the fog. Or rather, as she marches through the fog towards and then past the box. In this fog there is no direction that is easily discernible – she hopes she is heading in the right direction, and is simply putting one foot in front of the other in the direction that she launched herself in as she stepped out of her squat that she shares with 10 other working individuals. If there is no sense of direction can there be any sense of progression? Is the world moving at all, or is iti simply moving as she moves, and passing her by, and she is being left behind. She stops and fades into the fog, becoming one with the nebulous gasses in the air. There is nothing that she can do, she thinks, no direction that she can take, that will ever get her out of this mire. There is no future, not past, there is simply this gray and difficult to see now. The fog is so thick that she can barely see her toes in their worn work boots. She closes her eyes and walks forward again. If she cannot see the fog then it cannot exist, it cannot consume her, it cannot destroy her. But if she cannot see the fog, and the fog doesn’t exist, then if she cannot see herself, can she exist? Or by closing her eyes does she become gaseous herself, a mere whisp in the collective fog that is merely whisps of other peoples souls? She continues to move forward, the pressure of her feet against the cobblestones a distant feeling in the cold numbing fog. She is losing all sense of self as she continues forward. Then there is a sharp pain that jabs at her through the fog of her cold and the fog of her spirit and it forces her eyes open. She has walked into a bench that lines the boulevard that she works on. In the time that it has taken her to lose her soul in a gray world, the sun has fought through the thick fog and begun to evaporate it. Where there was only a blanket of grey blindness, now there are shapes glistening with dew and sparkling in the sun. But nothing looks the same anymore to her. Everything is tinged with the sinister knowledge that as soon as she closes her eyes, she will lose herself again.

What makes an MMORPG work?

There's an article over at Gamasutra which briefly describes the upcoming game Aion as being a potential "second" to WoW in the world of MMORPG's. Reading it got me thinking about my own experiences with this form of game, and the many dissapointments that there have been in this genre.

I stayed away from MMORPG's for a long time, afraid of being sucked and losing the initiative to do any work - something which there has been a lot of press about. But it's hard to stay stoic when you love to play computer games, and are friends with a group of people who love to play them too. It's even harder when your housemate plays WoW (among others) right in front of you, and you get to see all the pretty graphics and fun things that are possible. Since opening myself up to this format of game, I've tried a huge range of MMORPG's. From WoW to Lineage (1 and 2), Tabula Rasa to Hellgate: London. And in most circumstances I have been disappointed, as have most of the rest of the world, causing servers to shut down and games to become, basically, extinct. These lost games are like dinosaurs, relics on my bookshelf which I keep for sentimental purposes but are not really playable - what's the point in playing a multiplayer game if I'm the only one playing it?

An example of this is Hellgate: London, which was released in Australia in November of 2007.


Demons have invaded Earth, and hiding out in the London Underground are the last of the human resistance. As a player, you fight your way between safe stations through recognizable locations such as Piccadilly Square and St. Paul's Cathedral, leveling up your abilities as you work out how to stop the demon occupation once and for all. Underground Stations are safe havens, were a player can heal, purchase and upgrade gear, get given and hand in quests, and interact with other players. Combat zones are individually generated instances, with mobs and layouts randomly generated, so that reentering a zone is rarely repetitive, and you never find yourself waiting for a mob to respawn after somebody else ganked your kill. The graphics of this game are beautiful, the gear fantastic, and the various classes that one can play are quite unique. My friends and I were really excited about this game, and all bought a copy so we could play together.

Fighting demons on the streets of London - Public phone booths could be used as part of a defense!
Promotional still from hellgate.iahgames.com

Less than two years after its release, in January 2009, game servers were shut down, effectively killing the game. Of course, the game had been dead for quite a while before this. So what happened? Why did Hellgate: London die a lonely death? Especially when there is obviously an audience out there for MMORPG's, as evidenced by the ongoing popularity of WoW?

Sure, I know that these two games don't run strictly on the same model - Hellgate: London operated along the same lines of Guild Wars, with an initial purchase fee and no recurring fee. Except Hellgate: London threw in a subscription possibility after the games release, which allowed paying players to access different content, a different area to the game, and better gear. It least with World of Warcraft you know exactly what payment scheme you're getting into at the start, and that everybody is basically on even footing.

While I initially despised the ongoing payment plan that WoW requires, thinking "if I've already bought the game, then why do I need to pay to play it?", I've come to see now that it is in fact one of the reasons why the game works so well, and remains so popular. That steady stream of money coming into Blizzard means that the servers are well maintained, that there are plenty of them, and that there is enough funding to support new content being constantly released. Every Tuesday the servers are shut down around the world, so that they may recieve some much needed maintenance.
The constant update of new material also helps make WoW a success. There are large expansions that are released infrequently, with smaller patches being released inbetween to keep content fresh.
An example of the smaller content releases: In the most recent patch, new skins were released for the druid shapeshifted forms.

The bear at the bottom center shows what the druid bear form used to look like.

These small tweaks, along with small changes in game play (in this circumstance, new PVP rules), keep players coming back to give these new things a try.
In the larger patches more world shattering things can happen. Literally. Blizzard has just announced that in the next expansion, Cataclysm, that:

Deathwing the Destroyer will return to Azeroth, and his eruption from Deepholm will sunder the world, leaving a festering wound across the continents. As the Horde and the Alliance race to the epicenter of the cataclysm, the kingdoms of Azeroth will witness seismic shifts in power, the kindling of a war of the elements, and the emergence of unlikely heroes who will rise up to protect their scarred and broken world from utter devastation.

Released notes inform us that there will be two new playable races - the Worgen for the Alliance and the Goblins for the Horde. The level cap will be increased from 80 to 85. New zones and raids will be opened up for exploration, and most interesting of all the classic zones, which have not changed since their releases in either the original game or their birth in the expansions, are going to be completely remapped. Thousand Needles - a dessert environment, will be flooded thanks to the effects of the cataclysm. Oggrimar, a capital city for the Orc race, will be decimated. These map changes are extremely exciting, especially for players who have been around for the five years that WoW has been released.

The upcoming expansion is a brilliant bit of marketing. It attracts new players with interesting content and a great advertising campaign. It also attracts back players who might have played WoW in the past and left because they got bored.

Aside from great ongoing content updates, what does WoW have going for it? Well, Blizzard has a lot of money. This means that they can do things like get Mr T or William Shatner in their ads.



There are even international campaigns with famous actors - such as Jean Claude Van Damme for the French audience. Every ad ends with the same slogan - "What's your game?" By pulling in famous faces to support the game, the game becomes less associated with geeks, and more a game that everyone can access.

Something else that should be noted is that WoW gets a lot of free press from all the negative press about gaming addiction. It's easy for people to look at those stories and say "That would never happen to me!"

Another thing WoW has going for it is the fact that at its inception, the Warcraft games already had a pretty large fan base - it is literally the "World" of "Warcraft".

To make a very long story short - Apart from an engaging game narrative and beautiful graphics, it's going to take a lot of finance, a lot of good ads, and a large fanbase, at minimum, to make Aion a success.

Definitions

Web 2.0: An idealised format of the internet where individuals (as opposed to corporations) decide what's important, create content, and build upon each other through the use of hyperlinks and intertextuality. This version of the internet is entirely collaborative. Websites such as digg.com, tumbler, or even wikipedia build on the idea of Web 2.0, as evidenced by the fact that anybody at all can edit content on a wiki page, or that any page on the internet can be brought to the attention of others through digg.

Widget: Small applications, usually created through open source, that help navigate the internet. Widgets plug into existing web browsing platforms adnd build upon them. An example would be a notification bar for Facebook or Google Reader. The open-source origin of most widgets, along with the manner in which they can be used to prioritise incoming information, mean that they play a large role in the formation of a Web 2.o environment. Of course, the term "widgets" also applies to application found on computer operating systems, or even on our phones now.