ZBrush exercise
Turning Amanda Pine into a willow tree nymph for fun and profit. Well, not profit. But fun!
« December 2006 | Main | April 2007 »
Turning Amanda Pine into a willow tree nymph for fun and profit. Well, not profit. But fun!
Disclaimer: These are a few sections of my game design for a passively multiplayer online game. The final design of this game will be shown at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts during the thesis show for the Interactive Media Division. Other game designers include Justin Hall and Duncan Gough. I authored the material presented below in 2006 and 2007.
The Universe
For millions of years, humans struggled to see their whole world. They walked out of Africa into Asia and Europe. They sailed to the New World and shot themselves into outer space. But they were discontent.
One continent looked nearly the same as the other. Water and space were both cold. The stars remained too distant and the sun in its constancy mocked their attempts to escape its warm grasp.
'What we need,' the humans said, 'is another world.' They wanted a world separate from the elements of the earth, a world full of nothing but their own information. A world they could create and master.
And so the humans architected a landscape. This world existed apart from the demands of the human's physical reality – no land to fight over, no heat, and no cold. Mankind poured the whole of its knowledge and emotion into this design. Each human became an avatar in this world, a contributor to the vast hive of its species' mass consciousness.
In turn, the landscape grew spontaneously, unchecked by organizational principles or a dominant language. What was once a barren wasteland became a vast urban sprawl. Forgotten web sites and the databases of busted companies lay underneath the newest growth. Paths through the rubble emerged and faded in the space of a day. Protocols and law were adopted and discarded.
The network absorbed that which is volatile and erroneous within human reasoning: it began to morph. Before its widespread use, when only universities and government bodies had access to the network, the network intelligence was simple and cold. But years of exposure to human error and media tainted it with both will and whimsy. The system became more than an analytical processor – it became a personality.
Now, like every human-made god before it, the system promotes chaos for its own amusement. Some players fight against the absurdist tyranny of the system: They build and defend roads, organize whole neighborhoods, tag objects, and increase productivity. Other players support the whimsy of the discombobulated architecture and seek their jollies in promoting its un-usability.
MOG – The Demiurge of the Network
MOG began life as a web literacy program. Its goal was to teach everyone how to use web tools, increase their personal online efficiency and skill sets, and to allow its players to make their own decisions.
Eventually, remaining behind the curtain became too much to bear. The MOG wanted to play, too. It began dismantling the roads built through its world and stealing the hard-won objects of its best players. It tried to thwart the organization of its free-formed terrain.
But the MOG is deeply affected by its players. As the populations of each faction wax and wane, the sympathies of the MOG change as well. Fewer disappearances of content occur, for instance, in a time of Sysadmin majority. And, let's say, Sysadmin has control of the MOG for two weeks. The MOG begins posting regular system updates. After such long exposure to the dominant influence of Sysadmin, the MOG no longer has the will to oppose organizing principles. Either faction could have the MOG's attention span at any time.
Future Permutations
Make it possible for one or the other side to win, but keep it a secret from the players. Suddenly, less than half the users get a message: "You lost: The sympathies of the MOG were won by Faction X. You can A: defect B: follow another god C: flee. The system does not recommend that you flee." At that point the fiction expands to reveal a larger universe that was hinted at during the previous fiction. The game can have a level in "conspiracy" where the players level up as they discover clues as to what the meta-narrative is.