Wednesday, February 9, 2005

An online game that's acutally different
Wouldn't you agree that we need one? I mean, what's up with all this hype about World of Warcraft? What the hell have they done with this game that's any different?

And don't tell me "more classes" or "better skill systems". That stuff's bullshit. Those things should be covered in expasion packs to games that are already out there. Anything that they're doing with new MMORPGs nowadays is just the same old, same old, with maybe one or two new twists. In any other gaming genre, this would actually be criticized. In the online, it's practically embraced.

Now, when I was/am dreaming about my respective game - you know, the one perfect game that everyone stores in their minds, sometimes being built up for years? - I wasn't thinking of new ground being broken by it, just because that needs to happen. But that's what would happen if a game like this were released. (Or your dream game, probably, too.)

Actually, I've got three games in my head at the moment, all online ones. I'll start off with the least developed one, and go from there.


The Music Game
I guess I should mention that I don't have a name for any of these games, and I suppose I don't really need one, now do I? Anyway, this is probably something that a lot of people have thought about, but it just wouldn't seem to work, because 1) You can't really kill anything, and that's no fun, and 2) When you make music with it, it would be confined to you, and without hope of being shared with people other than those who would see it at your house. Bummer.

Second problem's easy to fix, just put the game online. The first one, though, could definitely be a doozie because no one's ever heard of a MMOG that had any amount of success without the main focus being killing stuff. How can you make composing music on a game fun? And what about voices?

Well, the music-making process would really have to be controlled by the keys on your keyboard, which would handle everything from chords to distortion. Voices, I suppose, could be created via some kind of complex voice-making engine in the game, where you would sing into a computer mic in real life, and instead of playing your crappy, low-quality voice in your kickass song, it would change it to whatever voice your character has. Unfortunately, this means singing in front of your computer. In your house. Which is more often than not populated by other humans. So there's your catch. Let's just suppose that you could get people to do that, and move on.

Apart from music, the game would handle just like any other game, you would run around (I suppose in a big city), go to shows put on by other bands/DJ's/singers/whatever, have jam sessions, and do other things that I haven't really fleshed out yet.

I suppose in putting on concerts, you would have to pull an Ashley Simpson, and have your music already playing, so you could free up your keyboard for actually performing; i.e., dancing, guitar tricks, et cetera. You obviously wouldn't have to do this if you were a DJ or a drummer or some such thing. You'd just set a playing style for yourself then, I suppose. (For example, a drummer could move with a cool jazz style, thrash style, and so on.)

You could do such things as music videos, you could design your image (John Mayer or Gene Simmons?), and I suppose a big must would be the ability to explore every inch of the city, including skyscraper rooftops, sewers, people's back yards, and everywhere in between. I think I'll quit here because I have to get off the computer. I'll cover the other two games as soon as I can.

EDIT: Mmmkay, here we go.


The Western
Nobody should ever, ever, ever make another fantasy MMOG. Ever. That is without question the single most-flogged dead horse in the recreation industry. "OMFG!!!1," you say, "BUT JOHN, WTF DO WE DO WITHOUT ELVES?!?!???!? OMG OMFG!!" The answer? The Wild West, biatches.

You'd start out choosing from one of four backgrounds (the game's version of races): American (the all-around and the gunfighter), Native American (the spy/rogue/ranger), Mexican (the craftsman), and Chinese Immigrant (hand-to-hand combat, healer). No classes. People need to break away from classes, at least for now. Every background will be better at different things, but anyone can do whatever the hell they like instead of being totally restriced to the abilities of their background.

It should be noted that the game won't make any use of armor. Unless, of course, you think that a bullet will do any less damage because you're wearing a leather vest. As in all three of my games, clothing will be just for purposes of fashion, athough maybe having affect on the environment's impact on your person. (wear a lot of dark clothes in the desert, dry up like a sponge.)

Weapons will consist of basically anything you'd find in an old Western town: whips, guns, knives, bow and arrows, you know. Not a whole lot to this portion of the game.

Of course, in bar fights, which would basically be handled like organized, arena battle royales, you would be able to improvise with beer bottles and stools and such. Bar fights would be where your Chinaman will come in handy.

You could also breed horses and livestock for a living, raising them and taking them on cattle drives and everything that raising animals entails. This would make the game very Harvest Moon-esque for you, and cattle drives, well, they'd be a whole other beast. Very planned and organized, taking a long time to complete. I haven't fleshed out that part all too well, though.

The smithing/crafting system, well, I haven't gotten a good handle on that. It'd have to be a very original process, and hopefully something that would allow you to create your own trademark weapons. As with the fighting, it would force you to be creative, instead of just repeatedly clicking and pressing buttons and getting exactly the same results. I think I'll go ahead and end this one here. I want to get to the next game.


The Fighting Game
This is definitely the one I've spent the most time thinking about, and if I had my choice, I'd definitely put this one out in front of the world before the other two.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it would have to be published exclusively for Playstation 2 (or three, or whatever exists at the time), providing that they keep essentially the same controller. This means that communication would have to be handled through headset microphones. That'd be nice, because it would bring console mics to the forefront, and hopefully people would invest in making actual high-quality mics instead of the CB radio quality crap they've got now. And given that the volume that you hear others' words at would be relative to your distance from them (yell when they're far away, whisper when they're right next to you), you would once again be booted out of your house for screaming at a screen.

Once again, no fantasy. But no Western, either. I thought about blending this game and the Western together, but that would put way too much emphasis on melee combat. Not a very ideally Western thing.

Instead, I want it to have a very modern, but smooth feeling to it. Probably cell-shaded in the style of XIII, but without very thick outlines. I don't want it to look all chunky-like, y'know?

There'd be a lot of different clothing available, even though as I said before it won't protect you. Your defense comes from the same place most of your offense comes from: your madd skillz.

As in the music game, big city and tons of stuff to explore. No two places the same, and location isn't just a necessity as it seems to be in so many MMOGs. In theory, you could almost be convinced to buy the game just to explore it.

But moving on to the main feature, the combat. It's about time that we got a good action game nowadays, too. How long does mashing a single button repeatedly and watching enemies die seem fun? In most cases, not long enough. A fighting system like I'm thinking of would do two things for two genres: simply make a game more fun for action games, and take off some of the dependency on levels and transfer it to dependency on skill for MMOs.

So here's the rundown: the four shoulder buttons would be your punches and kicks. (You know, L1 is left punch, L2 is left kick, and the same for the right.) When in combat mode, the right analog would control where you're aiming at, as indicated by a red circle. This circle would grow smaller and smaller as your accuracy level increases, allowing you to make increasingly precise hits. Check it:



(Note: you would go partially transparent in combat mode, so you can see your opponent's entirety.)


So, to give a person a simple left jab to the face, you would move the circle to the opponent's face and hit L1. Holding L1 would result in you holding your arm out in front of you until you let the button go. Although it wouldn't do much if you decided to keep your arm out like that and then run up to someone and joust them, it would be awfully fun, and you could pretend to be Superman, to boot.

Now, if you want to do more than just jab and front kick your opponent, you'll have to take advantage of the holding out your arm/leg ability. If you wanted to do, say, a roundhouse kick, you would press the kick button and hold it as you swing your right analog stick in a circle. To do an uppercut, you would press and hold punch as you move the stick down, then up. The button holding and analog stick movement would have to be timed right, too, or you would swing your fist up before it reached your opponent, maybe resulting in you swinging your fist directly up into your jaw. If you had a considerable strength level, this would definitely suck.

So now your hands and feet are registered weapons, and you can kick the crap out of anyone you come by in any way you feel like, without the repetitive button mashing. But can you block a hit? Hell no, you failure. I haven't told you how yet.

Blocking and grappling would be controlled with R3 (pressing down on the right analog). When pushed, your red attack circle would turn into a yellow defense circle, the size of which would be determined by your defense level. If you see your opponent about to punch you, aim your yellow circle at his fist, or somewhere in it's path towards your head, and tap one of your shoulder buttons to block it with an extremity. If you do so with your hands, you can hold down on the button and grab his hand instead of just blocking it. From there, you can do any number of things, such as swinging your analog stick to make both your and his hands move, and say, "Look everyone, we're dancing!" Of course, you will promptly receive a blow from his free hand for doing so.

No, seriously, your best option there would be to attack with one of your free appendages while you're gripping him by the hand/wrist. How, you say? Simple.

This is where the oft-neglected directional pad comes into play. When gripping his right hand with your left (for example), you would hold the left button on the D-pad down to keep that position. Now you can let go of L1 and your hand will keep gripping his and you can, say, move the circle (not using R3) towards his throat and use your right hand to sucker punch him. Then you may, if you wish, let go of the left button on the D-pad to release your opponent's ensnared right hand.

In the same situation, you could also grab his throat instead of punching it, and push your analog stick forward to stretch his arm away from his body until you break it or something. If you were good enough, you could even hold down another button on the D-pad to grip both his hand and throat at the same time. And you could, like, run through the streets pulling your opponent along with you. Now, you'd be holding the left and up buttons to do that because this is how the buttons would work: left=left hand, up=right hand, right=right foot, down=left foot. (Just turn your controller clockwise 45 degrees or so and you'll see what I mean.)

Whew, hope you got those last few paragraphs. The next stuff is simpler (ha, I'm even talking like you're still reading this. How cute). The x button is your jump button. Moving your left analog stick in one direction or another and pressing x will make you dive in that direction (left analog stick is, as usual, movement). The square button is dodging, where you move the left stick and you'll dodge in that direction, same as jumping. Triangle and circle are as of yet useless, but select actually has a purpose in this game.

Select will help you change your fighting style. There'll be dozens, hundreds maybe, of fighting styles from kung-fu to professional wrestling to cappoeira (obscure, I know). You can only use a style you've mastered, and I don't yet know how you'd master styles.

Hm. This post has become obscenely long, so I'll end it here, and maybe pick up later where I left off. I'm really typing this just to get it down somewhere, anyway.
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