Blending Gaming & Movie technology: Arcanum 3?

Sure, it'd be cool to see an Arcanum movie. What will be awesome though is when the lines between game and movie are so blurred as to disappear into meaninglessness. When a game like Arcanum becomes an interactive movie. It seems so close I can almost taste it. Fully rendered detail in smooth, natural animation, hundreds of (non-repetitive) AI dialogues with realistic [facial] expressions and lip syncing, smooth omniscient panning and zooming as well as switching to the first person perspective of multiple actors, non-playing environmental/background characters that behave naturally in seeming independence of the game/movie... Though the list goes on, I'm glad to see how much progress there's been in these directions over my lifetime.

I would love to live to see such technology fully incorporated into education. The possible applications toward constructively captivating and positively motivating young children are staggering. The potential for combining entertainment with continuing adult education are equally awe inspiring. Gaming technology is yet another budding opportunity for uplifting humanity, or we can repeat history and squander it just like we did television. We are approaching another cusp.

 

and as we always do when we approach a cusp, we're gonna screw the pooch...

 

Damn, I must've missed Arcanum 2.

Anyway if such utterly realistic games are released they should be available only for intelligent people who can discern RealLife(tm) from fiction so that we don't get anymore of those: "Sure, I stabbed him but he should have 3 more lives, right?".

 

Have you been reading the archives again?

 

didn't need to... i wouldn't like you people as much as i do unless you were as apathetic as i am...

 

UH.

Yeah, really.
Forget using it for education cuz you don't need some $300 Microsoft program or crappy EA game to tell you 2+2 is 4.

HAHAHAH!
But seriously, yeah, alot of it could be used for education too. I mean, right now, they can digitally map Earth down to the smallest detail (a few meters or something like that). Imagine doing that with Mars, Io, Venus, or some other celestial object, then, making some kind of program out of it that let's you walk around on the world in 3D!
You could make a MMORPG that takes place on Mars, and the 3D terrain would actually be the mapped terrain of Mars!

Better yet, you could have online-schools have "science tours". Get a bunch of students online, have them pick an Avatar or 3D character, whatever, and then go fly in a transport or go on hikes. I could see geology teachers really getting off on this, pointing out the formations and everything.
I remember, like 10 years ago or something, they scanned Venus using radar and turned it into 3D.
Better yet, I they could probably simulate stellar phenomena, simulate the physics of gravity, blackholes, solar winds, etc.
Sort of like X-Plane but more advance, in space, etc.

There is a program online you can get, free last I checked, called "ActiveWorlds", it's very interesting.
It's like an MMORPG but it's not really a game, but rather a bunch of 3D worlds created by users you can go and do stuff in.
Sort of like, instead of creating a 2D webpage, you create a 3D webpage and put it in any kind of environment you want, want to go to some other webpage "linked" to it? Instead of clicking on a link, you go find the "portal" to that page and step into it. Stuff like that. It was actually pretty cool, they even put in sounds, music, some interactivity, and stuff.
The graphics weren't state-of-the-art, but it was okay, kinda interesting.
In fact, I think they were going to make a game based on the 3D engine.
Instead of downloaded 20k (for example) sized pictures, you download a 3D "model" or "piece" of the environment until all are there (100%). It was cool and didn't take very long to download stuff (not much longer than downloading a regular webpage).
However, the 3D engine was a system hog.
There really wasn't any 3D-accelerator support and even with the detail down and alot of RAM, it would lag when too much was on the screen, which was quite disappointing. The engine was kind a shoddy I guess. Last time I was on there was like a year or two ago, so things may have improved since then.
There were actually a good number of people there, and, of course, you can run around and chat and pick avatars and stuff.
You can do all sorts of things, create a place for online shopping and stuff, just, just go see it for yourselves!
http://www.activeworlds.com
When I first saw it and read about it, I was like,"Bullshit. These guys read too many science-fiction books!", then I tried it out and was like,"HOLY SHIT!"

I can see something like this in the future getting real big, with more "realistic" graphics and stuff.

In fact, I think in the future, things will be similar to that in The Matrix, but instead of people being enslaved by machines, they will have "enslaved" themselves.
Why go out and do things in the real world, where it's dangerous, when you can do the same things in the virtual world?
And don't think they won't have machines created to create "physical" effects on the person in the 3D world (optional on/off), just look at force-feedback. Imagine how far they'll take that in the next 25 years. Heck, 10 years!



The last thing I'd want to play is a game with everything already scripted out for me.
If I wanted that kind of experience, I'd read a book.

Speaking of which, what was that one game? Siege of Avalon or something, with the ad: "Play any books lately?" or something like that.
Whatever, but how incredibly stupid.
I'd rather just read the book instead of having to laborously click and point the main character HERE and THERE just to read the next area of dialogue or chapter in the book.
Plus, in games like that, no matter what you do, there are scripted events that are going to happen. Where is the fun in that?
Maybe people who make such games believe in fate?
Is it really so hard to make an open-ended game that let's the player "create their own story/adventure", have "their own fun"?

Don't these developers ever think that that's why MMORPG like Everquest/DarkAge of Camelot, etc. are so popular?

DOH!




_________________
All your base are belong to BortiiS!


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BortiiS_VoN_BortiiS on 2002-03-21 19:32 ]</font>

 

Bortiis, with that sort of stuff, don't you think the geology students might try to kill their geology teacher? Or go off and make a new student, who would then kill the geology teacher because it's been brought up to hate the biology teacher?

Holy crap, your ramblings are beginning to infect me! Must purge!

 

*quote* The last thing I'd want to play is a game with everything already scripted out for me.
If I wanted that kind of experience, I'd read a book. *quote*

i'm going to have to disagree with you there bortis, the whole point of reading a book (for me anyway) is to use my imagination and see where the author is taking me. some of the best times i've had was spending a whole day becoming so absorbed in a book i forget about "reality".

*quote* didn't need to... i wouldn't like you people as much as i do unless you were as apathetic as i am... *quote*

i used to be apathetic, but now i just don't care.


_________________
do you feel me poking you in the back?, here's my hands out here, now, can you still feel it?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mrnobodie on 2002-03-22 08:08 ]</font>

 

UH.

mrnobodie, YEAH, in the case of reading a BOOK, that is fine.
But playing a game?
Forget that.
Why can't they put all that good stuff in, and let you discover it on your own?
I don't like "playing a game" where I am actually have my fricken hand held by the developer taking me to all sorts of places.

The whole point of making an RPG game or strategy game, or any game, was to let the player make their own decisions, do it themselves.

Imagine if you were "Paul Atredies" in some kind of game translated from the book, I mean, wouldn't you like to fight the Harkonnen/Sadukkar your own way?
How would you do it?
Why make the player go through scripted events and scenes in the book?
Why do it that way when it's already be done before?
It defeats the whole point of making the book, whatever, into a game, in my opinion.
Which takes us back to what I said before: if I wanted that kind of an experience, I'd read a book.
I guess I'm from the "old school" of gaming back when things were more open-ended.

NOTE: Who were you quoting in that second quote?

JARINOR: Dude, stop smoking crack! Who ever said the "Mars Geological Nature Tour"/whatever would let the kids have guns and crap?! Would be funny, though!
OR BETTER YET, other people linked in could visit the "world", with weapons and stuff, and have ambushes and stuff! HAHAHAH!

(("Okay, now kids, we are descending down this path into the chasm, which is a transform fault. You can see where the, wait, what is that? Oh, there are some other people here."
"Hi, how are you doing?"
"Hi. I am giving a Mars tour to some students in my online MMOVR geology class. Don't mind us."
"Well, wait right there. You see, there is a travelling tax on this path. If you want to cross you have to pay up."
"Excuse me? Listen, I'm not here to play games, I am giving a tour to my class. Please, leave us alone."
"You need to pay us if you want to cross."
"Uh, right. I'd appreciate it if you would not interfere with my teaching of this class."
"Maybe you didn't hear me, you have to pay up!"
"Sir, there is no money is our particular modification for this simulation, you should not even be using a combat module here, so please leave us alone or I will inform the administrators."
"I'm going to count to three."
"Okay, if you want to be like that fine, I am going to report you."
"One.
"Students, I am turning off your ability to chat until this is resolved, sorry for the delay."
"Two."
"That weapon is not going to work."
"Three."
"Oh, you are good. You even got guys on the ridges. Just wait until the administrators get involved. Then you will be---!"
--Mr. Smith (Instructor) Was Fragged By $LAY00R--
--John (Teacher's Aide) Sucked Down Ev1Lh0mi3's Plamsa Rocket--
-ETC.-))

(OH, as for that ActiveWorlds, FORGET IT!
These numbnuts now won't let you go to any of the "good" areas (zones/worlds) unless you register (pay about $7/month). Screw that.)

 

ok i get your point, but why do the majority of people automatically start looking for things to compare to, to see which is better when we should be judging each on their own merits more then we all currentaly are. so we can appreciate the individual item more and maybe gaining more enjoyment from it.

i was quoting rosenshyne and i'm a little surprised and dissapointed no-one got the joke

 

i got it. i thought it was very amusing. see? i'm smart... i swear...