Spatial Speculation
by Godzprototype, HSM filmmaker
After Home 1.7 was announced, one thought came to my mind: imagine if we could fly.
Yes, I know that it poses all sorts of problems for Home’s architecture, such as being able to see off the end of the map, but come on — why does virtual reality have to conform to actual reality? If there’s one thing that films like The Matrix have taught us, it’s that half the fun of virtual reality is being able to do stuff that’s physically impossible under normal circumstances.
If we could fly in all of the spaces in Home; heck, with the ability to move 50% faster with the right equipment, just imagine if we could actually hold roller derbies, and have a roller rink. But flight is what fascinates me, and so far only Hellfire Games’ antigravity simulator has allowed us to do this — and then, only in their areas.
Flying is of special interest to me. Wouldn’t it be cool? If you could go to any point in a room, see it from any angle, and really appreciate it. It’s more or less what a lot of glitching is all about: the desire to get outside of the box.
Certainly, to a Home machinimist, flight would be indispensable. Most of us are working our tails off trying to get unique and smooth camera angles. This would be the answer to a very important request. Obviously I doubt we’ll ever have the same sort of “God camera” that developers have access to on the HDK, but flight would get us a reasonable facsimile thereof.
I’m going to tell you about an old TV show I used to watch as a kid.
The Space Giants was the kind of show I was watching growing up, when most kids were still watching Lassie and The Lone Ranger. Godzilla and Mothra were battling it out over Tokyo. The Space Giants consisted of a humanoid rocket/robot family. Goldar, Silvar, and Gam. Gam had a humanoid robot made in his likeness called Miko. If Gam knew there was trouble, Miko would change into a jet Gam could fly.
While we have some mechjets that have served some really cool purposes, it would be nice if we had a UFO that could go to any spot in a room. I figure something like that could be sufficiently diminuitive (like Konami’s Urban Camo) to capture film from any angle. I have heard a few people suggest something we could ride, and this is why I referred to Space Giants. Gam would ride in Miko. So there are a couple suggestions there.
Most of the people I know have never heard of The Space Giants. I think it was aired by TBS in 1978. My brother and I thought it to be an awesome show. The reason I am mentioning this at all is to maybe give developers some ideas about using these new tools.
Spatial speculation just throws so many possibilities into the pot that my mind is on fire. Avatars that can’t fly never seemed right to me; Novus Prime’s Officer’s Quarters were the first (and, presently, only) place wherein I could fly, outside of their Novus Prime game environment. And fly I did!
I think glitching would be unnecessary for the most part if people had freedom of movement in an omnidirectional way. As I recall, there was an old PC game that I used to play called Tribes. There was a jump skidding glitch that allowed you to traverse the entire map. Sierra Games was smart with the marketing of that, and began to sell that ability incorporated into their subsequent games. They took a disadvantage and made money from it. As I recall that game is now free to play on Steam, featuring that very glitch that in the first game was looked at as a problem.
This.
Imagine logging into Home, and having the freedom to fly throughout it. Even if we were limited strictly to personal estates and clubhouses, it would still be awesome. My hope is that with Home 1.7, developers are examining how best to take advantage of the new core client tools by expanding the physical abilities of our avatars.
Living inside a game world is something that’s a very powerful lure. And so I appeal to the very sentiment Sony used in its own PR push when the Hub supposedly “reinvented” Home — make Home itself a game. It now appears that Home has the ability to sell us virtual wares that allow for greater ranges of expression, emotion and action in Home. That is a brilliant way to deepen the social experience of Home itself, and monetize the process of doing so.
There’s been quite a bit of discussion recently about whether or not Home has peaked — whether 2012 will be its best year, whether or not it’s reached a sort of “peak oil” state, whether or not we’ll see further large-scale investment in the platform in 2013 and beyond, now that Sony seems so much more focused on other digital platforms and hardware. It’s hard to say. But it feels like Home is just now starting to have the tools it needed to feel like a truly robust environment. This is the time to double-down on Home, not walk away from it.
And the first step is selling us means of expanding how we interact with each other in Home.
Flight seems as good a place as any to start.
September 15th, 2012 by Godzprototype | 5 comments
Godzprototype is learning the art of creating Machinima, and would like to share it with you. Hope you enjoy.
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Yeap, flyin’ is fun alright! In Avalon they switch your avatar to a dragonfly thingy; they could do the same in public spaces too. Instead of just allowing us to take off where and whenever, to reduce graphical-giveaways and problematic glitches, a flying post where we could take off and land from would control the areas and frequencies we could utilize the ability.
I’m all for this, and foresee the sale of jet-boots, packs, wings etc coming soon. Nice food for thought Godz, as always.
I think flying would be very cool. If we did this though we would still be confined to the space we were in, be it public of private, unlike other PC places like Second Life where they use it as a way to travel from space to space. The idea is cool though, and I will be very interested to see where the developers take this new ability to change our actual avatars movements. Hopefully new dances and emotes for sure, as these are requests we have been asking for forever.
Nice read as always Godz.
Yes, the animating wearable object function they introduced got me thinking of jet packs. Would be awesome to be able to fly in public spaces like in DC universe online.
Well, we have seen that it is possible, with the dragonfly in the Avalon space. Granted we are still fixed to a certain area but flying through windows of the towers and under the castle is pretty unique. Although I find the Avalon space to be too cartoonish for my taste. However I would love to be able to fly the plane or helicopter in on dream yacht. Even if they made it a game like the red bull plane races which I don’t believe are around now but, I was fascinated with them. Even the Jet setter game although aggravating at times is still flying. But like I mentioned earlier it would be amazing to fly around your yacht perhaps give tours to friends, and land at your dream island.
nice idea but theres too many old unsupported spaces now, that will have a too low ceiling, even outside the block is not that far above you. flying is only required on far bigger map like second life or DCUO.