Yeah, so I haven't posted anything here for months...
Ideas with me are like that. They hit hard, but often have -38 stamina.
My ideas are not tanks. They're basically a lazy dps class.
So X-mas is over, and we've entered '09, and of course you're asking yourself, "what does this mean for a Noir mmo that doesn't exist?"
Well, I'll tell ya.
I might be watching a few inspirational flicks ... or I might not. I resolve to use this space exactly as I have been (or not, as it were).
See, for me the Noir 'genre' is like an item drop that doesn't quite have the stats you want, but is so cool-looking and hair-matchingly color-coordinated that you don't want to get rid of it. So it sits in your bank forever, and every now and then you pull it out to do crafting/gathering/exploring achievements, etc.
I predict that in the next few months I'll feel compelled to watch "The Big Sleep" again, or "Detour" or maybe "D.O.A.", and I'll be back here en force, mind engaged, to document the well-spring of Noirish mmoness that will inevitably pour forth.
Until then, happy Noir Year!
Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
7/22/08
Los Amados
Heidi posted this in the comments of the Out of the Past post (so read that first):
Los Amados. :)Means "Sweathearts". niiiice.
the past caught up with me in los amados.
7/11/08
Out of the Past
Ha! You thought I was going to talk about the cool Robert Mitchum film from 1947, didn't you? Well, actually I just have, so you'd be right I guess.
However, in my noir mmo (just like in this and numerous other cool-azz films) the past always catches up to you.
How would this work?
Here's what I'm thinking:
At some pre-determined level (say level 40/80), a person from your past suddenly shows up and of course has something on you. Depending on how you've played the game so far (on a scale of coldblooded vs. sweetheart) determines how the next series of missions is constructed. For instance, you've chosen to play a Mob character and your mother shows up @ lvl 40 and you've been a sweetheart. She may be like Tony Soprano's mother and demand you to kill everyone at X location. Say you've been a coldblooded murdering fiend, when your mother shows up she only wants 1 guy roughed up a little, and you can't kill anyone at X location.
Who shows up could also be a random roll. As a Mob character there would be 3 possible persons from Out of the Past; your Ex-girlfriend Janice, your mother Eunice, or Tommy 2-Tone, an ex-business partner.
If you were playing a different race, it would be 3 other possible folks from your emerging back story.
All of this hinges on the 1 absolute fact about Los Angeles: Nobody is born here.
So everyone starts the game by getting off the bus in L.A. (or whatever the city name will be). But there is no better name for Los Angeles than Los Angeles.
However, in my noir mmo (just like in this and numerous other cool-azz films) the past always catches up to you.
How would this work?
Here's what I'm thinking:
At some pre-determined level (say level 40/80), a person from your past suddenly shows up and of course has something on you. Depending on how you've played the game so far (on a scale of coldblooded vs. sweetheart) determines how the next series of missions is constructed. For instance, you've chosen to play a Mob character and your mother shows up @ lvl 40 and you've been a sweetheart. She may be like Tony Soprano's mother and demand you to kill everyone at X location. Say you've been a coldblooded murdering fiend, when your mother shows up she only wants 1 guy roughed up a little, and you can't kill anyone at X location.
Who shows up could also be a random roll. As a Mob character there would be 3 possible persons from Out of the Past; your Ex-girlfriend Janice, your mother Eunice, or Tommy 2-Tone, an ex-business partner.
If you were playing a different race, it would be 3 other possible folks from your emerging back story.
All of this hinges on the 1 absolute fact about Los Angeles: Nobody is born here.
So everyone starts the game by getting off the bus in L.A. (or whatever the city name will be). But there is no better name for Los Angeles than Los Angeles.
6/4/08
Framerate Cityscape
There's an inherent technical problem in a noir mmo.
WoW runs ok on my laptop, but not in the main cities - Undercity and Orgimmar (that's right I play Horde...wanna fight about it?). My framerate can sometimes drop as low as 8 fps. That's unplayable unless you're crafting, chatting, or on the auction house.
Almost all quests in WoW are outside the cities, so rendering is greatly reduced. But in a noir game nearly everything would happen in-city. And people should be able to play and have fun on a computer system a few years old. So the game would have to be massively instanced. (For those of you who don't know what "instances" are, basically it's a specified area that loads especially for you or your group. Other players/groups that come into that area get their own "instance" independent from yours. This means that your computer only renders the NPCs and players in your group, not the 10 million other players in the area).
Apparently other games like EverQuest didn't do instances, and so your group might run into another group in a dungeon and so you would have to fight/figure out which group got to continue and kill the main baddie.
You don't want your game to be playable to only those with the fastest/best/most expensive computers...you want people to play who use their computer for other things beside avoiding real life.
But at the same time, if you make everywhere instanced, what's the point of it being an mmo? You can't really interact with anyone. You might as well make a single player game with a mutiplayer component like GTA IV.
Sony Online Entertainment has a game coming (actually by some of the guys who made EverQuest) called The Agency, which I'm looking forward to that may deal with these very issues. We'll have to see...
WoW runs ok on my laptop, but not in the main cities - Undercity and Orgimmar (that's right I play Horde...wanna fight about it?). My framerate can sometimes drop as low as 8 fps. That's unplayable unless you're crafting, chatting, or on the auction house.
Almost all quests in WoW are outside the cities, so rendering is greatly reduced. But in a noir game nearly everything would happen in-city. And people should be able to play and have fun on a computer system a few years old. So the game would have to be massively instanced. (For those of you who don't know what "instances" are, basically it's a specified area that loads especially for you or your group. Other players/groups that come into that area get their own "instance" independent from yours. This means that your computer only renders the NPCs and players in your group, not the 10 million other players in the area).
Apparently other games like EverQuest didn't do instances, and so your group might run into another group in a dungeon and so you would have to fight/figure out which group got to continue and kill the main baddie.
You don't want your game to be playable to only those with the fastest/best/most expensive computers...you want people to play who use their computer for other things beside avoiding real life.
But at the same time, if you make everywhere instanced, what's the point of it being an mmo? You can't really interact with anyone. You might as well make a single player game with a mutiplayer component like GTA IV.
Sony Online Entertainment has a game coming (actually by some of the guys who made EverQuest) called The Agency, which I'm looking forward to that may deal with these very issues. We'll have to see...
5/26/08
Class Struggle
In The Black Dahlia James Ellroy's character "Bucky", an ex-boxer turned police detective, gives me a good idea for a profession/class connection in my noir mmo.
It seems Bucky came to the attention of the police force because he'd been a prize fighter and done pretty well, well enough to get noticed, anyway.
So I'm thinking there could be 2 paths into the police class:
1) You take some performance test (starting at lvl whatever) to enter the academy, then progress normally doing low level police missions ("quests" seems like the wrong word), until you gain faction and promotions, etc.
OR
2) You gain faction via a Boxing PvP (Player verses Player) arena. You have to perform at a certain level, like x amount of wins, or x global ranking before you are approached by a police rep who wants you to join the force at an elevated level.
It seems Bucky came to the attention of the police force because he'd been a prize fighter and done pretty well, well enough to get noticed, anyway.
So I'm thinking there could be 2 paths into the police class:
1) You take some performance test (starting at lvl whatever) to enter the academy, then progress normally doing low level police missions ("quests" seems like the wrong word), until you gain faction and promotions, etc.
OR
2) You gain faction via a Boxing PvP (Player verses Player) arena. You have to perform at a certain level, like x amount of wins, or x global ranking before you are approached by a police rep who wants you to join the force at an elevated level.
5/22/08
Whether to weather the storm
GTA IV has incredible weather.
I'm sure WoW has better weather then what can run on my system...
Today here in CA there was a tornado, rain, and lightning ... and it made me think about how weather has played a role in movies... BESIDES the crappy love stories at the end of the 2nd act when she leaves to go back to her old tobacco-chewing boyfriend who doesn't really love her....
See in old detective movies there might be a little rain when we're supposed to be puzzled... like we're a little out of our element or caught off-guard (or as an excuse to share a paper cup of rye with the hot bookseller chick across the street - who looks great with glasses too - while staking out the underground stag shop).
All this to say, there should be hot bookseller chicks in my noir MMO.
I'm sure WoW has better weather then what can run on my system...
Today here in CA there was a tornado, rain, and lightning ... and it made me think about how weather has played a role in movies... BESIDES the crappy love stories at the end of the 2nd act when she leaves to go back to her old tobacco-chewing boyfriend who doesn't really love her....
See in old detective movies there might be a little rain when we're supposed to be puzzled... like we're a little out of our element or caught off-guard (or as an excuse to share a paper cup of rye with the hot bookseller chick across the street - who looks great with glasses too - while staking out the underground stag shop).
All this to say, there should be hot bookseller chicks in my noir MMO.
5/20/08
The Race Card
Possible Races in My Noir MMO:
Black
White
Chinese
Hispanic
American Indian
Armenian
So the touchiest subject could be race. Here's why:
You can make an orc be stronger than an elf because neither exist, and there won't be an offended party.
But you do an MMORPG with real races...what do you do?
Chinese get a +3 agility?
Blacks get +3 badassery?
Whites a +3 winning smile?
It's a real problem, especially because if realism is what you're going for, you failed because Chinese people aren't genetically more agile than American Indians, etc...
So you start everybody at the same ability level.
Ok.
Maybe you gain abilities depending on your play style. Is this possible? If you're a "bust down the door & start shooting" kind of player, your stats build more strength and stamina, and if you're a "sneak around back & cold-cock 'em" type player, your stats build agility, subtlety... that could be cool.
One of the cool things you can do in Star Wars Galaxies is become mayor of a player-created city.
I love that idea, but in America in the 1940's it was pretty damn rare (if it happened at all) that a black man (not to mention woman) could be mayor of a huge city like LA.
Should the game be adjusted to be fair?
Or do we make a mature-rated MMO?
Those don't seem to fly too well.
Black
White
Chinese
Hispanic
American Indian
Armenian
So the touchiest subject could be race. Here's why:
You can make an orc be stronger than an elf because neither exist, and there won't be an offended party.
But you do an MMORPG with real races...what do you do?
Chinese get a +3 agility?
Blacks get +3 badassery?
Whites a +3 winning smile?
It's a real problem, especially because if realism is what you're going for, you failed because Chinese people aren't genetically more agile than American Indians, etc...
So you start everybody at the same ability level.
Ok.
Maybe you gain abilities depending on your play style. Is this possible? If you're a "bust down the door & start shooting" kind of player, your stats build more strength and stamina, and if you're a "sneak around back & cold-cock 'em" type player, your stats build agility, subtlety... that could be cool.
One of the cool things you can do in Star Wars Galaxies is become mayor of a player-created city.
I love that idea, but in America in the 1940's it was pretty damn rare (if it happened at all) that a black man (not to mention woman) could be mayor of a huge city like LA.
Should the game be adjusted to be fair?
Or do we make a mature-rated MMO?
Those don't seem to fly too well.
Let me count the ways...
I was thinking of doing a "it's like WoW, but..." section, but rather than get too involved, I'll just list a couple of things I like about WoW:
- talent system
- detailed lore
- balanced leveling system
- tongue-in-cheek approach
- limited professions
probably much more....
I think these could translate to the Noir universe quite easily.
* I should be clear: I don't have any technical programming knowledge, so when I say something stupid like "this could be done easily", I only mean conceptually. I can't even fathom the immense amount of work Blizzard coded...just so we're on the same page.
Limiting aspects of WoW:
- very limited customization
- no residence ownership
- Very little creative input from players (recipes are static and cannot be altered). For example, even if you have the recipe for "Blue Linen Shirt" which calls for linen cloth, course thread and blue dye, you cannot make a "Red Linen Shirt" by simply buying red dye. You have to have the recipe for "Red Linen Shirt". A little more experimentation would instill greater ownership.
btw, low level stealth for the rogue class sucks.
- talent system
- detailed lore
- balanced leveling system
- tongue-in-cheek approach
- limited professions
probably much more....
I think these could translate to the Noir universe quite easily.
* I should be clear: I don't have any technical programming knowledge, so when I say something stupid like "this could be done easily", I only mean conceptually. I can't even fathom the immense amount of work Blizzard coded...just so we're on the same page.
Limiting aspects of WoW:
- very limited customization
- no residence ownership
- Very little creative input from players (recipes are static and cannot be altered). For example, even if you have the recipe for "Blue Linen Shirt" which calls for linen cloth, course thread and blue dye, you cannot make a "Red Linen Shirt" by simply buying red dye. You have to have the recipe for "Red Linen Shirt". A little more experimentation would instill greater ownership.
btw, low level stealth for the rogue class sucks.
First things First
I don't have a name for this game. Team Bondi and Rockstar are working and on a single-player game called L.A. Noir, which has nothing to do with this. That is a real game, this is wishful thinking. Despite how excited I am for the game to come out, I'm a little disappointed in the title...I mean, the term "noir" wasn't used then to describe itself, and since you're asking the player to immerse him/herself in the character of the time, it seems odd to misrepresent the era that way, but whatever.
The point is I need a name, and clearly it shouldn't have the word "noir" in it.
Ok, the history of the word begins in the 50's in France (hence the french word...yeah), with writers like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut who weren't filmmakers yet, just brilliant journos. This is their description of an American Cult film that was NOT a genre. Odd, but true. Probably is now, I guess.
So the entire scene requires/is defined by an outside perspective. Interesting. Something we'll revisit.
The point is I need a name, and clearly it shouldn't have the word "noir" in it.
Ok, the history of the word begins in the 50's in France (hence the french word...yeah), with writers like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut who weren't filmmakers yet, just brilliant journos. This is their description of an American Cult film that was NOT a genre. Odd, but true. Probably is now, I guess.
So the entire scene requires/is defined by an outside perspective. Interesting. Something we'll revisit.
The Basics
Let me start off by saying that I know, realistically, a MMO based in the noir universe will probably never be made. There are too few people who participate in "study groups" interested in this era. This is just a guess, but accurate, I think.
That said, I don't give a crap. My hope is that anyone who reads this blog will think this could be a great idea as well. We'll see...
Southern California in the 30's and 40's was a story factory. Not only did a whole lot of crazy shit happen, but there were people paid to write about it, embellish it, and sell it. This was the first taste of candy to the baby... and Hollywood was the center of that universe.
Now, to get in the proper mood I suggest watching The Big Sleep. Very important.
Both versions: 1945 and 1946.
The '45 version for the extra scenes with the DA (not Bacall's caught-in-the-net face wrap), and the '46 version, to see the changes (including removal of the infamous fishnet face wrap). And you should watch The Maltese Falcon.
>> I will have a section dedicated to listing cool noir-ish stuff to keep you inspired as we go along.
I will try to relate my ideas in terms current MMOs use (i.e. talent tree, xp, etc). I may over explain things a bit, because of my own lack of knowledge, and the fact that most people I point to this site won't be lvl 70 warlocks with 4 billion hp.
So that's it for the first post. I'll be back with more posts that are actually about the game.
That said, I don't give a crap. My hope is that anyone who reads this blog will think this could be a great idea as well. We'll see...
Southern California in the 30's and 40's was a story factory. Not only did a whole lot of crazy shit happen, but there were people paid to write about it, embellish it, and sell it. This was the first taste of candy to the baby... and Hollywood was the center of that universe.
Now, to get in the proper mood I suggest watching The Big Sleep. Very important.
Both versions: 1945 and 1946.
The '45 version for the extra scenes with the DA (not Bacall's caught-in-the-net face wrap), and the '46 version, to see the changes (including removal of the infamous fishnet face wrap). And you should watch The Maltese Falcon.
>> I will have a section dedicated to listing cool noir-ish stuff to keep you inspired as we go along.
I will try to relate my ideas in terms current MMOs use (i.e. talent tree, xp, etc). I may over explain things a bit, because of my own lack of knowledge, and the fact that most people I point to this site won't be lvl 70 warlocks with 4 billion hp.
So that's it for the first post. I'll be back with more posts that are actually about the game.
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