Tempestjonny

In response to a post made on PCF: PvP: What’s the point?

Why? its simple. Back when games first started they were hard as all buggery. yes the Mario games were easy, but loads of people never completed them. Back then, completing a game was your way of saying, “I’m a better gamer than you”.

Fast forward 10 years and games HAVE to be easier to appeal to the greater market. But we as gamers still have this need, this urge to show that we are better than the next gamer. Its in the title, GAMErs. Games need a winner and most people need it to be them. In MW2 or any other FPS, that’s easy to pull off. But for a social and team based game, like most MMO’s are, you need to give them an avenue to show off how they are better than other people.

PvP is to MMO’s what achievements are to Consoles. Everybody can do it, its just a way for the people who want to show off…..to show off. Any MMO that focus’s on the PvP is choosing the market of people who need to prove they are better and will not stop paying a fee until they can say they are the best. Just like the kids of days gone by throwing coins into the pacman machine trying to get their name on the top of the leader boards.

When they were making Resident evil outbreak, a shoddy publication (I shall not name) gave a preview of the game but got the complete and utter wrong idea of how the game would play out. BUT, there screwed up preview, sounded amazing. A long term game instead of the quick in quick out gameplay of L4D or any other zombie games on the market. As such I’ve been waiting for people to realize this and create a Zombie MMO …. ZMMO. Here are a few of the idea me and a group of friends bounced around for such a spectacle.

SLOW Zombies
I know fast, running at you streaming zombies seems good for a game rather than the slow easy to avoid zombies. But for an MMO it needs to be a long term thing. For somebody to survive in a world of fast zombies requires, in my eyes, dumb luck, but for somebody to survive in a world of slow paced but unstoppable zombies requires thought and planning. This is much more MMO territory.

Hardcore Mode
But for the slow zombies to work would need “hardcore mode”. Put simply. when you die, YOU DIE. start again. No respawn. Reroll. New Character. Star wars galaxies did it for the Jedi (before they destroyed the game) which resulted in truly nail biting combat. with a zombie game that would have to be the way to go. Plus you get the “Oh shit” moments when you realize your not going to make it out of the situation you’ve put yourself in. I guess a softcore mode would be required for the faint of heart.

Ammo
Most MMOs don’t deal with it, mainly because they are simply about making sharp things go through soft things that scream and bleed. But in the game, you not only would have to use ammo, but have troubles getting hold of it. Bring the risk reward factor into the MMO. Don’t just let them exchange gold for ammo. Maybe a bartering system?

Not an RPG
Basically. Don’t make it an RPG. MMOs are not restricted to this game type. Even if it was L4D but with slower zombies, Hardcore mode and lots of places to hide out. That would make me happy.
wow. Who’s with me?

This article is in case I somehow reach a position of importance or wealth and foolishly die before creating a genuine will.

MY WILL, BY TEMPEST

In the case of my death I wish to award all of my wealth, properties and empire to my wife and vast number of children. In the event that my net worth is over £2 million. I would like to split all of my Net worth into 2 piles.

The 1st is a pile of all of my properties, empire and money (minus the sum of £1 million). This will be split equally between my wife and children. The 2nd pile (hereafter known as “The Prize”) will consist of the remaining £1 million. This Money will be up for grabs to the person who can complete (with proof) all of the following tasks.

1- Donate £500 towards a charity specialising in what ever killed me (even if it is the stop the buses from hitting people foundation)

2- Donate one of my coffee mugs to the church informing them it is the Holy Grail

3- Find a 3, 4 and 5 leave clover

4- Help and Elderly person across the road, but stop helping half way, leaving them stranded.

5- Show your arse on a live TV broadcast

6- Punch Paris Hilton in the face. If she is dead at this point, find her grave, fall to your knees and beat the soil screaming “Don’t ever come back”

7- Go to the train station in silver city and open locker number 001. If it can not be opened (requirement of a key for example) break into the locker and steal the contents before anybody knows

8- Travel to an earthquake or disaster area that has been abandoned and clean up 5 square meters of space with a dustpan and brush

9- Plan an oceans 11 style bank heist in France with at least 5 members, where your role is to disable the security systems from a secure location. On the day of the heist, instead of disabling the security, move back home and send them a post card in prison saying “wish you were here”

10- Before I am buried / burnt or disposed of, die my hair Hex colour 05e3f7 and take a photo of me and you sitting on a park bench.

The Prize will be given to anybody able to complete all of these tasks and provide the necessary items of proof to show that they have been performed. 12 months after my death, if nobody has claimed The Prize, then it will be changed into 1 Million pound coins and placed in a duck tales style vault for friends and family to swim in.

Recently I had a temporary posistion working for a large telivison broadcaster. Due to the name I best not say who. I was brought in to help customers signing up for a new sports channel called ESPN. You know it. the american channel. Well they are making their “Big Break” over here. Problem was, after 4 days the 200+ staff had 9 calls.

AHHHHHHH

Well it was at that point that we were all then placed on out bound calls. Rining up sports customer and and fucking with their day. “BUY MY SHIT SIR……OR THEY WILL BEAT ME AGAIN” Even if we did say that we would have still been yelled at. Every call i made sucked a small part of my soul out of my body.

So I said fuck it. They had breached my contract and forced me to do outbound calls to customer i did not want to call. So i left. I sent a very “Thoughtful” email to my recruitment agency who bascially gave me a temp job with a much better company. I will be working in customer service so i will still get yelling people, but these people are wanting help that i can give and hopefully will leave the call with a smile on their face.

I start work tomorrow morning and i am so much happier for it.

I’m looking at creating a big ish graphics project in the future. something that will require me to use all of my Photoshop, Maya and Reall Flow Skills to create something unique and orginal. I’m hoping to at least start some concept designs soon. BUT in the mean time I need to know that i can pull off some of the effects that are going to be a key part of the project.

For this quick little test I took a image of an airship and added different styles of clouds. I would have added the lighting, but i already know I can do that and are too lazy to put it together.

This is the orginal Source Image

This Image is just to show its traveling through some dense clouds

This Image is to show stormy clouds.

Ref - Images took 30 mins to create.