World of Tony Hawk's Proskater Guitarhero Call of Duty VII Craft 4: CivV edition

[Phunked]

Now the Vivendi has created Activsion Blizzard, better known as "OMG WE OWN IP LICENSES ONE!!!11!!GIVEUSMONAYZ!", doesn't anyone wonder what sort of atrocity this merger could lead to?

I mean Activision owns like 50 crappy movie->video game IPs, Tony Hawk, Civilization, Call of Duty, Doom, Guitarhero, Mechwarrior and so forth.

And Blizzard has 10 million people worldwide who would willingly gouge out their left eye in order to just touch whatever latest game they release, much less own it.

So I present to you:

The latest potential offering from Activision Blizzard:

World of Tony Hawk's Proskater Guitarhero Call of Duty VII Craft 4: CivV edition

This is the most innovative persistent world MMOFPSRPGActionSimulationRTSTBSGamething ever!

It will be available on all platforms, past, present and future, including the Atari and Commodore 64, will feature full guild/clan/voice/joystick/cerebral implant/specially designed neurointerface support, and will revolutionize the gaming market by offering you a game which will actually allow you to replace your current reality with a better one provided to you by the friendly staff of Activision Blizzard, under the ownership of Vivendi SA, who suggest that you accept them as your personal lord and savior before someone else does.

The game's pricing model will allow you to fully immerse yourself in this amazing new product by agreeing to staff Vivendi's giant organ donor farms in exchange for unlimited gameplay time (note: gameplay time not actually unlimited. Offer not available in select states or Quebec. Only customers with functioning organs need apply. Vivendi reserves the right to terminate your existence at any point for any or no reason). 

Get it while you still can! Soon Vivendi will have exclusive control of your entire entertainment options, at which point, their pharmacists will force their new specifically engineered fanboy drugs on you, supposedly claiming that these drugs will cause an 5 inch increase in penis size - claims which you will receive through subliminal in-game advertisements and product placements from such companies as Bill Gates' Cocacolasoftapplettomyhilfiger Designer Everything store.  (note: drug actually causes sterility and lack of sex drive. Additional side effects include weight gain, increased repulsiveness to the opposite sex, and a decline in social function and hygene).

Order today at: www.wealreadyownyourlifeyoujustdon'tknowityet.com and get a free bottle of anthrax-brand suicide pills ( a $50 value). Trust me, you'll need them.

[DarkSign]

Actually...if you think about it...

SWG had entertainers. You could throw in the Guitar Hero / Rock Band interface & gameplay and people could really entertain.
  

[acerogue26]

All I see in the immediate future is World of Warcraft 360 Edition. Not something that keeps me up too late at night. A bit lacking in the imagination though

DarkSign, an MMO with that kind of feature would sell like hotcakes. I might be the principle buyer though...

[DarkSign]

Well if you like that...

There's a stripper simulation game out there on the net. Throw that in for good measure :) Sorry to derail 

[Ratman_tf]

Well if you like that...

There's a stripper simulation game out there on the net. Throw that in for good measure :) Sorry to derail 

Linksplz?

[DarkSign]

[Azazel]

I downloaded that thing about 3 years ago. It was stupidly amusing for all of 5 minutes.

Also, World of Burnout!  ..oh, wait... um.. 

[Lantyssa]

I wonder if Blizzard could do a B'Tech and Mechwarrior game right.  'Mech combat, FPS combat, squad combat, and Civ-like control elements.  Nah.

[Big Gulp]

I wonder if Blizzard could do a B'Tech and Mechwarrior game right.  'Mech combat, FPS combat, squad combat, and Civ-like control elements.  Nah.

Better yet, make all of that the lower "on the ground" stuff of an EVE type of game.  Right now you're just trading the equivalent of blueprints and "space crap".  Imagine those fleets supporting troops for ground invasions, and controlling space actually means something.

Now that'd be something worth my $15 a month.

[caladein]

SWG had entertainers. You could throw in the Guitar Hero / Rock Band interface & gameplay and people could really entertain.

*cough*

Seriously though, I'd love to see that sort of stuff, although server-side scoring (because hacks are bad m'mkay?) would make HDTV lag look like .

[DarkSign]

Not to say that it wouldnt happen...but cheating the Guitar Hero portion of an MMO would be the lamest cheat of all time.

[tmp]

Not to say that it wouldnt happen...but cheating the Guitar Hero portion of an MMO would be the lamest cheat of all time.

Cue the "it's not affecting you so why would you care, my time is too important to waste on lame button pushing game like that" replies. 

edit: on the lag thing Audition found some reasonable middle ground i think... they have you enter sequences of few key presses and only sending that string of moves need to be timed with the beat of the song.

[Venkman]

Audition does a pretty good job of making a semi-light Simon-esque DDR. But if you want a better music-system foundation from which to build something new from, I'd go with LoTRO. That music system is the sort of realtime thing that was said to be impossible in SWG years before it when many of the Musicians were asking for it. It's not a game unto itself, but it's a great base for one.

[DarkSign]

I love how people (esp game fanbois) always say "the tech isnt there or they'd have done it!" to defend some game's suckage. Especially when they're proven wrong and the tech hasnt changed that much- but better answers were found.

Care to tell us non-LotROers about it?

[Lantyssa]

They had the tech.  They were worried people would play copyrighted songs.

[tmp]

Audition does a pretty good job of making a semi-light Simon-esque DDR. But if you want a better music-system foundation from which to build something new from, I'd go with LoTRO. That music system is the sort of realtime thing that was said to be impossible in SWG years before it when many of the Musicians were asking for it. It's not a game unto itself, but it's a great base for one.

LotRO system seems to be running on similar hidden 'tick' thing Audition is using, except with higher frequency so they allow people input  separate notes. Latency can still be problem though, they have some special options for 'client side' music that doesn't wait for the server to acknowledge stuff, and some system for synchronized band play.

For all the cool things their music system can do, in practice i pretty much only see people "playing" recorded ABC files which are some sort of text version of MIDI files, rather than actually play by pressing keys and all. And yeah, all they play is the "copyrighted stuff" -- Star Wars theme and what have you.

[Venkman]

The whole copywrited-playback thing is a valid argument, for very very conservative lawyers. But, and I'd need Slackster to detail this out, I suspect just providing the tools by which to play music doesn't automatically tie the developer of those tools to any royalties to major labels. Otherwise we'd never have music notation software.

LoTRO's use of ticks is probably more due to the intrinsic need for a system clock against which to sync up all moves in a persistent space, than in anything that specifically allowed them to create the music system. I think SWG's lack of a similar system is due to two things: 1) what Lantyssa said; and, 2) creating the content themselves allowed them to create new content for players to unlock as they achieved more skill-then-XP. It would have been great if the Master Musician-then-level-cap-Entertainer got afforded a LoTRO-like system as their reward. But then we're back at the first reason.

In any case, it works well. You won't be jamming Free Bird or sticking with LoTRO for that alone. But it's a damned fun toy for people who enjoy the rest of the game world. And it could easily translate to a DDR/GH/RockBand type experience, if Turbine would just unlock their UI (or have they?).

[tmp]

The whole copywrited-playback thing is a valid argument, for very very conservative lawyers. But, and I'd need Slackster to detail this out, I suspect just providing the tools by which to play music doesn't automatically tie the developer of those tools to any royalties to major labels. Otherwise we'd never have music notation software.

There's probably difference between providing tools to 'make music' and the system to 'perform music in public' which is what it boils down to when someone is playing a tune in MMO. Although then on the other hand there's Youtube and such with people putting all kind of music in their movies and then putting them out for millions to watch and hear. So dunno, probably no one wants the risk of being first MMO tested in such trial?

[Venkman]

So dunno, probably no one wants the risk of being first MMO tested in such trial?

But Turbine currently is. With just what they had at launch, this is "public". And it became even more so when they patched in ABC support. Not sure that makes it a precedent, but at least they're trying.

[tmp]

So dunno, probably no one wants the risk of being first MMO tested in such trial?

But Turbine currently is. With just what they had at launch, this is "public". And it became even more so when they patched in ABC support. Not sure that makes it a precedent, but at least they're trying.

Hmm true. Probably the pretty low quality of music their system delivers could play some part here but then not sure really. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Soukyan]

So dunno, probably no one wants the risk of being first MMO tested in such trial?

But Turbine currently is. With just what they had at launch, this is "public". And it became even more so when they patched in ABC support. Not sure that makes it a precedent, but at least they're trying.

Hmm true. Probably the pretty low quality of music their system delivers could play some part here but then not sure really. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Low quality, yes, but currently the only compelling in-game music system around. Hell, there are ascii MUDs that have better in-game music systems than modern MMOGs. It can be done.

[tmp]

Low quality, yes, but currently the only compelling in-game music system around. Hell, there are ascii MUDs that have better in-game music systems than modern MMOGs. It can be done.

Yeah i didn't mean it as some fault of their system, they work with what they have and it does show it could be done at least to some degree.

[Abagadro]

Better yet, make all of that the lower "on the ground" stuff of an EVE type of game.  Right now you're just trading the equivalent of blueprints and "space crap".  Imagine those fleets supporting troops for ground invasions, and controlling space actually means something.

Dunno if this is old news or not but apparently EvE has plans for ground vehicles and such being introduced into the game.

[Venkman]

First I heard of ground vehicles. Nice. That implies a fairly fleshed-out ground game too though, something beyond just having avatars navigating space stations and doing whatever you'll be able to do with avatars when they come out.

[Abagadro]

I've seen some of the concept art and they look cool. No idea how they will be implemented though.

[DarkSign]

They had the tech.  They were worried people would play copyrighted songs.

Actually I wasnt speaking about a system where the player got to choose what they played...but that's even better of course.
I was thinking of hiring a few bands of various types to come up with decent songs just for the game...and then players play Simon to get the song to play right.

I'll do a little digging on the ins and outs of playing a copywrited song sometime this week ;)