Final Reality

Why not live life by experience points?

From their dice-and-paper roots to the modern user-generated worlds, role-playing games have always had to deal with the question of how a character develops. This is normally handled through experience points (XP). Kill a were-turtle, get 5 XP. Accrue 500 XP and you gain a level. Et cetera.

While certainly an attempt to recreate in some way a person's actual skill advancement in real life, it would seem that XP would work in the actual world similarly to the way it does in the digital. For example. Let's take a skill you want to develop, say running. Set a series of levels in front of you, and choose XP amounts for given tasks:

Go for a 1 mile run, get 1 XP. Go for a 3 mile run, get 4 XP. Run in a charity event, 15 XP. Finish within 1 minute of the leader in a competitive run, 200 XP. Run a marathon, 10,000 XP.

Level 1: 30 XP. Level 2: 500 XP. Level 3: 3500 XP. Level 4: 5000 XP. Etc.

So, you could get to high levels just by running a mile at a time, but getting there would take forever. Doing bigger things yields bigger numbers, and thus faster level-ups.

Here's a wrinkle: in games, a higher level means better stats. A level 2 character is stronger than a level 1, and that means an easier time killing beasties. Aside from the fact that you would actually improve, how would this work in real life? I say you'd have to have your friends involved, and the bragging rights would do it. Either that or have specific level tasks, e.g. you can't get to level 4 until you run the Turkey Trot, no matter how many XP you've got.

This could work for all kinds of things.

• Career -- go to a seminar, 10XP. Get the corner office, 5000XP.
• Arts -- participate in Nanowrimo, 150XP. Get published in a magazine, 500XP.
• Education -- go to a class, 1XP. Get a PhD, 10,000XP.
• Fandom -- read the Lord of the Rings again, 5XP. Go to Marquette and lie about doing a research project to get the Special Collections guy to bring out the secret not-for-display Tolkien stuff, 10,000XP.
  
• Connoisseur -- try a new beer, 5XP. Go to a wine tour in another state, 1,000XP.
  
• Family affairs -- email your mother, 2XP. Don't yell at Shannon on Xmas, 50,000XP.

Unfortunately, it could also work for negative things. Smoke a pack, 100XP. Perhaps this could be factored in. You want to stop doing something? Take the XP away from something you're working towards. So, say the F-word, take 5XP from your Runner class count. That's 5 miles you just lost. F indeed.

If you're willing to spend hours of your life pretending to be a druid and running around killing lizards until you can get that robe you want, why not take that rewards system and move it to real life? I'll DM.

Bye Bye Birdie

I saw of these one time. IN A DREAM. Figures my clairvoyance would be limited to videogames.

Time for some thrilling heroics.

Words on zee nets is that someone is thinking about a Firefly video game, a massively-multiplayer online deal. This is dumb. You want to make something good? Here's how you do it:

#1: The base ingredients. What do we know about the Firefly universe? Interstellar travel, psychics, cannibals, and legalized prostitution.

#2: The spices. Q1: What does Firefly feel like? A: Old West. Q2: What's fun about Firefly? A: The language, sharp-shooting, wild stunts with spaceships, Kaylee.

#3: Mix until smooth. So, what we want here is a workable plot line which fits in the 'verse but doesn't feature any of the main characters. E.g. -- playing as Luke Skywalker is lame, but playing as Kyle Katarn is awesome. We'll set this in the post-unification, pre-Serenity timeframe.

You play as a newly-recruited Alliance agent who is sent undercover to gather up a young woman from a far-flung dirthole planet. You book a seat on a civilian transport (NOT the Serenity) and head out. You have some adventures on the way there and get to know the crew.

Once you get to Dirtonia, you discover that the woman you have been sent to bring in is a Companion, and a psychic one at that -- which makes her wicked good at her job. The Alliance wants her for the River experiment. You, being a good guy, decide to go rogue.

The overall plot pits you against an Alliance bigwig who is oppressing a dusty planet known for harboring Browncoats during the war. You and your ragtag band of misfits (you end up Captain, due to some serendipity) free the locals from his reign, cleaning up the single-horsed town.

Gameplay switches back and forth between rpg-action and flight-sim (reavers are out there). You meet up with various lesser characters in your travels (e.g. the Serenity's original engine guy -- you know, blonde tattoo dude? -- is on your crew.) and hit some of the locations from the show. Lots of shooting, quipping, and Blue Sun cola.

Joss? Call me.

Gabwhatna?

What the heck? Lehm. We all know where to go to get the quality stuff.

According to...

Add this to the litany of cautionary tales regarding the complete uselessness of the staff at videogame stores.

My dear old grandmother plays bridge regularly. She had a copy of Hoyle's Classic Games for her PC, with which she would practice her mad brizzidge skillz. The CD disappeared, and she needed to reinstall.

Now, one would think that if an old lady were to walk into a videogame specialty store with the case for an earlier version of a current title -- a title which was in stock at the store, no less -- and ask for help, she would leave with a newly purchased game. There, gentle reader, is where you would be wrong. Dear old Grandma was informed that they did not have the game and that she should leave with haste. I assume she was asked if she wanted to pre-order Madden '08.

On my recent visit to VT, a stop was made at the mall. Now, I'm not good for much, but finding videogames? Come on. I walked in, looked under "H", found the game, and purchased it. Clearly I have some kind of preternatural ability. What else could explain how I was able to make the game appear where none was there before? I certainly hope her bridge acumen improves, what with me foresaking my immortal soul and all.

Old Bean

I promise this isn't really about videogames. I mean, a little, but not much.

The black and pink versions of the DS Lite are being released in the US quite soon. 'Onyx' and 'Coral Pink', I should say. Now, in Japan they called it 'Noble Pink'. Why the switch?

Does pink mean something other than 'feminine' in Japan? Is it associated with the nobility there, as blue and purple are to the anglosphere? Are Japanese more likely to respond well to concepts of nobility and class structure? Does Nintendo fear we will take up arms against their nobles and overthrow them, establishing 'Casteless Pink' and 'Merit-based Salmon' DSes?

A Stupid Commercial?

Esquire recently published an article about the fact that serious criticism on videogames does not exist. No incisive essays, no erudite articles, just "dude, looks like Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy* is gonna be sweet" stuff. As someone with experience reviewing games, I feel I must state the following: videogames are not art. They just ain't.
It takes a lot of artists to make one, and some of them can have truly brilliant imagery, but I have yet to see the game that's art. Artistically presented maybe.

In my (albeit limited) experience, professional criticism often takes one of two forms:

A) The secret decoder ring. "Here's what the artist/author/composer is trying to say, dimwit."

B) The petri dish. "Here are all of the religiosociopoliticaeconoclimatic factors kicking around in the spacetime locale in which the artist/author/composer worked. Put it all together, and how could he not end up writing this? Hmmm, dimwit?"

These approaches require that the author actually be saying something, whether he means to or not. I'm just not seeing it. When I sit around and talk about games, relevance never comes up. This is due mainly to the fact that it's not there.

I mean, come on. Let's give it a try.

"The major statement made by Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 comes to its zenith when the audience unlocks Darth Maul as a playable character. At that precise moment in the play experience, expect to turn to your fellow aficionados and reverently gasp the syllables "skateboarding is totally fucking awesome". "

"In summary, after witnessing the stunning victory of Natalie Cook and Kerri Ann Pottharst at Sydney, Team Ninja's 2001-02 Japan had begun to taste the beauty of the occidental sport of volleyball, which, in combination with the new Xbox's hardware and man's enduring fascination with breasts, made a perfect world in which to develop Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball."

Please.

* No really. That's an actual title.