Have any of you read "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson? A very interesting take on the presentation of a virtual world. Pretty much what Scott alluded to with the idea of a live person at the other end of a connection. Give it a read if you haven''t already.

Take care,
Bill

quote: Have any of you read "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson? A very interesting take on the presentation of a virtual world. Pretty much what Scott alluded to with the idea of a live person at the other end of a connection. Give it a read if you haven''t already.

Indeed, that was a very cool world. I just wish it had been as enjoyable a tale to me as "Snow Crash" was. I''d recommend the book just on the grounds of how well it handled nanotech.

quote: Scott -- you need to forget everything you know and give in to suspension of disbelief. That is, until someone comes along that can make these ideas work. (Ignore the man behind the curtain...)

I''m quite willing to do that for movies and books today. But there just isn''t enough of whatever grabs me emotionally in any existing video game.

I will, however, relate the two nearest misses.

Number one was the first time I played Alpha Centauri: there was a wonderfully diverse selection of taunts and insults from each of the opposing factions that matched their playing styles. Sadly, I had seen it all the second time through.

Number two was the Covenant aliens and the marines in Halo. From the excessive profanity emitted by the aliens when they fled my fire to the way they ran in terror from grenades, it just felt so warm and fuzzy to kill them. And the motion capture and sheer number of gestures and phrases that came out of the marines blew my mind. All I can say is that this is part of the solution for me. It represented a significant advance, but it''s still pretty canned. As for storyline, Halo was strictly linear, but much like _The Matrix_ is possibly the best repackaging of the hero''s quest archetype ever, I have never enjoyed going from point A to point B any more than in _Halo_.

As for suspension of disbelief, I can also relate that just like every one of my friends, I fell over backwards in my chair in terror the first time one of those $!@#* aliens in the classic _Rescue At Fractalus_ pounded through the windshield of my space craft. You have to experience this one to appreciate it. Even knowing it was coming didn''t help. I mention this because the final level of Halo finally topped this in sheer adrenaline for me after nearly 20 years of that single moment being the reigning king of immersion for me.

Scott

I don''t think taking a character from an existing game and suggesting modifications helps. First we would both need to be familiar with the game. Second the game was designed to a specific character. In altering the character there is going to be an inevitable alteration in how the game would play. The new "attributes" of that character would be out of context.

I think if we are going to develop this we should look at a purpose built character/setting/event. We set the parameters so that if X did Y in Z context this would affect a player emotionally.

So even before we start this - what emotional effect are you trying to achieve? Bearing in mind that different players will have different emotional reactions - in the game a pet cat is run over, player A weeps, player B cheers - can you design for specific emotional reactions? If not you are not designing specific emotional triggers but events that are likely to have an emitional effect if characters are set up in a certain way.