Topic: Pretty Random Thought

[MaryJane]

I was thinking of an RPG idea for the Wii in which using the 24connect service the game would take place in a massive world(Hyrule in Twilight Princess is supposed so to take over 10 real time minutes to cross?) in which when you reach a certain point the game stops until the release of the next "episode". This would work well I think in a action based(as opposed to social) RPG it would be like watching a t.v show but actually controlling the onscreen action. new areas could open up, places revisted, changing landscapes due to evolving world, or the dark power you're trying to stop or trying to spread further!! (i'd love an evil RPG, any RPG really ) if the first game started with 10 episodes we could see games with 24 or 26 like a lot of (my favorite) anime series. We could literally play a game from it's release until the release the next console.

Anyway...

The random thought was, I wonder what creates more possibilities, the computer generated random level up stats, or when the player is given the option of what stats to raise. I don't know why I thought of that inside the thought about that game, but it makes you wonder which one.

[Kairon]

I find WiiConnect24 an interesting challenge: it isn't straightforward.

It merely means that players can be always connected to the network. This is not a persistant world, just a persistant connection. This has applications for things like getting mail 24/7 (animal crossing) and for episodic gaming (your idea MaryJane)... and actually even shares traits with Nintendo's Super Famicom Satellaview system, where players played a special edition of Zelda: Link to the past only at certain dedicated times and with real-time narration over broadcast, playing the game regularly in set-time segments with a narrator describing what was happening in the entire game, no matter whether the player was cutting grass or actually getting closer to the storyline... (if you missed the broadcast you didn't get to play)

Hmmm....

If you're always connected then the gameworld can change at any moment... if the gameworld can change that means that reality in the game can change... assumptions can be challenged, storylines can twist, bad things can turn useful, friends can turn hostile, and gravity can turn upside down. And all of these can change the realities of what the player has done IN the game, as well as change their plans for the future.

For example, suppose the player is interacting with NPCs. They want to build up a friendly relation ("rep") with certain npcs or groups of npcs because these groups are helpful(maybe they can get you free gas on a world where gasoline is a luxury?). BUT, when the next WiiConnect24 update comes out, it changes the game's environment and reality and makes your "friends" liabilities. Their benefits no longer help you (all of a sudden energy becomes free and gas becomes useless) , and your association with them may actually make things harder for you(people want to persecute the people who had the power (and the gas) before).

OR... maybe dial all that drama down a notch or two?

Merely make it so player's have to plan a course of action several days in advance. They make a plan to infiltrate a facility in Moscow. But on the day of the attack, WiiConnect 24 gets the weather report to discover that it's actually snowing in Moscow. All of a sudden the player has to react accordingly?

Or... maybe a stock trading game... The game follows closely the real ups and downs of NASDAQ. And whether the Nasdaq is doing well or whether it is doing poorly makes npcs in your game act in different ways, some get happy, some get more risk-happy, some get desperate, some cross ethical lines, etc.

Maybe Wii Connect 24 can allow RPG players from far away influence each other's games. Just like Spore let's players put their species up on the itnernet for other games to use as alien species, so that players are exposed to each other's creativity without ever directly being in contact, or just like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon lets you "rescue" from long distance a friend who got pwned in his dungeon, actually affecting another player's game world despite not actually existing in the same exact game world? Hmmm....
Maybe in an RPG, itf you wanted to change something, you'd ask somebody in another RPG to change it for you by doing a mission in their game. Let's say that you want to put out a hit on an enemy character, but you don't want the blood on your hands. Make up a contract and send it out over the WiiConnect24 service. Then someone will accept the contract and time limit and do that hit for you, and get paid accordingly in their game. In your game, you're a little poorer, but your enemy figure has been killed, something you, for RP reasons, were unable to do...

Hmmm...possibilities...

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Ceric]

Stock Market Trading Wii Channel.  Add Horse Betting and Nintendo will be back to their former Glory.  Theirs you Killer App.

[MaryJane]

The possibilities for the 24Connect are pretty astounding, any launch window game has the potential to suddenly be playable online in March(i think) once Nintendo fully sets up their online service.

Excite Truck Online. :rool::

Digital Gaming is one step closer with the Wii, if I was EA or any other sports developer, say for Madden, if the main change is the roster as opposed to initiating new gameplay, They could charge $30 - $40 for the update, and not have to worry about selling to retailers, putting the game on a disc, or any of the other headaches of retail sales, it also would give more realistic sale data as they have the actual consumer sales.

Next to the Wii-mote this is the feature of the Wii that most excites developers from what I've read, I really can't wait to see what is done with this, especially from Nintendo themselves.

Last secret of the Wii: WiiDiscs are re-writable? That would be hawt.