RPS Graces TNM With Lovely Words

[justanotherfan]

I thought that Smith was saying TNM was limited by the expectations of the fans, and that he doesn't "think Off Topic Productions did all they could with this setting."; sorry, it looks like I forgot to add that to the interesting quotes, and that's a major part of what I was replying to. He suggests that TNM could have "admins breaking the rules of reality, or viruses, or people’s real lives leaking into the world, or deleting content or accounts from servers". Aside from an admin creating an object with moderator powers, the shadowcode AI malware, and the Scara/Ryan ban possibility, TNM could have done more with "virtual world". Smith is right. As I said, I'm happier with what resulted by being "appeased". As is argued above, extending the metaphors and fully utilizing the conceptual whatever is problematic and annoying, and ditching the "plain conspiracy story" is especially so within Deus Ex.

As an aside, I hadn't given much thought to TNM characters being avatars that develop into individuals based on the online personas. I got the "you're a forum avatar now" thing, and I got the "this is the Trestkon character, not Trestkon", but I hadn't followed far in the "if PDX forum members didn't say anything one day, the user avatars would continue on like this" thinking. I guess the "Why did you leave PDX for a while Trestkon" question combined with the uncertain answers plays well into that (the avatar would have no idea why).

[chris the cynic]

What exactly would corrupted data look like in a visual cyberspace? Would it be the three dimensional equivalent of white noise?

How would you represent, or combat, a virus?

If a dragon migrated from a fantasy forum to a forum with realism would it fall out of the sky due to the laws of physics not liking it's wing surface area to mass ratio? Would it morph into a black helicopter and thus shoot missiles instead of fireballs?

What more setting based ideas could be done beyond those already mentioned?

Can I complete this post using only questions?

[bobby 55]

What? The game is enjoyable....... the end.

[chris the cynic]

Um, that was a response to what? To me?

What I was wondering is what a game (or tv show, or movie, or whatnot) would be like that followed Quintin Smith's wishes.

The one criticism I’d dare to level at such a ludicrous labour of love as this is that I don’t think Off Topic Productions did all they could with this setting. A single-player game set in a pretend online virtual community is, contrary to what the team might think, a fantastic idea. It leaves the door wide open for all kinds of plot devices to do with admins breaking the rules of reality, or viruses, or people’s real lives leaking into the world, or deleting content or accounts from servers. I don’t think TNM realises its potential

But it doesn’t mean there isn’t massive potential in this idea. My one criticism of TNM is that you didn’t go far enough with the setting.

So what I'm asking is, what if you when farther with the setting. What would that be like. If you are going to have a computer virus, how do you represent it in the game? If data is corrupted what does that mean, what does it look like?

A similar thought was that when you travel from one Forum City to another things change.

Thus, PlanetQuake has "powerups", PlanetWarcraft has "resources", PlanetNeverwinter has "skills" and "feats", and PlanetDeusEx has skills and augs. If a PDX Forum City citizen were to travel to PlanetQuake or PlanetUnreal, he might be shocked to realize that his precious augs had been converted to powerups. Of course they would turn back into augmentations upon his return to PDX.

So what happens when something that has no obvious analogue makes the transition? Does a dragon stay a dragon?

It is an element of the setting that, like the fact the setting is cyberspace, could have been taken farther.

My questions were all about where one arrives if they go farther.

[bobby 55]

Um, that was a response to what? To me?

No not directly, it was more of that it doesn't matter to me what could, would , or should have been done better or in more detail, the game is enjoyable as it is imo.

[chris the cynic]

That is certainly true, but that kind of setting can be used for different projects in the future and is therefore worthy of consideration, in my opinion, for reasons that are not made moot by pointing out that TNM was good as it is.

I agree with Smith that this kind of setting has a lot of potential.

[bobby 55]

That is certainly true, but that kind of setting can be used for different projects in the future and is therefore worthy of consideration, in my opinion, for reasons that are not made moot by pointing out that TNM was good as it is.

I agree with Smith that this kind of setting has a lot of potential.

I can agree with that, and I did enjoy his article.

[Jaedar]

If you are going to have a computer virus, how do you represent it in the game?

I think a self-replicating 2-d object would be a good way, sort of like what Darwinia did.
This is probably not a good idea to have in TNM though, but I do admit, I also wish the setting would have gone further. Like say; you kill an anonymous board guest on day one, and on day two a named-avatar comes trying to exact revenge for it. It would obviously not be a difficult fight,(how much gear could a noob honestly attain in one day? I'm guessing a basic melee weapon and maybe a pistol if you're lucky) but it would be cool.

So what happens when something that has no obvious analogue makes the transition? Does a dragon stay a dragon?

A dragon is an avatar, so it would probably stay. And it would presumably still be able to fly, just like silver dragon can still breathe fire. But due to the fact that fantasy creatures don't fit on PDX the mods would probably make the user change their avatar during their stay.

All of the above is theorycrafting, naturally.

[chris the cynic]

I was thinking more of an NPC dragon. Say I captured one and brought it over, or if NPCs can migrate outside of their native cities on their own it just went out for a fly. Or it followed someone. Or any number of other possibilities like that.

[justanotherfan]

Going Matrixy, a dragon would just be a regular person IRL (eg. Smith/Bane). Going Tronic, it's just a program on an old computer (eg. MCP). It might have been interesting to have Trestkon escape at the end of the Narcissus ending, maybe going Homer3D and walking down a street or being a Roger Rabbit type detective, but again that's a hell of a lot of work for little payoff.

I'm reinterpreting that what Smith was saying is that the TNM concept could work for a fully independent game. TNM is mostly independent of Deus Ex, but it originates from DX and the audience is a DX audience. Abandoning DX and writing for a mass public audience with an "online forum" concept could be extended well, satisfying goals different from TNM's. Since I'm a part of the DX audience, I'm happier with TNM as-is.