Daily Archives: May 24, 2010

Mighty Morphin MMO.

I was flicking through Saturday morning kids TV when I saw a show that I considered a contender for Tipa’s IPs that should be MMOs series, but despite Power Rangers being an incredibly popular show, I quickly realised that several problems would present themselves with an MMO conversion, for a start you’d have the age old problem of trying to form a group to attack the big man-in-a-rubber-suit boss mobs in the various dungeons:

“Looking for Right Leg of Battle Mode Dino Megazord, rest of body formed and ready to go, PST…”

And even if you did manage to find a balanced team with all the classes required to form yourself a Megazord, the standard MMO PuG problems would be amplified by the need to cooperate as one cohesive entity:

Left Arm: “We need to go this way to do my class quest.”

<Battle Mode Dino Megazord points into the distance>

Right Leg: “We’re not doing your quest, we’re doing the main boss only.”

<Battle Mode Dino Megazord’s Left Arm begins disconnect sequence>

Head: “As group leader I say we should help Left Arm to do their quest.”

Right Leg: “No way!”

<Battle Mode Dino Megazord kicks itself in the head>

An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice

After some pondering on voice and identity in games, this week’s Sunday Papers on Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a link to Media Molecule’s Kenny Young talking about voice, principally in Dragon Age: Origins, and a comment there points to a Guardian Gamesblog, also on voice. Both posts mention The Old Republic, including pointing out that starting a trailer with Alec Guinness is perhaps setting the bar a *smidge* high. Interesting stuff.