"Totally Righteous, Dude!"

Today I discovered that humans could talk to sea turtles.  I met one particular sea turtle who had a lot of questions for us humans and welcomed us to ask him our own questions as well.  His name is “Crush” and he resides at Disney World on his show “Turtle Talk.”

When you enter the showroom, one wall is arrayed like a window into the open sea.  And after an introduction from the hostess, Crush comes surfing into view and begins to talk to the audience.  He talks not just to the audience in general, but to specific people in the crowd.  He asks one little girl what her name is and calls her by her name.  He asks who brought her here and she answers that her Troop Leader had done so.  And so he starts asking the Troop Leader questions too and calls the Troop Leader by name.

Crush then asks the audience, specifically the children, if they have any questions for him.  He picks the children from the crowd by describing them to the human hostess running around with a microphone.  One girl asks if he likes swimming and he proclaims that he likes swimming, but loves surfing and proceded to demonstrate by swimming around and clocking himself on the window.

The creators at Disney understand the value of a personalized experience and personal interaction.  Relying on animatrons to be hosts and hostesses on popular rides only goes so far, and so adding truly interactive sessions with Pixar characters such as Crush completely change the experience of the audience.  No longer is the experience merely a ride that everyone enjoys, but you truly feel like you’ve interacted with this strange and wondrous world of dreams comes to life.

Neverwinter Nights 2

The technology that makes it possible to truly interact with a sea turtle can one day make it possible for us to create ever more interactive games.  Games like “Neverwinter Nights” makes this attempt by allowing players to create their own campaigns, story scenarios, and combat encounters with the same tools as the developers used.  More and more games are taking this approach and allowing users access to create their own experiences and to tell their own stories and share them with others.

What I believe will replace the MMORPG will be something from the past – the MUD (multi-user dungeon).  The strength of the MUD was the ability for users to create their own content which is lacking in most MMORPGs.  Also, since the primary medium of a MUD was text, it was easy for administrators to describe anything and everything they wished within the confines of the MUD structure of “rooms.”   The power to customize a room was only limited to the imagination (and literary skills) of the writer.

I do not believe that the future of gaming lies in the ability to push yet more polygons to overcome “uncanny valley” or the perfection of “mammary mechanics” as many developers seem to push for.  I believe the future of gaming lies in giving players more access to tools to make their dreams into reality.  While there is an element of cynicism that goes with user-created content, I believe the next big evolution in gaming is pushing for the technology to create and present the imagination as close as possible to real-time:

Gamemaster: “You enter a large dark room…” (clicks a couple settings) “In the room in the corner is a pillar…” (drags) “Where 5 goblins are surrounding it…” (presses hotkey) “And they are worshipping it…” (clicks emote) “Because atop of it lies a statue of Tiamat…” (drag and drops)  “They are currently unaware of your presence…” (sets combat parameter)  “What do you do?”

Player: “I wish to declare myself their new god!” (presses a “Diplomacy” skill check – scores perfectly)

Gamemaster: “For some reason…  They believe you…” (pressing emote button)

And yes…  Someone did pull off that stunt in a game and the gamemaster let him get away with it – simply out of sheer humor factor and lending itself to a great story.