MASS EFFECT MOVIE? Be gentle.

The producer for Ironman/spiderman/x-men movie has optioned the rights to Mass Effect.

Cheers Hollywood, this could be the movie that changes everything. If you carefully translate the experience to film... it'll be mind-blowing. I say hire the guys from Square Enix who produced the CGI Spirits Within and just hand them the Mass Effect character models... the market is ready.

Maybe even incorporate some RPG style moments for the fans by focusing on important in-game decisions (Display the character options as subtitles, have option highlighted, clicked, and plot continues?). OR release a few different versions, one where Commander Shepard is from Earth, one where he is from a space colony... you'd just have to change a few lines here and there and you can have a cool gimmick to inspire multiple viewings.

This could be the first GOOD digital game crossover into popular film media, the plot is perfect.

Please don't frack this up.

Dramatic MMO Legal Pad Scribblings: 2am

I find myself to be…

Unable to put my computer together.

(tower, monitor, power cord, monitor cable, monitor power cord, mouse, keyboard, mic…)

My syringes. My pipes. I can feel the machine pull at me. It wants me to go exploring. My mind wants to go exploring because I AM AFRAID TO STAY HERE / NOW.

Label this fear as boredom, ADD, curiosity, whatever. Playing is all I want to do. Are they really my friends if we'd rather converse through wires and pixels? Yes. We slaughter deamons. Something better than alchohol against which to do battle(?)

I want to duel on mountains and slay frost worms as a Bear Shaman, not sit and…and...what the hell else would I do?

All the pieces are here. More narcotic hardware than 99% of the world could afford: GTS 8800, 4 gigs of RAM 38 inch plasma, the works. It would practically assemble itself, five minutes tops. Instead, I hold a legal pad. I’m hiding from something. What?

Here in my room, next to a dog soon to be given away, I wonder why I left a friends’ house 20 minutes ago. We were relaxing, the three of us. But the conversation faltered. “Remember that time in City of Heroes?” We need MORE THAN REALITY CAN OFFER.

More than it offers.

It’s quiet in here. I turn on a fan because I can’t stand the silence. Mind wanders without it. Sleep? Family? Dog? Girlfriend? No: Porn and Videogames.

I assemble her lovingly, as if adjusting a sleeping bag before a long-awaited nap. Water cooled.

And then I can’t do it. I can’t go back in like I used to. It was so easy when I was young. Spend awhile on the internet instead, reading about the games I am now unable to play. Firefox, (the lobby between reality and hallucination) swallows early morning hours.

Eventually I tire myself out enough to sleep; there has to be a better way.

I decide that I need to moderate my relationship with the digital, because the technology will never moderate itself.

Perhaps the kids should learn to moderate. To hesitate before leaving this world compeltely.

They aren’t going to. They’re online right now. Smoking "spiritual opium."

Out-leveling me.

Conan Guild Page

exists.
send me content guys.
Known Issue

$100,000 Grant to Study WOW (+ thoughts)

Shacknews has reported that a professor at the University of California is going to receive a grant to study WOW game modifications in the US and China. ("Mods" are extra installations usually made by 3rd party developers to improve aesthetics or data retrieval).

basically, +1 For Digital Anthropology.

It's about time we took a closer look at digital events and gaming phenomena. I'm trying to figure out how to ask the right questions myself... if anyone has some decent ideas, let me know.

So far, I think that the most important affect has to be the emotional/spiritual/lifestyle changes gamers endure in return for their expanded horizons of personal experience. While gamers see and do things normal people could never imagine, they end up spending less time in the real world. According to another study out today (thanks Shacknews) Everquest 2 players:

"...reported more cases of depression and substance abuse than their compatriots. 'They may be drawn to use the game to help deal with emotional distress,' says team member Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware."


So what the hell is going on? We need to watch this more closely. I've played several MMO's religiously as you all know, and there is something there... something undefinable is happening to the human mind. A broadening? An addiction? I'll tell you when I figure it out.

Dream Job

"G4tv / G4tv.com is seeking a highly motivated individual to join the games editorial team...

The Director of Games Editorial will be responsible for establishing an editorial calendar as well as building and managing a team of editors and producers who will generate game reviews, previews, trailers, custom videos, recurring non-linear shows and screenshots. This hire will also be responsible for building and maintaining relationships with publishers and developers to ensure a constant stream of editorial opportunities for both the network and the website. The position requires accountability, productivity, excellent communication skills, a vast knowledge of gaming and gaming culture and the ability to manage a team of creative individuals..."

Unfortunately:

"QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:
3+ years experience managing editorial team / senior editor experience
Minimum 5 years experience in videogame industry
Deep understanding of interactive publishing including timelines, development cycles and best practices / Deep Rolodex of existing gaming contacts" =


Whatever man, I've got time. By the time the Dr. graduates these jobs will be even bigger, shinier, and more in need of my outstanding people skills.

Right? Guys?
oh...

The Future of Renewable Energy

Is single-celled organisms.

It's not a new tactic really, the little guys spent a few million years figuring out how to harness solar power and now we have the ability to create them from genetic scratch. By taking the world's most simple genome and playing legos with it, researchers can now produce designer organisms. A few acres of phytoplankton making jet fuel from sunlight, and we're in business.

It's not science fiction man; it's here:

Not-so-new Industry Startup

Most interestingly, the guys pioneering the tech speaking at TED

Biomass into hydrocarbons (Ars)

June/July

I refuse to let this blog die.
To let this idea float away like so much netsam before it, I'd feel like a jackass.
Just have to stay constant, improve my timing, my pace.

Speaking of pace:

The first few lines from Edgar Allen Poe's Fall of the House of Usher:
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into everyday life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart — an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.

Whether or not you dig victorian gothic horror, you can't deny how hypnotizing the effect is. This kind of pacing is important, especially when text is separated into panels or divided by visually intense images. The reader's senses (hallucinating through reading) should be in a constant state of FEAST. Poe was a god; try not to flinch reading this.

If a graphic novel were presented in a public setting, displayed on a huge projector, could it be read aloud? To what extent do you hear comic text? Does the pacing NEED to be more fragmented than traditional prose to achieve desired graphic pauses? I'd like to find an example of some frames that have the flow I'm trying looking for.

I think dictated (orator-accompanied projection) sequential art would be pretty cool.

Oh wait, that's called a movie...?