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All the World's a Stage: Raiding and RP don't mix, or do they? -- A question of continuity.
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.The Warcraft storyline is part of a great tradition of fantasy literature, and, as with any form of storytelling, the entire span of WoW lore involves a series of events and changes. Arthas wasn't always the Lich King, Illidan used to be able to wear shoes, and your character was once a little child, with no spells or epic weapons at all. All these things fit together in a single story universe, in which the progressive changes taking place in the story made the world what it is today.But what is it today? Is Illidan now dead or alive? Is VanCleef dead or alive, for that matter? As a gaming environment, any boss you kill today has to be there for me to kill tomorrow. The WoW game world needs to remain basically unchangeable -- but over time this can stifle a roleplayer's sense of immersion in its narrative. To illustrate the impact this sort of immutability has on storytelling, let us take a page from a certain fantasy story you might have read, and see how it might work as a WoW raid instance.Welcome to Mines of Moria! This raid instance will reset in 6 days, 10 hours and 41 minutes.[Raidleader] [Gandalf]: Beware! There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world. Follow my glowing staff! [Raidleader] [Gandalf]: ... and um... get ready to pull that first group of orcs. Kill order is skull, x, circle... Gimli, can you offtank that cave troll?
More Palm Centro details leaked for Sprint
The cats at the Morning Paper claim to have a piece of marketing collateral which spills, or at least, reshuffles the beans on the Palm Centro for Sprint. EV-DO, check. Palm OS (Garnet), check. Touch-screen, check (obviously). Really, the only things we haven't seen before is the list of Sprint services it'll be packing: Sprint TV, On Demand, IM, Mobile Email, and Google maps in the slimmest Treo, er Palm OS device yet. But Garnet on a Q4 2007 Palm release? Puh-lease.[Thanks, Sheldon]
Palm Centro action shots emerge
Hot off the French press, we bring you brand-spanking-new pictures of Palm's next smartphone: the Centro. Here you see the new entry in its natural habitat, running the tired, tired Palm OS, with what appears to be zero changes in either looks or functionality. Come on guys -- you couldn't even update the graphics a little bit? Of note here otherwise is its striking similarity in size to the BlackBerry Pearl (obviously not a coincidence), and the fact that Palm is bringing over the 680's phone app, which hasn't surfaced on any other Treo yet (including the post-680 entry, the 755p). It's a start -- but you've got to lose that white finish.[Thanks, Cellenin]
Flash memory oddity reveals image of Jesus and / or Gandalf
Now that we've got our own CNC hot-air gun to draw images of Jesus and Mary to our heart's content, we're not so very surprised to see those revered images popping up in odder places, like this here flash memory. Revealed by transmission electron microscopy, the folks at Chipworks found this familiar image of the Messiah on a 4GB Samsung flash memory chip. Dick James explains: "We often get dark fringe lines in the silicon, and in this case it looks like there was some holy influence." However, we're not so sure this is a dead-ringer for Jesus. As some staff at El Reg have pointed out, the dude also bears a striking resemblance to Gandalf, and we're seeing more of a long-haired, bearded Strongbad at play here.
Steve Gray discusses LOTR: The White Council
Last week, Electronic Arts announced the re-named Lord of the Rings: The White Council, an open-ended RPG that is drawing comparisons to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Following the press event, CVG spoke with producer Steve Gray on a wide range of topics including the central story arc, playable races, and the inclusion of Maxis' Sims technology for The White Council's NPCs. Regarding the plot, Gray had this to say: "We have the rights to create derivative fiction from both the books and the films, and that's given us a lot of freedom to create new characters and stories. However, it always has to make sense within the confines of Tolkien's world." EA expects The White Council to ship in Fall 2007 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. A PC version has not been confirmed, but Gray hinted at its likelihood.
Gray is White - the new LOTR RPG
Just before its summer press event, Electronic Arts officially unveiled Lord of the Rings: The White Council, the next gen RPG formerly known as Project Gray Company. Scheduled to ship at the end of 2007, White Council features an original storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkien's literary works, and will include an open-ended world with gameplay elements from previous LOTR console titles.At the beginning of the year, EA developer Jim Norwood confirmed the existence of a new LOTR RPG -- and even dropped the name, "The White Council". After the game's web site launched in April, keen observers may have also noticed that many members of The Return of the King and The Third Age design teams were on board with Gray Company. It was just a matter of putting two and two together, although many of us still missed the connection (like an M. Night Shyamalan flick). A new introduction on White Council's web site explains: "We really wanted to get the web site up and running so we could start talking with everyone about what makes a cool RPG." Hopefully, you've all given EA some good feedback on constructing the ultimate RPG before they apply the Tolkien license.
