[MUD-Dev] Much Respect to JessicaM

[Michael Tresca]

Matt Mihaly posted on Friday, September 06, 2002 2:42 PM

> Reality tv is a fad, that's all. People will get tired of it, like
> they do with all fads. Putting a camera into a MMORPG would tend
> not to make for good stories, in my opinion. Not saying it'll
> never happen, but I feel fairly confident saying that recording
> action in an MMORPG is never going to supplant structured
> storytelling in popularity.

I used Big Brother as an example only to illustrate what I consider
to be the closest "record the MMORPG" in action model.  It uses real
life people as opposed to virtual ones, but it is essentially an
observation of beings in a contained environment.  That could easily
be a MMORPG.  I do not believe the lure of "Reality TV" is actually
going to carry over to the "Virtual Movie" version of cinema.  Why?
Because MMORPGS are not trying to be real, of course.

Reality TV provides the illusion of reality.  MMORPGs don't bother.
Once the technology becomes good enough, it will be very difficult
to tell what's recorded on a MMORPG and what happened in real life
(unless there are obvious fantastic elements like talking dragons in
it).

MMORPGs can certainly accommodate structured storytelling.  They
just happen in the MMORPG.  Much of structured storytelling in
movies comes AFTER the movie is filmed, not during.  Cut, paste,
move this actor, flip the orientation he's facing on the screen,
erase that pimple, cut that piece of dialogue.  Structured
storytelling comes later, not when the movie is filmed.  In that
sense, MMORPGs make perfect raw material that can easily be edited
and tweaked to make it appear structured.

> Come now. Hyperbole is fun, but script writing is NOT going
> anywhere. Movie actors, possibly, but not for quite awhile.

Script writing has long since ceased to be storytelling.  So perhaps
I should amend my statement to say that script writing is already
dead.  Script writers drastically alter each others scripts --
witness the repeated cry that it's all "script doctors" and not
"script writers."  It's rare one author crafts the story from
beginning to end.  It's a collaborative effort.  Just like MMORPG
creation.

Reality TV sprung up due to strikes.  It costs money to pay these
people to craft their art. Reality TV is supposedly "unscripted" (or
at least, not scripted in the traditional sense) and thus costs less
to create.

MMORPGs are no different, only they are rapidly approaching
movie-level special effects.  Why in the world do I need to hire
actors, when I have a cast of thousands and can monitor them all
simultaneously for the best action?  Why do I need script writers,
when I have millions who are writing their own stories?

If the animation isn't quite right, I can tweak it, change it,
modify it so it does work since they're all virtual anyway.  If I
don't like the voice acting, I provide my own voice actor.  I tweak
what happens on screen to match what I'd like to happen.

This means I don't need people to ORIGINATE a story anymore.  It's
ALL script doctors, no script writers, because there's an
overflowing abundance of raw material.  Sure, a majority of it in
MMORPGs is probably crap.  But that crap can be filtered in the
cutting room.  Or not, it may sell anyway.

> I think you are seriously overestimating the influence of MUDs (or
> MMORPGs, or whatever you want to call them).  Broadway and
> London's West End ain't going anywhere. Neither is Hollywood or
> Bollywood. I'm also not sure what you mean by saying that the
> actors

Broadway's made a comeback and I believe it's a backlash precisely
due to the preponderance of 1) big budget movies that cost millions,
2) a need for a visceral experience when graphic editing now makes
everything seem surreal.  I imagine Broadway will only be more
popular, not less.

Let me provide some definitions to explain where I'm coming from.
Traditional actors act.  This is not Arnie.  Arnie has a brand.  He
is as equally valid as Batman or Superman.  He branded his
personality.  Arnie does not ACT in the traditional sense.  He
provides variations on himself -- Arnie as a barbarian, Arnie as a
robot villain, Arnie as a humorous twin.  It's all about
establishing a brand.  That's not what traditional actors do.
Indeed, traditional actors are chameleons and if they are known
primarily for who they are, they are overshadowing their character
presence.

Just about everybody you listed, from Vin Diesel to Julia Roberts,
are brand actors.  This is why some of them are trying to do "more
serious fare" -- Mel's going to not be crazy in Signs, Tom Cruise
isn't going to be a pretty boy in Vanilla Sky, Jim Carrey's going to
not crack jokes every second in The Truman Show.  It's why movie
actors are going back to Broadway -- to prove they can actually act
as an art, as opposed to "act" to sell a brand.

Branding is great.  Branding makes money.  Branding has nothing to
do with traditional acting.

This is why MMORPGs CAN sell.  Because you don't need professional
actors in a MMORPG.  You just need to brand the characters and
world.  We don't need Val Kilmer as Batman, we just need Batman.  We
don't need Arnie as Hugor the Barbarian in EverQuest -- in fact, we
may not even be able to tell it's Arnie playing him (okay, the voice
will give it away).  Arnie's brand isn't going to carry over so
easily.  The world's the brand.

If the world's the brand, you film in the world and slice and dice
it so it looks like what you want.  You craft a story out of the raw
material (note, you don't just sit down and write it raw as a script
writer might). Then you tweak, tweak, tweak and--VOILA!--you have
your movie.

No, it's not possible now.  Special effects still suck.  I loved
Spiderman, but every special effects scene was obvious.  Blade II's
special effects were a joke.  We're not there yet.  But we will be.

> Yep, I can definitely see this happening eventually, but the
> ability to create realistic virtual actors doesn't give you
> story. Look at the pretty-nice-looking-but-otherwise-awful Final
> Fantasy movie, for instance.

And of course, this is because they crafted it like a traditional
script writer would.  They took a story from scratch and then
attempted to recreate it from scratch with virtual characters.  It's
like setting out to film a forest, and instead of walking over to
the one next door, you grow seeds and WAIT for the thousands of
trees to grow.  Final Fantasy struck me as insanely backward.  Once
the MMORPGs hit that level of graphics, film what happens in it and
script doctor it.  Six months of material should give a future
filmmaker plenty of material.

> This has been happening for a long time. Star Wars, Star Trek,
> Lord of the Rings, Marvel and DC Comics, etc. It's unrelated to
> MUDs, in my opinion. The reason there have been umpteen Star Wars
> books and games is because Lucas isn't just selling the
> movies. He's selling the Star Wars universe, and has been doing so
> for a couple decades now.

I agree.  That goes to my franchise comment, above.  However, it
opens the world up even more.  Actually, perhaps Raph can chime in
on this:

I know George Lucas is concerned about keeping the Star Wars
universe consistent.  Is there anything binding that I, as a player,
can or can't do in Star Wars? Can I do anything I want?  And do I
own that character if I play it?  If I name my character Bo-Bo the
Wookie, do I own Bo-Bo or does George?

If anyone were to do what I've explained above, it'd be George.  I
could see him easily inserting into the EULA a clause that says your
character may be filmed at any time and you give up all rights to
appear in a future movie.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org/talien



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