TGhe massively Multiplayer Snare

[Michael Hopcroft]

Inspired by svereal media things (The .hack//SIGN TV series, the Batman: TAS episode "What is Reality?", and a comment on one of the webcomic mailing lists i read) I've been pondering the idea of someone dveeloping an innovative system for nerual interfaces with MMORPGs. The trial game sel,ls gazillions of copies and becomes immensely popular. But there's a catch -- the designer of the game has sought out specific players and set a trap for them. One day, they enter the game, play their stuff, try to log out -- and can't.

 

The players, a group of disparate people from all over the world, are stuck in the world of the game until the BBG is willing to let them back into reality. Meanwhile, as tiome goes on their bodies begin to fail from lack of food, fluids, sleep and human contact. If they don't find each other and find the solution to the puzzle the foe has set for them, they will lose their existence outside the game as eventually their bodies give up and die.

 

Meanwhile, the game itself is going after them, in the form of both programmed foes and unscrupulous "player-killer" players. And if one of the players dies in the game -- he is really, finally dead.

[Kyle A.]

Re: TGhe massively Multiplayer Snare

 

It sounds a lot like the Matrix. Still it would be fun to run.

[Markdoc]

Re: TGhe massively Multiplayer Snare

 

Inspired by svereal media things (The .hack//SIGN TV series' date=' the [i']Batman: TAS[/i] episode "What is Reality?", and a comment on one of the webcomic mailing lists i read) I've been pondering the idea of someone dveeloping an innovative system for nerual interfaces with MMORPGs. The trial game sel,ls gazillions of copies and becomes immensely popular. But there's a catch -- the designer of the game has sought out specific players and set a trap for them. One day, they enter the game, play their stuff, try to log out -- and can't.

 

The players, a group of disparate people from all over the world, are stuck in the world of the game until the BBG is willing to let them back into reality. Meanwhile, as tiome goes on their bodies begin to fail from lack of food, fluids, sleep and human contact. If they don't find each other and find the solution to the puzzle the foe has set for them, they will lose their existence outside the game as eventually their bodies give up and die.

 

Meanwhile, the game itself is going after them, in the form of both programmed foes and unscrupulous "player-killer" players. And if one of the players dies in the game -- he is really, finally dead.

 

Actually IIRC there was a Korean movie came out last year which basically has this plot, with the additional twist that the players need to get to a certain goal inside the game to get out.

 

cheers, Mark

[Eosin]

Re: TGhe massively Multiplayer Snare

 

I've read half a dozen books and seen a dozen movies with similar set ups. My hands down favorites is Heroes Die by Matthew Stover (Fantasy) but there is one by Dennis L. McKiernan that is a decent read. I also liked the Matrix which the same premise with a diferent spin.

[yamamura]

Re: TGhe massively Multiplayer Snare

 

Going with .hack, you could have only one person trapped there and the rest being able to leave. This allows for outside the MMORPG research and mini solo adventure between the main game session. Of course if you have 2 groups you are running for, then you can have a whole campaign centered around the outside effects of the game.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The massively Multiplayer Snare

 

Apparentl;y, if some of the other series are any indication, Tsubasa's player was not the only .hack player trapped in the World. She was just the one who was the center of the attention in that particular story. .hack//Luminality is a side-story series set mostly in the real world about the efforts of the World's creators to cover up what's going on.

 

In a scienc-fiction world, one could build something like the World and have people enter it as their world deliberately, never logging out and using feeding tubes and catheters to keep their bodies alive. If it can be done cheaply enough, variations on this theme could be used as alternatives to traditional prisons and mental institutions (people who would be extremely dangerous in the real world are free to act out their violent impulses virtually and harm nobody -- theoretically.). It would have to be a life setence, though, because after a long period in VR it would be impossible for these people to cope with reality.