Games of the Future

So how the gaming scene will look like in 10, 20 or 30 years from now? Here are some of my thoughts, written with a bit of humour (I hope).

The Gothic Scrolls.

After releasing a number of buggy CRPGs PB sold the copyright rights of the highly acclaimed Gothic series to Bethesda Softworks for 1.5 billion US$. The result is this year's best seller "The Gothic Scrolls". The title combines the best parts of TES and Gothic and features a handcrafted gameworld the size of Asia. Former PB employees applied for a job at Bethesda and they were put in charge of QA and combat design. Several hysterical reactions by a group of aged hardcore fans were swiftly met by Beth blacklisting WoG.
"It will take 10 years for your average player just to complete the main quest", said Vlatko Andonov. The game utilizes the latest developments in the software industry and supports both conventional monitors and holographic projectors. Minimum system requirements include a 32-core CPU and 768TB of free RAMdisk space.

Neverwinter Gate of the Old Republic.

Bioware Arts has been growing stronger and stronger and has slowly managed to devour almost all of the competition. Its recent acquisition of Lucas Arts and Atari and the renaming of the company to Bioware Arts mark the beginning of a new era. NGotOR comes with a construction set featuring a stunning range of tilesets, from the prehistoric age to the distant future. There are 1,263,895,000 different weapons, including anything from primitive clubs to lightsabers. The game can be converted from an RPG to an FPS or an RTS by the simple press of a button. As Greg Zeschuk explained "You want to go around killing everyone? That's fine. You want to rule and control the lives of millions of people? That's fine. You want a deep role-playing experience? That's fine too."
The game currently supports only the Linux operating systems, but versions for Microsoft Doors and other secondary gaming platforms are to be expected in a few years.

Other interesting news.

"Age of Decadance" for Wxx is expected any day now, as soon as the devs agree on the color of the interface. When VD was asked what led someone completely inexperienced to develop another hack'n slash game, he replied "I got tired of playing games so I decided to make my own".

Please add your own ideas (doesn' have to be about RPGs only) and don't keep this thread entirely serious!

Todd Howard receives the "Grand Old Prize" for a lifetime of passion in making quality RPGs. He has developed a number of classic RPGs and received recognition and critical acclaim from all parts of the gaming society. But he didn't stop there. No he made gaming and especially RPGs a crucial part of every family's entertainment and are often looked upon as the savior of the RPG genre.
His games have sold hundreds of millions of copies and his next game might prove to add another substantial part to that number. His next game will be a revival of the long living adventure/RPG series "The Elder Scrolls Adventures". Begun in 1998 with "The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard" by Todd Howard himself sees now an unprecedented sequel with romance, sword fighting and deep complex dialogues, which has become Todd Howard's trademark.
We are already looking forward to it. And God bless that man.

Other news
Gabe Newell proclaims the announcement of "Half-Life 2: The Last Episode" with fans of the series going mad, because of the last episode in a series of 112 episodes, which has made Gorden freeman both experience a marriage in episode 45 and a divorce in episode 79. The storyline of the series hasn't made any significant progress though.

Flagship studios annouces it's latest MMO action rpg fps, Hellgate: Sigil. Bill Roper, quoted from his personal island in the Caymons, states:

The game will include one character class, customizable to be twenty variations of the hero, suffering from memory loss and attempting to either fend off or lead a vast demon army through the planescapes to alternately control or save all known worlds.
We will be providing rich, robust, massively multiplayer online gaming experiences through a secure digitalized cable feed direct to our players hyperplasma entertainment hubs while still making available a complete 10 hour single-player experience .

Click to expand...

Grimoire Forever enters post beta testing next week. The game will definitely be released later this year said developer Cleve Blakemore!!

In an attempt zu follow the "slow down" hype ("Slow Down Food", "Slow Down TV", "Slow Down Walk" - a general movement to leave the cars at home and thus reduce CO2 polluting - "Slow Down Activities" like book readings), the gaming industry recently announced the relaunch of an old, nearly forgotten gaming mechanism : The so-called "turn-based combat".

This old-fashioned, nearly died out mechanism (only followed by a few Shareware authors), which is in total contradiction to todays belief of effectively working game combat mechanisms, is currently being reissued by a number of major developing studios.

Says 60-year-old developer Chris Taylor : "Real-time combat is too fast for our generation. In order to get ourselves and all of our generation back into gaming again, we decided to follow the "Slow down" movement in terms of combat as well."

Rumors, that this is actually a scheme which is being used to pull this financially strong generation back into computer and console gaming, is currently being denied by the chief of Jowood-Interplay.

Bioware Arts licences new technology.

A new scientific breakthrough occured yesterday inside Bioware Labs, daughter company of the international corporation Bioware Arts. The new technology allows for the production of computer generated voices virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, full with emotions and an infinite variety of accents.

"Up till now hiring human voice actors has been very expensive and thus set an upper limit to the level of quality we want to achieve. Well this is all about to change. With our new technology, not only dialogues, but also information traditionally found in books, signposts etc will now be voiced. The player will see absolutely no text on screen", stressed Dr Muzyka.

"One of the key problems we had to solve was the relative prominence of a particular syllable of a word by greater intensity or by variation or modulation of pitch or tone. Coupled with a number of recent developments in other fields, like Flagship's hyperplasma digitalized cable, this brings us a step closer to our final goal of telepathetically controlling you avatar whilst comfortably lying on your bed", the good doctor added.

Several govermental and educational institutions have already expressed a high interest in Bioware's discovery. The new technology will be used in the upcoming hit "Jade's Dragon Effect". Thanks Bio!

Gems of the past.

Concepts like global level scaling, radiant artificial intelligence and randomized content are now considered to be the norm, but few remember the game that started it all. We are talking of course about "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion". Oblivion is now downloable for free from Bethesda's official site, and it shouldn't take more than a few seconds even if you have an archaic XDSL connection. You still have to pay for the final version of OOO though.

Stay tuned!

Watch out as more info on "11 Worlds", the tenth installment of Reality Pump's popular franchise is coming soon.

Thanks for the responses guys, I've been having a blast. To avoid any misunderstandings let me just add that the reason I started this thread was not (just) an alternate way of critique, but to have some laughs commenting on the games we love!

"...telepathetically controlling you avatar whilst comfortably lying on your bed", the good doctor added..."

Sorry, I instantly recognized this for the flagrant falsity and misinformation it is. No statement from Dr Muzyka which does not contain the words, "rich, deep, immersive, robust" or "non-linear" could possibly be authentic. For Shame!!!

June 6 2037ad.

The legendary Jeff Vogel (previously of spiderweb fame) has opened a new games software company "Arachni-web" which will soon release "Aver-nuvver-num" an amazing pc game of lost souls and chrystals. When asked what has inspired this latest creation Jeff said "i hate fantasy rpg games so much i want to share my hatred with others" and to prove this Jeff has opened an "Arachni-hatred" forum.
Since the forum began recently the membership has grown beyond all proportion "it was such a shock" explained Jeff, "i never expected such a rapid response" and now because of this amazing success Jeff is planning a sequel retro-rpg - "Return to Aver-nuvver-num"

Keep up the good work, folks. These are very enjoyable.

MASS CRYO-REGENERATION IN LIGHT OF GAME RELEASE
New New New York, New York - Thousands of anxious fans were released from their cryogenically-induced sleep after being informed that the long-awaited Duke Nukem Forever was released today.
In related news, NASA scientists anticipate that the sun will go nova within the week...

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Halo 500 met with its greatly anticipated success today as billions of eager fans lined up to nab their copy of this Windows Enterprise exclusive. Promising "explosions every time you so much as look at the screen" and the ability to "blow-up everything you see," fans are eager to embrace another episode in this long-running franchise. Most enticing is the promise that the face of the protaganist, Master Chief, will finally be revealed, answering such questions as: what does he look like? Is it really a guy? And why does anyone play this game?
Developers drew a huge crowd at last years TGS when it was noted that H500 would be using the vaunted Ageia PhsyXtreme engine, allowing "better than real-life phsyics." Lead producer Churan Donson, in an interview with PC Gaming Magazine, was quoted as having said "It's so extreme, really! I mean, you can just do anything, like better than real-life. Honestly. The first time I knocked over an in-game salt shaker and watched as it led to a chain effect of super plasmatic explosions, I was like...wow, this is awesome! Really, it's going to be revolutionary."

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I Am a Hero Too announced at Ubisoft Press Conference
This forthcoming sequel to the incredibly successful I Am a Hero promises more of the same fun-filled bantering diplomacy we've come to expect from award-winning publishers such as Ubisoft, who are consistently on the cutting-edge of gaming trends. As per order of the No Violent Videogames Act of 2008, I Am a Hero Too pits players against surly, anti-social opponents with noticeable speech impediments in one-on-one debates, where the objective is to wear the other player down with witty one-liners while maintaining a positive amount of self-esteem. Sure to be a classic.

The last one is obviously a steal from Monkey Island!!

Edmonton, AB - Greg Muyzka of Bioware Arts announced his retirement from co-CEO of the company to return to full time medical practice. Says Muyzka, "I'm tired of being the responsible one with millions of teenage lives in my hands. I want to do what I want to do now and go back to my hobby. I know its not as important but I hate being depended upon so much for something vital to the community and the world in general. It was my dad that wanted me to become a game designer not me. I went out on my own and got myself a degree in medicine and its bloody well what I'm going to do..have some time wasting fun for a change!"