Month: January 2010

regarding the matter of video games v. movies

Posted on By Wil

I had the house to myself last night, so I could watch whatever nerdy DVD or DVR'd movie I wanted, as loud as I wanted. I've been talking about re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended editions, of course) for a couple of months, but when I finally had a chance to get started, I ended up playing Dragon Age for three hours instead.

I love Lord of the Rings, and even though I've been trying to get Anne to sit down and watch it with me again for months, when I had my chance to watch it undisturbed last night, I wasn't nearly as interested in going back to Middle Earth as I was in going back to Ferelden.

I've been playing Dragon Age for about 64 hours, and I'm finally starting the climactic battle portion of the story. (Yeah, I take my time and get every last second of RP out of the RPGs when I play them.) Last night, I had to make some very difficult decisions, one of which resulted in a character I deeply care about leaving my party. It wasn't as upsetting as losing my dog in Fable II, but I still felt a real, emotional sense of loss. I don't know if I'll ever talk to this NPC again (at least as this character, with this origin), and that made me feel sad. 

It also made me want to keep playing so I could find out what happened next … and so I did.

Knowing that my dog would wake me up at 6am and demand to be let outside, I still played until 1am, not because I wanted to kill the damn Darkspawn, not because I was trying to level my character and not because I just wanted to complete a quest. I intentionally allowed myself just 5 short hours of sleep because I hoped against hope that I could somehow find a way get [REDACTED] to come back and rejoin me. Alas, I failed. There were a lot of Darkspawn, and I just couldn't get past them all before it was really time to go to sleep. (Guess where I'm going as soon as I finish work today?)

Some of you are probably wondering why I didn't just save scum and try out different things until I got the desired result. I should probably mention that when I play any computer RPG, I use one savefile, plus a backup in case it gets corrupted. Yeah, let that roll around in your heads for a second, kids: daddy is hardcore. I should also point out that the choices I made last night – indeed all the choices that lead up to this particularly momentous one – were all made from a roleplaying point of view, based on the background and story I created for my character. I know that I could have just told different party members whatever I thought would make them happy and keep them around, but even though that's the kind of metagaming that keeps you from dying in the acid pit, it just isn't how I roll.

But here's the fundamental difference between playing this fantasy RPG and watching a fantasy movie: when I finish this character and play a different origin, I'll be able to make different choices that will (hopefully) lead to a different result when I get to the same place, 70 or 80 hours hence. Of course, there's still the chance that I'll end up in exactly the same place and discover that this event happens no matter what I do, in which case I'll say a swear really loud … but even if that happens, the journey that I'll take to get there that time will be different from the journey I took to get there this time. Sure, the major landmarks won't change, but the little details will, and that's an experience we simply can't get from movies (The Watch George Lucas Shit On Your Childhood editions of the original Star Wars trilogy DELIBERATELY IGNORED.)

I think this says something significant about video games as narrative storytelling, and I wanted to paraphrase something I said when I was interviewed for the Sci vs. Fi Mass Effect 2 special that is apparently airing every ten minutes on SyFy this week:

Narrative video games aren't going to replace television and movies any more than television and movies replaced books, but as technology continues to advance, and games become even more cinematic and interactive, the battle won't be only for the consumer; it will also be for the creator. People who went to school 20 years ago to learn how to make movies are now going to school to learn how to use the same narrative storytelling techniques to make video games.

It's going to be a fierce battle, and even though I think it will likely be fought to a draw, we're going to get some incredible entertainment out of it. As creators and consumers, we're going to experience things that we can only imagine right now, and I can't wait.

From the Vault: Still Cool

Posted on By Wil

This is excerpted from something that was written eight years ago, almost to the day. In addition to being a story that still makes me smile, it provides context and back story for Friday's post that newer readers may not have.

Even though I'm a much stronger and more confident writer now than I was then, I've resisted the urge to rewrite this, because something would definitely be lost in the translation… 

In the summer of 1988, I turned 16 years old, and, just like the Corey's, I got a License to Drive!

It's well documented within the Star Trek community that Patrick Stewart and I bought almost the same car, a 1989 Honda Prelude…the, uh, only problem is, I bought a model that was just slightly cooler than his. (He got the si, and I got the si4WS, baby.) Patrick has really had fun over the years, teasing me about how, since then, he's always had cooler cars than I do, to which I reply something about his driver.

What's not well documented, however, is this thing that happened, in the summer of 1988, in the parking garage at Paramount, where we all parked our cars.

We were all working late one night, probably shooting blue screen on the bridge, so we were all wrapped at the same time (a rarity). I excitedly walked to the parking garage with Jonathan Frakes, who I was already looking up to.

So we're walking back to our cars, and we're talking about something, I can't quite remember what, and I really feel like Jonathan is treating me like an equal. He's not treating me like I'm a kid. It really makes me feel good, and I say to him, "You know, Jonathan, I can tell, just from talking to you, that when you were younger? You used to be cool."

He laughs, and I think to myself that I've cemented my position with him as cool contemporary, rather than lame ass kid.

Then he says, "What do you mean, used to be?!"

I realized what I'd said, and how it didn't match up with what was in my head, which was, "Gee, man. You are so cool now, as an adult, I bet that you were a really cool guy, who I'd like to hang out with, when you were my age."

He knew what I meant, I could tell, and he really tortured me about that, for years. Every time I see him nowadays, he turns to a person nearby, and he says, "You know, Wheaton here told me that I used to be cool." We laugh about it, and I make the appropriate apologies, and explanations, while Jonathan makes faces and gestures indicating that I am full of shit.

You can probably see why I wanted to rewrite that when I looked at it this morning. I almost did, but I just couldn't bring myself to apply my own Red Pen of Doom to it. It's very rough, but the 2002 version of me used his words and developing storytelling skills the very best he could. If he thought that the 2010 version of me would look look back at this story, cringe, and rewrite it, he wouldn't have had the nerve to tell the story in the first place.

So, 2002 version of me, if you build a time machine and read this: Someday we're going to look back on this and want to rewrite it, but then we'll remember how we felt when we sat down at our Linux box on the desk in the living room and told this story for the first time on our lame blog. So you just go ahead and enjoy telling it, and know that I'm going to leave it alone when I get hold of it IN THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!!

in which a text is received and a phone call is made

Posted on By Wil

I'm up to my neck in Memories of the Future Volume 2 work, but I wanted to take a minute to share something cool that happened yesterday…

The familiar chirp of an Original Series communicator came out of my Blackberry, announcing the arrival of a text message.

I thumbed it a couple times and read a message from Brent. "Jonathan is trying to get in touch with you. Give him a call when you can." A smile spread across my face as I selected the phone number and clicked the appropriate buttons to call it.

I put the phone to my ear (funny how moving this little device from palm to ear turns it from computer to phone, isn't it?) and listened to it ring. Just as I thought I'd have to leave a message, a familiar voice came through: "This is Jonathan," he said.

"You know, I can tell by the way you answer the phone that you used to be cool," I said.

He paused. I could feel him smiling on the other end of the line. "That's such a great story, W," he said, softly.

"My kids have heard it so much, they now tell me that I used to be cool," I said.

He laughed and said, "You know what, though? I bet they're right. I can tell that you used to be cool."

Even though he couldn't see, I dramatically clutched at my heart. "Gah! Now I know how it feels to be on the other side of that!"

We laughed together for a long time, and then we talked about a lot of things that I wish I could share, but probably shouldn't. We're getting together next week to have lunch and catch up. I can't wait.

billy bad breaks

Posted on By Wil

This post has nothing to do with its title, but after staring at this for 20 minutes trying to come up with one, I just grabbed the first song title I could find. Thanks, The Damned. Once again, you come through when I need you.

We've had a drought in Southern California for so long now, even a little rain is cause for our local news to go apeshit with STORMWATCH!!11!!1 coverage. This week, though, we've had serious storms that have produced tornadoes, mudslides, flooding, and all sorts of things that every other part of the country that actually has weather can just shrug off.

I've spent even more time than usual inside writing this week as a result of the cold and wet weather, and I've made some good progress on a few projects including a short work of fiction and Memories of the Future, Volume Two.

Working on Memories Volume 2 has been a lot of fun, even though there aren't as many atrocious episodes in the back half of the first season. The stronger episodes are more enjoyable to watch, of course, but it's the really lousy ones that are the most fun to recap and make fun of. (Too Short A Season was a fucking goldmine, but Coming Of Age was a real challenge because – even though it's all Wesley, all the time – it's really good.)

Anyway, while working on Arsenal of Freedom this week (which starts out strong and has some great character moments for Geordi, but doesn't quite fulfill its promise), I wrote some Picard/Beverly slashfic* as part of a joke. I suppose I could have taken some anti-nausea meds and gone searching for some existing work to copy and paste, but I thought it would be funnier if I actually wrote it myself. You'll have to wait for the release (or maybe even the relevant Futurecast) to experience it, but I thought some of you may want to know that I got all of 41 words before I made myself throw up in my mouth and had to stop.

I hope the sacrifices I make for comedy are appreciated, he said, in his best passive/aggressive grandmother tone.

Well, it's raining like crazy again and there's a clown in the storm drain, so I'd better get back to work. Skin of Evil isn't going to snark all over itself, you know.

* It has been brought to my attention that "slashfic" is the term used to describe fanfiction where two dudes get all teabaggy and swordfighty whatnot. I have always been under the impression that any fanfic involving sexytime was called "slash" or some derivative thereof, regardless of the genders or alien races involved. Upon discovering that I have been incorrect about the finer points of this particular world for my entire life … I'm really okay with that.