Jack7
First Post
Some friends and I, using our current class of invention parameters, have been trying to imagine what the next generation of technology will be and how it will interface with people (control schemes, methods of operation, intentionalities, capabilities, etc.)
That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gaming per se, but it got me to thinking about Virtual Reality, next generation technologies, simulation projects for the development of both civilian and military skills, and so forth. Then I thought, well, considering that things like Role Play Games are very primitive in relation to technological interfaces, or technological requirements for play, what if all that changes in the next five to ten years? (I'm not Role Play Games are primitive, quite the contrary, but the technologies involved are, for the most part, very primitive. Until, of course, one counts the human mind itself. - But will it always remain so? Will role play technology always be primitive? Can it afford to remain so in relation to other gaming venues and in relation to modern life in general?)
What if Virtual Reality develops along lines allowing direct, networked interfacing, or what if it is as simple as rpg books suddenly being redesigned in ways we can only now vaguely speculate about?
Say you had rulebooks that were somehow instantly accessible (you didn't have to thumb through them, they more or less applied themselves immediately to your current and conditional needs)? What if ubiquitous computing power made environments transformable? (Say the walls in your home became "environment and atmosphere," became the place in which you played). What if modules became less text and script oriented, and became flexible, multi-capable media modules, that is produced visual images, holograms, music, sounds, background data? What if modules were attachable to the internet and so that instantly new and related images could be produced from obscure databases, and historical and game information instantly accessed, modified ad hoc, and so forth? (I can imagine sites to service such needs. Don't like the 3 dimensional projected image include din your module, not right for your setting? Download another that fits your needs perfectly. And insert it directly into your story. You don't have hand-outs, you have programmable and modifiable "hand-ins" which can be shared in real time with all of your players.) What if modules were in-game writeable and rewriteable, that is prior to play the module was able to be re-written within the framework of the product itself so that it could be quickly transformed, maybe even during play itself? What if even things like human imagination become technologically accessible or manipulate-able for purposes of entertainment? What if you could directly encode or impress experience, maybe even experience form one individual to another, through the medium of imaginative play or simulation? I call developments like this Illuminated Imagination, after illuminated manuscripts of the Medieval era. But instead of books and text and pages being illuminated, rather, it is human thought processes, problem solving capabilities, and imaginations that become "illuminated."
Anyways these were a few of the ideas that struck me .
What do you foresee for the future, both in terms of how games may become "Illuminated" and how technology itself may illuminate more mundane functions and change the way we interface and interact with our own imaginations?
That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gaming per se, but it got me to thinking about Virtual Reality, next generation technologies, simulation projects for the development of both civilian and military skills, and so forth. Then I thought, well, considering that things like Role Play Games are very primitive in relation to technological interfaces, or technological requirements for play, what if all that changes in the next five to ten years? (I'm not Role Play Games are primitive, quite the contrary, but the technologies involved are, for the most part, very primitive. Until, of course, one counts the human mind itself. - But will it always remain so? Will role play technology always be primitive? Can it afford to remain so in relation to other gaming venues and in relation to modern life in general?)
What if Virtual Reality develops along lines allowing direct, networked interfacing, or what if it is as simple as rpg books suddenly being redesigned in ways we can only now vaguely speculate about?
Say you had rulebooks that were somehow instantly accessible (you didn't have to thumb through them, they more or less applied themselves immediately to your current and conditional needs)? What if ubiquitous computing power made environments transformable? (Say the walls in your home became "environment and atmosphere," became the place in which you played). What if modules became less text and script oriented, and became flexible, multi-capable media modules, that is produced visual images, holograms, music, sounds, background data? What if modules were attachable to the internet and so that instantly new and related images could be produced from obscure databases, and historical and game information instantly accessed, modified ad hoc, and so forth? (I can imagine sites to service such needs. Don't like the 3 dimensional projected image include din your module, not right for your setting? Download another that fits your needs perfectly. And insert it directly into your story. You don't have hand-outs, you have programmable and modifiable "hand-ins" which can be shared in real time with all of your players.) What if modules were in-game writeable and rewriteable, that is prior to play the module was able to be re-written within the framework of the product itself so that it could be quickly transformed, maybe even during play itself? What if even things like human imagination become technologically accessible or manipulate-able for purposes of entertainment? What if you could directly encode or impress experience, maybe even experience form one individual to another, through the medium of imaginative play or simulation? I call developments like this Illuminated Imagination, after illuminated manuscripts of the Medieval era. But instead of books and text and pages being illuminated, rather, it is human thought processes, problem solving capabilities, and imaginations that become "illuminated."
Anyways these were a few of the ideas that struck me .
What do you foresee for the future, both in terms of how games may become "Illuminated" and how technology itself may illuminate more mundane functions and change the way we interface and interact with our own imaginations?
