Light : caught.

Video games / e.sport

The first title of this article was: Total Boredom – well, I was exaggerating a bit. It could be a feedback of total boredom.
It almost was.
Fortunately, I’m a good audience. Bust most of all, while I was there chewing on my ideas, wham, light fell on me without warning.

So be careful anyway: all the objections – I swear – I know them.
And when friends – there are friends, sometimes… – come and hammer them at me, I get depressed three days in a row. one day.

I know I’m making all this up without any control.
First I dream the thing.
And then, maybe, if it becomes concrete – I go back down a bit and make it a little more possible.

Is that good for you, is the contract clear?

So last night I was playing multiplayer in a game that I really like – because it’s too beautiful, because it has the atmosphere of bilges and old stuff – and there are several different games/challenges, all a bit dumb.

This game has been bothering me since I’ve been playing it – it doesn’t really do well in e.sport. Or maybe it does, but the information doesn’t make it to my beautiful Roman village.
It’s a nice good game- but once you’ve done it, you get bored.

What’s the problem? Have the French Femis screenwriters invaded the video game world or what?
Everything’s perfect – and there are no stories, no connections – it’s like you spend your life doing side quests.
We’re in multiplayer, and we don’t even know why.

The last ElderScroll, the same remark: here we are … and then we are there. We’re happy to be here. Aren’t you happy to be here? I’m very happy. What are we going to do? Well, we don’t know.

Yes, that’s it: embarked on secondary quests – it’s killing me.

In the genre, you might as well stay on an Agario type. You don’t get any more stupid as a game – once you’ve finally managed to be the big monster that makes the whole map and swallows all the players that come in … you don’t know what else to do, you just split up and stop. And before that, the big challenge is to be the monster. Yes, you may think that I waste an infinite amount of time on crap – I won’t argue with that.

But then, as I got seriously bored, I had time to wonder what I would want in these totally under-exploited games – from a gaming point of view.

And now you have the right to think that I’m going to go way beyond my frame.
Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
But – yes, there’s a ‘but’ – Altair doesn’t have a lot to contribute to very well thought out and very well done games. But on the other hand, in pretty, slightly empty shells…. the game can be more fun.

So I’m overflowing, here we go.

I take the concrete case of Sea of Thieves. It’s a very nice game. I’m happy to be in it. That’s for sure I’m happy. Nice boat, nice seas, nice skies. Nice. Well… .
I said that these guys don’t work? I never said that. I say that they had made a superb shell. They fill it… with little things – And then they renew it, be careful. Yes, yes, they work. There are new mini quests all the time.
Afterwards, it’s Rare who is on it. I don’t know how much money it cost to create this game, or how much it costs to keep it afloat – but I’m glad it’s not mine, I would have had a nasty heart attack.
Even though it’s making money, it’s so badly run, but it hurts me just thinking about it.

I’ve had this game in mind for a long time and I already have a whole list of shows to put in it to boost the fun a bit: capoeira, street dances, cabaret dances, circus acts. – As you can see, I’m going there quietly to explain to the guys from Rare that they’re nice but their game is a bit boring by dint of it. Well, I won’t say it like that. That’s my part: but yes, we’re getting into video games, it’s going to be a complete kif.

But right now, I’m in e.sport.
What to do with this thing?
Already, we have so much nothing to do in multiplayer with this game (am I saying that? – no it’s not me) that thinking about putting a real dose of fun and competition in it wouldn’t hurt.

Now, and I think you’ll agree with me, if I show up and propose the same thing as the others, I get thrown out right away.
So I don’t have to propose the same thing.

As far as this game is concerned, its weakness is its complete lack of scenario.
So that’s good – because in a theatre, there are also stories that are played.
And there are even – incredibly – astronomical quantities of stories about the sea and the bad guys.

Then, first of all, I would like to see Lou Larsen in this story. Do you know Lou Larsen? He’s a “mean” character, especially …. mean. Insensitive. Monstrous. Cultivated. Not even cruel, he is too strong to be cruel. He is the hero of the novel: The Sea Wolf, by Jack London.

This novel is not very well known – but damn it, this character, he makes your hair stand on end.
If I put a real bad guy in a game – the time of a show – I can have two teams – the one with him, and the one against him.
Besides, in the novel, the team against is not really made up of nice characters, since it’s his brother and his gang of pirates.
A fight between bad guys – it’s not at all chic, but it’s very: game spirit.

Are you in ?

I’m just getting started.
What are the characters in these stories looking for? The beautiful woman – gold.
Both are better.
The beautiful woman, we have her – we will have her – she will be in a virtual representation – and therefore she will have her virtual character created. This is an important point – even if it doesn’t look like it.
Gold is all over the map.

And now here’s the game:
I propose to the real players to win their places: you have to win to be Lou Larsen and to win to be his brother. Win to be the beautiful woman. You will have to stay in the crew of the two monsters and prove your worth.
Currently, in the games, one chooses his character at “the speed”: the first one who selects the character plays it.
We give the best characters to the best players.

And the day … the day of the game, on the stage of Altair, there will be an almost correct representation of the Sea Wolf.
Why almost?
Because our story won’t really follow the story of the book (forgive me Jack London, it’s for the game).

I propose to the players to play the episode of the confrontation between the two brothers. Their struggle to conquer the beauty – their difficulty to keep her with them – the final abandonment of the beautiful lady on a deserted island swept by the frozen winds (that’s in the original story – she was annoying this girl, an iron in a pretty body).

In the story of Jack London, it is Lou Larsen who wins against his brother.
Good – so playing knowing the ending sucks.
That’s why we will “almost” make the story.
We’re going to change the ending.

But this time, the stage wins against the players (for the Festival, it’s the players who decide what happens next). Do you see where I’m going? – I feel that you see.
If I want the stage to win and the result of the competition to be the one that is on my stage at the same time, I have to cheat.

If you think: Oh no, at that moment – I won.
Because that means that this is not common.
I don’t want to propose something common.

And since I’m not afraid of hurting myself, not only am I going to cheat, but I’m going to say it right off the bat: Yes, I’m going to cheat.
I’m not going to say who I’m cheating for – I’m just going to say that the game will be rigged.

We’ll probably lose all the very serious players – who I don’t care about. And we’ll get all the gamblers.

Do you hate me now ? ….. but no … I swear, it’s a joke, it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I must confess that I am delighted.

Afterwards, there are three possible endings: one brother, the other brother, or the girl – who retrieves the gold and abandons the two idiots on the island swept by the frozen winds. How many will have forgotten the girl?
As far as cheating is concerned, it will be severe, it’s true – I don’t like to lose – but not absolute.
Otherwise it’s no fun.
The team that is disadvantaged must still be able to win if they are excellent.

So, I’ll finish my proposal: I’ll set it up on both levels: the competition and the stage, at the same time.
The advantage for the stage is that with screens, I have all my scenery and all the animations I want.
The advantage for the game is that the player understands what is happening and adapts his game to what is said on stage.
The advantage of the announced cheating is that everyone will be stressed until it becomes obvious.

If the assisted team wins, I keep them in visual contact with the screens throughout the performance – they are used for the scenery and the atmosphere – and they salute at the end with all the artists – they were part of the show.

If another team wins, I separate the stage and the screens so that the spectator understands the story. At the end, I turn everything back on and the winning e.sport team is not only announced but acclaimed – because they have achieved the Exploit – and we then watch a video feedback of their exploit.

Don’t forget that e.sport is played in real life: they will really be in Altair’s premises. So, saluting or being cheered, it will be in real life.

Frankly, it’s funny, isn’t it? Yes, it is.

So here’s the mechanism:

We spot a “pretty shell” game.
We are looking for a story that we can put together and adapt to this game, i.e. a story where there will be a confrontation – three is better, from a statistical point of view, there will not be at all one chance out of two to win.
We prepare the virtual game: we model one or more actors.
We choose the end and prepare the cheats for the team that has to win.
While the players compete to win their characters, we get as many visuals as possible from the video: we use them for the staging with screens in the background.
This makes it possible to launch the show with visuals from the game.

While the players are fighting each other, we see the confrontation when it corresponds to the time of the scene.
If everything goes wrong … the bad kids are able to win against me … we cut and go back to the pre-recorded visuals, so we don’t have black screens.
We play the video of the bad kids’ success at the end of the show. And we get them on stage.

And there, the e.sport competition in the walls of Altair, it won’t look like the others.

I warned you: I definitely overflowed. And the worst, is that it makes me laugh.

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Featured Image : The Golden Snitch from the making-off of Harry Potter.