Thursday, June 07, 2012

Fame

So, I read another person irritated by the way that the town blacksmith refuses to give a discount to the world-saving heroes. And, you know, they're right. It's almost like game designers don't really know what it's like to be world-famous, or to have a writ of unlimited authority.

Take Commander Shepard. He or she has saved the galaxy twice, and was famous even before that. He's like the Beatles, if they always drove around in a technicolor van labeled "Beatles".

And yet you can just pop off to see the refugee camp? Hell, Jackie Chan once had to walk down the middle of a busy highway to get away from a crowd of fans, and he didn't even save the galaxy!

When you enter the station, there'd be a whole squad of riot cops there to escort you, and a concierge with no particular scruples to get you anything you need.

Shep: "I'd like to go see the refugee camp."

Conc: "... ha ha ha, let's just pretend you didn't say that."

Shep: "Well, at least I'll pop off to the zocalo for some shopping."

Conc: "Hmm, can't advise you do that, either. Listen, why don't you just tell me what you need and I'll fetch it for you."

Shep: "Nonsense, it's just right through this door..." [opens door]

Voices: "Is. that. Shepard?" "SHEPARD!" "AAAAH! IT'S SHEPARD!" "WE LOVE YOUUUUU!" "SIGN MY FACE!"

Shep: [closes door]

Shep: "I need a type four barrel extender and all the fish."

It'd actually be kind of interesting to play a game where you really are that famous. I can tell you one thing: you wouldn't be randomly walking up to people and chatting with them. Not without seeing the look of confused panic in their eyes, at least.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

In real life, nobody is actually famous for constantly being a badass and constantly fighting people, so I imagine it'd have lots of implications beyond that of your average rockstar. You wouldn't pick a class of weapons in the beginning of the game, you'd pick a manufacturer. And you'd be contractually obligated to use at least two different Elanus weapons in every mission! Not to mention the PR rep biotic who is constantly telling you to shoot a few limbs and show off the devastating effects of their patented mushrooming technology.

Money in the immediate funds sense would be completely obsolete, since you can easily buy every object in the game that isn't pre-rendered. Any finance in the game would be large-scale investment/charity donations. Oh man the Shepherd Charity for Orphaned Geth Kids...

You'd have to pay out the ass every month for life insurance. There would be so many more than one sex scenes per game. You have to battle the the loneliness of being successful with anti-depression drugs that have awkward side-effects mid-battle.

You can't trust which of your motley crew of ragtag fighters actually believes in you, or just believes in the money they can leech off of you. There's a "leak" in the battle chest and you gotta figure out if Garus picked up some huge debts and is putting the galaxy at risk to ward off the loan sharks.

Craig Perko said...

Yeah, if we could make it a bit less dark, it could be a lot of fun. I guess we can choose to make our famous person really, really dumb...