already-living-in-a-virtual-world writes
"On his blog, mispeled writes about a new type of game he'd like to see for the iPhone. It's interesting stuff: '... the integration of a true gaming platform with the capabilities of a phone is unique, at least for the quality of the gaming experience offered. For all intents and purposes, the iPhone is a new system. And new systems demand that new gameplay mechanics be explored. For a long time I've been a fan of the MMORPG genre, and the iPhone offers several MMO-type games, especially those in the facebook, social-networking style. However, what I've yet to see is a game that takes advantage of the iPhone's location services, the GPS-like capability of the phone. Tons of applications use it, but no games, as far as I've seen. Why not? Motion sensing is all the rage on the consoles — the Wii popularized it, but now Microsoft and Sony are jumping on the bandwagon. But the iPhone, because it's portable, offers something more. And I want those offerings taken advantage of. I want to play an MMO that knows where I am and links my physical location to a virtual location. I want to create a game that gives the planet Earth a virtual overlay, interactable via a mobile (read: the iPhone) interface.'"
God no! (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this the most obscene idea you could imagine. Play a game based on where my phone tells you I'm located? Hell no. I do not want that kind of invasion of privacy at all. In fact, given the potential fo abuse, I'd prefer it to be legally banned.
There are enough crazy people doing criminal things with the games we have. Do I want a physical location to be intrinsic to the game? Nope. Same reason I don't post any details of where I live in the games I do play, or on the message boards. Is that paranoid of me? Perhaps, but as long as the number of people who get injured and killed from conflicts with others remains non-zero, I'm going to stay that way.
And yes, that's why I'm an anonymous coward too. Sure, I suppose somebody at Slashdot's HQ could track me down, but that risk is minimal compared to me shouting it out.
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Mod parent up.
Really, what could Possibly go wrong with advertising one's position down to the nearest 5 yards to hundreds of unknown individuals?
Re:God no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe lots of things. But who is suggesting your position be advertised to anyone?
e.g it could be done geo hashing style. You download a bunch of checkpoints for your local area then play capture the flag with the help of google maps and bots running on your phone. Or you could perhaps drop some "gold" at a position but perhaps it doesn't have to be published immediately, or you may not have to actually go to that location to do it. Then these "treasure" locations could be downloaded by others without publishing your exact location. Or you could just have a 'friends' list and work with that.
It doesn't necessarily have to involve accessing strangers current locations.
Parent
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That'll work until the first time somebody tries to take a shortcut across private/government property and gets shot.
Oh, but they had disclaimers "stay on public roads". Nope, that won't fly. First time some teenager gets run over trying to make the Kessel run in 15 blocks by running across 4th street against the lights, the news will be all over it: Game encourages our children to run over ordnance field when GPS is off by 15 meters.
See XKCD's geo-hashing game for the pitfalls they've already found witho
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Go read Rainbows End [amazon.com] by Vernor VInge. He does the heavy thinking for you.
If you want to see the current state of the art go check out ARToolworks [artoolworks.com] and maybe pull down the open version of their toolkit.
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Nah, I think it is awesome, personally.
I don't think Apple has been sued, but there have already been several instances of people following GPS directions in spite of all common sense and trying to blame Tom-Tom or whomever for the result. People turning on to train tracks, villages in the UK getting their roads taken off to keep lorry drivers from taking narrow alleys and running into houses, etc.
Apple being well-known, somebody would go for them over the game maker for just the press value. That, and Ap
Re:God no! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd prefer it to be legally banned
Whoa there cowboy, while you and I prefer to not be involved in these things, that certainly doesn't give us the right to prevent anyone else from doing what they want to do, let alone allow government to get involved which games people play.
Parent
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Not wise on their part, but it's not my problem and it's not my government's problem, IMHO. If they want to be pinpointed on a map, that's at their total discretion to do so.
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My dear AC, the "locus of your reasoning" is that when people come together, the crazies inevitably start attacking you, or worse. Your world view is a relevant concern for parents, but it's also a gauranteed right under the Constitution (Apologies for readers outside the US). Freedom of Assembly requires communication and knowledge of location. An interactive game is a perfectly valid excercise of my Freedom of Assembly.
As long as I am made completely aware of the fact that my physical location is going
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I see the problem. You view mild antagonism as a direct and painful assault. Do you also fear duckies and bunnies?
As for the humorous accusation of projecting myself onto you, care to elaborate? I haven't had my good laugh today yet.
You haven't addressed the fact that I have the right to advertise my location in the attempt to congregate with like-minded individuals. The fear of said activity seams to be the basis of your claim that these types of games should be banned. Don't lose focus!
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I'll publish my real name all over the net before I publish my real location (the clueless facebook generation is already doing both).
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Even now the major references to things like BeOS and Copeland would go over just about everyone's head let alone the minor stuff that is also fading with age. I'm sure there's a lot that went over my head becaus
You have a very confused definition of privacy (Score:2)
Play a game based on where my phone tells you I'm located? Hell no. I do not want that kind of invasion of privacy at all.
It's not an "invasion of privacy" if you are running the game for that explicit purpose!!
After all, you have to be running the game up to keep updating your location - if you tire of playing you shut it down.
I'm not sure where privacy enters into the equation since you personally chose in this instance to make your location known to a specific set of people.
Re:God no! (Score:4, Interesting)
There are already games like this. I got one for my Nokia N95 a couple of years back. The problem with the game really though was you were expected to say travel 5 miles to progress the adventure in the game.
It is a bit like that Vampire game on Nintendo DS that required to have sunlight to play. Great in theory until you actually try to play the game. In Ireland the game was virtually unplayable for 90% of the year.
Parent
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The problem with the game really though was you were expected to say travel 5 miles to progress the adventure in the game.
Some call that exercise, not a "problem". I'm just saying your happiness is based on your preconceived expectations... I have a semi-long distance runner friend whom gets bored on long runs... Your "problem" would be his "solution".
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"Some call that exercise,"
Pretty you didn't mean to infer I didn't exercise. :P :) Actually the game wasn't a "go get some exercise" type game. I tried it initially but after wandering around housing estates I don't live just so I could progress the issue and then it is expecting me to travel 5 miles to get something only to travel a similar distance in some other random direction.
Also it had no concept of geography where I lived. So 5 miles doesn't mean "go for a run", it can mean "Spend the next couple of
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Indeed - I love how the submitter actually thinks that there's never been a phone that can play games before the Iphone came along...
Open your mind. (Score:2)
I for one would love to play a game that combines the real-world aspects of, say, geocaching, with some sort of video game aspect. Maybe some sort of collaborative treasure hunt where you play a game but have to actually get out of your house to do it.
I'm sure something like this exists but I haven't looked too hard for it. The main problem with
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I'm sure something like this exists but I haven't looked too hard for it. The main problem with a concept like this is that it's hard to make it globally playable, keep privacy concerns in mind, and enjoyable as a game.
How hard can it be to port the GTA series to the iphone? Take out the car chases (seriously, how could that possibly work?) and add some sort of GTA:CTW dealing minigame that you can trade with other real world players that are reasonably physically near? Place minigames and missions around town that are triggered by approaching their location? If you are in the top X% of "points" you get to place those minigames / missions / treasures / dealers / virtual (?) weapons in your local area, subject to meta m
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I do not want that kind of invasion of privacy at all.
Given your concerns about privacy, I bet you would love a portable GPS game based on the GTA:CTW subtask of blowing up public CCTV cameras.
Download a periodically updated list of real world public CCTV camera locations in your city. Then in the real world you drive/walk/whatever to "close enough" to the CCTV (10 feet? 200 feet?) and click the button on the NDS / iPhone / some other portable which stores and/or uploads your virtual hit. The 1st of the month all the cameras respawn. Or maybe exactly one m
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Great idea instead of just not playing the game, stop other people who want to from doing so.
You are never anonymous. (Score:2)
I've been working on building this kind of game for years and it's actually pretty cool. It allows you to interact with your environment based on location and special objects and nearby players. Instead of going 3D the game is based on a communicator concept similar to Carmen San Diego and you're given clues to complete quests before other players can. Sometimes you work with other players and sometimes against and sometimes in teams.
Who cares if someone knows where you're at? When you walk through the supe
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What about if the gps coordanates were used to determine what you see, Kind of like monster rancher, or one of the upc code scanner games. rather than where you are in the VR world?
If your location is only revealed to you, it isn't MMO, is it?
Still, I'd like to be able to use an iPhone or iPod touch as if it were The Polaroid from The Lost Room.
*knock knock* (Score:5, Funny)
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This is the major problem with it. For anyone who doesn't travel a lot this is actually a pretty stupid idea for a game. At least in a traditional MMORPG if you want to go somewhere you just go there. If you wanted to visit various places in this game you'd have to ROAM in hundreds of countries.
Its a great idea (Score:2)
I'm not so sure about this (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, maybe the idea sounds fun in theory - but a MMORPG full of virtualized parents' basements would get pretty repetitive after a short while, I'd think.
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And who want's to try to explain the dead kid in the basement as a "wandering adventurer" who "invaded my dungeon".
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Well, with phone based mmo and gps mapping, you are pretty much forced to go to outside instead of cooping up in the basement... I've figured out their grand plan, I tell ya, it is the most insidious idea cooked up by those opposing the basement dewellers!
On a side note, there is already an anime out that explains what exactly it will be like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil [wikipedia.org]
Link it to google earth? (Score:3, Funny)
Too Real? (Score:5, Funny)
They could incorporate the phone feature into the game and make it so you have to talk to other people and build relationships. As you advance further along in the game, you must choose a career path. You will randomly get calls from your boss asking you to come in early or on your day off. If you choose not to follow the path, you end up 30 years old living in your mom's basement and have to put up with her constant nagging about how you never help out around the house or pay for your share of the phone bill.
That's crazy. I totally help out around the house. Who do you think set up the home network?
Parallel Kingdom (Score:5, Informative)
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Exactly what I was going to say. It sounds exactly like what the poster is asking for.
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please explain how? I played for 10 minutes killed everything in the area..can't do anything else until I get a chance to move and hook up to wireless (I have a touch not an iphone) and no one in the chat responds to me. In addition the creator seems to be using a crappy version of google maps which doesn't show streets for Korea (if you go to maps.google.com you can see them, and in fact the included maps app for the touch includes street level maps) so basically I'm staring at a grey circle with no way to
Get off my lawn! (Score:2)
Awesome (Score:3, Funny)
It sounds like it could be the best version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego ever
Virtual Games (Score:2)
There IS one... (Score:2)
There's an iPhone game for every major TV/Movie/etc release nowadays- including one for the Sarah Conner Cronicles, in which players from PCs and web browers (the machines) place traps and ambushes for the iPhone players (the resistance).
It seemed like a cool idea, except for the broadcasting my location all the time. That's kinda stalker-rific.
http://terminatorambush.com/ [terminatorambush.com]
Nevermind starting with a conjunction (Score:2)
And new systems demand new gameplay mechanics are explored.
Which did you mean:
I.e. are you exploring the mechanics or the systems?
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And yet it's /still/ better than watching TV.
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Similar stuff is dealt with in William Gibson's book, Pattern Recognition
Remind me. I can't think of anything like that in Pattern Recognition.
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Because it's not in PR. There's some augmented reality in Virtual Light, but the geo tagged, art work is in Spook Country.
Virtual Light type geohacking (Score:2)
Virtual Light type geohacking would need a device that was aware of it's physical orientation, not just it's location. You would, in effect, need a three dimensionally operational compass, not just an accelerometer. Given the vagries of GPS, you'd also need differential lock-in. I suppose you might be able to do that with bluetooth, if you had smarter hardware giving the differential back to you from you talking to it, to give the offset bias, rather than trying to do the processing on the phone itself,
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Virtual Light type geohacking would need a device that was aware of it's physical orientation, not just it's location.
Accelerometers would give you that, and a magnetic compass would help. Assuming a known gravitational field of course.
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When I was a kid in the early 80's, there were a few role playing games, such as one called "Killer", where you'd get assignments on paper, then go out into your neighborhood and try to assassinate your friends with squirt guns based on your objectives. Super fun game, and very tense. Can you imagine people these days with all the heightened paranoia about guns allowing their kids to do this now? Probably not.
You got me wishing I could get T.A.G. The Assassination Game [amazon.com] on DVD. Same kind of thing except with plastic suction-cup dart guns, except one player decides to start killing for real. An early role for Linda Hamilton of Terminator fame.
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Highlander. You get a notice when you are in the area with another immortal.
Best with the phone set to vibrate.
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Nah, it'd pretty much have to play a Queen song.
You hear "Who wants, to live, forever" and start smacking the guy next to you with a foam bat.
Then it turns out he actually picked a Queen song as his ringtone. Cue the cops.
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