ArunRocks

A big colourful cloud filled with happiness and energy. That’s how that last ten days felt like. Being a prisoner of monotony of work, this break was my parole. Just enough to breathe life into my dying creative thoughts.

Four extremely long bus journeys which afford sleep in semi-recliner position gave me enough time to mull over my pet project. I realized that the MMORPG is just an approximate term for something I have in mind. Role-Playing be it text based or graphical is only as interesting as the environment. The environment I have in mind is hardly original – Ancient India. Carrying the tradition of RPGs we could invent (or rather discover) races such as Rishis (similar to wizards), Devas (no analogy, except say Elves) or Asuras (say Orcs?). I really don’t know if this would appeal to our audience. This concept is helpful to differentiate participants by trying to identify them with a sub-culture. We, Indians, I daresay already co-exist with different sub-cultures. It’s a debatable question. On a more practical note it tends to provide repeat playability.

I would like to clarify that my pet project named Agony will essentially involve sub-plots and multi-linear gameplay. In my personal opinion, purely immersive playing with infinitesimal pathways can get quickly boring. This would also mean that we get to make a universe with its own physics/economic laws and a decent storyline. And lest do I forget, engaging 3D graphics (no we are not recreating “The Matrix” here ). The biggest giveaway would be the “creator” mode in which you can perform level editing. Not having played a single MMORPG myself, I do not know if any game server supports this. But to me, game servers are nothing but persistent finite state machines. This makes them suitable for rapid prototyping of user-made levels. This is one experiment which I would definitely try out.

Regular readers of my blog would notice that my research is slowly creeping into my regular blogs. This is was not forced and it seems it is far more common than I had imagined.

Time to switch to other more worldly matters. The organization in which I did my NGO project Janaseva Sisubhavan (designed by me ) is getting greater media attention than ever. NGO project is basically a part of my MBA programme in TAPMI involving social work. It must be one of the most important organizations in social work in Kerala. I promise to add more pictures of Kerala in my gallery soon.

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Wow, its finally happening. I’m going home for Diwali! A major inauguration happened yesterday, the Phase 2 of Pune DC was inaugurated. Everyone came in ethnic wear. There was a competition for best dressed male and female. It seemed there were too many contenders. Thankfully, we were in the food court all the while, where it was being staged. It was sometimes hilarious with patriotic and clichéd Miss World style one-liners.

I’m writing this from Mangalore all the while thinking about my game project ‘Agony’. Past few days I’ve been reading a lot about MMORPGs. My proverbial fears have turned true. There is deep relationship between EAI and MMORPGs. There is a concept of rules and facts and rule engines here. More than that, making an MMORPG required exhaustive knowledge of many social sciences like history, geography, phsycology etc. Amazing! And how many MBAs are actually making one. Very, very few. Why? Because of the immense depth of knowlegde that can be conveyed by the medium of the game. For e.g. many bright guys (no sarcasm here) in my MBA batch tried to make a financial simulation, but they had very cumbersome tools like Excel spreadsheets. As a result the game was very linear and turn-based (as opposed to real-time). In fact one of our profs tried using a game called MarkStrat (a commercial product nothing close to an MMORPG in terms of UI but a multiplayer simulation nonetheless) and it was a big hit. Many described as the single most important course in Marketing that mattered. So I’m pondering to get behind the camera of a multiplayer game. Lets see how crazy this project gets On a unrelated note, it needs a more telling name, like ‘SimDesh’ or something.

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Mumbai. The city of dreams, of glamour and of opportunities. The film capital of India. No wonder that a movie buff like me felt getting excited as I prepared to visit this city for the first time. As expected, the city was abuzz with activity despite the odd hour of 10 pm when we entered the city. As the bus snaked through the brightly lit roads, an army of autos could be seen waiting impatiently at each traffic signal. Life never stops here in this vast concrete jungle. Nonetheless every nook and corner seemed familiar. Perhaps, Bollywood has subliminally immortalized this city. Parag (my project mate) sitting beside me gave a concise yet highly useful guide to the city’s topography. Mumbai is essentially a narrow elongated strip of land. Local trains are its lifeline (yes, once they declared a holiday when it got disrupted).

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Finding Suneja’s place was quite easy. A road sprinkled with his landmarks, all restaurants :). The apartment, a cozy place nested up in the tenth floor. Big enough for Crisil people: Anshu, Yogi and Ashwinder and my TAPMI roomate Suraj (who works in UTI). The next day we (Me and Suneja rather) hit the road. We settled for a movie at NOrbit with Rachana. One of Asia’s largest malls I’m told and it was really, really big. Later that evening, we met Sethi and DP. Sethi left off soon, but we visited an amusing pub, “Toto’s”, which was decorated like a garage. In fact the drinks are served under a suspended Beetle. The music was awesome with most of the numbers beings ‘ol TAPMI favourites. Later, we got hungry and came across a Punjabi dhaba which amusingly enough called itself ‘Papa Pancho’ (no jokes)!! Nevertheless, the food was simply out of this world. I stayed over at Anvesh’s place that night.

Sunday, we (everyone at Suneja’s) simply took a walk down the breezy Mumbai sea coast near Band stand. We soon realised that his place has far too many exotic dogs. And exquisite women too ;). Early next morning it was time to return to the drudgery of reality. Slowing cruising into the highway, as the light of dawn was softly breaking in, I wondered - when will I return to this city of dreams again…

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