Staring Into the Coke Bottle

Emersion is one of the most coveted aspects in recent MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) creating. To date one of the most immersive games I have encountered Guild Wars with its incredible draw distance and gaping caverns with well designed roofs. Avalon Four seems to me like a strap in, in-your-face, and Graphically superior virtual experience. Rather than holding you to a given restrictive story, you are handed a world history and given opportunity to dive into dynamically personalized adventures not too unlike the Primer.

One major reason I’ve never bought Guild Wars, even though it is free to play, is that you can only interact (or see) with people in towns or who have joined your party. I am a player whom prizes himself in how much he has helped others. Without the ability to be of help to another living entity, I quickly loose interest and seek out a better medium. In World of Warcraft I achieve this by wielding the art of healing. Avalon Four takes this player interaction to another level entirely. With the interface literally attached to your face there is room for the nuances of face to face interaction such as facial expressions.

This concept was explored pretty well in Snowcrash with the virtual world very like the later created Second Life. Avalon Four is deeply immersive with every aspect of the avatar controllable on the spur of the moment down to the position of eyelids and brows. The interactions don’t stop there. In Warcraft a player can set their avatar to follow another player and just hope that player doesn’t do anything stupid or take a sharp corner trapping the follower walking against a fence or wall till the target is out of range. In Avalon Four some classes of characters can simply be piggy-backed and leave the traveling to your companion.

Oh how I wish a gnome could just hop on a cheetah form druid and dash off into the distance. While that’s an interesting method of interaction it is not something so hard for games today to accomplish. What really stands out is how the immersion can be super imposed on “Monkey Space” to give augmented reality a new brand of interpretation. At the convention Jack used not just one avatar persona but all his personas from various games at once that hid his true self to anyone not using any very opaque settings on their goggles.

It’s interesting how these goggles have become such a standard feature in cell phones in Stross’ world but not entirely surprising considering the ever increasing number of people roaming the streets today with Bluetooth or other hands-free devices connecting their ear and mouth to a world which isn’t necessarily relevant to their surroundings. Jack shows just how extreme the situation in this future can become when he confronted the poor fool who pulled a knife on Jack who didn’t even notice because Jack was busy tangling with the Virtual representation of the small Chinese fellow as an Orc. Jack missed entirely the very real danger of being in the room with someone you assaulted in any reality.

Charles Stross’ vision of VR/AR acceptance in the future is neither far fetched nor even unlikely with the increasing obsession of mobile communication. There is a very real chance that the next step in hands free cellular technology is to use a projection screen to give a caller ID or confirm a voice command. Already something not seen amongst Halting State’s cell phone advancements is the Sync technology in some cars that allows the driver full control over phone radio/CD player and other features using voice commands. It is only a matter of time before security features developed for this feature allow for even more functions such as unlocking, opening, starting, and even automated parking using LIDAR. If you thought the cars and phones of Halting State are far fetched, you haven’t seen anything yet.

(in case you havn't figured it out, this posts title is a play on Emersion and Coke Bottle lenses(thick glasses))