I read the announcement about SOE and Virgin Comics getting together to create a Ramayan 3392 A.D. game with interest. I bopped on over to read the whole press release and then back to check out the news discussion thread here. I must confess that I am more familiar with the traditional Ramayana, never having heard of the comic before today, but I can't help but look forward to seeing a different, more unusual cultural perspective in a game.
A quote from the press release:
Virgin Comics’ Ramayan 3392 A.D., initially released as a comic in late 2006, re-imagines one of India’s greatest epics into a futuristic realm. Gotham Chopra, Virgin Comics’ Chief Creative Officer commented, “While many of the characters and settings remain familiar to the original lore, we never intended to re-tell the story, but essentially use it as the key inspiration for something fresh. What remains intact to our story are some of the core universal themes like duty, honor, sacrifice, and fraternity while also mining uniquely Indian ideas like karma (how action and consequence are linked) and the malleability of time itself. To bring all of these ideas into a game with SOE is just awesome.”
Devarajan concluded, “In a world increasingly dominated with games influenced by a western Tolkien mythos, Ramayan will offer gamers a chance to experience a whole new universe of characters and archetypes derived from one of the oldest cultures on Earth. Our mission at Virgin Comics has always been to allow this generation of Indian youth to have a creative platform through which to speak to the world. Through this collaboration with the likeminded visionaries at SOE, our young Indian creators will make gaming history worldwide.”
I see real potential there. Even if it is standard fare as a game, I hope the world will be detailed and intriguing enough for the explorer/roleplayer in me. Only time will tell.
On the topic of in-game and out-of-game friendships, I wonder how many people play with people they already knew IRL, how many people make friends in the game that are only in-game friends, and how many people form friendships in game that transcend the game. I tend to be in all three of those categories, playing with various family members, meeting new people, and staying in contact with one or two when I leave the game. Most of the people I meet in game come and go, though. It's just sort of the nature of the beast, I guess.
One of the things I like about EQPlayers and EQ2Players is that it lets you spy on your in-game friends to see if they are still playing, what guild they are in now, and what kind of gear they've gotten. It doesn't let you talk to them, but it lets you be a virtual peeping Tom.
My husband had a lot of friendships in UO that extended into the real world, and he followed those people into EQ. They introduced him to new people. Then the original people went their own ways-- one died IRL, and he had a little conflict with another and they never spoke again. Most just faded away. And since then, he's decided he doesn't want his in-game relationships to extend beyond the boundaries of the game. He wants that boundary between game and RL never to be crossed. Maybe it is because I am female, but that seems strange to me.
I want to know the people I play with. Interestingly, most of the people I've stayed in touch with have also been 30-something females. Maybe it is something about us as a group that makes us interested in the real people behind the character.
Or maybe my husband is just an antisocial nerd. =P
MMORPG.com writes:
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