I’m the kind of person who has a million and one things going on in my head all the time. From real life, to work and of course, everyday dreaming. Everywhere in between. For the past 2 years or so now, my life playing games has become a bit stagnant. I’ve been focused on all the other things going on in my life. As much as I want to sit down and enjoy a video game, something always puts it off to where all I end up doing is futzing around. This is mostly due to my old gaming friends and I have parted ways. Some because they started playing other games. As well as, due to my real life finances being very tight and/or the fact the games they chose to play, I either am unable to follow them or I just don’t care for the games they chose to play.My time alone has led me to thinking there is a pot of gold to be made. Sadly not by me as I don’t have the capitol to get it started. So this idea of mine is going to go public. If I’m very lucky, they can kick me a small percentage for giving them the inspiration.There are tons of movies out right now that are modeled after comic books, such as the Avengers series (Iron Man, Thor, etc…). As well as video games (Doom, Resident Evil, etc…).Now, let’s take some National Lampoons, Mel Brooks and Monty Python views and spin this into a live action comedy spoof of an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game). If you play MMO’s and like movies, read on. If you don’t like MMO’s you won’t understand much of the scenes I’m going to describe below. You’ll have to use your mind to visualize what I have in mind. Remember, this is just scenes in a movie that I’d like to see made. There is no story-line, however I’m sure some Hollywood type could put a story-line easily into these scenes as it’s more about the spoof than it is the story, but all movies must have a good plot. This stuff is what would make it funny.
Mount Summon
Picture if you will the calamity of something as simple as calling upon one’s mount. A horse is in a meadow somewhere, eating away. As animals do, he begins to pee. At that moment, his master, a Dwarf Paladin summons his trusty stead. It would probably sound something like this:
Crowd Control / Aggro Range
One thing that gets me about MMO’s is the crowd control and range of aggro for NPC’s. If you don’t understand the term aggro, it means how aggressive a target is to the player. If you get too close and it is a target that does not like you, it will attack you. Aggro also determines if there is a group of players, the one that pisses off the target the most, get’s the most aggro. In a game, there are many times, that if it were a real life situation, the target would plainly see you, and for some reason not care that you were there as long as you don’t get too close.So you can be standing around, chatting with your buddies talking out loud how you will handle the situation and the target would just be standing there ignoring you. The irony that you are about to kill an enemy and he just doesn’t seem to care. You know that wouldn’t happen in a real battle situation, so in a way it’s funny.It gets even funnier when you throw in crowd control. In a gaming situation, players can stun, poly morph and otherwise detain targets for later throttling. So you have Bill and Bob who are your targets. They could be standing there discussing their lunch plans and even though they can see the people about to kill them, they pay no attention. Furthermore, Bob suddenly turns into a goat unable to defend himself and Bill is just gibbering away as if nothing is happening. That is until his attackers kill him in a shortly lived battle. Poor Bob get’s struck, turns back to himself and is quickly defeated. All the while, just a few more feet away. Carl, another target pays no mind. In a live action movie, it would be funny.
Wipe / Reset
Here ya go. You see a group of people run into a battle. Things go wrong and suddenly everyone of them dies. Magically they are standing up in a different place away from where they were as if nothing has happened. Except you see their armor tattered and damaged. As they regain awareness they begin to blame one another for what went wrong and complaining about having their armor repaired and the costs involved. Perhaps one or two them leave after saying some unkind words about the healer or the most heavily armored not doing their jobs.
Food Repairs All Wounds
Here’s an opportunity for a small scene where the battle has ended. The wounded are now taking a break to attend their wounds. Their armor still broken, but the bloody cuts and bruises suddenly vanish as they eat some bread or meat.
Drinks Replenish Magic
Picture a tired Mage, Wizard, Shaman or Priest just stumbling off to the side after a vigorous battle and sitting down for a drink. Minutes later, poof back in action like nothing happened.
Critters
See a group of people on their way to some place, battle or just hanging out. Each of them with a small animal doing odd things just because they can. I can see this becoming in and of itself hilarity.
Respawn after Death (NPC)
Scene of a town being attacked. The NPC who earlier has been shown to have limited vocabulary, is suddenly killed by the enemy threat. Mid battle, poof, like nothing happened and happy as a clam. Death again… This could go on for like 3 to 4 times before it looses it’s humor.
Respawn after Death (Player)
Nothing like a live action battle to see someone do a death scene. Only to find themselves a few yards away, wounded but able to rejoin the battle and they run back into action yelling “BUFFS!!!”. To a non-gamer, this would likely confuse them as the audience of gamers laughed.
Glowing, Flaming and Other Goofy Armor
A live action movie with all the fancy armor you see in games. Could you just see the warrior wearing flaming armor just sweating to death from the heat and catching things on fire at random or other people lighting their smokes or cooking from his/her armor. The flaming sword, that they can’t put away without injury. Glowing armor making it hard to sneak up on enemies. Lightening covered armor causing havoc.This list could go on and on. To an imaginative person, this could be one funny movie. Live action with all the quirks found in most multiplayer games. I think someone should make such a movie. If I had the money, I’d certainly try to hammer out such a potential comedy hit :)Right now I need a high quality video camera, for summer to come and a whole bunch of people who are into Cosplay and MMO’s. That’s not asking for much right? Oh and an epic CGI studio to help out. The past few days I got back on the thought pattern of my MMO Movie idea. A live action, slapstick comedy set in a fantasy world where everything is just Like the Game.Submerged in a world where anywhere you go, denizens found in towns and standing along the road have limited speech and specific objectives for you to achieve. Epic battles with mythical creatures and enormous monsters.Specific scenes that would be very comedic and show just some of the silly things that would happen if a typical game was made with real life characters. You know, like a Mel Brooks movie 🙂 Of course there are plenty more where that came from, but also you have the little things going on throughout the movie that would add to the hilarity.Such as the useless NPC (what is known as a Non-Player Character). This character’s sole purpose seems to be just to be a body in the crowd. You can “talk” to them by touching, and he or she will respond with a standard set of responses. If you do this repeatedly, the responses sound more annoyed. So having an actor just stand or pace and someone comes up to them and starts touching them repeatedly. This could be a background piece as the main characters are passing by and the camera briefly focuses on this action.
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- “Hello”
- “Blessings”
- “Can I help you?”
- “Quit it.”
- “Go away.”
- “Guards!”
- “Do you need medication?”
- “I’m not that kind of (Fill in the race they portray.).”
In some games like World of Warcraft, some of the creatures you can summon to aid you in your travels may also have NPC’s of their own. Perhaps to sell and trade items and even repair your weapons and armor. One of the funny things they do is when you kick them off or you get off the mount, they become annoyed that you’ve abandoned them some place and while they seem to be angry, there’s nothing they can do about it and you can re-summon them later. This as a live action would be humorous as they are repeatedly summoned and dismissed throughout the movie and small jokes can be inserted everywhere. Especially since they are repeatedly dismissed in the middle of no where with no way home or left in hostile areas. This could also be a brief scene of drama as perhaps the hero confronts them as to why they are angry. The in turn explain that their lives are tied to the main character. They are unable to have lives of their own. Maybe if there are two of them, they could perhaps be upset they can never have a romance as they only exist when summoned on the mount and fade away when dismissed.Three Paladins walk into a bar. A human female, an orc male and a goblin (we’re left wondering if it’s a male or female). They stop and look at each other in disgust. They are all wearing the exact same armor. {insert drums here}One of my personal favorites is how much stuff a character can carry and look like they are carrying nothing but the clothes on their back and their weapons. Like the endless storage Hermione had in her beaded bag during the Deathly Hallows adventure. In a live action MMO movie, we could have a simple leather purse or pouch affixed to the hero’s armor that could produce food to feed a small army, potions, extra armor and more. Just moments during the film where they causally pull out epic things from something so tiny.It’s little things like this and so much more that could make for one hilarious movie. I’d need an entire room full of idea filled people to extract the tons of fun. Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to do such a thing.