Tuesday 11 September 2007

Thought for the day.

If real life had an MMO UI overlaid, what would it look like to you? How would it affect your life?


  • I'd probably have low health, but high mana.


  • My bag slots would be nearly full all the time.


  • Most slots would be taken up with chargers for electronic devices.


  • I'd be able to scroll back through previous conversations with my boss and prove that I didn't agree to work thirty hours of overtime this week, or any week for that matter.


  • Never be caught short! I would know exactly when I was next going to need to go to the toilet based on that ability's cool-down.


  • Based on the tooltip information from the debuff icons present, I would be able to tell exactly what illness I was suffering from and instruct the doctor accordingly.


  • People wouldn't be able to sneak up on me because I would see them approaching on my mini-map.


  • My bank balance would be available, so I'd always know if I could afford to buy that shiny new gadget. Not that that stops me at the moment.


  • Road rage incidents could be avoided as you'd be able to con other drivers nearby.


  • If someone fell over in front of you, you'd know whether they'd hurt themselves badly by the small text number floating up the centre of your vision.


  • You'd never lose the kids on a family outing, because you'd see their group portrait fade when they went out of range, and you could find them by highlighting said portrait and following the big friendly arrow at the top of your vision.


  • Hand-written shopping lists would be a thing of the past: just follow the quest objectives in your tracker


  • Sex would become slightly more mundane, as you'd know when the magic moment was going to happen by watching your cast bar. However, women would have a harder time faking because men could 'enable enemy cast bar'.


  • If your wife sees you smirk at that last one, you would at least have a pop-up option that allowed you to resurrect at the nearest shrine...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Everyone's names would float above their heads, almost all of them in a bright, hostile RED to me.

I dread to think what my reputation panel looks like.

Anonymous said...

That tooltip/debuff illness thing would be handy not just for telling the doctor what you have, but also for knowing when you really need to go see the doctor vs. when you should just have some soup and go back to bed.

Thinking of elf's point, you'd have a handy reputation panel to tell you which people are mad at you right now, and you could look up a guide to tell you which items to bring them to get back in their good graces.

I really like the idea of turning a shopping list into following the list of quest objectives. No more running back and forth in the store because I forgot an item 10 aisles back.

Melmoth said...

Thinking of elf's point, you'd have a handy reputation panel to tell you which people are mad at you right now, and you could look up a guide to tell you which items to bring them to get back in their good graces.

And pray that it didn't involve having to bring them one hundred otter noses and fifty boar spleens.

I really like the idea of turning a shopping list into following the list of quest objectives.

I even tried standing outside the supermarket and holding a yellow exclamation mark above my head, but nobody wanted to do my shopping... Quest! I meant quest... for me.

Anonymous said...

I really like the idea of turning a shopping list into following the list of quest objectives. No more running back and forth in the store because I forgot an item 10 aisles back.

But because you only looked at the objectives and didn't read the log telling you to take the collected items to the checkout you'd then take all your shopping home and be arrested for shoplifting.

Anonymous said...

Aha! But I'm that rare sort of creature that actually Reads The Quest! (*gasp!*)

Sorry to hear no one took you up on your shopping quest Melmoth. Maybe the reward wasn't good enough? I mean, people min/max these things horribly these days.

Melmoth said...

I offered them faction rep. with the Holy Order Of Bloggers Who Are Too Lazy To Do Their Own Shopping, what more could they possibly want?

Anonymous said...

I could turn off the 'general' channel. Peace at last!

Anonymous said...

I could 'go on follow' in traffic jams, allowing me do some more interesting instead!

Downside - when not working for more then 5 min a 'AFK' sign would float over your head... allowing your boss to realise you were reading blogs, not working :(

Skettalee said...

-I would be able to abandon quests that the wife sends me on anytime I please and just go get them later if there is ever a problem.

-I would actually be able to keep more money because of my Auction House habits.

Anonymous said...

All splendid responses, every one.

Alas, you're all wrong. Because what you'd actually find is that Real Life has received yet another minor patch (the last one put in dinosaur skeletons to confuse the scientists, you can blame the boss of the Inferno for that one, he likes his little Easter eggs. Which is why he created the Easter bunny when he did) and all your AddOns are now out of date.

This causes the interface to screw-up and leaves nothing but a bunch of strange grey squiggly lines in your peripheral vision. It must be something to do with one of your focus AddOns, because every time you try to look at one of the squiggly lines, it shoots out of your field of view.

So next time you see a bunch of boss-eyed people who seem to be trying to look backwards into their own skull, you'll know that Real Life had another update.