Random MMO Idea: In Game Photography
I’ve had photography on the brain lately. I bought my first digital SLR camera last year and fell in love with what I could accomplish with it and with the potential I could see from viewing other people’s shots online on sites like Flickr. I was just recently in the market for a new lens, so I’ve been all over photography forums and review sites finding out what the best “next step” would be for me in terms of equipment. I don’t have any intentions of doing this professionally, but I really enjoy it as a hobby outside of gaming. But this research has planted an idea in my head, and I wanted to know if my peers think it has any merit.
Most MMO’s wouldn’t really benefit from the idea, but for something like Fallen Earth, with its “not too into the far flung future” setting, it just might. Simply put, introduce photography as the means by which you take screenshots. Everyone can do it, it’s completely optional just as taking screens already is, but give the act of doing so a bit more depth. Allow zooming in on objects, different lens types that would allow for fisheye or macro focus type effects, and to top it off, achievements. Have certain items, people, creatures or locations flagged so when a person “shoots” them with the camera, it will mark it as “complete” in your big book of landmarks. Maybe let the various lens types unlock based on the number of landmarks you’ve captured.
The most important part of this idea is a community photo site. A section of the game website devoted to photos taken by people in game. Some games already do a daily screenshot, but what if we were given a tool that would allow us to manage pictures from an in game album? Flag your favorites, and allow players to upload maybe one or two shots a week to the website. Then other players could go online and check out shots from the community and even vote on their favorites. Maybe even reward the top voted screenshotters from each month with an in game title or nick-knack.
Not only would you be benefiting the players by allowing them to be more creative in capturing in game moments, you would be building a system that could allow you to easily show off features and experiences your game has to the public.
Related Posts
We love comments!
- NBI: Frugally vicious | Bio Break on You Should be Blogging!
- Rav4ge on MP 85: Mother’s Pizza
- Rer on MP 85: Mother’s Pizza
- Rer on Review: The Witcher 2
- xXJayeDuBXx on The Steam Gift Card: AKA The Players Club Card
- Maeve on Free is good
Loading...
In one of those zombie games on the Xbox, you were a photographer. You could use the camera as a weapon and take pics.
Are you talking about BioShock Winin? Pretty novel use of a camera as a “weapon” of sorts in that game… in fact you had to scrounge up “ammo” (rolls of film) for it like any other FPS weapon. The only thing about it that sucked is that the pictures weren’t real screenshots saved to your hard drive to browse thru later…
I think Slurms just wants to use a camera in a video game. :3 (Kidding) The achievements is a cool idea though, that hasn’t been done with screenshots before.
Hey wait a minute! Isn’t random thoughts my shtick?! xD
Vanguard had an idea similar to that. It would automatically take screenshots for special achievements like each time you leveled, killed bosses, etc. It may of been like a 10 sec movie I don’t remember exactly.
I don’t remember all the details since it has been a few years since I played it. Vanguard had some really cool stuff just unfortunately the game came out to early for its time.
He’s talking about Fatal Frame, but you’re right, Bioshock had a camera too and you got rewards for taking pictures of the enemies in combat.
There are a few games now that do that Auto-Screenshot thing when you level etc…. yeah Vanguard has that feature I remember now. So does some other games.
Anyways, my real comment is, I already do this in my MMOs. I always used the rule of 3′s when taking screenshots and other things to make the picture as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
More tools would make my job all the easier! (I think of myself as an MMO photographer/blogger, pictures are always a huge part of my blogs)
The game I think Winin is describing was Dead Rising. Where your job was to survive 3 days in a zombie infested mall while rescuing survivors and trying to figure out what happened. The camera feature was really cool in that game as you were a professional photographer in the game. Honestly I have never beaten that game and I am still sitting at day 2 out of 3. Just have never had the patience to continue to wade through zombies as the controls really aren’t the best because it was an early Xbox360 launch title. The camera feature really stood out for me and it was extremely well done and fun to try and get the highest point picture possible (more points for zombies trying to eat you, number of zombies, etc).
The Fatal Frame series was excellent as well. I really enjoyed all of those games.
I want to be able to take some “candid photography” in game. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
I am sure there is a Japanese game out there for you too!!!
Upskirt Commandos? The next big indie hit! We’ll get on it right after DangerLands.
Yeah, it was the zombie mall game. I only did the demo, but it was fun to skateboard through the mall whacking zeds.
11 comments
In one of those zombie games on the Xbox, you were a photographer. You could use the camera as a weapon and take pics.
Are you talking about BioShock Winin? Pretty novel use of a camera as a “weapon” of sorts in that game… in fact you had to scrounge up “ammo” (rolls of film) for it like any other FPS weapon. The only thing about it that sucked is that the pictures weren’t real screenshots saved to your hard drive to browse thru later…
I think Slurms just wants to use a camera in a video game. :3 (Kidding) The achievements is a cool idea though, that hasn’t been done with screenshots before.
Vanguard had an idea similar to that. It would automatically take screenshots for special achievements like each time you leveled, killed bosses, etc. It may of been like a 10 sec movie I don’t remember exactly.
I don’t remember all the details since it has been a few years since I played it. Vanguard had some really cool stuff just unfortunately the game came out to early for its time.
He’s talking about Fatal Frame, but you’re right, Bioshock had a camera too and you got rewards for taking pictures of the enemies in combat.
There are a few games now that do that Auto-Screenshot thing when you level etc…. yeah Vanguard has that feature I remember now. So does some other games.
Anyways, my real comment is, I already do this in my MMOs. I always used the rule of 3′s when taking screenshots and other things to make the picture as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
More tools would make my job all the easier! (I think of myself as an MMO photographer/blogger, pictures are always a huge part of my blogs)
Hey wait a minute! Isn’t random thoughts my shtick?! xD
The game I think Winin is describing was Dead Rising. Where your job was to survive 3 days in a zombie infested mall while rescuing survivors and trying to figure out what happened. The camera feature was really cool in that game as you were a professional photographer in the game. Honestly I have never beaten that game and I am still sitting at day 2 out of 3. Just have never had the patience to continue to wade through zombies as the controls really aren’t the best because it was an early Xbox360 launch title. The camera feature really stood out for me and it was extremely well done and fun to try and get the highest point picture possible (more points for zombies trying to eat you, number of zombies, etc).
The Fatal Frame series was excellent as well. I really enjoyed all of those games.
I want to be able to take some “candid photography” in game. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
I am sure there is a Japanese game out there for you too!!!
Yeah, it was the zombie mall game. I only did the demo, but it was fun to skateboard through the mall whacking zeds.
Upskirt Commandos? The next big indie hit! We’ll get on it right after DangerLands.
Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published. Please fill the required fields...