|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 163--9/8/97 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 13  ||  -------> (Cup OWis163, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = OsoaWeek Book Thirteen 7 "OsoaWeek163" by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana, Tarb 6835 (9/8/97), copyright 1997 OBLIVIANA REGISTRY NEW REVOLVERS None NEW CUPLINES None NEW CUPS None *OW* LORD OF OBLIVIANA Mon 9/1/97 * 11:58 PM Yeah, these recent Lord of Obliviana features have consisted of Obliviana development notes, for the most part. Well, since no one is reading OsoaWeek anyway, I may as well keep on doing what I'm doing. And maybe, in the future, these notes will be interesting. Of course, Obliviana will have to become a big success for these notes to become interesting. Whatever. The point is moot, like I said, cuz there are really few, if any, people reading this. At least at the present time. I'm sure future versions of ME will read this. Hi, me. So, to pick up on the development from last issue, I think that Obliviana as "Virtual Theme Park" is a very good idea. But I don't think I should use the word "virtual", because it does imply 3-D. "Online Theme Park"? No, that could refer to the website of a real theme park. Oh well. "Digital Theme Park". That might work. One aspect of Digital Theme Park is the idea of constructing 3-D models of the buildings and other structures that exist in LWOR. THIS use of 3-D is okay by me, because it will be presented in a non-3-D way. Except, it will be 3-D if I eventually manufacture models of the various buildings, as in my dream product, little models of Walt Disney World buildings. So, let me go over some of the "cardinal rules" of the "Digital Rides". [1] Digital Rides are based on the spirit of non-thrill Disney theme park rides, such as: Horizons, Journey Into Imagination, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Carribean, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Spaceship Earth, Maelstrom, and Listen to the Land (now LIVING with the Land). [2] These rides are non-interactive and linear. You go in, and the ride "goes by" without you having to do anything. [3] The purpose of these rides is to evoke atmospheres and Wonder. [4] These rides differ from a video, which is also linear and non-interactive, with total immersion and motion. Hmm. Total immersion and motion. Two things you can't do on the Internet. All you got is the computer monitor and speaker. Like a video. So the question is, are my Digital Rides going to be able to be dubbed onto video and played on a TV? As I have it now, that would seem to be the case. I might as well do the Rides as QuickTime movies, if this is the case. By establishing the parameters of linearity and non-interaction, haven't I just made the Rides into videos? I could add interactivity, in the form of "looking" in certain directions. But I do not conceive of Rides as digital "versions" of an imaginary "real" ride. So the idea of "looking" is kind of against the ideals I have set forth. And even if I do allow for Rides to be in immersive VR, the consumer technology just isn't there yet. And I don't want to have to resort to this. I could make Rides non-linear AND interactive by having branches to take. It does make sense that Digital Rides should be more than digital versions of real rides. And computers do interactivity and non-linearity very well. But how will I make Rides be more than looking at pictures on a computer monitor and hearing sounds and music and narration? Let's take a look at the Walt Disney World Explorer CD-ROM. In fact, let me go and play with it a little. Tue 9/2/97 * 12:51 AM Yeah, I checked out the CD-ROM. I definitely want to do something more than an HTML-based Macromedia Director style presentation. The WDW Explorer CD-ROM has sound and pictures and interactivity. It is a multimedia program ABOUT a real theme park, or in this case, several theme parks. So I think I have to do something a little more, but without making the whole thing too complex. I think that a single unique angle would make my Digital Rides work. 1:14 AM Evoke an atmosphere in the mind. Tue 9/2/97 * 10:37 PM Fell asleep on the bus briefly, and for a few moments I thought it was morning and I was going INTO work. I was surprised for several seconds that it was night. Anyway, I've been thinking about this whole "Virtual Theme Park" angle. I looked up "virtual theme park" online, and got two pathetic sites. One was a poorly-designed personal page, with topics under heading such as "Dogland", "Kidsland", etc. The other page was what looked like an interested idea for a virtual "Atlantis" theme park, but it was still just an idea--and the page hadn't been updated since something like January of 1996. Yeah. So I guess there's not much competition out there in the vurtual theme park business. I started playing around with animated GIFs today. I had the idea to create the ride scenes with animated GIFs with only a few frames each. There's a demo for a GIF animation program that allows only five frames for each export. Perfect! I know that I have stated my objection to animation in Obliviana, but I believe that such limited animation as I'm describing is acceptable. Pulling out a little, it's clear to me that Obliviana can now be described as an "Online Digital Theme Park, and a Whole Lot More!", or something like that. That is, it is initially identified as a "Virtual Theme Park", an idea that is readily embracable, except perhaps by those exposed to a number of poorly-executed "Virtual Theme Parks". (By the way, it seems like many of the "Virtual" and "Online" theme parks were touting themselves as being the "first".) Anyway, I had a "having to go back to high school" dream last night. Lockers were arcade videogames, and I got a Dig-Dug II, and somehow in the dream this was a major coincidence, since two other things related to Dig-Dug II had happened to me recently. I used to have these high school dreams all the time. They involve me, as I am now, somehow having to go back to high school because there was some class or set of classes that I didn't really pass, or something like that. The subolism of these high school dreams is pretty apparent--they represent "going back to the drawing board" and rethinking some fundamental elements, for Obliviana, in my case. I guess that the Virtual Theme Park idea triggered the dream. I realize that on the surface the Theme Park idea seems to be REALLY BAD. It's bad because it's easy to imagine but tough as hell to implement. In fact, I have previously stated a number of the problems with a Virtual Theme Park, namely that none of the elements that separate theme park rides from other forms of media are present in the desktop-computer-based World Wide Web. So let me look at it this way--the theme park paradigm, with its "lands" and rides as a general structure for something other than an attempt to create "Pirates of the Carribbean" on a computer screen. To clarify, the Rides can be more than an attempt to capture the actual experience of going on a themed non-thrill ride. (And yes, I realize that Pirates of the Carribbean has a little waterfall thing, but that is a small part of an otherwise totally non-thrill ride, "thrill" referring to thrilling motion as opposed to thrilling immersive experiences.) So, the Rides can be something unto themselves, inspired by classic rides, but not chained. I want to look at two statement I made last night: "I think that a single unique angle would make my Digital Rides work." Followed, after much thought, by: "Evoke an atmosphere in the mind." The first statement sets forth a "wish". I realized that Digital Rides as I was conceiving them would not work, but the idea was CLOSE to working. So close, in fact, that I reasoned that if I got that one added feature, the idea would work. The response was very weak. It did not provide an aswer; it simply clarified the question. First of all, you CAN'T do an immersive ride on a desktop computer system. Like I mentioned earlier, a full VR setup could potentially recreate an immersive environment, but I am against VR at a very basic level, and I doubt that even a very advanced VR system could recreate the true analog joy of being in a real place. So I thought that if you could create the immersive experience IN THE MIND, using the IMAGINATION, the whole thing might work. This is similar in concept to the old Infocom text adventures being "immersive". But the immersive experience of "Spaceship Earth" is quite different than the nature of the immersive experience in "Zork". Another aspect here is the themes and presentations of the classic Disney rides. Such a fresh, unencumbered ideas as "here are some pirates" or "here are little abstract kids from all nations" are indeed thematically different from TV and movies and books, and the like. Well, maybe not. There are indeed book about pirates. But I still maintain that the presentation of ideas in the Disney theme parks is unique. I think that the term "unencumbered" is important here. Even though "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" is based on the Disney "Wind in the Willows" cartoon, it is not an attempt to retell the story. Rather, it is just a very look immersive experience. I guess I'm having a little trouble distilling the tru value of the Disney rides. I know that I have a very strong opinion about the aesthetic of such rides, but I can't quite pin down the unique qualities. Well, maybe I can pin down the unique qualities. You're moving in a little moving vehicle through a series of rooms with three-dimension moving objects accompanied by a soundtrack. Even the non-thrill portion of "Tower of Terror" has these qualities. And non-Disney rides, such as the "World of Chocolate" ride at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, have these qualities. So are theme park rides exclusively the domain of multi-million-dollar construction projects? Maybe. So maybe I shouldn't be focusing so much on capturing the essense of these rides. Rather, I should focus on using the paradigm of the theme park with its rides as a means of introducing people to Obliviana. I was thinking along the lines of creating my Rides as being somewhat unconnected to the rest of Obliviana. But Stormjaunting, which is at the heart of Obliviana, is all about creating immersive experiences in the real world. This may at first seem a little silly, since the real world is by its nature "immersive". But Stormjaunting does create new experiences. Stormjaunting takes place in the real world just like Disney rides do. But I still want to present Obliviana as a theme park with rides. The question remains, however, as to what the specific nature of these rides will be. It would be good to introduce the various elements of Obliviana is Ride form. But what IS "ride form"? 11:42 PM Okay. I just lied down and had some visions. The Pavilions on the Racetracks will each be home to a Xappenset--a group of Xappens. The Rides will consist of Xappens engaged in a variety of situations. But the Rides and Scenes could be in the background, the periphery, as you're drinking other content. Tracks... the Rides in the background as you're doing something else... like listening to music while you're doing something else. The "main" thing you're doing is not as important as there just being a "main" thing so that the Rides can be in the background. Sheets of paper with stuff printed on them... maybe a set of spaces you have to fill in by doing stuff online... Combining things... combining elements... Something a person could do easily... just coming into Obliviana, without a lot of effort, without a lot of preparation... a relaxing little acitivity... Looking at the Scenes, focusing on elements, combining elements and writing down your own combinations... Shades of Fonosta... creating a personal record of stuff you're doing... "Little Tiny Reality" (LTR), and the Tarot images of the Rider-Waite deck... the same two towers appearing in several cards... Each Pavilion can be a "Little Tiny Reality", with an Almanac, and with Scenes, and with Xappens... and there could be challenges... to uncover some information... to combine some elements... to seek out patterns... to delve into secrets... Wed 9/3/97 * 12:03 AM I think I have struck on a good idea here. Thu 9/4/97 * 11:15 PM MTV Video Music Awards. I wonder how they'll look to an audience fifty years from now. I guess it's okay to bash Christianity, like Marilyn Manson did. I wonder if he could go ahead and bash Judaism or Islam the same way. Probably not. They had to latch onto Princess Diana and say they're donated some proceeds to her charity. Pretty lame. For the record, I think she was assassinated. Fiona Apple has a terrible personality. But one thing Marilyn Manson alluded to is quite true--famous people are assholes. The MTV News post-show now. I was an intern for MTV News. I knew Kurt Loder and John Norris. John Norris is now interviewing an entity called "rza" from the Wu-Tang Clan. Screw 'em all. Oh, at lunch I headed for to this record store called Record Runner in Greenwich Village to see if they had a Duran Duran bootleg with all their B-sides. But I couldn't get in, because John Taylor of Duran Duran was in there signing autographs and there was a long line! Weird, huh? Some kinda coincidence. I've been Stormjaunting at some level for a long time now, and I don't drink alcohol at all anymore. I never drank much at all, but since it has such a bad effect of Stormjaunting, and since I'm at ground zero of Stormjaunting, I gotta avoid it. Last night I printed out directions to the church for my wedding invitations. As I was driving over to Denice's house (with a lot of her mother's containers which I hadn't returned for a long time) I had a great idea. You know how I've been working on this theme park angle, with EPCOT-esque pavilions and stuff. And you know how I've named the little classic video game inspired characters "Xappens". Well, I decided that Xappens will live inside Scenes in Rides in Pavilions. Yup. There it is. A major new idea. On the Internet I continue to seek out sites which claim to be "virtual theme parks". I found one called "VCOT", the "Virtual Community of Tomorrow", as opposed to EPCOT which is the "Experimental Prototype Community (originally "City") of Tomorrow". VCOT (at www.vcot.com) uses Macromedia's Shockwave Flash technology, and I was really impressed by it. It's a vector-based animation format. I downloaded a demo of the authoring application. I might use it for Obliviana. So, with this new idea for Xappens living in rides, I think I'm ready to get moving with implementation. Yeah, implementation. Online amusement park. Some kinda minefield. Like I've been saying, in a lot of ways, you can't do theme park online. Theme park is about immersion. Online is on a computer screen and speakers. VR like you'd need to do an immersive theme park is not here yet on the consumer level, and even when it is, I don't think a VR theme park would be very good. The angle I have in Obliviana is "theme park as setting". This is as opposed to trying to PRESENT a theme park. Here's an overview of the new idea for Obliviana: [1] Obliviana is going to be identified as an "online theme park". [2] "Obliviana" is the name of the theme park. The setting for Obliviana is "Little World of Racetracks". [3] There are eight major and three monor Racetracks. Along the Racetracks are Pavilions, which are large buildings that are going to be designed in 3-D. I eventually want to produce little models of these buildings. [4] Inside the Pavilions are Rides. These Rides are inspired by the spirit of classic Disney rides. Xappens are little characters inspired by the spirit of classic video games. Xappens live in the rides, and also star in them. [5] In the real world, people so Stormjaunting, and develop their Fonosta, which includes "driving" a Xappen. Fri 9/5/97 * 8:41 PM Got hypnopompic phrase several moments after wakeup, in bathroom: "And I see the word 'Zihenhoa' a lot." What's interesting about this vision is that I "saw" it on a page, and I knew it was from an article about trends in comupter culture, and I knew the person quoted was a woman. A blast of information. I ran to write it down. I knew I wouldn't be able to remember it. Zihenhoa. Huh. So the woman being quoted was talking about this word as word she'd been hearing a lot, used by people into computer culture. But as far as the meaning of the word, that info was not part of the hypnopomp infoblast. Anyway, I gotta get moving on implementing Obliviana. One thing I have to clarify is what people will be doing when they come into Obliviana to experience the Rides. Because now the Rides are existing as a part of the Little World of Racetracks, as a place in that world. But I still want people to be able to come in and drink in some compelling infostimulation right away. I had the idea of looking at scenes in rides, and deriving elements of them and stuff. Sat 9/6/97 * 1:06 PM I was actually up at four this morning, so I watched the beginning of the Diana funeral. Not much to see. I think Mother Theresa died yesterday too, but I guess the news was overshadowed by the Diana stuff. On the subway yesterday or the day before I overheard a girl saying something like, "Well, I could get a male cat, but then I couldn't name him Diana." Yeah, people are weird. Fickle. Capricious. Something like Obliviana has the potential to become popular, but it has to strike all the right chords. I have been working on Obliviana for a long time. And it's frustrating that I'm STILL developing it. I am eager for implementation to start. What does implementation involve? First, it involves finalizing the basic ideas. That's pretty much where I'm at now. And then, once the ideas are solid, I have to start to apply them to my website, and seek to get some kind of audience. I think it is certainly doable to get a few hundred fans on the Web. But this is just the first step. In order for Obliviana to make money, it's going to have to have, eventually, millions of fans, many of whom are willing to spend money on Obliviana. I envision Obliviana succeeding through some aspect of it becoming very popular with a large audience. This aspect, as I envision it, will be in the Rides. I have to define my audience. Obliviana can't be all things to all people, but I do want to embrace a wider audience than I have been aiming for in the past. The foundational activity in Obliviana is Stormjaunting. And stories about people Stormjaunting will ALSO be foundational. By this I mean that a lot more people will be interesting in hearing about people Stormjaunting than will actually be Stormjaunting themselves. That is, interesting people and groups of people Stormjaunting, with a audio and visual record, will be a very compelling kind of entertainment. To clarify, I want to expand my "Obliviana People" idea. The original Obliviana People idea involves profiling individuals who are into Obliviana. This would be manifest through grayscale Yargo photographs and text. But I see expanding this idea by focusing on certain individuals on an ongoing basis, detailing their Stormjaunting experiences. This creates a form of entertainment that will have the potential to reach a far wider audience, because many people will not want to go Stormjaunting, but they WILL want to see and hear about interesting young people going on adventures of freedom. I do believe that the Stormjaunters will generally, as a group, be younger than the audience for Stormjaunters. This setup adds the additional incentive of achieveing a certain amount of fame for Stormjaunting. Fame. I have been having a lot of new thoughts on fame recently. I have had a strong desire to be famous, and I observe that many young people have the same urge. Myself, I have come to the point where I see a lot of negatives to being famous. I think that a lot of the urge to be famous comes from insecurity. So maybe, in maturing, I am more secure? Or maybe I'm just "growing up" and losing my dreams? Or at least, maybe I've come to realize that becoming famous is very unlikely? This is a somewhat complex issue. There are many levels of fame. At the highest levels, one cannot live an ordinary life anymore. And one cannot be be sure that the motivation of people around them are sincere anymore. But anyway, small levels of fame, as some Stormjaunters would achieve in my system, would satisfy the "fame urge" without being destructive. Let me step back and look at Obliviana as an "Online Theme Park". The Xappens are the little characters that live in the Rides and race on the Racetracks. The idea is that these characters are each "owned" by a Stormjaunter, and are "powered" by the Stormjaunting of their "owner". The hierarchical organiztion of Obliviana starts with Little World of Racetracks, then breaks down into Racetracks, then Pavilions, then Rides, and then Scenes. So, each Xappen will have a Racetrack, Pavilion, Ride, and Scene. With this system, Obliviana is very scalable. At the smallest, Obliviana would have eight Scenes, if there is only one Pavilion per Racetracks, with one Pavilion, one Ride, and one Scene. If there are eight Pavilions per Racetracks, each with eight Rides, each with eight Scenes, and each with eight Xappens, that would allow for over 32,000 Xappens. Remember, each Xappen will be "owned" by a person who Stormjaunts frequently. For each Xappen, there could be a great number of people who want to hear about Xappens and the people behind them. So even if there were only 32,000 Xappens, there could be millions of fans of Xappens / Stormjaunters. Now, let me step back again and look at Obliviana. The core idea is Stormjaunting. Stormjaunters will be encouraged to maintain a Fonosta in LWOR, as manifest by their Xappen. Others can then go to LWOR and see the "society" of Stormjaunters. This is the basic idea. The idea of living in Rides greatly simplifies the layout and organization of Obliviana. Prior to this idea, I was conceiving of Xappens living in houses that they build. The Ride idea makes the physical latout of LWOR much more understandable and compelling. Implementation will involve defining the Racetracks, Pavilions, Rides, and Scenes. Of course, the Racetracks are the most vital definitions, because they greatly influence the nature of the Pavilions. And the Pavilions greatly define the Rides, and the Rides define the Scenes. I still want to go with my idea of New Themes. 4:10 PM New Themes. Yeah, I gotta work on the Themes, but I think I should go a little further in defining the basic structure of Obliviana. Oblviana Super Occult Amusement is my company. The primary business of Obliviana is running an "Online Theme Park", called "Obliviana". The main purpose of Obliviana is to introduce and promote an activity called "Stormjaunting". Stormjaunting involves people going on adventures in the "mundane" world around them. Stormjaunters can record their experiences and store them in something called a "Fonosta".Stormjaunters will be encouraged to register their Fonostas with Obliviana, which has several advantages: [1] The Fonosta data is stored on the Obliviana server, which is more secure than maintaining the data yourself, [2] You can share your Stormjaunting experience with others, [3] You can become a "featured" Stormjaunter, with a story about you and your adventures available in the Obliviana "Online Theme Park", [4] You can participate in the "Online Theme Park" by taking control over a little character called a "Xappen", who lives in a Ride and races on the Racetracks. Obliviana will be open to everyone, not only Stormjaunters. As an Online Theme Park, Obliviana contains entertainment for people who aren't necessarily heavily into Obliviana. 8:16 PM Okay. So where does the money come from? Will Stormjaunters pay to play in LWOR? Will people pay admission to Obliviana? Will there be advertising? Will I get sponsors for the Pavilions? Very difficult questions. Tricky. No clear way to make money. Get all Obliviana. *OW* -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----