Would you like fries with your decapitation?

My mind likes to form long rambling chains of thoughts where the connection from one to the next is sometimes more spiritual than logical. At some point I’ll laugh out loud and Anne will ask “OK, what is it?”

Yesterdays “inspiration” started with some talk about Oblivion, a Bathesda Elder scrolls game. Anne had been retro playing it recently in anticipation of their next release, Skyrim. I was thinking about the combat system which is one of the series weak points in some ways, it often swings widely from overly hard to exploitative easy. This led me to thinking of their Fallout games which have a different combat system, but also a bit flawed in similar respects. This led me to think of the coming Fallout MMO in development and how they might change combat there. Clearly VATS wasn’t workable for multi-player real time. My mind wandered to armor systems and trying to avoid every fall out player wearing powered armor at all times when in fact that simply made the most logical sense if you were being attacked by mutants and small nuclear weapons.

This in turn led me to consider getting blown up by said weapons and how they might handle death in a game with a wry sense of humor. I considered that being dead might be an opportunity for the game to chide you gently and perhaps share with you some strategic hints in a classic fallout style. Then, finally the idea referenced in the title came to me. They could use the opportunity of your inability to do much to show you some in game advertising. Hey, its not like you were doing anything just then right? Think of it as an in game insentive not to get yourself killed, and if the commercials were Fallout Funny, you might not even mind them so much.

Ultimately, I think it’s a bad idea. It creates an intensive or perceived intensive for the game to kill the characters as often as possible and keep them incapacitated so they can ply their eyeballs with paid adds. Still, I find it amusing and I think there is some opportunity to entertain dead players in a game that is heavy set with dark humor by torturing them just a little.

If you have any alternate death “penalties” I’d love to hear them.