Posts Tagged ‘australia’

Fantasy in an Australiana Setting

Posted: December 2, 2009 in fantasy, writing update
Tags: , , , , ,
0

This is something I have touched on before, that most fantasy stories are set in a medieval European setting – or at least what American writers think is a medieval European setting. Sometimes it can venture into an Asian setting, but you don’t see much beyond that. The world of Mist and Shadows does have elements of that, but it also has other elements, with a wide variety of cultures and time frames and landscapes.

As an Australian I have snuck in some Australian feel to parts of it – animals, landscape, a bit of language, that kind of thing. Nothing too major. But recently a new idea (yes, another) has been playing around in my head.

I guess it all started when reacquainting myself with the Dark Sun setting, ready for the 4E version of it. As part of that – as you do – I checked out its TV Tropes page. One of the pages there was of Death Worlds, which listed Australia as a real world example. Hardly surprising given the sheer amount of vicious, venomous and downright deadly wildlife we have, not to mention the tracks of inhospitable terrain. (Warning, clicking on a TV Tropes link could see you trapped there for hours.)

Another item read at about the same time was the Badass of the Week entry on Australia. This one contains very strong language, but is a hilariously over the top view of Australia.

All this got me thinking – people enjoy the over the top renditions of Australia and the characters of the like of Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee. Why not stick it all in a fantasy setting – the death world nature of its wildlife and terrain, the monstrous prehistoric animals, the mythical animals, the characters and slang. It’d be something rather different.

Then I stumbled upon a couple of post on the Giant in the Pen forums of people adapting elements such as that for RPGs.

And so the idea came about of a story (or group of stories) playing well and truly up to the ocker, death world nature of Australia. I have the plot and am starting work on it, and so far its been fun.

Of course playing Fallout and Borderlands probably is also a reason behind all this.

Advertisement

MMOs Illegal in Australia

Posted: February 5, 2009 in General
Tags: , ,
0

It is currently illegal to sell MMOs in Australia.

No, it is not April first. Nor is this some kind of surrealistic joke.

Read this article for further details.

It was not done deliberately, I wouldn’t think, more a loophole in the classification laws that had gone unnoticed. Online games, such as World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Everquest etc don’t get a classification, and it is illegal to sell games with out a classification.

Will they actually charge someone before the laws get fixed? Unlikely, as ever single shop that sells games in Australia would need to be charged. Mind you, given the massive budget deficit the government is creating to try and spend its way out of the fiscal crisis, they may just need the money.

And does it become illegal to posses one of those games now?

Of course, even when they do fix this loophole, the government is bent on neutering the ‘net anyway with their aims to introduce a mandatory filtering system. The aim is to block undesirable content, which is laudable, but fails on many levels. Largely who decides what is and isn’t allowed and how do you stop the government clamping down on legitimate free speech, plus most specialists are saying it won’t work and will have the added effect of slowing down the speed of ‘net by substantial amounts.

Australia Day

Posted: January 26, 2009 in General
Tags:
0

Happy Australia day to all my fellow Aussies out there, and to those that aren’t, commiserations.

Needless to say, what with meeting family and friends for BBQ, backyard cricket and what not, my day is going to pretty much non existent in terms of writing.