A week-long virtual battle tournament, held every year, the last week of February, with loads of different genres, the highlights of which are broadcast every night on TV in the week running up to the festival. Then, the two winners of the tourney get to fight it out, in Kandor City, using light-and-sound only full-sized giant monsters, such as Godzilla vs. Mothra. A different pairing of giant monsters every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju
For extra kudos, SfX people get to compete in generating the real-time collateral damage, as holographics (probably only AIs would be fast enough to pull this off, though humans aren't excluded). This might have people watching from now-invisible 'demolished' buildings, as the giant monsters continue to rampage through the city.
This is about RPG-ing as spectacle, the Fen equivalent of "Big Brother" if you want to be tacky. You have to prove you're really good before you get on the Big Stage.
There is 'live' showing of the VR tourney on an outdoors big screen, in the equivalent of Times Square NY, in the week before the Big Fight.
On a more human scale, there are staged fights between people costumed as super heroes and as monsters (but no human vs. human fights, as there must be a 'beast' involved). Sometimes the hero wins, sometimes the beast. There are also a far smaller number of (equally staged) fights between heroic beasts and villainous humans. Some fights use puppets, some traditional theatre, some are humans in suits doing slow motion action.
This is supposed to be human level, so technology is restricted to making the suits look better, or maybe the odd enhanced leap - no speed drive flying, holographic opponents, micro bot swarms, or anything that fancy. The only martial arts done is supposed to be cinematic.
It is hoped that one year Tokyo will offer to let a "Champion of Champions" giant holo battle be run there. The cynical suggest that there is guaranteed to be a problem involving Tokyo Tower.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiju
For extra kudos, SfX people get to compete in generating the real-time collateral damage, as holographics (probably only AIs would be fast enough to pull this off, though humans aren't excluded). This might have people watching from now-invisible 'demolished' buildings, as the giant monsters continue to rampage through the city.
This is about RPG-ing as spectacle, the Fen equivalent of "Big Brother" if you want to be tacky. You have to prove you're really good before you get on the Big Stage.
There is 'live' showing of the VR tourney on an outdoors big screen, in the equivalent of Times Square NY, in the week before the Big Fight.
On a more human scale, there are staged fights between people costumed as super heroes and as monsters (but no human vs. human fights, as there must be a 'beast' involved). Sometimes the hero wins, sometimes the beast. There are also a far smaller number of (equally staged) fights between heroic beasts and villainous humans. Some fights use puppets, some traditional theatre, some are humans in suits doing slow motion action.
This is supposed to be human level, so technology is restricted to making the suits look better, or maybe the odd enhanced leap - no speed drive flying, holographic opponents, micro bot swarms, or anything that fancy. The only martial arts done is supposed to be cinematic.
It is hoped that one year Tokyo will offer to let a "Champion of Champions" giant holo battle be run there. The cynical suggest that there is guaranteed to be a problem involving Tokyo Tower.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind