Friday 18 June 2004

Pic of the day: Evening flight. Screenshot from City of Heroes.

Wish I can fly

Years ago, I wrote an entry inspired by this song by Roxette, "Wish I could fly". There are two edges to this song. One is the obvious from the title: I wish I could fly. Don't we all? Even those of us who are afraid of heights. I feel bad climbing a ladder as tall as myself, but I still wish I could fly over the rooftops and trees. I wish I would not fall.

The other edge of the song is more hidden. The singer wishes she could fly for a specific purpose: To follow the mysterious "You".

I wish I could fly, out in the blue,
over this town, following you;
I'd fly over rooftops and great boulevards
to try to find out who you really are...
Who you really are.

***

I don't need any such ulterior motive. I want to fly just because it feels good, and it's a wonderful way to get around. It certainly is habit-forming. I know, because I do it every night now. In City of Heroes, the online superhero game.

During the beta testing, several of my characters had Hover, a power that lets you move slowly through the air. You might also call it levitation, I guess. That's what we called it in Daggerfall. With flight speed enhancers you can move a bit faster, but it is still more like swimming in air. None of these characters ever reached level 14, where you can get Flight. This did not happen until this month, with my tanker Winterlord. Now I can hardly stop.

It's just a game, no matter how good the graphics. Even when I switch to first person perspective, only the sight and sound are in the game. I cannot actually feel my body moving through the air, the wind against my face, the balance nerves adjusting as I throw myself forward and sail on the winds. Perhaps virtual reality will be like that sometime. But right now, it is rather less immersive. Even so, sight is our primary sense, and the game does its best to fool me. And of course, I do my best to fool myself as well.

So yes, I fly around everywhere. Well, outdoors. It is too fast for indoors use, I bump into things or people. But I fly low over the streets, just above the top of the cars as I pass them. If I need to travel longer distances, I fly higher, taking shortcuts over rooftops. Because that's the kind of guy I am, in my dreams.

But you still don't need to fly to follow me, if you want to know who I really am. For the trail is still clearly laid out in these pages.