Dragon Age: Redemption

This past Tuesday (02/15/11) was announced that Felicia Day, writer and protagonist of the successful web show The Guild, will be starring on the new web series called Dragon Age: Redemption. It is based on the Dragon Age universe from the BioWare video game.

The series is scheduled to premiere some time this Summer 2011. The "Dragon Age: Redemption" plot is set in the same time period as BioWare's Dragon Age II and follows Tallis, an Elven assassin hired by the Qunari to capture a rogue mage. If she fails this mission she risks having her freedom taken away. The elf realizes that she cannot do this by herself thus she enlists other companions who are not always aligned in beliefs and goals, but who ultimately band together to defeat their foe in an attempt to restore peace and balance.

Felicia Day comments on Tallis: "Tallis is headstrong, she fights dirty, and she has a really sarcastic sense of humor. I wanted to bring a modern sensibility to a fantasy character in a fantasy world."

“I’m a huge Dragon Age fan, and I have been looking for a follow up project to The Guild for quite some time,” said Day. “I was thrilled when the opportunity to work with BioWare materialized. Dragon Age: Redemption allows me to tell a fantasy story in a new way, using a universe I really love.” (Of course she'd say this... she wants a cool job... and I don't frown upon it).

The series was filmed near Los Angeles this past January. With Peter Winther as director (previous associate producer in Stargate and Independence Day), and John Bartley as cinematographer (who worked on Lost) this is looking to be a pretty good project that might set a new standard for transforming video games into good live action movies.

 On top of starring on the series Felicia Day also wrote the script and participated as co-produced. She said that she was well aware that video games don't normally translate well to live action, so she had tried to make Redemption as faithful as possible by getting involved as much as she could in the project. "I put every single effort into making this something that gamers will be proud of."




This is obviously a marketing move and a possible opportunity expansion for Dragon Age II. This project is not meant to appeal to new audiences or the mass market; instead BioWare seems more interested in reinforcing the connection between fans and this franchise. The fact they chose Felicia Day to star on the series clearly states that BioWare wishes to stay in the hardcore gaming community. In my opinion, the web series announcement is just a way for them to make a statement about the confidence they have on this franchise. They wish to provide fans with a good game and, if desired by the public, a good quality live action series based on the video game. I think this project is a great move by the company and a possible great step forward on the current translation of video games into movies.


Jimmy Fallon's Interview on 02/16/11



Dragon Age: Redemption Teaser



Sources:
http://dragonage.bioware.com/da2/feliciaday
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2011-02-15-felicia15_ST_N.htm
http://feliciaday.com/blog/dragon-age-redemption

Job problem in the US

I decided to make my first piece of "intellectual" blog....
I know there is plenty of problems with unemployment, job security, and job quality. It is evident that the government wants to do something, but doesn't always make the right choices.... (look at the past bailout of companies and future plans with energy jobs).

I have two great friends that have been without a job here in Florida for over 2 years. Both of them are extremely smart and dedicated to the things they do (even if they do not want to do them). Neither of them is a "Professional," but I know they definitely work and create results as if they were. However, their problem is not exactly that they are not academically recognized or their past job experience; instead it is that finding job listings is simply too convoluted.

I am sure you've heard of careerbuilder.com, monster.com, usajobs.gov, indeed.com, craiglist.com, etc.... and a lot of companies use their own "career" or "jobs" section on their website to post jobs in their company.
However most of these sites are not interconnected; this is a no brainier for me:

Why not just have a massive database including EVERY JOB POSTING in every website out there?
A database of this type would severely diminish the amount of time one has to dedicate to job searching and with the right engines for filtering and searching one could narrow down or stay as broad as desired. It would also allow for the creation of statistical numbers indicating rates on job creation, job types trends, population preference, job demand vs supply, etc (which have endless uses). It could also make it easy for all types of companies to market their job openings and target specific audiences by exploiting all the different filters.
Yes, this database would provide with a enormous amount of applicants for each job; however, improving techniques for for narrowing down candidates is another subject because using the same techniques applied today would not disrupt the interconnected database application.


Now, I know that some websites attempt to do this and achieve it with some degree of effectiveness. I will take Indeed.com for instance. Indeed.com grabs listings from several websites and posts them and links back to the originating website. This is the right idea, but this list tends to be repetitive (because it shows one listing for each website where it is found) and inconsistent.
What we need is a standardized system of posting; the government would be the right institution to impose this restrictions on all companies (I am not saying to require too many in depth things, only the minimum to be able to use as statistics, for example: part-time, pay, type of job [clerical, bar tending], city, etc).

I think the biggest problem with this idea is how it could be enforced by the government in a concrete and coherent legal manner. I have not thought of a way, yet, for the government to impose restrictions or grant incentives in the specific sense, but those could be developed and fixed over time. If anyone has specific ideas I will edit them into this post if you allow me (kinda like a group paper...?).

The other issue that could emerge from this governmental intervention is how it would disrupt the work that all of these website are doing; however, I think that those websites would benefit severely if they implement the requirements the government sets up from the incentives that could be offered and by offering "extra features" that are not offered on other websites, which would warrant payment; but would still be fed into the massive database.

Please let me know what you think of this idea. I will gratefully accept criticism, support and everything else.

If you want the concrete manner in which the database would work without severely straining human resources departments on every company. I will mention it on another post or maybe annex it to this one.

Thanks for reading!