The napkin analogy

I believe in balance. Not to mistake with total equilibrium, an absence of all emotion and not in the sense of mellow or mediocre – but in the sense that the world needs variety and different forces pulling into different directions at all time, so the bowl won’t topple over. The older I get, I believe in such balance and freedom for myself and my personal life, too. It’s difficult to accept and yet a relief at times, as paradoxical as that sounds. Darkness and light.

I believe in strong opinions, not to mistake for extreme opinions. I don’t believe in extremes, although when it comes to some political questions I don’t believe in the middle, either. But then, the middle means something else there altogether.

Strong opinions, different opinions are a good thing. They don’t make life easier or decisions necessarily swifter, but they make things a great deal better. For one thing, they make for interesting discussions where an open ear is assumed. More informed and thoughtful decisions. Most importantly, they maintain balance. What a scary thing would it be if we were all the same, always and in every aspect; if too large a group of people in a society were in complete and utter agreement on all the important concerns. What would ever save us from radical extremism, if we never disagreed?

So this is the end,” Tanis said. “Good has triumphed.”
“Good? Triumph?” Fizban repeated, turning to stare at the half-elf shrewdly. “Not so, Half-Elven. The balance is restored. The evil dragons will not be banished. They remain here, as do the good dragons. Once again the pendulum swings freely.”
“All this suffering, just for that?” Laurana asked, coming to stand beside Tanis. “Why shouldn’t good win, drive the darkness away forever?”
“Haven’t you learned anything, young lady?” Fizban scolded, shaking a bony finger at her. “There was a time when good held sway. Do you know when that was? Right before the Cataclysm!” [Dragons of Spring Dawning; M. Weis & T. Hickman]

The napkin analogy – A fond memory

When I was still teaching teenage 10th-graders whom today’s society calls the “under-privileged”, I tried to include analogies and graphic or figurative examples as often as I could when attempting to illustrate a more complex matter. I’m a very visual person myself and I believe in the lasting effect of using several channels at once for education (as many senses as possible). It’s frankly also a lot more fun. So, on the subject of political extremism, when discussing contemporary politics in class together one day, I returned with a stack of red napkins after morning break. The idea had occurred to me while listening to my students discussing extremist riots (which had occurred at the time), the legitimacy of such acts on behalf of values and political viewpoints, the whole “left versus right” debate and who’s worse and why. Uh-oh.

I could just have talked about how extremism is always cruel, no matter coming from what direction. That it’s destructive and wrong and comes in fact down to the exact same thing, left or right, because it leaves no room for anything or anyone else. That it is tyranny and tolerates none other, the opposite of balance and freedom of choice. Oh, I believe in social(ist) values a great deal more than I believe in free markets and lower taxes (*cough*); but I do not believe in burning containers and smashed windows, no matter who’s throwing the stones. I don’t want that – I don’t want extremism. 

To simplify just that, how opposite extremes boil down to the same and become a totalitarian system – that’s right, the napkins! I had cut them a little in order to make for the shape I wanted, basically an arrow shape pointing in two directions. I gave one to each student with the explicit request to wait for further instructions (skip this and the time to penis is on you faster than you could ever dream). It was a collective exercise in the following easy steps, accompanied a few simple questions for my audience.

 /enter wise voice….

Me: “So, hold the napkin horizontally between both hands. What do we have here? Basically a pole at each end of the napkin, completely and utterly opposed, out there at the very edge of each side. Right? Great!”

“Now, fold the napkin right through the middle. Where lie the opposite ends now?”

Them: “At exactly the same spot.”
Me: “What happened to the middle?”
Them: “It’s been folded / It’s gone.”

Me: “Now, if you look at that new shape holding it up in one hand, where is its one end?”

Them: “It’s at the top.”
Me: “Where is everything else?”
Them: “Below it.”
-pause-
Them: “Ahhh..”

That’s when some eyes grew larger as insight grew within them. That’s where I got to nod with a satisfactory smile, that province of the insufferable and teaching. Sometimes a nutshell is all you need to make it stick. And if not, well then it was good manual exercise.

This article is dedicated to yesterday’s topic. And also, to recent blog discussions, to strong opinions demanding to be heard and to those who are able to listen.

Should Blizzard take a stand against killer game labels?

You know, I swore to myself never to write this post. This post on the boundless stupidity and ignorance of the media when it comes to video games and their supposed effect on 0.0000000….etc……..1% of all mankind. The common populist and propagandist strategy to blame anything for a society’s failure, just so the really hard questions must never be asked.

I swore never to sink so low as to even deem claims such as these with a reaction.

I have been known to make exceptions.

If you’re currently living in Europe (I don’t know how closely the US media follow the happenings in “teh old world”), there has been no way around reading and hearing about the recent, unimaginable tragedy that has befallen in Norway this last Friday, June 22nd. It is on every news channel all around the clock, in every regional newspaper and will be, I imagine, for a while to come. Understandably so, even though a cynic might add that more people die by violent crime on this planet every single day – people with no name and no face ever remembered in the news. But we won’t dwell on that here and it’s not really the point.

There’s no way to avoid the sad news and sadly, no way to escape the media of which the useless and ruthless majority is presently flocking to Oslo’s court like carrion birds, pressing for a picture or statement from one so unworthy of any further public spotlight. From the very beginning, they speculated, they published gross half-truths and adjusted them later (funny enough journalism knows no real accountability for spreading wrong facts). Worse: like a broken record they promptly recited the same old songs.

I shouldn’t be annoyed. I am certainly not surprised. What did surprise me in fact was a player’s post on WoW’s official, German boards* that I chanced on accidentally. After expressing his outrage about multiple news stations actually bringing up World of Warcraft as “one of the killer games” (along Call of Duty) which the psycho-shooter frequently played in his freetime, he left the following comment under point 1):

1. Die Bezeichnung “Killerspiel” wäre mal ein Fall für die Rechtsabteilung von Blizzard.

[English Translation:] 1. The term “killer game” would be a job for Blizzard’s legal department.

I have to say, I agree with him. Funny enough, many WoW players in that thread didn’t. Well, I’m fed up with WoW being called a “killer game” in the media. It’s ridiculous. Not just because WoW is actually heavily NPC-centric; it’s about freaking GNOMES and ELVES from pink fairy-tale lands fighting evil creatures in dungeons together. And yeah, you kill a lot of mobs all the time. You also pick a lot of flowers all the time, travel the world, spend hours auctioning shoes and dresses. There’s some PvP and the player is actually a powerful god-like figure, like for most games – but what serious person calls a fantasy MMO like this a violent killer game? What happened to online role-playing game?

Let’s forget of course that even if WoW actually was an FPS like CoD, it wouldn’t change a thing; in terms of culpability, intelligent people simply do not explain one individual’s readiness to brutally execute (and bomb) 76 people in real life with a love for popular video games. Really, my qualm is not with this (this goes without saying) for once – but: semantics. World of Warcraft, the killer game. Out of curiosity, what gave it away? “Warcraft”? So this is how far journalistic research reaches in the age of the internet.

I wonder: do Blizzard or other developers ever get touched by news such as this? They can afford to shrug it off with nonchalance, but I’d be vexed by this sort of continuous negative propaganda and false labels. And while I don’t know what the legal situation is in the USA, they’d be in their symbolic right (at least) to demand rectification for the defamation and stark misnaming of their product (as Activision would be for CoD’s case, also since the label “killer game” is not actually a genre, but a media slur). But who is eager to oppose the mass media, how would it be worth the effort? Should game developers in general react to such news, at least by commenting – or should they keep ignoring the underlying accusations? What’s your opinion?

I can’t decide what annoys me more; the shallow stereotypes or the constant slander against an entire genre I happen to love. A genre so full of beauty and wonder as fantasy MMOs, granting millions of player’s worldwide daily escape, a few hours of simple, harmless entertainment in the evening.

And they wonder why some people prefer online games to the real world. Oh, the irony.

*****

For the record

This is in no way an attempt to dismiss or trivialize any part of the horror that took place in Norway. I’m not comparing wrongs here – but wrong is wrong. And a much bigger wrong doesn’t cancel out smaller wrongs. It’s wrong not to speak up on this, like I have seen some gamers suggest in forums lest it not distract from the actual event. I think it is exactly the right time to speak up against it. I think we must always speak up against it.

Every time a news station, a daily paper or a radio channel mentions video games in one sentence with mass murders, it concerns every single player out there and establishes an ever-so-delicate bond between individuals that have absolutely nothing in common. Every time they so much as hint at video games when such a human tragedy occurs somewhere, they plant a subtle seed in the heads of the public audience. And while I can do nothing about this, I will never accept it – not for myself and not on behalf of my fellow MMO players. That allusion is outrageous on a personal level, and detrimental to the social acceptance of online gaming worldwide. It’s hypocritical and suggestive journalism such as this which perpetuates the idea of gamers as social weirdos and outcasts, isolating those further who might already feel alone. I blame sensationalist media for countless acts like this – I blame them a great deal more than MMOs could ever be blamed for any crimes committed. People who live in glass houses.

*Edit: It appears that the topic I referred to on WoW’s boards has been deleted in the meantime.

Wiping expansions off the table

There is one thing I am still waiting for in the world of MMOs. Okay – that is not quite true, there are a good few things I am expecting to see developers change in the future. One particular aspect however, has been gaining ground and speed there lately: namely the removal of the classic expansion model.

If I consider some of the biggest negatives MMO developers and players currently suffer from, it’s the ever-increasing pressure to deliver content fast vs. beating it, the extreme between players with not enough time to experience new content  and waves of un-subscribers towards the second half of an expansion-cycle. We all know at least some of these feelings: the race right after an expansion or major content patch hits. Then, the inevitable monotony and burnout hitting raid guilds and players at later stages, the “been there done it all”, driving some into creating yet another alt and others into canceling their sub altogether, waiting on the next installment.

And when you think about that, you realize that it’s quite an unnatural flow of things: a disturbance to the consistent and long-term enjoyment of a game. The “content peaks” delivered by traditional expansions create highly negative side effects, not just for the player base but the developers. So, why keep clinging to this model?

How extremes destroy stability

My main grief with expansions is their very situational concentration of a truckload of new content on one arbitrary and artificial moment in time – funny enough called the “release”. Players will wait 1-2 years for that monumental chunk of new content to arrive, all its ground-breaking changes and additions to the game delivered in one, fatal strike. The wait time drags on and gets tedious, the expectations are high. Some players cope by rolling alts or going on preparation sprees, others fall deep into “player depression” and “identity crisis”, leaving their guilds, canceling their subs.

The change of emotion that finally follows on arrival is extreme: players go from utter boredom to an almost hysterical rush to take in as much of the long-desired content as possible. Between those two points in time, we have a gradually plunging curve, only ever lifted by a major content patch or two (if such exist). Make no mistake though: the first quarter into a new expansion is peak time. Things go steadily downhill from there, on an individual level as much as overall sub numbers. Every time, every year, the same story like a groundhog day –

Now let’s assume developers decided to get rid of these opposite poles entirely: let’s assume that instead of featuring virtual coitus, erm release, every 1-2 years (few content patches included), they would rather aim to create a more natural and continuous flow of events and change by releasing regular patches on a 2-weeks base. Every other week, something in your world would change, get added or removed. It might be small things like a flood destroying parts of a map. It might be big events like a new quest hub being installed or a new dungeon. The frequent patching would allow developers to create an atmosphere of a living, breathing story where things happen constantly and where the environment (both NPC and PC) reacts accordingly, more like to our real world. There is never the one, big traumatic change but a dynamic world that is being re-shaped all the time, like a book with endless chapters.

How exciting would that be! To log in every other Wednesday, knowing that something has happened somewhere in your world! Maybe even uncommented in patchnotes at times. Sometimes big, sometimes small. Sometimes an isolated event, sometimes an ongoing number of chapters. The world would feel more alive and relaxed because change happens gradually. The game won’t rush ahead of you, leaving you behind. And it won’t just stop at some point, leaving you longing for more –

Not enough, along with this change in game flow, a long list of negative effects would shrink considerably or fall away entirely. Things that used to unsettle and spoil your fun in the game:

  • Begone player burnout during the second half of expansions
  • Begone (raid) guilds struggling to keep going because players despair or leave
  • Begone un-subscribing and re-subscribing once things are looking up
  • Begone social break-ups because friends frequently leave and return
  • Begone “content rush” right after the big fat expansion hits
  • Begone time pressure for raid guilds fearing the next major patch striking
  • Begone missing out on big loads of content
  • Begone long wait times to experience something new
  • Begone radical changes to economy and gear/item values
  • Begone big jumps and breaks in lore and world

I remember how underwhelming player reception was in places for WoW’s Shattering in 4.0.3.; pretty much the entire world as we knew it got revamped in a swift strike, and yet there was little orchestration or preparation beforehand. Few earthquakes aside, it was certainly no thrill. Then, we did not get to be present when it happened, either. We got to log back later, presented with a grand Fait accompli that didn’t make us feel like a part of the world. Expansions often feature drastic and overwhelming changes and additions like that which simply feel un-immersive. Getting to read huge walls of lore later on is not the same as experiencing a process.

I want to feel part of the world I play in. I want to be included in a continuous and ever growing story. I want change happening all the time, not every 1-2 years in traumatic leaps. I want stable and lasting fun, not a curve that goes from player fatigue and long wait times to over-excitement, before tumbling back down into the valley of tears. I don’t want to regularly un-subscribe from the MMO I am playing because it’s delivering content in situational peaks. Surely, developers would wish for that too?

Why don’t they do it already?

If you consider Blizzard’s ongoing (failing *cough*) effort to create a game that keeps a tight, exciting leash on its player base through an unebbing flow of fast rewards and achievements, you could think breaking the “peak-time” expansion model would follow the same strategy; after all, what better way of keeping things fresh and interesting than releasing new bits of content every other week?

Is it a marketing thing? Are expansion modules so crucial a selling-point for recruiting new customers? Surely, it can’t be the retail factor – it would have the smallest part in overall profits generated via subs, virtual goods and merchandise. So, attracting potential new customers with announcing your next big hit, I can see that as a factor. As far as I know, Blizzard added a substantial amount of new subscribers with each of their expansion releases, heavily marketing for “The Burning Crusade” or “Wrath of the Lich King”. I wonder though: how many effective customers have they lost since Cataclysm’s launch – does the strategy really work forever? And how much sub time do they lose every year because players unsubscribe regularly? It would be interesting to compare the potential losses and gains here.

It would be interesting too, to hear a developers point of view concerning the planning, administrative and actual design efforts (and deadline pressure) that go before a full-scale expansion. Have them compare the effectiveness of such an undertaking to a large number of mini-patches allowing them to break down change and innovation, focusing on one chapter at a time. Somehow I feel that from a pure design’s point of view, it would be more controlled and rewarding to go with the second option. Safer in terms of devastating bugs and far-reaching miscalculations, too. I am of course entirely speculative here and as usual happy to be educated otherwise!

I am no design or marketing and investment specialist; I would still claim however, that a content delivery model creating the more lasting effect, the stable fun and entertainment and the more dynamic and immersive flow of content for a player base, bests a system full of highs, lows and break-ups. That is from my humble point of view – from me, the paying customer. Somehow I have the feeling I am not alone.

So, who will step forward and show us how it’s done already? I am waiting!

P.S. I love charts, don’t you? I have actually used them in the one, proper way in this article – serving and exemplifying my personal message and meaning, rather than basing on existing numbers. It’s called journalistic freedom!

Tunes of Magic – I

For months and months I’ve wanted to publish an article on MMO soundtrack, pretty much ever since opening this blog. Somehow, this has proven to be a most difficult endeavor: whenever chancing on another blogger dedicating time to this beloved subject, I was reminded of that painfully pending topic in my inbox that I just couldn’t seem to finish. The truth is, I am such a huge sucker for themes and game OSTs that making a final choice of the countless songs I have cherished in my life just proves too great a challenge. I fail.

So, I’ve given up trying. I will never be able to link all the goodies or even my “ultimate cream of the crop” to you – things would get out of hand and the heavy wall of links would ultimately wear you down, undermining my entire intention (you know, candy overkill). Instead, I will consider this the first post of more to come, allowing me to return to the topic whenever that particular mood strikes. Wahey.

How I came to love game soundtrack

A while ago, I explained how I consider video games works of art. Where some just see playable content and entertainment, I see fantastic, inspiring settings and compositions for the finer senses; the design and aesthetic, the artwork and music that breathe life into our virtual worlds. Almost 2 years before WoW launched, I was among those obsessing over every little snippet of new concept art and sneak peek, things just looked that fantastic. And had they not – had Blizzard not always been so outstanding when it came to design, trailers and the full package, I might never have played WoW in the first place. Art is not everything to an MMO’s success; but I’m not the kind of player that can overlook plain ugly. If it’s offending to the eye or if the soundtrack is a careless, loveless excuse for music (or worse: missing) a game is off to a very rocky start with me. I want everything that way.

I’ve collected concept and artbooks, along with game (and some movie) OSTs for many years. I think my first tracks were SNES midis from this place and if Chrono Trigger or Castlevania mean anything to you, you know the kind of music I was particularly interested in. Long ago, Squaresoft was on console what Blizzard in many ways became on PC for me: a benchmark. An incredible smithy of musical and visual goodness (besides delivering awesome stories and near spotless technical realisation). My private RPG sound library ranges up to around 1998. After that, I gradually left the scene and got hooked to PC RPGs and online games.

Taking a pick

In order to acquire new MMO soundtrack, I usually keep my eyes open for collector’s editions. Youtube has also become a great source for me to discover music I might otherwise never come to know, because I clearly can’t play or even try out every MMO in existence. I am still also collecting tunes from the odd console RPG (there ain’t that many these days) or classic PC game which is why I have included one in my list of picks for you, too.

I have thought about breaking things down into typological sub-sections, like “battle themes”, “ambiance”, “sad themes” and so forth, but then I decided to pick 6 random favorites for a start that I currently listen to and that might not been so well-known as others. Were you to ask me about my personal preferences in general, I’d have to say that my tastes are quite diverse, but there’s definitely a red thread for what delights me the most:

  • When I’m in the right mood, I enjoy very epic, bombastic tunes of grandeur and a bit of pathos. Not too much pathos mind, and certainly not all the time. If it sounds like another Hans Zimmer spin-off, it’s not for me.
  • I love pretty much any spooky, creepy or fairy tale-esque tune you can think of. Needles to say Danny Elfman is my hero here.
  • I love sad, melancholic and quiet tunes that usually blend into the background. The sort of song that fits your mood perfectly some days, but is too painful to listen to on others.
  • I love merry, bouncy tunes that make me want to grab a walking stick in Bilbo Baggins fashion. It’s a rare kind of music that makes you feel like sailing out to distant adventure.

For any type of music, I appreciate tracks that change often and are more like the arrangements you find in classic music or opera, rather than repetitive “verse and chorus”-patterns. I like songs to tell an evolving story (which is also why Bohemian Rhapsody will always remain the greatest “pop song” ever written!). Basil Poledouris was hands down the greatest (fantasy) film composer of all times for this reason.

If you ever come across a great tune fitting any of these descriptions, think of me and send me a note! I would LOVE to hear about it! And now finally, I will shut up and hope you enjoy my picks! =)

Allods Online – Main Theme
My first choice is brought to you by Allods Online which I still consider the most underrated MMO presently out there. So much potential, such bad timing. This track will greet you right at the menu screen and is what I consider a grand, yet interesting and evolving piece. After 0:50 secs latest, you will know what I mean. God, I love this song!

Age of Conan – Memories of Cimmeria
The reason why I spent most of my time in AoC in Cimmeria, that rough and snowy landscape of the north. Riding down Conall’s Valley for the very first time as the sun was just about to set over the mountains, this song crept up on me like a clear, fine rain. The Norwegian singer could not have been cast better with her voice of crystal bells.

World of Warcraft – the Shaping of the World
I could easily dedicate an entire article on the music of WoW, so taking just the one pick is hard. Yet, people always seem to know about “A Call to Arms” or “Legends of Azeroth” for the classic era, not necessarily about this track here which is my personal favorite of the first album. This is goosebump material and encompasses everything WoW ever was for me.

Granado Espada – Main Theme
Also known as “Sword of the New World”, GE is a remarkably unique MMO in many ways, with its Baroque European setting and unorthodox battle system. In terms of music, there is a very unhappy, grotesque mix of beautiful classic piano and horrid techno trance going on. Yet there are several gems to be found here for those who still look for them.

Final Fantasy XI – The Rebublic of Bastok
Tunes like this one are so much what Square games have been about for decades – merry, playful, adventurous and exotic. The uplifting theme of Bastok holds a special place in my heart, having finally arrived in that city with my companions after a long and tedious travel by foot, after countless corpseruns and great laughs on the way. Long live our noob days!

Fable II – Oakvale
As promised, my non-MMO pick. There is nothing I can possibly say about this song that would make it any better. Danny Elfman is not from this world.
I can see Winona Ryder dancing in the snow while listening to this – can you hear it too?

I did it! I chose 6 tracks only!!! *exhale*

And with this, a very happy, bombastic, spooky, ponderous and merry weekend to you all!

But…I wanna be a hero in MMOs!

Wolfshead published an interesting article yesterday in which he questions heroism in current, popular MMOs and criticizes the player base’s need to feel like heroes all the time. And I do see an issue with spoiling your gaming audience very much myself; the overkill of things ultimately undermining all their value.

However, if you were to go as far as to say that the player’s wish for heroism in WoW & Co. was wrong or somehow the wrong thing asked of the wrong genre, a detrimental thing even, I would very much have to disagree with that premise. The wish that drives us to certain books or movies, drives us into playing online games too and it’s neither wrong nor sad wanting to feel like a hero in MMOs. In fact I wouldn’t be playing them if that wasn’t part of the deal.

I want to be a hero if nothing else

In one passage, Wolfshead questions the “by proxy”-effect that attracts “normal people” to the more heroic: those iconic, shiny beings that lead seemingly exciting and perfect lives under a public eye, celebrities of all flavors but also countless fictional characters, protagonists of movies, books, comics or video games. Virtual or not, they represent virtues and qualities we wish we had and for a short moment they lend us a little piece of that imaginary glamour which can be addictive enough to turn a fan into a die-hard groupie, following his idol around the globe for 5 minutes of VIP-pass glory.

People cult has always been big for this reason; if you can’t lead a so-called glamorous life yourself, at least you can watch those that do with envy or admiration. Nevermind that other, less presentable side of the coin – the pressure such people bend under, the non-existent social life, the fake friends, the complete sell-out of privacy, the uppers and downers to keep them steady on their feet. If we can’t be shiny, someone has to be. And it better be so.

I’d like to think that I have a good life, a better life in fact than most, no matter how easily forgotten. The fact that I’m writing this article on my internet-blog, in my free time on my warm bed, is testimony to such blessed privilege. I’m also no person for people cult which I find silly regarding celebrities and disgusting in politics, to name two more popular, public phenomena. Maybe it’s because looks rarely impress me and I never feel particularly inferior to or in awe of anyone on grounds of mere social status, looks or titles. While we’re at it: Royalty is a joke. Thanks for listening!

I’ve always had a soft side for fictional heroes though; those had the power to inspire me beyond all limits, be they from classic novels, hero or fairy tales, sometimes even an RPG. I have confessed before how I carry quotes around in my head and how that adds meaning to life for me at times. Yep, I am that normal a person. And if you liked to measure me, then yes I probably have a boring and “uneventful” life. I sit behind a desk everyday, like millions do, I (struggle to) pay taxes, I feed my (lazy) cats. The weekend is the highlight of my average week and if it includes a BBQ with old friends and a good glass of red, I am happy. If my partner still brings me flowers out of the blue after so many years (or remembers anniversaries *gasp*), I am fucking euphoric.

I don’t slay dragons and I don’t save the princess like the heroes in my stories do. I still do the dishes by hand instead of wiggling a finger. And God knows, I’d make for a lousy adventurer – I wouldn’t get through the first wood without hopelessly getting lost (been there, done that) and I’d be halfway through my provisions by noon. So just sometimes, I wish I was a bit more like my heroes; a little bit more than myself. Sometimes I long for the epic and magical in my everyday life. And you know what: that’s okay. It’s neither sad nor “desperate” – it’s just life. Unpretentious and real, Mr. Thoreau. That doesn’t make it any less of a life, maybe it just makes me honest a person.

…That’s why we love stories and lose ourselves in them, that’s why we get absorbed watching the Lord of the Rings for the 10th time (extended), that’s why we play mighty warriors and dark mages in games: it’s called escapism. Mankind has done it for thousands of years, in furs, on smokey incense, with bone and dice. So yes, I want to be a hero in my MMOs; I don’t want to play accountant and write reports with my pen on planet reality. I want epic skills, I want to be powerful and kick some magic ass with a flaming sword!

If I can’t be a hero in a game I play so utterly, what’s the goddamn point???

The dragon – hero equation

There’s an article I wrote some time ago, early into this blog, that I keep coming back to like a broken record (I apologize at this point). It’s the never ending story of game difficulty level vs. meaning in MMOs, cost vs. reward and how they are opposites that rely strongly on each other to survive in perpetual balance. Hard-won victories last forever – easy rewards mean little no matter how purple they are. There is no adventure, nor real heroism where there are no struggles and challenges to face; your book’s protagonist is hardly a hero if he has no fears and demons to overcome, no dragons to slay.

And this is where me and Wolfshead agree completely: the doom of easy and numerous rewards in this genre we love so much, the loss of depth, adventures and stories because we get fed so much candy we lose all tolerance for downtimes , for exclusive content with high requirements and earning our passage. Along with that, a sort of baffling player self-entitlement, no doubt bred in MMOs like WoW that have overdone it on access, balance and fast rewards.

I don’t think that wanting to be a hero in games has any part in these issues though, I really don’t. In fact, I’d turn the table and say that it’s exactly because of this excess that there can’t be any heroes in today’s WoW (as opposed to there being superheroes everywhere) and that’s what’s leaving so many players feeling slightly unfulfilled – how could they not be in the absence of hard requirements and obstacles to make for such a title? It’s really hard to be a pioneer under such circumstances. And that’s what actually makes me sad and desperate. 

In the end I’d rather be me

We all long to be a hero at times. Maybe we even wonder: if life ever gave us the chance to a moment of lasting pathos, would we be brave enough? In video games and MMOs especially, that are so much about escaping, adventuring and immersion, we get to re-invent ourselves a little and unlike to just reading a story, we get to be interactive. Our real lives might be “average”, but in Azeroth we hurl firebolts at our foes. On our way to work, we cringe at our reflection in the morning mirror, but at night that elvish cloak and sparkling armor sit just tight.

And I know, I might never write that novel that keeps robbing me of my sleep. I might never be able to afford that fairy hut or spooky castle I would call a home. And I might just have to accept one day that neither love nor friendship are as perfect nor epic in this life as they always are in the best of stories, the ones which spoil us so utterly with hopeless ideals early on in our lives. And just maybe that’s a good thing too; because the epic and tragic lie close together and usually come at great cost. Just like heroism comes with high risk and hardship. We are not always ready for what we wish for.

Just maybe, a normal, “uneventful” life is not so bad after all. And being that hobby hero at night – in virtual worlds where death isn’t permanent and dragon’s breath is made of pixels. I like things that way.

What ever happened to a/s/l?

Chatting to one of my still-WoW-playing friends the other night, particularly on the topics occupying me this previous blog-week, he shared a gem of conversation with me that he experienced some time ago on his PVP server; one example so telling it had me choking over a bowl of green curry, not the most pleasant sensation, I might add.

I know gearscore-hysteria is a big deal in WoW by now, and of course not just entirely of the player base’s own making. Yet, this was such a moment of unimagined heights that I begged him to send me the screenshots so I might share. Without further ado, this piece of interactive brilliance –


Wow…wow indeed! I admire anyone witty enough to come up with this/any kind of reply. I’m not sure my reeling mind would have recovered quite as fast.

“GS/GR/GA” – the essential 3 Gs of today’s World of Warcraft? Now you can say about good old IM/chat conduct whatever you like, “a/s/l” was at least somewhat more personal than this! GGG? – Ye gods, I’d rather be AFK!

Good is good enough. Or: a case for pioneering

Yesterday, Hugh over at the MMO Melting Pot summarized a little wildfire that’s currently spreading since WoW’s latest patch: the whole weekly Valor Point cap deal after 4.2. We can probably most agree that Blizzard’s continued effort to undermine the status of raiding in WoW is deplorable – on a more general note though, it was another old friend of mine piquing my interest in some of the debates: the ever-returning topic of gear. To be more precise, the importance of gear as a factor in beating WoW’s encounters.

Gnomeaggedon just had a similar article up, interestingly enough on PVP, yet with the same underlying issue: the fixation some players have with gearscore, item levels or stats in WoW. In WoW of all MMOs, that most flexible and accessible game of them all. Reading how his otherwise no doubt friendly and decent new guildie made a fool out of himself in BG chat, I cringed a little – people still really do this, huh.. Asking for your gearscore before a 5man run? An achievement before inviting you to a lousy pickup raid? Comparing meters? Ragequitting over purples?

Gosh.

Were we ever that young?

I am no stranger to progress drive or perfectionist mindset. I even sympathize a little with WoW players hopelessly lost in compulsive gear-rush-limbo. I used to be like that myself, a long time ago when 40mans were new and raiding was a more elitist club. Back in pink vanilla, everyone believed gear was where it’s all at. To be fair, we had more reasons to believe so too. People sported their shinies around AH bridge in Ironforge and oh, did those epics tell a story! For one thing because not everyone else and his sixth alt’s cousin had them, for another because it took a long time and 39 more people to get you that set. Enchants were few and precious, there was no jewelcrafting, no inscription, no reforging, no endless list of consumables and buffs. You really wanted a decent arrangement of gear and many encounters were rather unforgiving when it came to certain stats or resistances. So, we chased our purples eagerly from Stratholme to Molten Core, from Blackwing Lair to Naxxramas.

Then along came the Burning Crusade and we slowly began to smell the rat. Gear popped up from every corner, at increasing speed. Hardly a second to enjoy a completed set of Tiers, BOOM the next would follow – better, shinier, more purple than your purple! Then, there were suddenly all these craftable epics, some of them just as good or better than raid rewards. Plus cheap, welfare badge epics that would do the job just as well. As if all that wasn’t enough off the attunements went – in the talent and stat buffs came, in the content nerfs towards the end of the first expansion. More gear thrown at you, more gear than you could hope to wear in a hundred years. It was like purple Christmas at the shopping mall. And with the loot choice curve rising steep, another curve began to fall rapidly: the significance of specific items towards progress.

That’s when I finally had enough, somewhere at T6. I had this disturbing image in my mind, of myself as a donkey chasing a pixel carrot that Blizzard kept replacing faster and faster. I felt foolish and ridiculous. Not just that, I spent loads of time grinding epics just so they were a wee bit better than more accessible alternatives. Ridiculous. On our way to Black Temple, it was popular belief that you needed a complete mix of T5 and T6 to beat Illidan. Short time later, we saw Nihilum’s world first killshot with half their squad posing in Karazhan gear and craftables among the odd BT set item. Pardon? You need what? Ridiculous…

I still collected gear sets later on, make no mistake; I love gear from a cosmetic point of view, always have, and a Deputy GM can’t run around in rags. But I had come a far, far way from the rushing, pushing and obsessing over gear being the determining factor for Adrenaline’s progress. Bosses don’t rise and fall over blue gems or 20 more intellect on a trinket. If you think they do, maybe you’re looking for solutions in the wrong place? Especially with the complexity some boss encounters have gained over time in WoW, there are far bigger, more tide-turning challenges for a team than collecting the best possible gear at the highest possible speed. Gear is not performance and it never wins that duel (they make a good team though).

If it makes you feel more secure about your own performance or if you enjoy the maximizing frenzy, that’s one thing and knock yourself out. However, as long as you’re not in the sort of guild that raids for, y’know money or something and just needs to progress as fast as humanly possible, it does not matter if your gearscore is XX10 or XX50 and it won’t ruin a run if you didn’t upgrade medium Tier epic to super Tier epic. You can still be competitive and you can still progress at decent speed.

The min-maxing, the cookie cutting, the lengthy preparations – they are self-imposed. Let’s say it together: self-imposed. We’ve been through this before: Blizzard never forced their playerbase to min-max so extremely, it’s the players who choose to do it and tolerate all sorts of drudgery in return. The thing is, the list of all things you can always “possibly do better” is endless.

Good is good enough

A long while back, Tessy wrote a follow-up post on a not so unlike debate at the time – healers using healing addons (or not). And she nailed easily what was an embarrassing show-off in other places: if it works for you, it works for you. If you’re good with addons, you’re good. If you’re just as good without them, you’re just as good. It’s the outcome that matters and outcome is a collective term for a multitude of aspects that need to coincide. Especially in a team of 10 to 25 people.

Now for argument’s sake, if you really, really wanted to go there; well, then I’d say you’ve got guts for doing stuff with less – less preread strategy, less buffs, less gear, smaller numbers. Assuming that’s what challenges or entertains you. In terms of outcome though, it’s completely beside the point. A little harder, “cooler”, more “oldschool” (or whatever you wanna call it) doesn’t equal better or smarter – it only means you’re doing it differently. We can allow ourselves a bit of “private vanity” sure, as long as we don’t mistake our way for the one way.

Outcome is what counts. The rest is attempts to socially distinguish yourself or get a kick. I’ll admit freely to some ego myself, but I do know it when I see it (it’s bloated that way). I know my inner demons too, I don’t take them too seriously. The times I went overboard with my private perfectionism in WoW were when I wanted to, not because it was required. I didn’t speed race to exalted in Silithus (:trauma:) for that epic mace and offhand because Benediction wasn’t good enough. I did it because too many people had the yellow staff and I was a vain priest with too much time on her hands.

In my lengthy writeup on healing coordination a while back, I put emphazis on not telling other healers how to play their class. As long as they achieved their assignments consistently, I could not care less how they did it. And I hold to that lesson. My perfect raid team is a team where I do not have to adjust or check a single person’s spell rotation, gear or talent choices. You don’t second-guess what’s working. That goose might stop laying golden eggs.

My challenge, your challenge

Progressing through WotLK 25man, we often outgeared content we beat in my guild. I dreaded these kind of kills, such a lacking glory it was to challenge a boss in epics from head to toe when it was manageable with much less. I’m all for being well-prepared and knowing your strategy; but I actually love encounters that force you down on your knees. When your team needs to click like a well-oiled machine, when it’s all about individual performance, knowing your class in and out, situational awareness, reflexes, perfect coordination and communication. Funny enough, that’s usually also when people have more tolerance for each others mistakes than the pro geared and overconfident bunch.

Ain’t no victory like the victory of the underdog, carrying the trophy home, be it in PVE or PVP. It’s those kills we never ever forget. I’d say too, it’s when your team’s true colors show in all their shades, the way you can otherwise never tell. For similar reasons, some players attempt 2-manning content that is meant to be 5-manned. Or show up with 8 instead of 10 peeps. They want to test how much they can achieve, how far they can go together. Test the limits, raise the stakes – not lower them.

And that’s why the VP rush for Firelands strikes me as bizarre: players are supposed to have all that gear now BEFORE they even put foot in a brand new instance? Says who? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

Don’t believe a word they say

I should mention that I don’t exclusively blame WoW’s playerbase for the optimization mania. Blizzard have had their share over the years, implementing features like the armory and designing the game to allow for such an approach. Still, you’re ultimately in control of your choices and I hope you farm 5mans for epics every day because it’s fun, not because you think you need rewards badly that will be outdated come next patch. Time and again Blizzard, the webforums or the blessed people of hearsay have tried to intimidate us by naming benchmarks, required specs or setups, “what you really need” and “what you really cannot do” to beat certain encounters.

You know what: we’ll see about that. In Molten Core, they told us there was NO WAY we could raid without protection specced tanks. We had zero, up to Nefarian. They told us we couldn’t use offspec healers when they were our majority, all our stubborn feral druids healing in resto gear and several shadow priests healing along with their Benedictions up (another proof of how gear mattered a bit more in WoW 1.0.). Next, they told us how we really needed so and so much fire resistance for Ragnaros. Right. Towards the end of vanilla WoW, all the cool kids went straight to AQ40 first, because  “No way you can do Naxx before AQ!” Thank god we were such rebels…we’d never have experienced original Naxxramas 40 otherwise. You can keep your fugly Tier 2.5 to yourself, thank you very much.

Please, do me a favour: go see for yourself. Whatever someone else is telling you, take it with a pinch of salt. Consider too maybe how long the next content patch’s away. Do your best, but don’t let yourself be fooled or intimidated by talk and so-called guidelines. WoW’s not a perfectionist’s game, WoW is designed for a mainstream audience to enjoy. Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re actually at the upper end of that mainstream. Good preparation is cool by all means, “good” preparation. The rest you can make up by other means, either setup/design-given or simply because you can or dare. I’ve gone through 21 years of what I’d like to call successful education and academia with a devil-may-care minimalist attitude and a great deal of Calvin. It works for MMOs too. Don’t feel rushed and don’t feel pressured to go along with whatever’s the latest, hysterical trend on the streets.

Do the wild thing: “TRY ANYWAY”.

Try and see. Talk later. You know, adventuring and stuff. You will never know how far you can go without trying. Be foolhardy, be reckless, be a pioneer.

Be full of spite. 

P.S. In reference to my post title, I should probably give credits to Cynwise’s comment in another article on the matter. Happy following up and remember to keep it together!

Ain’t no shame where there’s fun

Two weeks ago, Stubborn had an interesting article up where he compares the more grindy and reward-driven activities in WoW to gambling addiction. Now, discussions on video game addiction are always very problematic: while some ingame activities might resemble or share aspects of addictive behaviour, there are quite some hefty criteria for truly constituting “addiction” in the pathological sense of an illness. For one thing, its highly negative and disruptive impact on everyday life, to a point where the addiction stands above all other needs and the most basic cares will be neglected. For another, signals such as substance increase and withdrawal symptoms. Just because somebody is crazy about an activity and enjoys doing it a lot, or has a very competitive nature, does not automatically expose him as addict – although, there are no doubt extreme cases of video gaming where all these factors coincide.

However, it’s no secret that MMO design appeals to patterns and behavioural routines of the human subconscious. Some developers speak openly about triggering the collector’s drive of their player base or the “lever-reward” mechanic when designing content. Videogames are manipulative; we all know that. But as long as it’s fun, we’re happy to go along.

Most of the time, anyway.

I remember an old article at PPI, where Larísa pondered the heavy chains of daily quests and how she felt pressured to go through boring routines every time she logged on, when she didn’t actually enjoy them anymore. She was far from alone: many players in MMOs engage in time-consuming and repetitive activities, called the “grind”, which they loathe but will tolerate in order to gain rewards. They spend insane amounts of time forcing themselves to repeat content, reward drive and peer pressure usually winning the upper hand of the struggle. Wikipedia has the following to say about this sort of behaviour:   

Compulsive behavior is behavior which a person does compulsively—in other words, not because they want to behave that way, but because they feel they have to do so.

Personally, I’ve always hated daily quests and rep grinds; I kept them at a minimum if I could, although being in a raid guild simply comes with certain “obligations”. The fact that I didn’t enjoy stuff like gaining exalted with the Sons of Hodir or collecting cooking tokens showed me that I was still relatively sane though. That is not to say that I never entered boring grinds completely out of my own volition: I did, I was running the same instances for months and years after all and a few times I farmed mobs for special rewards that I simply considered too shiny to skip. For most of the time though, I’d only undergo this type of drudgery if I really had to. I was very lazy that way.

It still baffles me how daily and rep grinds have become such an accepted form for gaining rewards in MMOs, while players will consider more varied and orchestrated forms of reward-gain, like attunement chains, a nuisance. I don’t want to start counting the hours and days players spend on cashing in the same quest item at the same daily quest NPC. How is that activity more fun than other so-called “time sinks”?

It can’t be bad if it’s fun

I’ve always been very outspoken against gaming bias and stigma, very pro “play as much as you like” as long as you’re enjoying yourself. And I hold to that. I won’t hide my playtime from anyone and I feel no shame for all the hours spent in front of a TV or PC, adventuring through virtual planes and having some of the greatest laughs ever. There is nothing wrong with having fun – and only you know if that applies or if some things are maybe slightly off balance. But just because you’re doing a lot of the same doesn’t make you a “junkie”. It can’t be a bad thing if you are enjoying yourself.

A good 13 years back, my older brother was what the average person would call a bad gaming addict. He rushed off to get a copy of Ultima Online when many private households didn’t even have a PC with internet yet, logging in every day with a  crappy 30k and later 56k (omg!) modem, blocking our phone line and driving my parents crazy. This was the time when internet access was still horrendously expensive, charging minutes and hours per day before the first subscriptions came out, our monthly phone bill ranging in the area of 1500 Euros for the first few months of his “UO spree”. There was nothing that would keep my brother from playing this game; not the many keyboards and mouses my father removed several times, only to be replaced within the next 24 hours, not the smashed modem on the wall which my brother then cunningly hid inside a book case.

I remember sitting next to him on his bed countless nights, watching him play in silence – trying to spend some time with my sibling, or is physical shell anyway, while his mind was absorbed somewhere in Britannia. I remember finding him asleep, crashed halfway to the way of his bed one morning, I remember the dirty, stained desk with leftover food and cigarette ash. I remember his intricate list of directions for me to log into the game each week and “refresh his towers” while he was off to obligatory military service, terrified to lose his virtual possessions. It was a mad ride but it’s all my brother wanted at the time. I remember him roaring from laughter in front of his PC, chatting with his pals on MirC. The game certainly didn’t make him miserable.

After what was probably a good 3 years of intense Ultima Online gaming and a dark red player killer reputation to go with it, my brother had finally flunked his studies at University. Add an angry girlfriend to go with that, unhappy parents and some considerable debts for an unemployed student of his age to pay them back. And yet, to this day, my brother has the following to say about his UO days: that it was some of the best times he’s had in his life. To this day, there’s not a little regret for having played that MMO – regrets for never graduating sometime surely, but never regrets for playing the way he did.  

…because these things were not directly connected. And he’d admit to that, in a quiet moment sometime over a good glass of wine in the evening, he’d tell you that he had plenty of good reasons to play as much as he did at the time.The game was there when he needed an excuse, a trigger to smash what needed smashing sooner or later. And yes, he did play too much; but he would never have finished those studies anyway. It was not for him, and I think by now he knows that too. The game was just there at a time when he needed to escape. Escape the expectations of adult life maybe, his girlfriend’s, his parents’. The game was fun and fun became an outlet. A place to rest, even if a mere onlooker could never understand and would no doubt blame his gaming addiction for everything.

My brother enjoyed playing as much as he did. It wasn’t great on all accounts, but neither was the game the cause of his deeper issues. Excessive gaming is at worst a symptom of an underlying issue and sometimes it can help a person and act as a catalyst. Maybe it has the power to let someone re-invent himself in a way he otherwise never could. Maybe it gives somebody a break, a place where he can be himself without the physical or mental ties that usually bind him. Maybe it can offer acceptance and affirmation to a hungry soul. Maybe it simply has the power to let a lonely heart find a place to chat and laugh with people of no further consequence.

Maybe it grants someone an escape in a time of deep distress; and maybe it has the power to let a person heal through difficult times before rising the stronger for it. Life is about breaks and sometimes it’s about phases of stasis or even paralysis. We are so used to rushing on blindly and pushing forward that we feel guilty to take timeouts for ourselves. Everyone is telling us to be productive, constructive, decisive. Yet, it is exactly during times of standing still and sinking deep where life has a chance to reshape and re-orientate, where we have a chance to listen more closely. It’s not always the best of feelings; waiting, standing in that empty white room between two doors before life turns the next page. For myself though, I am learning to embrace empty spaces. There is something unique and comforting about a white page, about not knowing where the road will lead.

Escape can be a way to return, just like sleep can be a way to recharge your batteries. I’m not sure the same should be said of all forms of escapism, such as substance addiction – for gaming however, I hold a torch for those that either play a lot for pure enjoyment or for catching their breath. Or both. Maybe both most of the time.

What I wish for you

To close, I feel I am left with two humble wishes –

I wish for players to enjoy their online adventures and enjoy them plenty.
I wish for players to be less ashamed of playing games.

Friday link love

It’s Friday, w00t! Hardly ever does stating the obvious make me this happy. It’s been a very interesting week for me blogging-wise, so I wanna thank all of you who added their own takes on the alt debate. I feel I gained many insights and once again the confirmation that with WoW being the “genre freak” that it is, with a much wider audience than just the classic MMORPG audience, questions like these become generally more complex. Even on smaller scale, there are already differences between a very raid-centric focus or other just as valid playstyles. I still think alts are a problematic feature; at the end of the day though, I hope you enjoy whatever you do because that’s what really matters.

I haven’t allowed myself to ramble freely in a while, although that is not to say I’m always coherent with my thoughts (I hear coherence is overrated, anyway). So, in the light of the upcoming weekend, I’ll be blissfully incoherent and throw random links at you for no specific purpose.

This week the US decided that violent video games are good for kids, or good enough anyway, and everyone in Europe is talking about it now too – what does it mean for us, what should we do, oh noes we’re all going to die, et cetera. Games don’t create violence. Here’s the proof.

Besides that, my literary God met up with my late-night God this last Sunday, so imagine my excitement. If you have no idea who these two people are, you should really get your act together. Fast. While we’re talking youtube: do you actually recognize Peter Jackson in this video? I had to check twice, scary! And I really can’t wait for the Hobbit.

Ah yeah, WoW launched a new content patch. I almost forgot. Hurry up and do your dailies grind so you can unlock your reward NPCs asap! Hurry hurry, you don’t wanna be left behind now, do you? Harder, better, faster, stronger. And what then? Who knows. Comme on fait son lit on se couche. I hope those hoops come in different colors, at least.

New bloggers on the block

I’d like to mention a few relatively new bloggers that I’ve only recently come across in the blogosphere. A few have been around longer than others which shows that some link love is overdue. In the spirit of oldschool MMO cooperation, remember your first blogging days and weeks and pay them a visit sometime –

  • Vudu, the “blog-less blogger”, writes commentaries on other MMO blog articles over at MMO Syndicate. He has fixed his comment box now, so you can start visiting. That’s Final Fantasy’s Zak in the header, by the way.
  • Straw Fellow is a relatively new blogger who has joined the circle of general MMO critics and analysts in the blogosphere. I have a weakness for scarecrows, so he’s off to a good start.
  • The Game Preacher has set out with an intriguing blog focus. He is “…here to help you develop your team. Whether you call it a clan, guild, or electronic sports team”. True to his name, his articles are comprehensive and substantial, so you want to take your time reading them through.
  • Telwyn from Gamingsf is an MMO player of variety who writes about MMOs in general as much as his adventures in Azeroth, the Planes of Telara, Norrath and more. I really like his blog template.
  • Max is a frequent commenter on MMO design blogs and has recently set up a place of his own under a most original name. To use his words, a blog about “MMO design snippets from the safety of an armchair”. With that, he joins our ever-increasing corner of critics and also, second language writers which is something to encourage.

/Wave to all of you and happy blogging. And of course, a fantastic weekend to everybody!

The more alts, the more burnout

To pick up where I left the trail in my last post: Alts are pure evil.

No really, playing alts is a fascinating subject. Not just on a personal level, but in the greater scheme of things and how they affect MMOs. While I was rather outright about all the issues I perceive with alt-play yesterday, and the general misconception that playing alts is performance therapy, I do understand why people love to play different classes just like I agree it can be beneficial. I can see why trying out a new class is fun and makes for a more informed decision for a main. I do this myself when I start a game. However, personally I’d prefer the approach Final Fantasy XI had there: one character can learn and “equip” any given combination of classes available. That way your main character stays, but learns new things if you so choose.

I understand too, why players enjoy to re-visit content. I think it’s rather problematic if designers promote the feature in absence of actual, new content, but if you’re generally somebody who loves questing, exploring and traveling, leveling up a new class gives you a reason to do so and discover new things on the way. A new class and potentially new race is a new perspective. Shintar is one blogger who frequently let’s us in on her experiences while re-visiting lower content and zones in WoW. They’re fun reads that I enjoy and appreciate from that particular perspective.

Yet, I still wonder: do alts really prolong long-term player enjoyment or do they not rather make for a worse burnout?

Burnout, boredom or nothing to do?

“….but when and why did we get the idea that we must have max-level, max-profession, max-gear alts? That’s not an alt, that’s a second main! Is one main not good enough? Maybe we need more fun and more to do on our mains, rather than spamming alts and then getting sick of repeating quests.”

So, when did we get this idea? I’m not sure I ever played a game where alternative characters mattered more than in World of Warcraft. Some MMOs actually require you to buy a new account, others will restrict the level of benefit and interaction possible between your characters. They don’t want a single player to have that amount of self-sufficiency; to unhinge the intended speed of play or undermine social mechanisms and interaction in favor of more freedom, flexibility and soloability.

I’ve known a few extreme examples of players that considered leveling and gearing up a character the main purpose in WoW. They did so at ridiculous speed until they had all 10 classes (I got it right this time Shintar!) fully equipped at 85. After which there was “nothing more to do” so they quit the game. Or a guildmate who was so eager for the new expansion that he did not only raid Ulduar on his main 3 times a week, but on alts during offnights too. Something we’ve always watched with concern in our raid guild because we anticipated (and experienced) just how fast such players burn and bore out on content that you intend to raid for at least the next 6 months. We did even intentionally cut back on alt-runs at expansion starts for this precise reason.

I don’t believe boredom springs from the same things for everybody. Some players would undoubtedly quit sooner if there were no alts. Others spoil what’s actually there for themselves by altoholism and short-term thinking. I don’t blame anyone for either decision, but I think in terms of content development, it’s poor design that needs people to play multiple chars all over in order to keep things interesting. The crux is probably the entire idea behind expansions and how content is usually delivered in peaks, rather than a more natural flow. I am still waiting for an MMO where the developers approach this issue better.

Another problem with the availability of alts is that they’re too convenient a solution – in a way they prevent players from looking for further content and entertainment after they feel “finished” on their main. How does this notion even go together with a character that’s supposed to be your alter ego in an ongoing story and simulate world? It doesn’t; unless you think of the classic game avatar. So, let’s assume for a moment that there were no alts available in WoW: what would you do with your “excess time'”? Would you rather –

a) Turn off the game and do something else?
b) Look for other ways to play your main?

Would people maybe contribute more to the world and community by sticking to their main because they are forced to? Would it not drive them to become more innovative and creative about what to do next? Would they really just run out of things to do?

Ideally, in a more open-world MMO than WoW, I’d like to see no alts. I would rather see people invest time in interacting more and creating things in the game. Yeah, HA-HA, I know that’s not the way things are currently going in the world of MMOs, but it’s what I’d like anyway. In WoW’s case options are limited but let’s still have a look at potential side-effects. Without alts people would probably –

  • re-visit older zones and content on their mains more often
  • team up more with random strangers because they want/need that class*
  • help out lowbies more
  • invest more time in inter-guild relations
  • rely on each other more for crafting and trade
  • play more PVP, arrange more outdoor conflict
  • have less money and therefore do a lot more of XYZ

That’s just from the top of my head. You can think of more things to do without alts at your disposal. Depending on your perspective as a player and customer, all of the things listed can be either positive or negative. Maybe you don’t want to cooperate or rely on others more, maybe you enjoy having an alt for every trade, maybe you are after making money. I’m not – to me most of that list is positive, whatever actually makes people play together, communicate, cooperate, create. The more interaction you have, the more stories you will tell at the end of the day.

*The one big downside I see is group setup / guild related: in a game ruled by the holy trinity, alts give guilds flexibility to go ahead with a run despite the lack of tanking, healing or dpsing mains. Canceled raids are a sad affair. People can respec or if need be, relog. Without this option, guilds would probably just end up inviting more people as backup players for their roster and that doesn’t really work out so great during times when raiding is most popular. This is strictly from a WoW-centric view though, amending one bad with another. In a way specs and alts are Blizzard’s own saboteurs to the trinity, even if “bring the player not the class” is still a dream. A different MMO without the whole class/role hysteria would be fine without alts: you wouldn’t need them for group balance.

The road less traveled by

I will blow into last week’s horn a little and ask just how many opportunities and stories we’re missing out on because an MMO offers the easy alt road. How different could social dynamics and life on servers be if everyone only ever had one main? What would people come up with instead?

Just like short-cuts turn into delays, too much convenience can turn into boredom. I’m sure developers welcome players that spend big amounts of time on alts, but I’m not sure if it really works out long-term? If it makes for a massive and more terminal boreout later, convincing you to keep paying that subscription will become increasingly difficult. Not just that, but the pressure to deliver expansions fast and keeping things fresh and interesting gets worse and worse on the developer’s side.

Nobody likes the samey grind forever. Candy is yum, but eating too much of the same candy is boring and gives you stomach ache. Already my granny knew that.