Suboptimist

I hope you like text.

Let me lead into this post by saying that Baldr, slain by Loki, has risen from the dead. The nations of North rejoice, for the long nights of winter are over. That means a post about gaming. Also, it means a freaking long post. Get ready

I am not sure what it is, but somehow whenever summer approaches World of Warcraft rears its ugly head to taunt me once more. Last summer I went and purchased the Burning Crusade expansion immediately following my last exam, despite swearing before God and Man that I would never, ever touch the filthy substance ever again.

I destroyed the discs last winter, or at least I thought I had. As I went through an old disc carrier, I found them. There they were taunting me, like a cold beer to a recovering alcoholic. I promptly destroyed them…for real this time. This leads to the subject matter of this post: my love affair with Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games.

I come to this having played several MMOs. I probably haven’t played any one for more than 9 months at a time, but I think the number is approaching five. I have come to some conclusions about the effect MMOs have had on my gaming tastes and why some MMOs have appealed to me more than others.

The Reverend and I have had this conversation many times. In his words, it has ruined the single-player gaming experience. While my own assessment is less dire, I see his point. Today I turned on Mass Effect to play through again. I did something awesome. I also had nobody to share it with. That is the beauty of the MMO. Your experiences are shared with others from around the world. When your guild (or linkshell or kinship or corporation…) are down, you’re down. People see the effect you’re having on the digital world, and they even benefit from it. The feeling of playing a game with others is hard to duplicate. Single-player games, while I still love them, aren’t designed this way.

In an aside, yesterday the Reverend and I walked into a game store to realize how disconnected we are with today’s gaming community. The store was filled with kids half our age buying Madden and Halo 3. I have only completed a few titles since I started with MMOs. The Reverend has completed less than I have. There are games on the shelf he and I don’t even recognize. I can’t help but wonder if this disconnect is somehow associated with the rise of MMOs. Daedalus should get on that.

Moving on, certain MMOs have appealed to me more than others. Despite what I said at the beginning of this post, World of Warcraft was really an ideal game for a host of reasons:

· 1) I am familiar with the Warcraft backstory, having played all the single-player titles.

· 2) The backstory is deep and compelling. It’s not some chitzy, generic fantasy tale.

· 3) To a reasonable extent, the gameplay is relevant to the overall story.

Any game can meet points 2 and 3. No other game can (at this point) can meet 1. Now, let me draw a comparison between WoW and another MMO I played, EVE online. EVE is a fun game, no doubt. It has a rich, deep, compelling story. If you were to print all the available lore off the internet, it would probably fill a standard sized novel. That said, EVE doesn’t do anything with it. The game lacks context. Global PVP is unmotivated. Simply put, there is no reason for players to be fighting. In WoW, PVP (as well as PVE) is motivated by a larger storyline of a tenuous armistice between the Horde and the Alliance, with certain areas where things flare up.

People have told me that it’s not necessary for a game to connect everything into the backstory. Well, sure, but something like PVP should be. I mean, in real life, there are things that happen by themselves. But if you work in some military capacity, you’d expect, say, the war in Iraq to play some role in your day to day affairs. MMOs should operate in a similar manner.

So, the question is this: what will I play this summer? Vanguard? Lord of the Rings Online? EVE? RF Online? Just single player games? I don’t know. Right now, I am kicking around LotRO and thinking of maybe trying RF online. I have reservations though. First, LotRO is designed that, strategy aside, you constantly feel like you’re zerging the enemy. RF online? Well…Korean…

EDIT: I’ll be switching themes a lot until I find something I like and is modifiable.