Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
Westley: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.
--From The Princess Bride
I was commenting on an unrelated matter on Wilhelm Arcturus' The Ancient Gaming Noob when I was struck by a thought: are there any real people left in Azeroth? My comment there briefly touched on it, but I felt this an interesting enough question that it deserved a more fully fleshed out blog post.
I'm not going to dispute that, at heart, an MMO lives and dies by the people who play the game. No players = no game. However, fleshing out a game world is what separates some MMOs from others. This was most clear in the dead WoW cities --namely The Exodar and Silvermoon City-- in Wrath and later expacs. You could wander both cities and hardly see a soul; and if you did, they were just new toons passing through to other places.
And without those players, both locales were almost totally empty. In Silvermoon City especially, the NPCs were so spread out that any flavor they gave to the game was diminished to almost nothing.
Compare the dead Silvermoon City to, say, Bree in LOTRO.
Even when no players are around, Bree is a place. Villagers come and go, congregate in The Prancing Pony, and show up in the jail.
It feels alive in a way that Silvermoon City never seemed to be.*
Still, that doesn't really answer the question per se.
I'm also thinking about how removed the players are from the non-players --the common people as well as the nobles-- in a game world.
Consider LOTRO.
At the beginning, just like a lot of MMOs, you're just a commoner who got sucked into events out of your control. Yes, your intro zone has Aragorn (Humans/Hobbits) or the Sons of Elrond + Dwalin, but once your job in the intro zone is done, you're back to being a regular schmoe again. Notably, things don't exactly go well in either intro zone**, so those failures do end up powering your overall quest arc through the low-mid level zones.
Still, you are just a regular person who has "risen to the occasion". Even your interactions with Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, and others don't rise to the level of "Woo, Great Hero!" or "Greetings, fellow mighty person upon Middle-earth!" They're more counselors than leaders, nudging you to do what needs doing.
And the "regular person just helping out" theme continues through Moria and into Dunland as well as the outskirts of Rohan, where my story in LOTRO stands at the moment.
Now, look at WoW Classic.
The beginning is about as humble as you can get. You're a volunteer to just help out your locality, with the literal Kill Ten Rats (or Kobolds) quests to get you started. There's a gradual overall theme to the quests --Defias in Human zones, corruption of nature in Tauren and Night Elf zones, etc.-- but they remain the "local guy helps out and roots out problems" variety. By the time you get to the mid-level zones, you're fairly skilled and you've already gotten the core of the potential endgame questlines in hand, but you still don't interact much with faction leaders at all. People don't start quest text with "Heroes!! We need your help!!" (Except the Argent Dawn, but they're an odd bunch.) There's still plenty of examples of "regular people" NPCs out there that you interact with and can still feel a connection to.
When you get to max level, you're a cog in the endgame quests/raids, just a member of the army. Hey, maybe a Faction Leader gives you an attaboy from time to time, but you're definitely not part of that crowd.
Okay, now what about Elder Scrolls Online?
Well....
Almost from the beginning you end up ingratiating yourself to a faction leader, and you quickly become that faction leader's trusted advisor/fixer/best friend, and in spite of the wealth of commoners around you're almost immediately separated from them by your interactions with the mighty of ESO. I mean, how many people count Lord Vivec or Queen Ayrenn as good friends?
It's pretty obvious from the get-go that your character is meant to hang with the high and mighty, and people all over Tamriel know your name (or they think they do). Even the Daedric princes know your name, which isn't necessarily a good thing. You're about as far removed from the common folk --and the nobility, to be honest-- as you can possibly be in an MMO. I'm kind of waiting for you to ascend to the rank of "honorary Daedric Prince" or something.
And now we turn to Retail WoW.
By nature of the expansions, I suppose, we've gone from being "a member of the army that stormed Onyxia's Lair to finally end the threats from within" to "possibly one of the most powerful heroes who ever existed."**** Although it took longer than ESO, Retail is at that point where you pretty much exist on an entirely other level than the rest of Azeroth. And really, given all the rest of what has happened to Azeroth over the expacs, just how is there anybody even left outside of said heroes? You think some farmer in Elwynn or hunter in Mulgore managed to be untouched through all of these years of total warfare? At this point, if Azeroth simply blew up into chunks and your players had to traverse the void to find a new home, I'd not be shocked. Nor would I be shocked that it's also the home to a metric ton of Old Gods as well as --no nobody's surprise-- your opposing faction who just happened to find the same random world out there.
I guess my point is that the farther you're removed from where you came from, the harder the question "what are you fighting for?" is to answer. It's the same problem that people who have been fighting all of their lives eventually confront: they've spent so much time fighting that their understanding of why they fight becomes merely an abstraction, and in turn they lose a part of their humanity.
Is that the sacrifice some make so that others can live in peace? Yes. I'd also argue that not many do so realizing what the true nature of that cost is: they may think death is the worst thing to happen to them, but maybe living becomes a crueler fate than death.
But at the same time, MMOs present a conundrum: you need to keep people interested by showing off "more" and "better" and "cooler" with each new expac, but what keeps a player grounded? Where is the slave whispering to a Roman general "Remember, you are mortal" as the general is given a Triumph? Where are the regular people that make your world real enough to be worth fighting for? Where is your connection to the game world?
#Blapril2020
*There are parts of Darnassus that feel that way too, but they're compensated for by NPC activity connected by the bridges throughout the central location. It's only when you get out by the Warrior Tier and those outer rings that Darnassus approaches Silvermoon levels of emptiness.
**That's putting it mildly.
***I'm still building up deeds to pick up Riders of Rohan itself, and yeah, I know that it's all free for the moment, but I'll get around to it.
****Pretty sure Vizzi would say he was even better, tho.
Westley: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.
--From The Princess Bride
I was commenting on an unrelated matter on Wilhelm Arcturus' The Ancient Gaming Noob when I was struck by a thought: are there any real people left in Azeroth? My comment there briefly touched on it, but I felt this an interesting enough question that it deserved a more fully fleshed out blog post.
I'm not going to dispute that, at heart, an MMO lives and dies by the people who play the game. No players = no game. However, fleshing out a game world is what separates some MMOs from others. This was most clear in the dead WoW cities --namely The Exodar and Silvermoon City-- in Wrath and later expacs. You could wander both cities and hardly see a soul; and if you did, they were just new toons passing through to other places.
And without those players, both locales were almost totally empty. In Silvermoon City especially, the NPCs were so spread out that any flavor they gave to the game was diminished to almost nothing.
Compare the dead Silvermoon City to, say, Bree in LOTRO.
 |
| Complete with one Elf in a fancy cloak. |
Even when no players are around, Bree is a place. Villagers come and go, congregate in The Prancing Pony, and show up in the jail.
 |
| The attention to detail is something else. |
It feels alive in a way that Silvermoon City never seemed to be.*
***
Still, that doesn't really answer the question per se.
I'm also thinking about how removed the players are from the non-players --the common people as well as the nobles-- in a game world.
Consider LOTRO.
At the beginning, just like a lot of MMOs, you're just a commoner who got sucked into events out of your control. Yes, your intro zone has Aragorn (Humans/Hobbits) or the Sons of Elrond + Dwalin, but once your job in the intro zone is done, you're back to being a regular schmoe again. Notably, things don't exactly go well in either intro zone**, so those failures do end up powering your overall quest arc through the low-mid level zones.
Still, you are just a regular person who has "risen to the occasion". Even your interactions with Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, and others don't rise to the level of "Woo, Great Hero!" or "Greetings, fellow mighty person upon Middle-earth!" They're more counselors than leaders, nudging you to do what needs doing.
And the "regular person just helping out" theme continues through Moria and into Dunland as well as the outskirts of Rohan, where my story in LOTRO stands at the moment.
***
Now, look at WoW Classic.
The beginning is about as humble as you can get. You're a volunteer to just help out your locality, with the literal Kill Ten Rats (or Kobolds) quests to get you started. There's a gradual overall theme to the quests --Defias in Human zones, corruption of nature in Tauren and Night Elf zones, etc.-- but they remain the "local guy helps out and roots out problems" variety. By the time you get to the mid-level zones, you're fairly skilled and you've already gotten the core of the potential endgame questlines in hand, but you still don't interact much with faction leaders at all. People don't start quest text with "Heroes!! We need your help!!" (Except the Argent Dawn, but they're an odd bunch.) There's still plenty of examples of "regular people" NPCs out there that you interact with and can still feel a connection to.
When you get to max level, you're a cog in the endgame quests/raids, just a member of the army. Hey, maybe a Faction Leader gives you an attaboy from time to time, but you're definitely not part of that crowd.
***
Okay, now what about Elder Scrolls Online?
Well....
Almost from the beginning you end up ingratiating yourself to a faction leader, and you quickly become that faction leader's trusted advisor/fixer/best friend, and in spite of the wealth of commoners around you're almost immediately separated from them by your interactions with the mighty of ESO. I mean, how many people count Lord Vivec or Queen Ayrenn as good friends?
It's pretty obvious from the get-go that your character is meant to hang with the high and mighty, and people all over Tamriel know your name (or they think they do). Even the Daedric princes know your name, which isn't necessarily a good thing. You're about as far removed from the common folk --and the nobility, to be honest-- as you can possibly be in an MMO. I'm kind of waiting for you to ascend to the rank of "honorary Daedric Prince" or something.
***
And now we turn to Retail WoW.
By nature of the expansions, I suppose, we've gone from being "a member of the army that stormed Onyxia's Lair to finally end the threats from within" to "possibly one of the most powerful heroes who ever existed."**** Although it took longer than ESO, Retail is at that point where you pretty much exist on an entirely other level than the rest of Azeroth. And really, given all the rest of what has happened to Azeroth over the expacs, just how is there anybody even left outside of said heroes? You think some farmer in Elwynn or hunter in Mulgore managed to be untouched through all of these years of total warfare? At this point, if Azeroth simply blew up into chunks and your players had to traverse the void to find a new home, I'd not be shocked. Nor would I be shocked that it's also the home to a metric ton of Old Gods as well as --no nobody's surprise-- your opposing faction who just happened to find the same random world out there.
***
I guess my point is that the farther you're removed from where you came from, the harder the question "what are you fighting for?" is to answer. It's the same problem that people who have been fighting all of their lives eventually confront: they've spent so much time fighting that their understanding of why they fight becomes merely an abstraction, and in turn they lose a part of their humanity.
Is that the sacrifice some make so that others can live in peace? Yes. I'd also argue that not many do so realizing what the true nature of that cost is: they may think death is the worst thing to happen to them, but maybe living becomes a crueler fate than death.
But at the same time, MMOs present a conundrum: you need to keep people interested by showing off "more" and "better" and "cooler" with each new expac, but what keeps a player grounded? Where is the slave whispering to a Roman general "Remember, you are mortal" as the general is given a Triumph? Where are the regular people that make your world real enough to be worth fighting for? Where is your connection to the game world?
#Blapril2020
*There are parts of Darnassus that feel that way too, but they're compensated for by NPC activity connected by the bridges throughout the central location. It's only when you get out by the Warrior Tier and those outer rings that Darnassus approaches Silvermoon levels of emptiness.
**That's putting it mildly.
***I'm still building up deeds to pick up Riders of Rohan itself, and yeah, I know that it's all free for the moment, but I'll get around to it.
****Pretty sure Vizzi would say he was even better, tho.
Very thought-provoking post. I have had issues with this going back to before I ever played MMORPGs. Even in tabletop AD&D in the early '80s I found I was losing touch with my character by around level eight. Basically, as soon as you find the enemy you're fighting is a demi-god or a dragon - not the arch-manipulator behind the scenes but the one you are hitting with your sword - it's already too late.
ReplyDeleteOver the years I've almost become immune to it but that's almost certainly why I also don't care about any of it the way I once did. I might do a post on this myself.
I'm really looking forward to your post, Bhagpuss, because I suspect we are on the same wavelength here.
DeleteI periodically become immune to it as well, and I frequently experience this in my pencil and paper RPG games. However, the mark of a really good DM is to keep the players properly grounded.
Back when I had some Ars Magica books, one of the things that stuck with me was a suggestion for the DM/GM to begin to emphasize the mental and physical cost of adventuring on the players. The splatbook on Holy Mages had as a Holy Grail adventure hook that your characters start having PTSD type of dreams midway through the overall Grail questline, and those dreams not only push the players forward in the questline but they have a debilitating effect on the players. The book exhorts the DM/GM to emphasize that the quest for the Grail is not a walk in the park and you sacrifice a chunk of yourself if you choose to do the right thing, and even more (but not immediately obvious at first) if you choose to do the wrong thing.
Translating that into MMOs, there ought to be a cost to everything, but frequently that cost is not felt by the players at endgame. Perhaps something as simple as the initial quests for a new expac starting at a farm in Elwynn or a ranch in Durotar, reflecting how the new expac impacts the regular people of Azeroth, would help to ground the characters a bit.
LoL @ Vizzini! The Princess Bride has a special place in my mind because it is the first movie that I remember seeing in the theater; I was seven when it came out.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days, if I ever get thoroughly bored of WoW but still want to be playing an MMO, LOTRO is most likely the other MMO I'd probably try (or maybe ESO) because I like so much of what I've read about it.
The capital cities in the newer expansions -- Legion Dalaran, Suramar City, Atal'Dazar, Boralus -- do a lot better at feeling like real communities that are full of people who are just living their lives and aren't just there to provide assorted services for adventurers. I've enjoyed that.
"You can't go home again", yeah? The power creep effect of what the player has seen and done makes it hard sometimes to think about how to write their stories. In Legion, I couldn't quite decide if I wanted my characters to actually be their Order leaders, like the quests were casting them to be, or just "cogs in the wheel" -- so when I wrote stories about Legion events, I used the Order Hall titles instead of their names so that I could still potentially imagine my character and the Order leader being different people. Thinking about going forward into Shadowlands, I want to bring my Tauren Druid, but not as her "major persona" -- because of the story I've constructed for the major persona.
I also feel that kind of "cost of adventuring" disconnect when, for gameplay reasons, there's no change in the scenery or NPC behavior in major cities in the wake of events such as, say, the Battle of Dazar'alor. I appreciated the NPC dialog added to Orgrimmar and Boralus after the end of the War Campaign that acknowledges the events that have happened and how they are affecting "the little people". I'd like to see more of that.