Currently viewing the tag: "RPG"
Regular readers of my blog (all 2 of you – including myself) will know that I am quite keen on MMORPGs. There is something about virtual worlds that I find incredibly fascinating. I’m not an console fan, owning neither an xbox360 or a Playstation3, and I don’t play any other games that aren’t MMO based. The real high for me that I’m hooked on is the world – the reality – created around you that actually is given life by every gamer that logs in and shares the world with you. You don’t just play an MMORPG, you _experience_ an MMORPG.
Okay enough with the dramatic lead in. You get it. And if you don’t, you never will, but that’s okay; different horses for different courses, as the old saying goes.
Everyone has heard of World of Warcraft, and anyone that calls themselves a gamer will not just have heard of it, but will know a little bit about it as well. Enough to hold their own in a conversation. To the non gamer though, it’s just a computer game… and that’s about it. Well let me tell you, if that were true, then you could describe the American political system by calling it, a couple of guys trying to work out who will run the country; there is an infinitude of complexity that runs deep behind the facade.
And that, is actually the problem I have right now! (Plus the point of this post, because I have to rant somewhere). To the casual player it is enough to play a basic game and be able to complete the basic quests that continue your progress. Which is what the whole point of these games are, and why people play them. Play the game –> to get experience –> to get higher levels –> get better gear –> to play the game. It’s a nice comfy feedback loop, that works – in principle – in just the same way as training for the Olympics. This week I joined a guild, a group of players in a club so to speak, to run some of the higher end content that the casual player couldnt reach on their own. And it was like country Bob coming to the big city for the first time and being totally overwhelmed. These guys still call it a game, but they play seriously. They want the big gear, the big numbers on their damage scores, and take down the big bosses that require highly refined tactics and knowledge of play style. It’s no more a game at this level than any other high level competition sporting event is a ‘game’. That’s part of the appeal to be sure, learning how to be a higher end player, doing things other players can’t do. Seeing parts of the game that other players won’t see. But there is a commitment there as well. You don’t just walk into any sporting club and challenge the top player, you have to put the work in first and prove that your worth being taken seriously, otherwise you’ll be ridiculed and laughed out the front door, or hammered into the ground and then ridiculed and laughed out the front door.
Which is where my delimma comes in. I’m at the top of the casual game now, and there is nowhere else for me to go except to the next level. But if I do, then it’s going to require me to put more time in, and take it more seriously. Maximising your DPS (damage-per-second) for a Hunter class is no less complex than working out the equations for rocket propulsion. Aquiring the equipment necessary to achieve the numbers capable of making those equations is no less trivial than collecting parts for a mint condition original 1970 vintage muscle car. Which means that the game is going to be less a game, and more a second job that is like the job you always wanted to have (in a fun way… I guess).
It does beg the question how real is the virtual reality is that I’m constructing for myself here? But that is entirely another discussion to rant about.
I do wonder that if the game becomes more serious and becomes less a game, will it remain something I do to relax, or will it become work, and bring with it work related stress?
Maybe I should take up cigarettes?
Andy.
Back when I was in university, I joined a group of friends in starting up a Rolemaster RPG campaign on the weekends. There was a steady group of five to six of us, with guest heavy sessions where we would have anything up to ten or eleven all crammed into a study room. Admittedly back then the guest sessions were generally curious geek guys from our computer science course who gravitate towards this kind of pasttime, and even more curious women trying to work out what kind of game would make guys scream bestial roars at one another and then roll dice. We played in earnest for nearly three years, and I can honestly say I had some of the most entertaining times of my life in those grey cement brick study rooms with Rolemaster manuals scattered over the tables, living out tales of high adventure!
So at the end of that time of my life, it was with a touch of sadness and more than an hour of screaming and ranting when a friend of mine who promised to sell me his Rolemaster manuals (all fourteen of them) ended up giving them away to another (very undeserving) friend for free. It took me nearly a month to get over the shock, and about three more to stop schemeing these Machavellian schemes to get those manuals back while simultaenously dropping both of those bastards into a volcano in a seemingly freak accident. It was more than losing a couple of books, it was losing the tangible history and icons of those magic days and nights of our friendship and unbounded imagination.
For the past few years I’ve been on ebay, scowering the dusty corners of online bookshops and the private collections of sellers looking to put back together my small RM 2nd edition library. And I’ve been largely successful, with now nine of the fourteen books in my possession. With each new addition that arrives I savour opening it, because as I turn over every page the memories come flooding back and I smile at the vividness with which I can almost hear the tabletop echoes from decades ago. I think it’s been more fun this way, having to collect the books one at at time over a period of years as it does make me feel a little bit like a collector in some small way. There’s a pride when other people who share the same hobby look at the books and remark how wickedly cool it is to see them together. I’m pretty sure I never would have appreciated the other books had they all have been sold to me back in the day. And I’m not one to hold a grudge at being fucked over now by that old bastard mate! I can’t hardly remember it at all… the fuckers!
I think with things like this, we aren’t so much collecting items, as collecting the fun parts of our past, and bring the good times to life again, if only for fleeting moments!
Andy.
