Decoding Dragons

I’ve seen it all before

I must admit, between 2 WoW accounts, The Secret World, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rift, Guild Wars 2, and the sneaking possibility of Wildstar, I’ve been feeling a bit blase about MMOs. To the point where my ‘been there, done that’ attitude had turned into a brick I was carrying around whenever I logged in. It got kinda heavy, and playing wasn’t fun anymore.

When I was a youngster, I devoured Sci-fi and fantasy books at a very large rate. I imagine that many of the people who are likely to read this did so too. I read LOTR when I was about 7 or 8, and followed it up with the Silmarillion not long after. I read Game of Thrones when I was about 12 or 13. I remember this because I recall my reaction to Daenerys’ predicament, and the revelation that she was my age.

My Dad, who is the awesome geek who is responsible for raising me on a steady diet of David Bowie, Jethro Tull, classic Scifi, LOTR and Red Dwarf, used to look upon my discovery of old authors with a benign sort of amusement. The amusement lasted until I made him read something. His reaction came in two flavours.

“I forgot I read this”

This particular one happened with alarming frequency. Or at least it was alarming to him. I was possibly highly entertained. At the time I couldn’t understand how anyone could forget these amazing reader experiences. There are moments when I wish I could read that scene in Game of Thrones, as though it were the first time. Times when I wish I could absorb THAT moment in Fledgling again. But forget? Nah.

Except that has started to happen to me now. I come across books, and start to read them because the names and synopsis are so completely unfamiliar to me and then I get a moment of ‘Uh, oh. It’s that book!’ I get very disappointed when this happens. Books don’t last me long, as consumable entertainment, so I feel cheated when my memory actually goes to the effort to the point that I know I’ve read a particular book before.

Other times I won’t remember until the last couple of pages of the book, in which case all is well. But hey, even I get old.

Playing older games is a bit like this. I know I played Duke Nuke’m, Secrets of Monkey Island. I know I played an Alien game on something that was probably an Amstrad. I know I played Chucky Egg, and Myst. Do I remember any specifics? No. But I remember that I loved them. It’s becoming much the same way with my early WoW experiences. There is no way to get those times back, tied up as they were in a different phase of my life when WoW was my escape.

“Oh, it’s another one of those”

This second response from my Dad, on the topic of books I’ve recommended to him, is more frustrating to me because it represents a moment where my judgement has fallen short. My judgement often falls short when recommending reading material to my Dad (and my friend @minus_caffeine, for that matter) because the man has had time to read and absorb a hell of a lot more storytelling than I have. He also values new experiences, as well as quality. Getting that balance right is hard at the best of times. For instance, I’m not certain I’d bother recommending that Brandon Sanderson series to him. It’s exactly the sort of book that he’d find tiresome because it tries to do new things, and falls somewhat short when it comes to actual execution. And not actually being that new.

That is not a critique of those particular books, but just an indication that it is extremely hard for creators to do something properly fresh in an established genre. Many authors I absolutely love have fallen at the hurdle of ‘Dad is bored with this now’. I’m now getting to an age where many ‘new’ books coming out don’t feel especially fresh or revolutionary to me, even when other rave about them. I really have to dig to find an author that steps outside the standard milieu. But that’s okay – that’s what happens when  one combines memory, pattern recognition, and experience. I suspect most readers will experience similar phases of malaise with their favourite genres, and will similarly find a new way to consume and enjoy the sort of books they’ve historically loved.

What has this got to do with games?

Coming back to the virtual spaces that we’ve all be inhabiting since MUDs opened their doors, the issue is this. Firstly is that narrative and characters need to grow, and evolve. Secondly that the gaming/MMO industry is having to mature at a very rapid rate, as evidenced by the ongoing ‘games as art’ and ‘games and feminism’ and ‘games and other ‘isms’ discussions, and the emergence of credible research communities and programmes in the field of game studies.

We have access to an ever expanding number of games, old and new, through digital downloads and multiple mobile platforms. Mediums like Tablets/iPads are bringing board games to videogaming. We have games like Dear Esther that prompt discussions about agency and narrative.

Yet these huge, massive MMOs that promise us so much, will always be battling against ‘Oh yes, I’ve played this before’ or ‘Oh man, this is so much like x Game.’ A while back I compared Rift and World of Warcraft to two different novels by Terry Pratchett, and the comparison was appropriate, but I think the Books/Games metaphor can be carried a little further. Yes, I know the player has a huge influence on how their MMO experience develops (through choice of in-game progression paths, character identity, guild choice, participation in group activities) and this isn’t something that is present in books, but a game is still a supposedly cohesive presentation of consumable and modifiable content, allowing a player to have an experience through a number of mechanics that will be somewhat familiar to them.

Still with me? I’m not sure I’m with me yet, so it is okay if you’re not!

Authors play with narrative devices, structures, grammatical rules. They break them and and follow them, and do all sorts of things with words in order to present us with the BOOK EXPERIENCE. The publisher adds to the BOOK EXPERIENCE throw marketing, covers, related images, editing and commissioning the rest of a series. The ebook revolution may be changing this formula slightly. Yet the regular reader will navigate the narrative of a book in much the same way every time, and we don’t get tired of the the overall format of ‘reading’.

With gaming, a similar thing holds true. A player of FPS games does not get grumpy because Half Life 24.546 includes a first person perspective and some shooting. And the point here isn’t that ‘fresh new story telling’ is needed to make a new FPS something special in terms of sales and a GAME EXPERIENCE. Nor even that MMOs do. MMOs do a particular job, and each next gen MMO re-iterates familiar formulas in the attempt to give us a newly compelling experience. All in the name of shareholders.

But I’ve had nearly 8 years in MMOs. As fondly as I look back on my first 2 years of roleplaying and regular raiding, it ain’t never going to be like that again. And I have to accept that with my experiences in games, and fantasy ones in particular, that I’m always going to have a sense of ‘oh, its this again.’ I’m rarely ever going to be alleviated of that brick, unless I play something I’ve truly never experienced before. I can’t expect the game developers to come and take that brick away for me – I need to find some way to carry it, or some way to put it down, while I go about my usual business of consuming games that otherwise bring me a large amount of fun and relaxation.

Excuse me, I think Guild Wars 2 has a stress test tomorrow, and I want to see if I can learn to play my Shadow Priest again in the time.

I’ve seen it all before was published on August 8th, 2012, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Fandom, Games category. There are currently Comments Off on this article so far.

[MMOs] Relationships and MMOs

A couple of days weeks months ago, my co-host and friend posted about his hopes and expectations for SWTOR from the perspective of being part of a gaming couple with a history of playing MMOs. I used to have a similar perspective, and recent posts from Oestrus and Soph reminded me to dig out this post that has been languishing, half written, in my drafts for a good 3 months.

Back when I started playing WoW, my partner and I shared an account. I played my little holy priest during the day, and he’d play his druid on another server when he got home from work. Eventually it became clear that a second account would be needed. Despite the fact that his character was more progressed, I kept the original account. Ho hum.

I really liked that priest, okay?

This was back in the day before RAF, before the Burning Crusade. When the expansion finally hit, I started playing again and the two of us levelled a pair of draenei clothies together. Him pew-pewing on his mage, me initially playing healer. Our characters had an odd sibling relationship, RP wise. My new priest was far, far older and in reality I was the younger. The day I got to DPS for the first time ever in a dungeon was a Scarlet Monastery run, probably the Library. I loved it. I’d been ‘healing’ as shadow spec in order to challenge myself a bit, but actually getting to DPS? Magic. I remember the smile on his face as he saw me finally ‘get’ why he enjoyed DPS.

Those two characters ended up going all the way from goofing around in the Deadmines to raiding the Black Temple as part of one of the best raiding guilds on the server. I tended to stick with one character and he rolled a multitude of alts. Dynamics changed as I became the one employed and he had more free time. Differences of opinion over guild dynamics and officering developed. While I never approached anything tanking duo of You Yank it You Tank it with him, a pretty cool questing rhythm developed, and those two characters had ways of dealing with just about anything and everything. Having a mage around was handy for food, travel, and having a priest around was great for those moments when blink goes horribly wrong and you end up falling off a cliff. Not that my partner ever did that. *cough*

Wrath of the Lich King rolls around and we levelled together again. There was much grinning and fun as we boarded the boat to Northrend. I saw most of Northrend with him, but with the dynamic of our relationship changing and the unrest in the guild (as well as a death in my family), things were not the same. When Cataclysm happened I was buried deep in enthusiasm for the game, and the friends I’d made through Twitter and WoW Insider, and the partner was extremely dissatisfied with the game and the guild we were in.

Time passed.

Of course, I am no longer in a relationship with him. I won’t go into the details, it’s never easy when a long relationship ends, but I never expected it to impact on how I viewed World of Warcraft. In some ways it feels like I’m going through a messy break up with WoW, as the split with my ex was pretty amicable (it was time, as it were) and for reasons unrelated to gaming.

Unhealthy relationships

I have noticed, over the past couple of years, how often bloggers talk about WoW as if they were in a romantic relationship with the game. One phrase I see a lot in my reader is ‘Cheating on WoW’ in reference to trying out other MMOs. The language used to referring to a break in playing is often uncomfortably close to that of an unhealthy, addictive relationship – or even a casual one that is more about convenience and the short term fix than long term results.

When I initially started this post I was going to trace my relationship with the game and how it tied into my relationship with my ex-Fiancé.  Even though we’ve been broken up for going on 6 months or so, there are still characters I don’t log into because they give me extremely mixed feelings – memories of both happy and sad moments. Levelling through Outland is particularly hard for me because that was the expansion we actually played ‘together’ all the way. My characters tend to stall in Nagrand, and sit there looking lonely. And in many ways levelling through the old content of TBC and Wrath is a reminder of the all the guild ups and downs I had with a guild called Athanatoi. The momentous highs of server first Illidari Council, the frustration and impetus as our GMs slowly ran the guild into the ground, and all the officers burned out one by one.

The joy of rediscovering the game in Trial of the Crusader, of all places, where I started raiding as an Elemental shaman. Realising I still loved playing and that my new guild was awesome. Getting to play with Catulla of Flavor Text. The sadness I felt at any in guild bickering. These are things I wonder if I’ll ever get back because I can’t seem to find a social guild where I fit, or a regular rhythm of play that really allows me to connect with SWTOR or Rift in the way that I used to in WoW.

The Dating Game

So I have brief flings with other MMOs, I take them out and have fun when it’s convenient for me, and I pack them all away, with the lack of emotional investment, when they’ve become too mundane to sparkle once the initial lust has fallen off. It’s not so much cheating on WoW, but the casual drifting between games to find that virtual ‘home’, that place of safety that I once had. However in games, as in relationships, ‘safe’ doesn’t make ‘enduring’ any more than the initial sparkle of lust did.

I won’t deny that I enjoy the freedom of my newly solo experience, and in many ways I’m not alone in game – there is always twitter. Twitter and the blogosphere is my guild chat and forum, respectively. Yet the connections made there range from fleeting to lifetime friendship, but there is none of that sense of close knit community. This is another parallel with the ‘dating game’.  You try your best to make the most of what the game offers you, but relationships with other players and guilds only give out as much as you give – and managing expectations in relationships (mmo or dating) is one of those difficult things that takes time to achieve.

Managing Expectations

This is one of those phrases that gets thrown around the online dating world a lot. ‘Expecting’ something can be a self-fulfilling prophecy because you sub-conciously act as if a particular thing is pre-determined. Or you expect the unreasonable. Or you don’t expect enough. You can’t go into a guild or a game with no-expectations, because at the end of the day you want the game (or relationship) to be a part of your life and for that to occur successfully certain criteria/needs/wants have to be fulfilled. It’s just sometimes an MMO or a relationship fits in ways that you don’t expect.

I guess what I am saying is that you can’t expect that shiny guild to be perfect on the inside. You can’t expect everyone else to jump to fill your needs and wants. You can’t expect that woman you’ve just met to be a perfect match. Relationships with people and games are so tied up in compromise that if you don’t compromise, you end up never playing at all.

 

[MMOs] Relationships and MMOs was published on March 16th, 2012, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , under the Games, Geek Life category. There are currently 5 comments on this article so far.

I’m all lost in the supermarket

This is a personal post, and somewhat rambly. This blog will return to elemental shaman stuff shortly. If you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been co-hosting the Obscurecast along with Gazimoff of Mana Obscura and I left my authenticator at his house after the great Blizzcon weekend podcast-a-thon. I’ve also been extremely busy with my day job, and with raiding now finished in my guild, an old problem of mine has re-emerged.


The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Make me noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely

Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash

World of Warcraft is like a supermarket. A British one, specifically, except prettier. Whenever I go to a supermarket I lose a lot of my impulse control, and I lose the ability to focus. It’s been like this since I was very small. Something about the bright lights and colours caused something of a sensory overload and I wander around in a bit of a trance. To combat this as an adult I’ve had to cultivate some techniques in order to achieve grocery shopping. Usually they involve getting my partner to go instead, because is impulse control is better than mine. Alternatively I have to be very driven to acquire something in particular, as opposed to ‘groceries’ in general. If I go in to do the weekly shop I’ll come out with cake, some salami, 3 cans of baked beans, wensleydale cheese, assorted pretzels and an egg whisk (we have 5.) If I go in to achieve baking powder or fabric conditioner, for example, I’ll come out with a decent bag of shopping but forget those items in particular.

It will also take me an hour to pick up 5 items, because I’ll get distracted by pineapples. And then by tea towels.

Warcraft is very much like a supermarket for me at the moment. I don’t have a specific activity to log on for, such as raids. I do have multiple tasks I wish to do – such as practise my abysmal PvP so the commenters over at WoW Insider don’t pull me apart on my first Elemental PvP column over there. Or drop herbalism and level alchemy. I’ve always got multiple strands of research going on, such from gender/sexuality/ethics related looks at the new quests in beta, to item lists for future blog posts, to attempting to get in on a raid so I can actually see the new bosses.

And then there are cool Elemental Invasions going on, and I want to be a part of that.

I’m playing catch up at the moment, because I left my authenticator at Obscurecast mission control, following the epic An Obscure All Things Blizzcon podcasting weekend. I’m thus a little out of the habit of playing WoW, and am missing some of the drive and goals that keep my play time efficient and fun. So yesterday I log in to try and do one or more of these things I listed. I am not completely certain what I actually did, but I believe it involved flying around in circles, mainly around Zul’drak. At the end of the evening I logged off, frustrated with myself and wondering what I had been doing all evening that I had achieved precisely zero. Not only that, but I have very little memory of what I was actually doing. I know I answered some guildies questions in guild chat, and I know I rode my Cenarion War Hippogryph around in circles outside the Sapphire Hive. But somehow three whole hours have gone, and not in a ‘where DID the time go?’ type of way.

I should have been writing, I should have been cleaning the bathroom or doing laundry. Or packing, because we’re due to move right after New Years. I should have been doing so many things, and Warcraft is a legitmate activity for me to be doing, but the lack of habit and drive has rendered it hypnotic and trance inducing to me. Between all the activities that I could and should be doing, I am left vacantly staring at the bright colours and pretty pictures. Literally wandering around in circles, and not even really looking at what I’m doing or where I am.

Is this normal? Well everyone procrastinates and wastes time. That much is pretty normal. However my entire life has this issue. It’s not the lack of want to focus, or even a lack of things to focus on, it’s just that without certain triggers and habits it becomes almost an impossibility. This applies to work, travel, chores, and even my leisure time. This was a massive problem for me in school, and it’s very hard to pin down and explain to people. It is very easy for friends and family to turn around and say ‘buck up‘ or ‘concentrate‘ and ‘everyone procrastinates, you just need to have some discipline.’ If it was as simple as ‘learning to prioritise’, I would be living my life like that all the time.

There are good days and there are bad days. I am a productive member of society, I pay my taxes, I have friends, I work (just about), and do my best to be a good friend and daughter. I often fail, but I work hard at not failing. The attention difficulties are something I’ve always lived with and am only, in the last 2 years, learning to cope with. The seeming passivity it results in is hard to explain, but that is why I generally don’t write about it in detail.

I’m all lost in the supermarket was published on November 3rd, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Analysis, Geek Life category. There are currently 18 comments on this article so far.