When posting what I believed to be my last ever entry about SWTOR, there was one particular bit I said, which I thought was an absolute no-brainer until plenty of people disagreed with me: If you get ten minutes of dialogue prior to embarking on a glorious quest to kill 10 baddies, it doesn't make the actual quest any less unexciting, boring, dull, been there - done that.
"Only if you don't care - if you don't want to care", is what I've been told.
Ironically, when I had reaped the reward for my hard labour around SWTOR (AKA 'realized that class-guides require LOTS of effort for seriously underwhelming pay'), I have spent a fraction of it on, well, SWTOR. The Clairebear wanted to try it, she didn't want my press account and I'm not cheap enough to ask EA for another free key, so I had to bite the proverbial bullet and shelled out some cash for what's probably the most expensive MMORPG I ever had to pay for.
It was somewhere around 11pm when she was all set and dived into the game universe with her Jedi Consular. And she watched a metric shit ton of cut-scenes, which are still mostly boring and meaningless to me, explaining why she had to kill ten bad guys and loot five thingamajigs in some rather dramatic fashion - 'You *have* to do this, everyone depends on you!' yada, yada, yada.
It didn't take long and she was hooked. The fact she's been playing what's practically the exact same game for more than a half decade allowed her to jump right in without having to waste any time getting used to the controls, combat, interface... yes, it's still WoW in space. What's more important, though: She instantly bought the whole plot.
With every finished quest, every tiny stepstone on her way from being a mere Padawan to becoming a real Jedi and obtaining her first lightsaber, I could see her eyes light up whenever the characters praised her for her achievements. "They're talking about *me* there! I'm special!"
Maybe I have played, analyzed, dissected games for too long to appreciate that sort of thing. Maybe it's because I'm a cynical old bastard. Either way, that whole illusion is entirely lost on me. When some voice actor tells me I'm the first one to ever kill ten random baddies in such a glorious, heroic manner, I can't help but roll my eyes, thinking: 'Me and every other fucking idiot who played this tutorial till level 5.' The whole thing is an incredibly cheap, psychological hook: For finishing even the dumbest, dullest, most boring and meaningless tasks, the NPCs you interact with will praise you, as though you had just accomplished something great, something so big and special, mere words couldn't possibly describe how awesome you are. Sure, that feels better than looting 10 apples and killing 8 boars in Elwynn Forest and ignoring the text box above the reward window, but you have to be open-minded about it and play along.
I'm not gonna link this entry on Facebook. In fact, I sincerely hope the Clairebear won't even find it, because I adore her for enjoying all that phony, make-believe hero crap the game throws at her. Of course she knows that everyone around her is 'special' and that it's all just meaningless talk for the sake of getting people interested, but I guess there's no need to rub her nose in it. I guess it's a bit like watching a movie and ignoring the fact it's all actors, cardboard and ketchup and that Hollywood physics don't apply in real life. It's all about how much you want to believe it and enjoy the ride without questioning everything.
Ironically, when it comes to the setting, the lore and the terminology that goes with it all, she's even more ignorant than I am. I cringed when she constantly referred to her force powers as 'magic' or when she started talking about 'the dark force', but surprisingly enough, she picked up on the whole thing rather quickly, just by paying attention to the story. And this wrecks another point I have made in my last blog about this game - you can actually get some fun out of this and get sucked in by the story, even if you don't give a crap about Star Wars. Who would have thunk? Either way, it was 5am when she finished her first ever session on there.
Maybe I'll get into the whole thing some more now. It's one thing having to play a particular class and style 8-10 hours a day with your work mates. It's another being free to do whatever the fuck you want, whilst playing with your significant other. We'll see.
-Cat
I am sorry, I cannot hear you over all the sense I have been making. Ever. Since the dawn of time.
AntwortenLöschenThere. That just had to be said. Or typed. I had no choice in that matter - every ounce of mental discipline I could muster - and then some - have been spent on not typing "I told you so"...
Damn.
As an aside, I had a comparable epiphany (which turned me away from hardcore MMOing forever and polymorphed me into one of the most bizarre creatures in the whole genre: a reasonably competent casual player) with WARHAMMER a while ago. I had left, finally disgusted with all its shortcomings, only to start playing it with a couple of friends lateron.
They were not familiar with the lore from the get-go, they saw past just about everything I got upset about and just enjoyed the damn game.
And then, I tried to enjoy it too. The whole process felt like an intellectual self-lobotomy - and afterwards, I found I had fun, too.
I quested and neglected my PvP rank, turning my character (in quest greens of course) into the weakest char I have ever played - and I didn't mind. I messed up royally on several accounts - and didn't get bitter but shed tears of laughter about it.
In the end, we kinda lost interest again, but the whole thing lasted for several months.
Ever since, I am consciously NOT following the MMO treadmill. Okay, I still nag like an old hag at buffed.de, but otherwise, I just play whenever I feel like it, immerse myself and throw reason overboard - alongside my higher brain functions. And that is awesome - I play less and enjoy it more.