video games | Superior Realities

It’s time to be honest about something: I’m not social in MMOs. I’m not an outgoing person by nature, and most of my experiences with other people in MMOs (and across the Internet, for that matter) have been negative. So I was never very social in these games to begin with, and I’m getting less so all the time.

I like the concept of massively social games with hundreds of players interacting. I’ve done much harping on how MMOs don’t do enough to support this kind of environment. But while I like the concept in theory, it doesn’t mesh well with my personality.

I do not belong to any guilds or cabals in Guild Wars 2 or The Secret World. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time in World of Warcraft in just two guilds (one for each faction), and I essentially fell into both by accident. Time has taken its toll on both guilds, as well, and I now have only a handful of fellow WoW players I still speak to in-game.

I’ve said before that I basically intend to play TSW as a single player game, but now it occurs to me that I’m basically playing all my MMOs that way. I’ve decided that I simply don’t want to bother with group content — discounting ones that can be easily accessed by soloists, such as WoW’s Raid Finder — because I’ve just never enjoyed it.

That begs a couple of questions, though.

Why am I playing MMOs?

I’ve gotten pretty heavily into MMOs. I’ve played several (I’m juggling two or three right now), and writing about them has become a cornerstone of my career. Why would this happen when I don’t appreciate one of the core purposes of an MMO?

The main answer is happenstance. I am a hardcore Warcraft fan and always have been. This meant I had to play WoW to keep getting my Azeroth fix.

And then it just kind of dovetailed from there. I started hearing about WoW-killers and got curious about whether other MMOs really could be that miraculously perfect. Spoiler alert: The answer is no. But I did find some games that were pretty damn good.

Of course, now I’m attached to the MMOs I play, and I couldn’t give them up.

There is another factor I’ve heard other MMO soloists offer to justify their habits. I’m hesitant to bring it up, because people usually get laughed out the door when they bring it up — and perhaps rightfully so.

Basically, the idea is that there’s more to appeal to people about MMOs than the social aspect. Which is of course true, but most people wouldn’t agree that they’re enough on their own.

The main appeals MMOs have over single player games other than the social aspect are persistent worlds and endless content updates. Certainly, I couldn’t play a single player game for years on end like I have with WoW.

The persistent world is what really appeals to me, though. I’ve always loved immersing myself in fictional worlds — be they in video games, books, or my own imagination — and MMOs let me do that much more so than single player games.

And, of course, there is the trump card: I’m paying them $15 a month. I can do whatever the flying frack I want with their game short of violating the terms of use.

But that brings us to the next question.

Are players like me bad for MMOs?

I don’t know how many soloist MMO players are out there. I haven’t encountered very many, but that’s probably to be expected considering our habits. I’ve heard some people claim they’re spreading like wildfire across the world of MMOs, but I don’t know if I quite buy that, either.

There is a perception, though, that MMOs are skewing towards solo play both in terms of developer actions and player desires. Look at all the solo content in Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The consensus seems to be that this is a very bad thing. People complain that us soloists are ruining MMOs, and that the true MMO experience is slowly dying off.

While my natural instinct is to defend my habits from such criticisms, I’m not sure I can. I do believe in the ideal of social gaming MMOs offer, even if I don’t participate in it, and it would seem a shame for it to slowly die off to a plague of us anti-social gamers.

I can’t answer this question myself, so I would welcome comments. Is there a place for the soloist in the MMO world, or are we just dragging the genre down?

It does occur to me that it depends on how we define socializing in MMOs, as well. Do you need to actually be playing alongside people, or is just chatting with them while you do separate things valid? Do you need to actually form lasting friendships, or is just randomly chatting with a PUG acceptable?

The latter is something I have done often, though less so these days as I gradually lose faith in MMO communities.

I’ve even heard some people argue it can be a meaningful interaction even if players don’t talk at all, that there’s still value in silent PUGs and quiet cooperation in the open world. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I see the logic.

Mind you, I’m not going to stop playing my MMOs even if I come to the conclusion players like me are bad for MMOs. You’ll take my Secret World from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

But I like to understand things. The MMO phenomenon is something that fascinates me, and I would like to understand what effect anti-social players like me have on the genre.

So I must ask for your opinions: Are players like me bad for MMOs?

Over the past year or so, I’ve played several games that give you pretty much free reign to create whatever character you want. The Secret World and Fable: The Lost Chapters both allow you to create pretty much any ability set (within reason), and Aion and Guild Wars 2 are both games that allow nearly limitless appearance customization.

And as I’ve played these games, certain patterns have begun to arise. There are certain themes that keep coming up over and over when I’m given the freedom to create whatever character I wish.

This has led me to wonder whether I, and other people, have an “ideal” RPG character that we will always gravitate towards creating if we have the chance. And if so, why are these traits our ideals?

There are two sides to this: appearance and abilities.

Appearance:

While I do play and enjoy characters with other looks, there is one look that keeps coming up over and over. If you’re a regular reader, you’re probably used to it by now: a tough-looking woman with an athletic, muscular build and black hair tied back in a ponytail. I’ve also occasionally dabbled with tough-looking women with tied back white hair.

Examples of these include my World of Warcraft rogue, my other WoW rogue, my Guild Wars 2 thief, my GW2 mesmer, and my Templar in The Secret World. If we add those with white hair, the list also includes my WoW warlock, my GW2 thief from the beta, and my ranger in Aion.

This all began with my rogue in Warcraft. I chose to make her tough-looking because, well, she’s a killer. I’m not sure why I always go for black hair, but the ponytail is because I wanted a style where her hair wouldn’t get in her eyes while she’s stabbing people.

Similar reasoning also applies to why I choose athletic builds in games where body customization is possible. My characters are fighters; they should look the part.

I also tend to make my characters tall when given the chance. The reasoning for this is simple to understand. Despite being of normal height for a white male, I’ve always felt oddly inadequate about my height and wished I was taller.

As for why I keep playing women… that’s more complicated. I’ve already talked about that in some detail, but I suspect I still don’t have all the answers.

Abilities:

I first started thinking about this when I spent a week playing Fable: The Lost Chapters about a year ago. This was by no means a particularly good game, but one thing I did appreciate was the utter freedom of character design. You can pretty much be whatever you want.

I went into this game with no plan. I just did whatever seemed like a good idea at the time and progressed as felt natural. This makes my Fable character possibly the truest expression of what my ideal playstyle would be.

So what was my Fable hero? A great, hulking, plate-wearing, greatsword-wielding, fireball-hurling battle mage.

The Secret World is also incredibly open in the kind of character you can create. What did a I end up using there? Fist weapons and blood magic. Again, melee and magic.

My Templar alt has settled on swords and pistols. In GW2, my warrior uses axes/longbow, my thief uses daggers/pistols, and my mesmer uses sword/staff. All characters that combine melee and ranged abilities.

Is it any coincidence that I stopped playing Aion right around the time my melee abilities stopped being competitive with my ranged skills?

So it’s clear that I prefer characters that are capable of fighting both with melee weapons and at range. Which makes sense, as I enjoy both. If I had to pick one, I would probably play ranged, but melee has a visceral thrill that ranged fighting just doesn’t quite equal. Plus, melee weapons are better aesthetically — they look more heroic.

As for which melee weapons, I prefer to dual wield weapons — usually swords — instead of using two-handed weapons. Plus, dual wielding tends to lead to faster attacks, which is what I prefer.

I also like characters that have at least some magical capacity. I’ll be honest; this is mostly just down to looks. Magic is pretty.

(Mini-rant: Why don’t games put more effort into making non-magical skills look good? You developers could really learn something from Aion here.)

Reading it back, this seems kind of greedy of me. I want my character to be everything: ranged and melee, magical and physical.

But is that wrong? Why should our characters need to fit into rigid boxes? I won’t say that classes are a bad thing necessarily, but I feel they are often too confining.

One place where I have to give Guild Wars 2 credit is the way they let you interpret each archetype very broadly. A thief can be a subtle assassin, a sword-wielding brawler, a gunslinger, or artillery.

Classes do muddle the idea of an “ideal character” somewhat, as do game mechanics. I’ve always loved the idea of playing an archer, but most games tie bows to annoying crap like pets, minimum range, or an overabundance of ground target AoEs. So my view of what my ideal character would be may be somewhat skewed by the games I’ve played.

Also, it’s probably impossible to ever get every experience you want from one character. If you like playing tanks and glass cannon DPS, you obviously can’t be both at once.

The ideal:

So my ideal character would likely be a female character with an athletic build, tied-back dark hair, and abilities that combine fast melee skills with ranged magic.

Hmm, no wonder I liked Dungeon Siege III so much. I basically just described Anjali.

At the same time, it also seems clear to me I could never only play one character, no matter how closely it matched my ideal. We all need a change of pace now and then.

What about you? Do you have an “ideal” RPG character? What would it be, and what makes it your ideal?

…

God damn it, now I’m upset there wasn’t a Dungeon Siege III expansion again. ><

Superior Realities

Tag Archives: video games

Am I a Bad MMO Player?

Do You Have An Ideal RPG Character?

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