Category Archives: Immersion

"Journey" – When online players have no words

As video gamers we are living in wonderful times. I guess few decades from now some child of the future will smirk at this as he waves away a hovering NPC hologram with a sweep of his hand. Still, we are privileged in this time, too – to witness the speed of progress, the giant leaps technology has taken since our first 8bit steps until today. Video games are beautiful and there are more and more special and weird gems surfacing as developers get bolder and the audiences grow.

Nonetheless, games or rather experiences such as Shadow of the Colossus, Limbo or Bastion are preciously rare. You really need to be on the lookout and it appears that we are actually in for another treat.

“Journey”, out this March 2012 on PS3 network, promises to be everything that can be expected of a true video game delicacy. Set in a strange desert world of soft pastels, its unique graphics and smooth effects are a sight for sore eyes. Like for Limbo, there is no music in Journey and the player is cast into a strange setting without preamble, without map, unaware of what the actual “goal” of his adventure might be. And so he starts traveling, ever forward, exploring and solving curious riddles on the way by aid of visual hints alone.

Maybe the most remarkable thing about Journey however, is that it’s actually played online – and there’s a real chance to meet other players in the middle of the desert. Strangers you will never know, strangers you cannot speak to and yet –

While traveling the player can encounter other players, one at a time, if they are playing online. Players cannot speak to each other, but can help each other in their journey or not as they wish. Players met online will not be identified with a username and voice or text communication will not be possible with the other player. According to designer Jenova Chen, “it’s about two strangers who meet online. They don’t know who they are or how old they are. All they know is, that is another human being. “The only way players can communicate audibly with each other is with a wordless shout. Players will have symbols on the front of their robes for identification, so that the player can tell whether they have met that traveler before or not”[..]

[…]The game is intended to make the player feel “small” and to give them a sense of awe about their surroundings. The co-op aspect of the game is intended to allow the players to feel a connection to other people through exploring with them, rather than talking to them or fighting them. [source]

With that bit of information, Journey has reached maximum appeal with me. It appears that for a while the folk at IGN struggled for words too trying to define what this game actually is, y’know definitions (the final IGN review is actually much better). No matter what you like to call it, an “acid trip” as suggested, a poetic experience, a mad ride – maybe the point about Journey is that there’s no “point”, other than that:

The journey is the point.

A title worthy of some attention, methinks. Now all I need is to borrow a PS3!

Freedom of choice and player-hosted MMOs

Skyrim is making quite the noise at the moment; not just among classic RPG lovers but a large circle of MMO players too, realizing just how much they have missed that sense of wonder and adventure in the online world. No doubt it is a certain kind of MMO player who feels this loss most acutely – I know why I do and like me, many MMO players have actually started their journey decades ago, as console gamers, as tabletop and pen & paper players, as lovers of the fantasy genre as a whole. These past days I have felt as if re-discovering a long lost friend and exploring the world of Tamriel has been an almost poetic experience. I kid you not. Within the first few hours, I’ve been inside my favorite Robert Frost poem and been the hero on my cherished old D&D covers. What more could I possibly want from a game?

“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.”

I don’t know how to call this essence that we can feel when a fantasy game, book or movie is being true to its core. This strange magic that happens when somebody does it right and takes us there with him. The difference between a work of passion (and geekdom) maybe and a generic work of fail that we can all tell apart. Some games have soul, some don’t – you can feel it and see it but not nail it down on single criteria like graphics or combat.

Me and a friend of mine like to call it “high adventure” and we borrow from the opening of Conan the Barbarian there. Or we call it “epic bombast shit” (EBS©) in a  not-so-srs attempt to qualify the seriously atmospheric and epic fantasy from its ugly mass-market siblings.

Either way, Skyrim has it; this sense of magic and awe, of being there in this vast world with dragons in the sky and darkness lurking around the next corner. It has its minor flaws, as others have already pointed out, but at this stage it’s entirely beside the point for me. Again: what else could I possibly want?

The “Skyrim MMO” deal

Right after entering Skyrim, I said “man, if only this was co-op. I would need holidays”. Indeed, the world of Tamriel screams for companionship; sharing the travels and adventures with a few more people who don’t happen to die on the way or get stuck under the stairway like their NPC equivalents. I would love nothing more than a co-op mode for maybe 2-4 players.

The MMO idea now, I am not so sure. I commented about this before, and my initial negativity stems from the justified scepticism of what a developer might do to Skyrim in popular WoW-fashion. That idea is frankly a nightmare and I care little whether WoW’s gamification trend came from the players or the developers, I would never want to share Tamriel with WoW’s current MMO achiever crowd. Ever.

I’m far from opposed to online modes though or sharing games by principle. Why did I become an MMORPG-player in the first place, if not because I prefer to have more than NPCs around me? But for this to work in Skyrim, we would have to take a close look at all the aspects that make the game so dear to us right now – and at how to protect those. How can you retain Skyrim’s scale, open world and playstyle freedoms in an MMO while maintaining a sense of meaning? This is something Bethesda has managed to balance: open world vs. meaning. They show us too, that not all satisfaction in an RPG is delivered by means of a classic definition of “challenge” and immediate “hard rewards”. There is great joy in adventure and exploration.

The answer to the question might already lie in the online world: FPS games. Times before we’ve noticed features of online shooters and communities with the potential to improve things for MMORPGs too. It was my better half though who tipped me off when pointing out what he liked about Skyrim and as an FPS-player, always disliked about WoW –

“…This is what the players want: freedom. Let me play the game however I want and with whom, don’t tell me what to do or how to play. Let me choose my difficulty, whether to use console commands or not. Don’t tell me when to grind or what items I need or where I should go. I’m not an idiot. This is what the …[insert random Blizzard insult here]…still don’t get.”

A popular dilemma of MMOs is the accomodation of player X; to appeal to a variety of players within the same game, to offer dynamic content and different levels of difficulty. All of that can simply be summed up as a basic issue of player freedom. If you realize that you cannot deliver for everybody, why do you even try to define the game in the first place?

Several weeks before Skyrim’s launch, I tipped my toe into Red Orchestra 2 – for lack of alternatives and the wish for quick, cooperative play more than anything. I joined the friendly banter of my partner’s clan on teamspeak and tried to hide my cringe-worthy attempts at mimicking the FPS player. Yet, I never fail to be impressed over how readily the FPS industry has delegated their server administration to the clans who represent their loyal player base. If you log into RO2, you’re met with a long list of player-hosted server types, each offering their own rule sets, map and itemization choices, number of players allowed. Whether you choose to play in a smaller group, use aim-bots or loathe any kind of mod, there’s a place for you.

This is what I would want for a “Skyrim online”. A chance to choose how I play it and to share it with a limited amount of like-minded players. A developer can never look after so many individual choices, but I can. And I would join such a game in a heartbeat.

Skyrim shows us that the RPG and MMO player alike love the scale and freedoms of an open world. FPS games have shown for years that the best way to cater to a mixed audience, is to let the community configure and moderate their own servers. Why should we not adapt this for online RPGs in the future?

Cosmetic items are for the cool kids!

Nuff said.

I’ve had it by now with people of the MMO “over-achiever generation”, trying to make cosmetic gear appear in a bad light or associating it with certain (lowlife) play styles or player motivations. You don’t have to care for it (although I suspect you do), but spare me the wannabe elitist rubbish, mkay?

Whether you get kicks out of flowcharts, flaunting personal body-count, talking Shakespearean English among yer brethren or drawing your own maps – cosmetic gear is for you, pal! In the past, I’ve enjoyed most play styles in equally serious amounts in MMOs (okay, not the Shakespearean so much) and I’ve found that no matter where a player gets personal enjoyment or epeen from, it should always come wrapped in shiny paper! Cosmetics are for each and everybody and here’s why:

Player customization is an integral part of the genre and has always been a popular wish of MMO players across the board. MMOs are about coherent virtual worlds, or used to be – about identification, immersion and simulation, among other. The way your character looks has a lot to do with where he’s coming from, where he’s going and who he is. We do not exactly have a lot of means to distinguish otherwise in this department; our faces are not aging with time, our bodies won’t scar or build muscle. Many MMOs won’t even allow you to select character height or body type. Clothes and armor are therefore just one way to describe yourself some more and make your character tell a story, in a game that is also a lot about community and interaction.

Funny enough, it is very achievement-oriented players who care to distinguish themselves in MMOs the most; people who wave their damage meters around, ride on achievement mounts or want their hardmode epics or PvP gear to look different from other items. And that’s fair enough, I actually agree with that last crowd – but these wishes are erm, cosmetic! Pretty vain too, in a very exclusive way, unlike those who might simply want cosmetic gear for better choice and variety’s sake, without restrictions. Both groups want customization and frequently overlap – ambitious players care as much about looks as “casual” folk. Or not.

Compared to today’s MMOs, original Ultima Online was a game of remarkable sim aspects; not only would players waylay each other mercilessly around the clock and loot each others corpses down to the last shirt, they would happily hoard their “war spoils” in fully furnished homes and towers (which you could plant on the world map permanently), putting their successes on display; heavy treasure chests among basic furniture, torches on the walls and wallpapers. The most vicious player-killer guild would have a multi-story castle designed from bottom to top, with rares and shinies and uniforms for every member of the team. Guild colors crafted with (possibly) exclusive dies. Looks mattered, looks made an impression, looks formed a community and gave it a character and reputation. I remember how my “notoriously PK” sibling spent hours dying armors or crafting rare sets. Nothing says “I pwned you, noob!” better than your victim remembering your appearance and fearing your entire guild from there.

Time for truth: which one of these two would you rather have looming above your corpse? Which would you prefer to get your ass kicked by? I know whom I’d choose!

On annoying terminology

I’m not sure when the transition from cosmetic items to “vanity” happened, along with other even more negative associations and terminology. As if somehow caring about looks was a trait that divides MMO players and wasn’t a fundamental part of role playing (in the general genre sense). As if it was a way for entirely frivolous, vain and not-so-srs characters to waste their time on superficial aspects, when they, y’know, could be doing much more important things! Oh yeah… my “game schedule” is so busy busy busy with guild leading, raiding and PvP, I cannot possibly fit some time in for appearance slots!!! *GASP*

LOL! Yes you can, you just don’t want to! That’s alright, you can still be one of the cool kids…kinda…..although it really wouldn’t hurt if you put some more effort into your appearance, after all this ain’t the zoo.

We all take pleasure from different things in MMOs and if you really must go there, they’re all equal “wastes of time”; they’re entertaining somebody somewhere somehow and little else. So let’s not, we’re way past that fallacy. Just like your need to optimize doesn’t say one thing about your skills or achievements as a player, caring for cosmetic items and collectibles doesn’t tell you what type of player you’re dealing with and they’re not on opposed ends of the spectrum either. That is a wrong assumption and shows me that you have no idea what genre you have gotten yourself into or where it originated from. It is frankly also another sign of gamification rearing its ugly head, where player customization has no meaning, just like lore and travel do not. Slowly but surely, we lose all aspects that create atmosphere and depth in this beloved genre. How about you get your over-achieved under-dressed ass off my lawn?

I know, some say this genre has been pretty stagnant in places, I certainly agree. Then again, we have come such a long, LONG way in other areas when players do not even remember the second half of what’s making these games a whole, the “-RPG”part. Or both the visual and narrative side, for that matter. It saddens me, truly. What a dark and scary world where numbers are all that’s left!

Screw this – MMOs are about choosing the blue pill!

P.S. This is not an “anti-achiever post”, even though you’re a tiring bunch at times. It’s in fact a pro-cosmetics post, for achievers as much as other player mindsets (not that they’re actually mutually exclusive, but you know). Dare to be frivolous! You can do it! <3

Storybricks: breathing life into NPCs

Jaina Proudmoore, powerful sorceress of the Kirin Tor. We first met her in Theramore Isle, doing her bidding in a series of quests, before she buggered off to save the world from the Burning Legion, following Medivh, falling in love with Arthas Menethil. Last we saw her, she had changed – “she’s become too whiny”, some said, her mind addled with the quest to save beloved Arthas, until she finally succumbs to reality during the Halls of Reflection scenario in the Wrath of the Lich King.

Remember Jaina? I’m sure you do.

Sheddle Glossgleam of Dalaran is a special little gnome. He resides in the Threads of Fate shop, just above Paldesse whom the clothwearers among you must surely know, so many times have you stood at her side and browsed her wares. I’ve talked about Sheddle in the past and why he stands out in a crowd of anonymous, faceless NPCs out there. I hope since then you’ve paid him a visit or two. Did you know that he has a secret thing for Paldesse? I wonder how they manage to maintain such problematic a relationship…

The truth is, it’s hard to remember much about most NPCs that co-exist with us in MMOs and frankly, it’s a crying shame. Unless a developer decides to promote a special character to hero status, we rarely remember the face or story of the innumerable characters we meet on our travels or visit frequently. If they even have a story. Our virtual worlds are flooded with characters of every size and color – they populate our towns and cities, they work in our shops providing the most crucial services, they hand us our very first quest as we begin to explore the new world.

Yet, we have no idea who they are. In fact, most of the time we don’t even stop to have a look around as we enter a new town or quest hub, let alone talk to every NPC or listen to what it has to say. Mostly because none of them have much to say, anyway – and so we click our way through loot and service windows, counting on nothing out of the ordinary to happen. And usually we are quite right about that.

MMO developers have a long way to go when it comes to creating more plausible NPCs in their games, characters that actually deserve notice and justify our attention over more than potential rewards alone. Why does such an omnipresent aspect of gameplay remain game “furniture” – at best making for an escort quest or popular quest-giver, more frequently serving as a shell for your average service window? Why do NPCs get so little impact on a world they co-inhabit?

Introducing Storybricks: more than just dialogues with NPCs

Namaste Entertainment intend to change the oversight that has been NPCs in videogames these past years. With Storybricks, a project in progress, they want to breathe life into non-player characters (and the entire world from there) and to make them a more engaging, fun and fundamental part of online gaming experiences. And not just that: they want you to invent your own NPCs and scenarios with them!

After having been invited to see a demo on Storybricks, I’d like to try and summarize for you what it’s all about in few simplified words: Storybricks is an ingame tool-set that will enable players to create their own stories about and with NPCs, allowing them to write complete scenarios in quest-like fashion by defining an NPC’s pre-determinants/history, basic attributes and behavior towards other players, down to more complex relationships, adding setting and even NPC inter-relations. That means you will not just set a stage and invent a story for other players to experience, but each NPC is being attributed his own, individual AI, whereby it reacts hostile or friendly towards you and will change and adjust its behavior long-term, depending on your actions. Not enough with that, your choices and actions might not only influence your reputation with one NPC, but other NPCs associated with it. There is no accounting for what consequences your actions might have!

Namaste intend for their Storybricks system to be an easy to approach, self-explanatory tool where the player/creator can choose between building a more simple scenario with help of a vast variety of pre-defined functions and actions, or defining every step down the road himself for a more unique experience. On an UI level, this means you will be working with so-called “bricks” that allow for an unlimited number of combinations for each NPC. It’s really up to you how far you decide to go.

When it comes to how such player-generated content could be implemented and made available for others to play, Namaste are still in the phase of evaluation. Technically there are many options: allow players to write scenarios for existing NPCs they enjoy, let players create NPCs and stories from scratch that can then be offered like a “module” – similar to downloading apps from an app-store.

There is great potential here in terms of tapping a player-base’s creativity and making for unique, non-repetitive questing experiences; if developers cannot put much time and effort into creating interesting NPCs and ongoing lore, why not make your player-base solve the issue for you?

There are concerns too of course – on the surface: dynamic implementation, choice-impact relation and realization, balance, polish and including the multi-player aspect. Also, regulating potentially conflicting NPC stories. However, Namaste are aware of these pitfalls and they have time to find just the right answers over the course of many months to come. The more feedback they are receiving at this stage, the better they can work out solutions.

Worried? It ain’t “all or nothing”!

Now, from a more classic MMO-driven point of view, you might have some justified doubts. Do you really care to know that much about NPCs? Are MMOs not much more about interacting with real people, rather than NPCs in Fable or Dragon Age Origins -manner? And what if you simply do not enjoy story writing and inventing characters?

The answer to concerns such as these are very simple: first off, Storybricks is entirely optional a feature. If you’re not one for creating content yourself, it simply means more quests and more interesting NPCs will be available for you to interact with. Or not. But if the successes of games such as Little Big Planet or Forza-I tell us anything, then a great many gamers actually love to add to their favorite games, to create content and share it with others. Think about it: just how much time do players already spend every day interacting with NPCs – daily quest givers, service providers? The number must be enormous.

Why not exchange that experience for a more unique one? Why not play new, player-created content all the time, instead of dailies and other repeatables? Assuming the content is dynamic, meaningful and well-implemented? It’s not all or nothing from here: Storybricks has the potential to add considerably to any type of MMO. It remains up to individual players how much they want to get out of it.

Everyone wins – A big palette of potential

For developers the advantages of Storybricks seem evident: get customers to add unique content to your game, in an area where you cannot necessarily spare the resources or focus in equal amounts. Provide for a long-lasting, almost unlimited source of new adventures, rather than adding more and more repeatable content, boring your players to death as they wait for the next expansion or patch. By this, make your world flow more naturally, feeling more alive, dynamic and exciting.

For the online player, it is an unprecedented opportunity to direct his own MMO experiences and to unleash his creativity and hidden talents. Once more, players become creators rather than mere consumers in their virtual home. The complexity of Storybricks, the far-reaching NPC relations add elements such as meaning of choice, impact and consequence to gameplay, making for an altogether more immersive experience. Add to that an unebbing flow of new quest scenarios to play through.

I fully endorse a project with the potential to add that much depth to MMOs and bringing players back to the table. It feels like we have finally reached the “post-WoW era”, with future online games needing to set themselves apart, improving and innovating in areas very lackluster so far. We can all feel a turning point in this exhausted industry – refreshing concepts such as Storybricks are exactly what we need.

What the team at Namaste needs from you to help them on their journey, is feedback: ideas, suggestions, critique. They have been reaching out to a variety of bloggers and gaming networks these past weeks and they want more, as many suggestions as they can possibly get this early into development. So, if you have any time to spare, are interested in demo testing and want your NPCs to become a more exciting and memorable part of online adventures, check out their website and get in touch. I for one, will definitely keep a very close eye on Storybricks from here!

Wiping expansions off the table

There is one thing I am still waiting for in the world of MMOs. Okay – that is not quite true, there are a good few things I am expecting to see developers change in the future. One particular aspect however, has been gaining ground and speed there lately: namely the removal of the classic expansion model.

If I consider some of the biggest negatives MMO developers and players currently suffer from, it’s the ever-increasing pressure to deliver content fast vs. beating it, the extreme between players with not enough time to experience new content  and waves of un-subscribers towards the second half of an expansion-cycle. We all know at least some of these feelings: the race right after an expansion or major content patch hits. Then, the inevitable monotony and burnout hitting raid guilds and players at later stages, the “been there done it all”, driving some into creating yet another alt and others into canceling their sub altogether, waiting on the next installment.

And when you think about that, you realize that it’s quite an unnatural flow of things: a disturbance to the consistent and long-term enjoyment of a game. The “content peaks” delivered by traditional expansions create highly negative side effects, not just for the player base but the developers. So, why keep clinging to this model?

How extremes destroy stability

My main grief with expansions is their very situational concentration of a truckload of new content on one arbitrary and artificial moment in time – funny enough called the “release”. Players will wait 1-2 years for that monumental chunk of new content to arrive, all its ground-breaking changes and additions to the game delivered in one, fatal strike. The wait time drags on and gets tedious, the expectations are high. Some players cope by rolling alts or going on preparation sprees, others fall deep into “player depression” and “identity crisis”, leaving their guilds, canceling their subs.

The change of emotion that finally follows on arrival is extreme: players go from utter boredom to an almost hysterical rush to take in as much of the long-desired content as possible. Between those two points in time, we have a gradually plunging curve, only ever lifted by a major content patch or two (if such exist). Make no mistake though: the first quarter into a new expansion is peak time. Things go steadily downhill from there, on an individual level as much as overall sub numbers. Every time, every year, the same story like a groundhog day –

Now let’s assume developers decided to get rid of these opposite poles entirely: let’s assume that instead of featuring virtual coitus, erm release, every 1-2 years (few content patches included), they would rather aim to create a more natural and continuous flow of events and change by releasing regular patches on a 2-weeks base. Every other week, something in your world would change, get added or removed. It might be small things like a flood destroying parts of a map. It might be big events like a new quest hub being installed or a new dungeon. The frequent patching would allow developers to create an atmosphere of a living, breathing story where things happen constantly and where the environment (both NPC and PC) reacts accordingly, more like to our real world. There is never the one, big traumatic change but a dynamic world that is being re-shaped all the time, like a book with endless chapters.

How exciting would that be! To log in every other Wednesday, knowing that something has happened somewhere in your world! Maybe even uncommented in patchnotes at times. Sometimes big, sometimes small. Sometimes an isolated event, sometimes an ongoing number of chapters. The world would feel more alive and relaxed because change happens gradually. The game won’t rush ahead of you, leaving you behind. And it won’t just stop at some point, leaving you longing for more –

Not enough, along with this change in game flow, a long list of negative effects would shrink considerably or fall away entirely. Things that used to unsettle and spoil your fun in the game:

  • Begone player burnout during the second half of expansions
  • Begone (raid) guilds struggling to keep going because players despair or leave
  • Begone un-subscribing and re-subscribing once things are looking up
  • Begone social break-ups because friends frequently leave and return
  • Begone “content rush” right after the big fat expansion hits
  • Begone time pressure for raid guilds fearing the next major patch striking
  • Begone missing out on big loads of content
  • Begone long wait times to experience something new
  • Begone radical changes to economy and gear/item values
  • Begone big jumps and breaks in lore and world

I remember how underwhelming player reception was in places for WoW’s Shattering in 4.0.3.; pretty much the entire world as we knew it got revamped in a swift strike, and yet there was little orchestration or preparation beforehand. Few earthquakes aside, it was certainly no thrill. Then, we did not get to be present when it happened, either. We got to log back later, presented with a grand Fait accompli that didn’t make us feel like a part of the world. Expansions often feature drastic and overwhelming changes and additions like that which simply feel un-immersive. Getting to read huge walls of lore later on is not the same as experiencing a process.

I want to feel part of the world I play in. I want to be included in a continuous and ever growing story. I want change happening all the time, not every 1-2 years in traumatic leaps. I want stable and lasting fun, not a curve that goes from player fatigue and long wait times to over-excitement, before tumbling back down into the valley of tears. I don’t want to regularly un-subscribe from the MMO I am playing because it’s delivering content in situational peaks. Surely, developers would wish for that too?

Why don’t they do it already?

If you consider Blizzard’s ongoing (failing *cough*) effort to create a game that keeps a tight, exciting leash on its player base through an unebbing flow of fast rewards and achievements, you could think breaking the “peak-time” expansion model would follow the same strategy; after all, what better way of keeping things fresh and interesting than releasing new bits of content every other week?

Is it a marketing thing? Are expansion modules so crucial a selling-point for recruiting new customers? Surely, it can’t be the retail factor – it would have the smallest part in overall profits generated via subs, virtual goods and merchandise. So, attracting potential new customers with announcing your next big hit, I can see that as a factor. As far as I know, Blizzard added a substantial amount of new subscribers with each of their expansion releases, heavily marketing for “The Burning Crusade” or “Wrath of the Lich King”. I wonder though: how many effective customers have they lost since Cataclysm’s launch – does the strategy really work forever? And how much sub time do they lose every year because players unsubscribe regularly? It would be interesting to compare the potential losses and gains here.

It would be interesting too, to hear a developers point of view concerning the planning, administrative and actual design efforts (and deadline pressure) that go before a full-scale expansion. Have them compare the effectiveness of such an undertaking to a large number of mini-patches allowing them to break down change and innovation, focusing on one chapter at a time. Somehow I feel that from a pure design’s point of view, it would be more controlled and rewarding to go with the second option. Safer in terms of devastating bugs and far-reaching miscalculations, too. I am of course entirely speculative here and as usual happy to be educated otherwise!

I am no design or marketing and investment specialist; I would still claim however, that a content delivery model creating the more lasting effect, the stable fun and entertainment and the more dynamic and immersive flow of content for a player base, bests a system full of highs, lows and break-ups. That is from my humble point of view – from me, the paying customer. Somehow I have the feeling I am not alone.

So, who will step forward and show us how it’s done already? I am waiting!

P.S. I love charts, don’t you? I have actually used them in the one, proper way in this article – serving and exemplifying my personal message and meaning, rather than basing on existing numbers. It’s called journalistic freedom!

But…I wanna be a hero in MMOs!

Wolfshead published an interesting article yesterday in which he questions heroism in current, popular MMOs and criticizes the player base’s need to feel like heroes all the time. And I do see an issue with spoiling your gaming audience very much myself; the overkill of things ultimately undermining all their value.

However, if you were to go as far as to say that the player’s wish for heroism in WoW & Co. was wrong or somehow the wrong thing asked of the wrong genre, a detrimental thing even, I would very much have to disagree with that premise. The wish that drives us to certain books or movies, drives us into playing online games too and it’s neither wrong nor sad wanting to feel like a hero in MMOs. In fact I wouldn’t be playing them if that wasn’t part of the deal.

I want to be a hero if nothing else

In one passage, Wolfshead questions the “by proxy”-effect that attracts “normal people” to the more heroic: those iconic, shiny beings that lead seemingly exciting and perfect lives under a public eye, celebrities of all flavors but also countless fictional characters, protagonists of movies, books, comics or video games. Virtual or not, they represent virtues and qualities we wish we had and for a short moment they lend us a little piece of that imaginary glamour which can be addictive enough to turn a fan into a die-hard groupie, following his idol around the globe for 5 minutes of VIP-pass glory.

People cult has always been big for this reason; if you can’t lead a so-called glamorous life yourself, at least you can watch those that do with envy or admiration. Nevermind that other, less presentable side of the coin – the pressure such people bend under, the non-existent social life, the fake friends, the complete sell-out of privacy, the uppers and downers to keep them steady on their feet. If we can’t be shiny, someone has to be. And it better be so.

I’d like to think that I have a good life, a better life in fact than most, no matter how easily forgotten. The fact that I’m writing this article on my internet-blog, in my free time on my warm bed, is testimony to such blessed privilege. I’m also no person for people cult which I find silly regarding celebrities and disgusting in politics, to name two more popular, public phenomena. Maybe it’s because looks rarely impress me and I never feel particularly inferior to or in awe of anyone on grounds of mere social status, looks or titles. While we’re at it: Royalty is a joke. Thanks for listening!

I’ve always had a soft side for fictional heroes though; those had the power to inspire me beyond all limits, be they from classic novels, hero or fairy tales, sometimes even an RPG. I have confessed before how I carry quotes around in my head and how that adds meaning to life for me at times. Yep, I am that normal a person. And if you liked to measure me, then yes I probably have a boring and “uneventful” life. I sit behind a desk everyday, like millions do, I (struggle to) pay taxes, I feed my (lazy) cats. The weekend is the highlight of my average week and if it includes a BBQ with old friends and a good glass of red, I am happy. If my partner still brings me flowers out of the blue after so many years (or remembers anniversaries *gasp*), I am fucking euphoric.

I don’t slay dragons and I don’t save the princess like the heroes in my stories do. I still do the dishes by hand instead of wiggling a finger. And God knows, I’d make for a lousy adventurer – I wouldn’t get through the first wood without hopelessly getting lost (been there, done that) and I’d be halfway through my provisions by noon. So just sometimes, I wish I was a bit more like my heroes; a little bit more than myself. Sometimes I long for the epic and magical in my everyday life. And you know what: that’s okay. It’s neither sad nor “desperate” – it’s just life. Unpretentious and real, Mr. Thoreau. That doesn’t make it any less of a life, maybe it just makes me honest a person.

…That’s why we love stories and lose ourselves in them, that’s why we get absorbed watching the Lord of the Rings for the 10th time (extended), that’s why we play mighty warriors and dark mages in games: it’s called escapism. Mankind has done it for thousands of years, in furs, on smokey incense, with bone and dice. So yes, I want to be a hero in my MMOs; I don’t want to play accountant and write reports with my pen on planet reality. I want epic skills, I want to be powerful and kick some magic ass with a flaming sword!

If I can’t be a hero in a game I play so utterly, what’s the goddamn point???

The dragon – hero equation

There’s an article I wrote some time ago, early into this blog, that I keep coming back to like a broken record (I apologize at this point). It’s the never ending story of game difficulty level vs. meaning in MMOs, cost vs. reward and how they are opposites that rely strongly on each other to survive in perpetual balance. Hard-won victories last forever – easy rewards mean little no matter how purple they are. There is no adventure, nor real heroism where there are no struggles and challenges to face; your book’s protagonist is hardly a hero if he has no fears and demons to overcome, no dragons to slay.

And this is where me and Wolfshead agree completely: the doom of easy and numerous rewards in this genre we love so much, the loss of depth, adventures and stories because we get fed so much candy we lose all tolerance for downtimes , for exclusive content with high requirements and earning our passage. Along with that, a sort of baffling player self-entitlement, no doubt bred in MMOs like WoW that have overdone it on access, balance and fast rewards.

I don’t think that wanting to be a hero in games has any part in these issues though, I really don’t. In fact, I’d turn the table and say that it’s exactly because of this excess that there can’t be any heroes in today’s WoW (as opposed to there being superheroes everywhere) and that’s what’s leaving so many players feeling slightly unfulfilled – how could they not be in the absence of hard requirements and obstacles to make for such a title? It’s really hard to be a pioneer under such circumstances. And that’s what actually makes me sad and desperate. 

In the end I’d rather be me

We all long to be a hero at times. Maybe we even wonder: if life ever gave us the chance to a moment of lasting pathos, would we be brave enough? In video games and MMOs especially, that are so much about escaping, adventuring and immersion, we get to re-invent ourselves a little and unlike to just reading a story, we get to be interactive. Our real lives might be “average”, but in Azeroth we hurl firebolts at our foes. On our way to work, we cringe at our reflection in the morning mirror, but at night that elvish cloak and sparkling armor sit just tight.

And I know, I might never write that novel that keeps robbing me of my sleep. I might never be able to afford that fairy hut or spooky castle I would call a home. And I might just have to accept one day that neither love nor friendship are as perfect nor epic in this life as they always are in the best of stories, the ones which spoil us so utterly with hopeless ideals early on in our lives. And just maybe that’s a good thing too; because the epic and tragic lie close together and usually come at great cost. Just like heroism comes with high risk and hardship. We are not always ready for what we wish for.

Just maybe, a normal, “uneventful” life is not so bad after all. And being that hobby hero at night – in virtual worlds where death isn’t permanent and dragon’s breath is made of pixels. I like things that way.

The more alts, the more burnout

To pick up where I left the trail in my last post: Alts are pure evil.

No really, playing alts is a fascinating subject. Not just on a personal level, but in the greater scheme of things and how they affect MMOs. While I was rather outright about all the issues I perceive with alt-play yesterday, and the general misconception that playing alts is performance therapy, I do understand why people love to play different classes just like I agree it can be beneficial. I can see why trying out a new class is fun and makes for a more informed decision for a main. I do this myself when I start a game. However, personally I’d prefer the approach Final Fantasy XI had there: one character can learn and “equip” any given combination of classes available. That way your main character stays, but learns new things if you so choose.

I understand too, why players enjoy to re-visit content. I think it’s rather problematic if designers promote the feature in absence of actual, new content, but if you’re generally somebody who loves questing, exploring and traveling, leveling up a new class gives you a reason to do so and discover new things on the way. A new class and potentially new race is a new perspective. Shintar is one blogger who frequently let’s us in on her experiences while re-visiting lower content and zones in WoW. They’re fun reads that I enjoy and appreciate from that particular perspective.

Yet, I still wonder: do alts really prolong long-term player enjoyment or do they not rather make for a worse burnout?

Burnout, boredom or nothing to do?

“….but when and why did we get the idea that we must have max-level, max-profession, max-gear alts? That’s not an alt, that’s a second main! Is one main not good enough? Maybe we need more fun and more to do on our mains, rather than spamming alts and then getting sick of repeating quests.”

So, when did we get this idea? I’m not sure I ever played a game where alternative characters mattered more than in World of Warcraft. Some MMOs actually require you to buy a new account, others will restrict the level of benefit and interaction possible between your characters. They don’t want a single player to have that amount of self-sufficiency; to unhinge the intended speed of play or undermine social mechanisms and interaction in favor of more freedom, flexibility and soloability.

I’ve known a few extreme examples of players that considered leveling and gearing up a character the main purpose in WoW. They did so at ridiculous speed until they had all 10 classes (I got it right this time Shintar!) fully equipped at 85. After which there was “nothing more to do” so they quit the game. Or a guildmate who was so eager for the new expansion that he did not only raid Ulduar on his main 3 times a week, but on alts during offnights too. Something we’ve always watched with concern in our raid guild because we anticipated (and experienced) just how fast such players burn and bore out on content that you intend to raid for at least the next 6 months. We did even intentionally cut back on alt-runs at expansion starts for this precise reason.

I don’t believe boredom springs from the same things for everybody. Some players would undoubtedly quit sooner if there were no alts. Others spoil what’s actually there for themselves by altoholism and short-term thinking. I don’t blame anyone for either decision, but I think in terms of content development, it’s poor design that needs people to play multiple chars all over in order to keep things interesting. The crux is probably the entire idea behind expansions and how content is usually delivered in peaks, rather than a more natural flow. I am still waiting for an MMO where the developers approach this issue better.

Another problem with the availability of alts is that they’re too convenient a solution – in a way they prevent players from looking for further content and entertainment after they feel “finished” on their main. How does this notion even go together with a character that’s supposed to be your alter ego in an ongoing story and simulate world? It doesn’t; unless you think of the classic game avatar. So, let’s assume for a moment that there were no alts available in WoW: what would you do with your “excess time'”? Would you rather –

a) Turn off the game and do something else?
b) Look for other ways to play your main?

Would people maybe contribute more to the world and community by sticking to their main because they are forced to? Would it not drive them to become more innovative and creative about what to do next? Would they really just run out of things to do?

Ideally, in a more open-world MMO than WoW, I’d like to see no alts. I would rather see people invest time in interacting more and creating things in the game. Yeah, HA-HA, I know that’s not the way things are currently going in the world of MMOs, but it’s what I’d like anyway. In WoW’s case options are limited but let’s still have a look at potential side-effects. Without alts people would probably –

  • re-visit older zones and content on their mains more often
  • team up more with random strangers because they want/need that class*
  • help out lowbies more
  • invest more time in inter-guild relations
  • rely on each other more for crafting and trade
  • play more PVP, arrange more outdoor conflict
  • have less money and therefore do a lot more of XYZ

That’s just from the top of my head. You can think of more things to do without alts at your disposal. Depending on your perspective as a player and customer, all of the things listed can be either positive or negative. Maybe you don’t want to cooperate or rely on others more, maybe you enjoy having an alt for every trade, maybe you are after making money. I’m not – to me most of that list is positive, whatever actually makes people play together, communicate, cooperate, create. The more interaction you have, the more stories you will tell at the end of the day.

*The one big downside I see is group setup / guild related: in a game ruled by the holy trinity, alts give guilds flexibility to go ahead with a run despite the lack of tanking, healing or dpsing mains. Canceled raids are a sad affair. People can respec or if need be, relog. Without this option, guilds would probably just end up inviting more people as backup players for their roster and that doesn’t really work out so great during times when raiding is most popular. This is strictly from a WoW-centric view though, amending one bad with another. In a way specs and alts are Blizzard’s own saboteurs to the trinity, even if “bring the player not the class” is still a dream. A different MMO without the whole class/role hysteria would be fine without alts: you wouldn’t need them for group balance.

The road less traveled by

I will blow into last week’s horn a little and ask just how many opportunities and stories we’re missing out on because an MMO offers the easy alt road. How different could social dynamics and life on servers be if everyone only ever had one main? What would people come up with instead?

Just like short-cuts turn into delays, too much convenience can turn into boredom. I’m sure developers welcome players that spend big amounts of time on alts, but I’m not sure if it really works out long-term? If it makes for a massive and more terminal boreout later, convincing you to keep paying that subscription will become increasingly difficult. Not just that, but the pressure to deliver expansions fast and keeping things fresh and interesting gets worse and worse on the developer’s side.

Nobody likes the samey grind forever. Candy is yum, but eating too much of the same candy is boring and gives you stomach ache. Already my granny knew that.

The common alt misconception

In a recent comment on a not so different topic, Klepsacovic left the following comment:

What’s so great about alts? It’s nice to have something to tinker with and to learn a bit about how other classes see the game, but when and why did we get the idea that we must have max-level, max-profession, max-gear alts? That’s not an alt, that’s a second main! Is one main not good enough? Maybe we need more fun and more to do on our mains, rather than spamming alts and then getting sick of repeating quests.

This is particularly interesting: for one thing, it did remind me of a similar comment I had left on BBB where I stated that the gravitation towards alt-play in WoW was a bad sign for the game, not a good one. I’m no fan of alts for many reasons. But this recent comment brought another interesting notion to the table, one quite contrary to the popular belief that playing alts prolongs the fun of playing the same game for long. You hear it often in that context: playing alts makes people tire less fast of WoW because it provides them with the chance to review content from a different angle. Or maybe not.

Why alts are no friends of mine /open parentheses

I’ve never been into the alt business for several reasons. Firstly, I am a rather strict “alter ego” player that plays MMOs for virtues such as story, world, simulation, community and immersion. It always felt like diving headlong into a book or strange universe to me, one that I travel and explore as myself – my adventures, my continuous story. And for that simple reason, my toons would resemble my true self and there was only ever the one me. That’s a matter of preference and perspective – I don’t expect others to join me on this. Let’s just say that playing multiple characters in an MMORPG feels like I am sat in front of the start screen of some classic console game where I’m supposed to pick a random character to go with.

My second reason is that I cannot play a “second or third rate character”. Unless you have an endless supply of time and a more casual guild, alts inevitably end up being your inferior toons. A little less shiny than your main, a little less experienced, a little less travelworn, a little less access to things. A little less of everything. I hate that; I hate sub-par, I don’t do sub-par versions of myself. If I was to heal some random 5man on an alt, I would constantly end up comparing it to healing the run on my priest – it would seem absolutely pointless to me or even a little selfish (“sorry group, had my priest been here we’d be so much faster”). To make matters worse, I’d have to repeat a ton of content, let alone stupid daily and rep grinds that my perfectionism would force me to go through. Myeah, I think not.

Last but not least, one big reason is playtime. I already dedicated a lot of time to WoW as it was – raiding, guild leading, forum and webpage work, PVPing, collecting silly baubles and exploring the world, you name it. There were dailies and token runs and whatnot, I could barely keep up doing those regularly. So, if I ever truly felt I was “finished” with Syl for the day, I really did not want to relog and start over on some alt. I’d rather dedicate time to my other hobbies. The balance hasn’t always been there between WoW and other things I enjoy, but I used to draw the line at playing on weekends or playing alts.

To honour truth here: I levelled a shaman once into the early 70ies and played her on a few 5man and 10man runs. My total playtime at the end of WotLK was 12 days or something and it felt pretty much pointless, besides showing me that elemental is OP levelling up and that I pity the melee for constantly running after tank aggro. I think I did it mostly to have the chance to join guild alt-runs (:peer pressure:), but I never got there. Every time I logged to the shaman, I felt like forcing myself: this wasn’t an alt of Syl, this was a nuisance, a disturbing sidekick. And yes, I had a lot less gold than most of my alt playing mates, but here’s the thing: I like asking other people to help me craft something. 

Besides this experience I never had any alt worth mentioning. Oh, I created toons aplenty and transferred them to Elwynn Forest where they became happy mules ever after. I can escort you from northern Kalimdor to Stormwind on foot with my eyes closed.. However, most available time must be dedicated to “maximize” my main. And if not, I log off (or alternatively, idle and chitchat while running through Dalaran in circles which is jolly good fun). I also believe that you are never “done” on your main, anyway. If I really had “excess time” besides my main focuses, PvP was always the next stop. Here I felt I was doing something meaningful towards my experience as a player and healer.

Personal parentheses closed.

The common alt misconception

Preferences aside, the longer I played and met various “altoholics”, the more I detected issues. Not with everyone mind, but quite a few people. The most prominent notion around is that alts make you a better player. Just like that. I remember a particularly mind-numbing conversation with a former maintank of our guild who wasn’t only one of our most fickle and unstable members, but such a screwup in various situations that we used him as melee whenever possible to “minimize the damage” (sorry DPS, it’s true) to the raid. So there I was, finding myself playing arena matches with the guy, probably by the machinations of some sadistic deity or something. We were short on a member and one of my team mates just grabbed the next best replacement before even asking me.

Wonderful. I spent the next 60 minutes listening to his blabber during queues, about how playing his priest and warlock had given him profound insights towards our raids and how he was definitely the best of our MTs in both PvP and PvE for this reason. He was also rather adamant about being able to give raiding priests and warlocks tips now because he had teh multiple perspective. He also finally understood all the “spell abbreviations they like to use”, like PoH and GS….Things between us went downhill from there.

The guy was just a hilarious example of the underlying issue. He was a shitty player with no degree of self-awareness and understanding of his own class – and therefore he stayed a shitty player despite his alts. Quantity is not were the insights lie. And WoW is not rocket science, no matter what some guys on Elitist Jerks would have us believe. Good players are good players, no matter what toon they play and vice versa. In fact, some of the best players I ever met were passionate about their main and the other half was excellent no matter what class they played. Because they set their mind to it, because they had a quick grasp or just a lot of ambition. They approached their alts in the same way they approached their main. The sucky players sucked no matter what character they played, some shades of difference granted.

So, to sum it up for kicks: You don’t go and play your priest and hunter because they will help you suck less on your warrior. It doesn’t quite work that way.  First and foremost, you play alts because you have time to play alts. You play alts because you enjoy playing alts. And that’s all there is to it. If you truly want to improve on your main, play your main. In any possible situation: practise on your main. First stop to improve your flexibility: PVP. If you’re set on improving, surely you’re willing to go through the drudgery?

Playing alts can give you insights into other classes. It does not make you a better player. There is no direct causality between these two things. 

Now, I can see why somebody who generally likes to “know everything” (aka walking encyclopaedia) or someone who loves to re-visit content would enjoy alts, or why a raidleader would consider it beneficial. It is. A change of focus is always beneficial if you actually know what you’re looking for. I’d never claim that playing alts has no positive potential, but it’s the player that makes it work or not. And it is not necessary in order to be a great player. There is also such a thing as “knowing too much” or thinking you know something when you do not quite yet. From years of personal experience and teaming up with great leaders, I have found this to be true: you don’t have to know everything about other classes in order to lead a charge well. That’s just airy nonsense some leaders like to intimidate you with or to boost their own ego. There is something called “functional knowledge” and that’s what I used when coordinating raid healing. I knew the things I needed to know about the other classes. I knew what was in any way relevant to our role, job and position in raids, about co-healers’ classes, about the tanks, about the DPS. And I knew these things from actually talking to those who had raided on their mains for years, from observation, from learning from them and working together. Plus being an attentive and active person on forum discussions and on healer specific sites.

So, this is my recommendation for all ye coordinators: do not be tempted to know everything about others to the point where you start doing all the thinking for them. They can be expected to know the things that concern playing their class properly. You should not have to know all the ins and outs for others or you will start babysitting every last thing much sooner than you know. Especially if you are a bit of a perfectionist or control freak, which is almost a given in leadership, save yourself by some intended ignorance.

Bottom line: do it all if you enjoy it, knock yourself out – but don’t think you “have to”.

Further issues with playing alts

Manalicious recently posted an article on how playing alts affected her raiding in negative ways. As mentioned before, I have very little personal experience with situations like these, but I can still relate. The few times I ran 5mans on the shaman, I was overly aware of the healer in my back, more than your average DPS would be. As a consequence, I was helping out with healing when I felt the healer struggling, too often than I probably should have. If you’re switching class frequently, it can be demanding to ask your mindset and routines to fully switch over every time. Maybe it is even impossible to perform on the same level as somebody who plays the same class for longer periods of time and has therefore a lot more “automatisms” in place.

But to get back to the beginning of this article: one big issue with playing alts is player burnout. I’m not at all convinced that alts really achieve long-term, what their short-term effect is being sold for – keeping people entertained longer and giving them more things to do. It seems to me that especially long-term, alts have the potential to lessen your enjoyment in the game and not just that, they have the potential to affect the entire world, the social mechanics on servers and their internal progress, negatively. This is the essence of the initial quote I posted and something I want to look into in a follow-up article tomorrow:  

More alts, more player burnout? – Let’s find out.

Placeholders for real things – shortcuts to nowhere

Dear player: it’s time to remove the keys you enjoy so much, because let’s face it, they serve no purpose anymore besides a symbolic one.  Games are not about symbolism, memories and emotions, this is SRS business. And it saves space on your bars.

We’ve removed the shiny gear and baubles you used to acquire by battling adversaries. It’s not practical. Instead, your rewards are tokens for everything. The tokens all look the same and they aren’t even real tokens, but numbers on a list – we know that’s not very exciting. But it makes loot distribution more even. Less waiting for you.

We removed the requirements for that instance, by the way. No more attunement to proceed. Plus, you can solo the chain if you’ve no patience for a group.

Please note that because of all this, we don’t have enough content since yesterday. However, we really don’t like to see you waste space or time on anything, so we’ll help you save on these things. We don’t know what you’ll do with all the excess, but we are sure you’ll think of something. We want you to be happy right now, not tomorrow.

Cutting out the real thing

So many things have become a currency in MMOs, a substitute; a token, an achievement, a note in the database. Why carry keys when the system can just record an achievement. Why have actual treasure to loot when you can take flexible tokens to shops later. Why carry spell ingredients in your bags, why travel somewhere to enter the instance gate, why visit an NPC in the barracks to join a battlegroud. Why indeed?

MMO players play in virtual worlds. And yet, apparently they need to save time. Apparently they need to save space. For what nobody knows exactly. Weren’t many of those things that get called “timesinks” what actually made for our world, our experiences?

The glory of short-cuts

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.” [Robert Frost]

Sliding doors; an intriguing concept. Playing the mind game of “what if” – what if you had taken that other road, where would you be now and who? We’ll never know and most of the time, there won’t be second chances. But I believe that while short-cuts can be handy, they rarely make for the better story. In fact, let’s try an experiment. Or two.

Which one of the two pictures does appeal to you more? Which one sparks your imagination? Where would you rather take a hike?

Your way to treasure: Through that dark wood, down the steep hill. Wait for a boat at the river. Head for the city, convince the guard to let you in. Get some flint and tinder in the shops. Camp close to the distant mountain range. Only a little further from there.

Your way to treasure:
Just follow the road, you can’t miss it.

Same day, different stories

#Day 1a) in an imagined person’s diary –

“I got up this morning and made some pancakes. When I spilled the milk, I discovered my watch lying under the table. I would have looked for that forever… I got the letter you wrote in the morning mail. The pages smelled of you. On the way to work, I bought a newspaper at the kiosk. There was a little boy who kept smiling at me through his huge tooth gap. When I left, he waved at me winking slily. How odd. Because I was musing over that boy, I missed the bus and so I walked to work. On the way I ran into my friend Val. We had a laugh over this new show we’re both watching and he invited me to dinner in the evening. When I arrived at work, the meeting hadn’t started yet. We were still waiting on the secretary which is why I had some time to get another coffee.”

#Day 1b) same imagined person’s diary –

“I got up this morning and ate a pop-tart. Checking my iPhone, I saw your Email, thanks for that. On the way to work, I listened to the news on shout-cast. I noticed there was a traffic jam on the bus lane, good thing I have my car to get to work. When I arrived, the meeting was about to start. The secretary had not arrived yet, but we decided to get going anyway and just include her over voice conference. That’s when I realized my watch was gone.”

On life; real and virtual

Short-cuts are faster, more efficient. Maybe they get us straight to where we want or at least, to where we think we want to be. But they also rob us of opportunities; of the opportunity for life to step in and trigger a chain of events or add something unexpected. Many good things in life, surprises and chance encounters happen while we’re not on plan, not on time. They happen while we’re waiting. They happen on the side of a winding road. They happen because we got distracted and our eyes weren’t fixed on one point in the distance. Maybe “timesinks” are where life really happens.

If we remove all the “unnecessary detours” in games that people consider a nuisance, what exactly are we “saving and optimizing ” that time for? When you arrive faster at treasure and glory, where do you go from there? And just how much have you missed on that shorter journey?

Why you really want attunements. Or: Watch your keys, friend

Unlock meh!
“See that door? It’s locked. I wonder what’s behind it..
See the lock? There must be a key somewhere to fit that particular lock…
There’s probably something worth guarding behind that door if it’s locked like that!
Damn, I really need to find that key now!
Keys – oh boy, my favourite!”

Oh, the suspense!

Attunements, such good memories you and me. That endless questline to get into Onyxia’s Lair, the crumpled up note that just wouldn’t drop in BRD. Countless wipes during countless jailbreaks. Then, getting a rogue to help you through the Shadowforge door. Jumping into the lava to enter the Molten Core for the very first time. You messed that one up alright, Executus.

In the Burning Crusade, you were still quite great. At least for a while. Not even Karazhan came for free and what a great place that was. The countless tears we shed to get Vashj down. The realm PuG I joined (the only time ever) just for a Kael’thas kill before the patch. Gawd, that lovely ring – and hands on the best title. Black Temple…I don’t know how many visits to Akama it took in total. The questline must have been 100 quests long (at least), some of which brought tears to my eyes because we kept wiping like sissies fighting those elites in SMV. All just to see Illidan. And who wouldn’t want that?

Attunements, you gave our guild a direction. You made us teamwork and plan. You gave us time. And long stories with epic moments. The excitement to get there – and everyone could get there in due time if they really cared to.

Then, things kinda changed. I felt sorry for those that came after us. Later, things never were quite the same. No more locks, just open doors. Open doors guard no treasure.

Why attunements were made of win

1) Vorfreude
Maybe you’ve heard the term before. I don’t think there’s an equivalent in English which is rather striking, given the fact that its vocabulary is generally so vast. “Vorfreude”, translated from German, means “the joy of anticipation” – the long wait before a great event, the excitement, the nervousness beforehand which are very often greater and better than the thing itself. Vorfreude is a good feeling: looking forward to something rather than having everything at once, right nao! Instant access to everything, ye I know that’s how the trend has gone in almost every possible way in WoW – but I loved earning my way to attunements, having that distant goal while enjoying content on the way, beating challenges, removing obstacles in my path. I also loved helping guildies to get there.

2) Long, epic questlines
The questlines were often long, with plenty to do on the way. Traveling was a big part, running different instances, picking up different items, talking to all sorts of NPCs. They increased in difficulty until a group was the only way to get further. They were also a great preparation or introduction to what was to come: what the background story and history of the places were, so you understood why you actually went there. I don’t think I ever got more lore from quests than during instance attunements, being as raid-focused as I was. What am I doing here? Who are these people and why are they locked up in chains? Ah, I see.

3) Content progression
A very big factor was that attunements actually timed the way content was consumed. There was a clear path of progression, a sort of dramatic script. Not necessarily in the sense that you could only ever raid one instance at a time, but you could never access everything at once. And while that could stall you, what it really did too was grant guilds time. Less rushing, less stress trying to keep up with omg-everything. More time to prepare the guild because you really had no other choice. A more natural flow of content that would last longer since it was more well-spread. Patience, suspense. Why do people think they must always get everything and at once? Good things take time, anyone?

4) Cooperation
Already mentioned under 1) and 2), the increasing difficulty of quests, frequent group quests or instance runs forced people to teamplay. You needed help to get those elites down for the next step, you needed a party to enter a heroic. The challenges weren’t overly hard but they required cooperation – no going solo for you. And on a bigger scale, guilds would engage in big attunement efforts to get ready for raiding; getting everyone up to par, attuning new members quickly, helping each other with that last step or two of the chain, no matter how often you’d already done it (eugh). I know some guilds moaned about this, but you know what: this kinda stuff is what guilds are there for. That’s WHY people play in guilds. Or used to. Anyway. I realize anything vaguely resembling “guild preparations” is a nuisance these days. 

5) Keys (and other trophies, harrr!)
Last but not least, attunements brought us keys. Keys of all sizes and flavors, shiny keys and rusty ones. Keys made of copper or brass, keys made of bronze or bone. Keys dropped by a keymaster, keys acquired after a long series of quests. Keys that opened huge steel gates or the tiniest locks in a dungeon. Keys that all told a story about where we’ve been and what we have done. Keys jingling merrily on our key ring.
And of course other trophies that we would keep for keep’s sake; like a necklace or cloak that took so much effort to acquire that parting was no option. These were our real trophies, our mementos, our battle scars.

Holding on to your keys

I don’t know what other MMO players want of their games these days. I know that I want adventures. I want challenges that are hard and long and I want to beat them with a group of people I call comrades or friends. I want my rewards to tell stories.

I want keys – and attunements are keys. Keys to open locks. Locks that open doors, doors that lead into a world of adventure. You want to watch out for them, friend; for every good fantasy story has keys in it. It can’t be a good thing if they slowly start disappearing in the sands of time.