Friday, February 19, 2010

Better than life is not better

In responce

Personally I would hope we are tourists and the game world helps us to care or self reflect about the real world were in, right here, right now. Much like many books and movies might suck all our attention, but then we leave and take some of their wisdom (if they have any) into the real world.

But I think much like a moth’s ancient, legitimate instincts are screwed up by a flame, humans are story creatures – we get our attention sucked into stories. Because like the moth navigates by the stars, so we navigate by stories. And as humans we try to get all intense about mmorpgs due to an ancient and otherwise legitimate/otherwise functional desire to get into stories.

But they don’t end here, with mmorpgs. You don’t exit them and take any wisdom out into the real world. In the old ways, the story teller would get tired and you’d have to go back to real life, stronger. Here, the server is precisely like the terminator – it wont get tired, it wont stop.

This might be a racy comparison – but watching porn so as to then have much hotter sex in real life, that makes sense. But just getting more and more intense about a game world – it’s like just watching porn, and more porn and more and never actually doing anything in the real world.

MMORPGS which make us hotter about dealing with real life? Fantastic! Trying to make mmorpgs which make us get hotter about dealing more with mmorpgs, then more with mmorpgs, then more with mmorpgs?

8 comments:

  1. They are useful inasmuch as stories and books are useful, where we learn something about ourselves from them and make our life better. Sometimes it's useful to just *relax*, too, and let the stresses of the world take a back seat for a little while.

    ...and you can take the same line of questioning and apply it to *any* pastime that isn't living "real" life. *Anything* that detracts significantly from living your real life has real danger to it. TV, porn, sports, whatever.

    Ultimately, the responsibility is on each of us to life our own lives. Game devs, however do bear a moral responsibility to *not* be soul-sucking parasites, creating products intended to be addictive. (One more reason why I detest the subscription model, by the way.)

    This is part of why I will never support a GTA game, tangentially.

    I do think this is a part of game design that many devs flatly ignore. There are some moral responsibilities that we bear as entertainers. (And many entertainers of all stripes ignore these moral responsibilities as well, it's not just game devs.) Walt Disney seemed to have a good bead on it. He wanted to craft entertaining stories and worlds that fostered education and happiness (which indeed ultimately mean that they aren't an end in themselves; they are stories that *end* and let people go back to real life... MMOs are often designed specifically *not* to end). Would that more entertainers took that view to heart.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They are useful inasmuch as stories and books are useful, where we learn something about ourselves from them and make our life better. Sometimes it's useful to just *relax*, too, and let the stresses of the world take a back seat for a little while.

    ...and you can take the same line of questioning and apply it to *any* pastime that isn't living "real" life. *Anything* that detracts significantly from living your real life has real danger to it. TV, porn, sports, whatever.

    Ultimately, the responsibility is on each of us to life our own lives. Game devs, however do bear a moral responsibility to *not* be soul-sucking parasites, creating products intended to be addictive. (One more reason why I detest the subscription model, by the way.)

    This is part of why I will never support a GTA game, tangentially.

    I do think this is a part of game design that many devs flatly ignore. There are some moral responsibilities that we bear as entertainers. (And many entertainers of all stripes ignore these moral responsibilities as well, it's not just game devs.) Walt Disney seemed to have a good bead on it. He wanted to craft entertaining stories and worlds that fostered education and happiness (which indeed ultimately mean that they aren't an end in themselves; they are stories that *end* and let people go back to real life... MMOs are often designed specifically *not* to end). Would that more entertainers took that view to heart.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Tesh,

    The fact is that the idea of a mmmorpg being endless is actually celebrated. Yeah TV and porn try to be endless, but no one celebrates them being without end and say it's great they don't have to stop engaging it. But they do with mmorpgs - wholeheartedly and commonly.

    And in terms of doing physical sports, I'm not sure I'd rank that next to TV. Were talking activities that produce nothing. Physical sports actually give you real life strength and dex buffs!

    But back to the first bit, it's not something the game devs control, that people are celebrating that mmorpgs are endless. I mean, I've had people say to me "You don't get it, they're supposed to be endless". It's a bit like saying I don't get heroin, it's supposed to be addicting. And technically it IS supposed to be addicting, so they are right.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And yet, that's not the only way to design an MMO. The genre is much more than it has become. *shrug*

    It's like the folk who say Guild Wars isn't a "real" MMO or who say only subscription MMOs are any good. It's a blindered, ignorant view of what the genre really could offer.

    Maybe that's all the market wants, but it's not all that the medium is good for.

    Oh, and sorry for the double post. Silly Chrome. :(

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't think it's just blindered, it's exulting in that blindness and applying peer derogatives if people don't assimilate "You don't get it! mmorpgs are endless!"

    I am right leery of writing anything (without some sort of connection to real life disclaimer) that encourages being more immersed or into a game, because they have more than enough fuel for their fire.

    And I will keep the double post so my blog feels more busy...hehe!

    ReplyDelete
  6. *chuckle* It's even a long comment. ;)

    I've really been enamored of the idea of an MMO that *ends* during the last year or so. Of course, I tend to parlay it into a cyclical design or a way to tell an overarching story, not unlike a series of books (which itself would end at some point).

    I really don't have much interest in these perpetual games, or rather, in playing them that way. I'll pick up an MMO, play with it until I've explored what I want to and seen some good stories, and then *end* it myself.

    There are too many other things to do to lock myself into one game... that's really just a treadmill.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Once on RPG.net someone suggested a mmorpg that plays for a year or so, with events happening, then end and resets (but you keep your character and gear). I didn't think much of it at first, but the ideas grown on me.

    I think the problem with choosing your own ending, and part of the devilishness of mmorpg design, is that it's such an anticlimax. You just...stop? It's very flat and not very exciting. One of my pet hypothesis is that's why alot of people keep playing - they keep seeking the climax, but never quite reach it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anyway, thanks for looking into it with me, Tesh :)

    ReplyDelete