Don’t worry baby, it’s just a metaphor.

For my much-beloved (*cough*) metaphor class last term, I wrote a piece on Lord of the Rings Online and its use of the metaphor of morale in place of health.

The paper itself is quite long, but I wrote up a brief summary of some of the ideas that came out of the research discussion. The summary is over at LOTRO Reporter where I am starting a column on the Lore-Master class. If you’d like to read the original discussion (and even comment – it’s still open), head over to GoogleWave. If you need a Wave invite, email me (adaplays AT gmail DOT com).

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Dragon Age: When Narrative and Gameplay make Fun

I think I fell in love with Alistair the moment I came out of Flemeth’s hut and he was so happy to see me alive. I knew it was just because he was relieved to not be alone in the world, but I was still head over heels.

Narrative in a game has the power to be so much more than just a framework of a universe or a generic plot to satisfy the genre. Game narratives can help create emotional experiences.

In Dragon Age:Origins, superb voice acting, fabulously animated facial features, developed histories, and consistent moralities somehow combine into a magical, sparkling, non-vampire known as Character. Alistair is sarcastic, playful, good, strong, sometimes conflicted, always gorgeous, loyal, and … interesting. I gave him some kind of runic symbol and he looooved it.

Why? Why does he like runes? Maybe I just hadn’t spoken to him enough to find out, but I knew there must be a reason and I was going to dig it out of him – I was going to get to know him.

Alistair is just one example of great character design in DA:O. But, is that enough to make a great game? Couldn’t I just go read Tolkien or Jordan or Martin if I wanted a good fantasy character? (Shhh, let’s only think of the first few Jordan books – let him rest in peace.)

I could. I don’t need to play a game for good narrative and if that’s all I wanted, I’d probably read a book. But we play games because we also want to have fun. We want to act. We want to play and I firmly believe that no amount of even superb narrative will, on its own, make a good game. A good game also needs good gameplay.

What is about DA:O’s gameplay that’s good? How does it interact with the narrative to create a seamless “game-goodness”?

One of the ways is I think the game’s focus on moral choices. Not only do they influence how the story plays out, they also influence whether your party members stay and fight beside you. Some class specializations are only unlocked by certain moral choices. NPC interactions vary dependent on choices you’ve made that have influenced them. Some preferable choices simply can’t be made because you haven’t worked on your character’s cunning and Coercion skills. The entire game can simply not be completed 100% on one playthrough, not just because there are different class/race beginnings, but because you will experience different parts of the game dependent on the choices you make.

It's not what it looks like...

All right, moral choices, but how does that influence the buttons I push and my heartrate in combat? Well, it may not influence the buttons you push for your main character, but it does influence what buttons you can push for your other party members. As I mentioned, some may leave you if they don’t agree with you, but also, their own abilities directly match their character as developed through the narrative. Of course, Alistair is a tank. Of course, Oghren fights with a two-hander. Of course, Wynne is a healer. Etc., etc.

Sometimes, narrative may even help make up for less-than-superb gameplay. The dwarven main questline is too long by most players’ estimation, but we know Branka must be out there so we keep searching, and the longer we search, the greater the suspense builds. Had I been a real adventurer, I would have assumed the darkspawn ate her and went back much earlier than I actually did. It dragged on and was the only area I left partially unexplored. At the end, though, I was rewarded with great narrative and a good battle. It wasn’t just a dungeon crawl – it was an epic search for lost Paragons and legendary technology.

The game is fun for more than just Alistair (and his very dreamy…mm). It’s fun to fight in this game. It’s fun to find class specializations and new recipes. It’s fun to get new spells and discover spell combos. It’s fun to give gifts. It’s fun to hear my characters talk to each other. It’s fun to open chests and find love letters. It’s sad to see characters leave or die. It’s exciting to recruit someone new. It’s scary to fight the Broodmother.

I could go on and on. The important thing to see is that it is almost impossible to separate the threads of narrative and gameplay in this game. Either they are so fine, I just cannot discern the boundary, or else they are so finely done, they merge.

Badadum Blogroll

On my weekly 8-hour drive, I typically listen to a few podcasts. This week, I tried a couple of new ones alongwith the regulars and thought I would give a review for you, my readers. Most of them are LotrO themed, what with the expansion coming in less than two weeks. Enjoy!

LOTRO Reporter

A Canadian duo (I hear your accents!) with clear voices and delightful humor talk about their adventures in LotrO as well as news and updates about the game and community. This week, they also had an interview with Sapience, the CM.

I loved the podcast. I think the interview was terrific, the best really of the three four I listened to today. The co-hosts interact well with each other, audio is well-tuned and well-edited, and the show was organized and varied enough to make the 1:24:xx length fly by. Thumbs up.

GameOn!

A  professional interview with two of the Turbine folk. This episode is really just an overview of all the new things coming in SoM. I say “just” because I am a rabid consumer of media and already knew most of what was said. However, he did ask his guests some questions from the community (including one of my own), the answers of which were quite interesting.

Although Shawn’s voice was clear, the two guests sounded like they were on a rather crackly phone line and one of them was much louder than the other. Regardless, the show was less than a halfhour in length and well worth a listen if you are craving SoM, in the know or not.

A Casual Stroll to Mordor

Here we have another duo, husband and wife this time (also a baby hobbit *gasp*). On this episode, they also interviewed Sapience, but this time along with Patience. It is a good opportunity to learn more about the two CM’s as well as the daily life of a CM and their thoughts on the future of LotrO.

Although the episode is a bit long and the interviewing was just a blunt Q&A, some good conversation and fun came out of it. I found myself chuckling along with the CM’s many a time. As to audio, the guests come through very clearly, but occasionally the two hosts are undertuned and the episode could have benefited from some (more?) equalization.

Massively Speaking

This podcast isn’t centered on LotrO, but it is one I listen to almost every week. Shawn does a superb job covering news from across the MMO world. This week he had Sera and Rubi on as guests – Sera of the terrific personality and strong opinions as always and Rubi of the sexy voice (less of the personality and opinions). If you are like me and enjoy keeping your finger on the pulse of this genre, definitely check them out. The show usually hovers around the one-hour mark, is well-organized, and pristinely edited.

Another Castle

This was my first week listening to this podcast. It seems to be simply two guys from college who interview various professionals in the gaming industry. This episode they host Richard Rouse III, game designer and author. I found it incredibly interesting for my own work because they speak at length about the place of narrative in gaming and how narrative and design interact.

Sadly, audio quality is dreadful. They sound like they are in an auditorium with the microphone in the 20th row while various members of the orchestra warm up backstage. Atrocious sound, but some good conversation.

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After these, I started listening to a BBC philosophy podcast and then just hit shuffle until finally, I arrived back at home!

If you have any suggestions for my iPod, please send them along. Find me on twitter or send me an email (adaplays AT gmail DOT com) – I’d love to hear from you.

Game-Soul for $400

One of the Massively writers gave a refreshingly honest review of Aion today. His main argument against the game was that it “has no soul”.

So Alex, Game-Soul for $400. “The substance, essence, and/or feature of a game that provides soul.” After 3 pages of comments, a few answers to that question have surfaced. (Questions to that answer?) The two biggest winners were lore and immersion.

What is … lore and immersion?

Players were pretty unanimous in the fact that there was simply no context for the game. Without a franchise history (like Warcraft, Warhammer and Lord of the Rings have), there is simply no inherent knowledge of the world in the minds of gamers before they step into the game. Quests could potentially be a great opportunity to spread lore in a game, but about 95% of Aion’s quests are kill x number of y quests. Here are a couple player comments:

“How then, can we feel we are in a living, breathing world, when we barely understand it?”

“I consider the “Soul” to be the immersion ability in to a world’s lore. Playing through Aion’s tutorial (1-10) does not really give you enough time to attune to the Lore.”

Lore certainly can be effectual in creating immersion, but it’s not the only thing. Despite the one player who stated they’d never felt more immersed in a world before, most complained about how the world did not feel alive. It didn’t have depth according to one player: “…beautiful at the surface, but extremely shallow. It’s linear. Leveling seems to be this long journey through a narrow path that introduces the world. But once you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all.” There were also numerous complaints about the nonsensical ecology. The fields are full of mindless creatures who are simply there, with no point or even logic to their existence.

Alternatively, a couple players surprisingly (to me) stated that the characters were too customizable and they weren’t able to relate to them. In one’s words, “The characters look a little too defined I think, I cant project my own self onto my avatar so I feel like im controlling someone else with strings like a puppet. I never realized it but its the same thing that I didnt like about tabula, the characters look too real so I cant toss my own imagined ID on top of them. Weird huh?.”

So far, we’ve learned that games need a) either a history of lore or lore that is well-developed from the beginning, b) not just a pretty surface, but a deep world with multiple possibilities of experience, and c) a perfect balance in customization that gives enough options to individualize, but not too many. A nice start but it’s just the beginning.

Many people play these MMOs for the people who inhabit the worlds along with them. The community. Usually, this extends beyond the game into forums, fansites, fan fiction, blogspace, etc. For Aion, there may be community, but somehow the players aren’t feeling it yet. One said, “more PVP oriented games tend to suffer from this [lack of soul]. Once you joined a corp [in EVE] and there was a sense of structure and organization, it started to gain its unique soul.” So, cooperative play. I find it interesting he didn’t feel much community from the numerous grinding groups that get together as early as level 15. Maybe one needs interesting content to play with those people…

Then, there’s the big one we all secretly hope will one day actually be there.

What is… originality?

Oh, the secret ingredient. Everyone tries. Everyone fails. (at least these days) So does Aion according to these folks:

“It’s a generic and derivative MMO in every way.”

“I so desperately want an MMO that exceeds the experience and fun that WoW delivers.”

“The basic game (play) is quite traditional and doesn’t push into any new directions (except the pretty direction).”

Are we really that banal and uncreative? Have we run out of designer berry juice? Where’s the inspiration, the zing, the lightning-bolt idea at 2am that moves this genre somewhere that’s more than just glistening and beautiful? Perhaps we don’t have to find it, since another states:

“And personally, I don’t want a new-new-super-unique game. I want something that’s familiar and fun. And a lot of other people seem to want that as well.”

Or hey, who needs immersion? “I don’t want to simply live in a world, I play games to get away from living.”

Well, that might make us all feel better for a little while, but we’re still left wondering whether our game has soul and if not, why not? Do we not have enough of our own love into it? Aion didn’t seem to communicate that love to some people like this one, for example:

“When I play Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings, and even WoW (at least the vanilla WoW) you can almost FEEL the affection the developers have for the game. It is hard to describe, but it is almost as if they themselves wanted to live in the world and make you want to as well.”

For me, one of the players summed it all up. “It sounds odd, I guess, but in MMOs as in a good novel, I have to care about my character, my actions, the world, the overarching story, and the quests to some degree or else it just seems mechanical and pointless, however, polished it may be.”

You can have pretty, you can have story quests, you can have a vibrant world where wolves eat squirrels, but without the guiding presence of a visual narrative that your character (who doesn’t look too real) can experience, the game will have no soul. What is….Narrative?

Photoshop-ing avatars

Via Raph Koster, I saw this interesting tutorial on how to use Photoshop to glamourize your avatar. I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it except for a random comment that criticized the desire to touch up even virtual appearances. Can we not even be satisfied with our natural-virtual human selves? Perhaps it’s just for those people who are ugly IRL and need to pretend they’re pretty elsewhere. Maybe, but that’s rather cliché and I think there’s more to it.

Creativity, certainly. Exhibiting one’s artistic abilities – yes. But also, touching up one’s avatar is a way to further identify our virtual selves. Rather than just being a Night Elf with green hair in braids like 30% of the rest of the Night Elf population (stats from my ass), I could instead edit the avatar for a signature, for example, that detailed her markings, changed her eye color, shortened her ears, etc. Instead of being generic, she is now me. She is now the identity I see in my mind.

Although this wouldn’t appeal to everyone as not all players connect themselves with their avatars, for many it would. Character customization is always a selling point in MMOs. Players continually ask how unique they will look – will there be different gear sets, will there be different hairstyles, body shapes, etc. Humans like to be individual even in a virtual world at the same time that they want to participate in a community and be a member of a recognizable social unit, such as a guild.

How would you change your avatar or would you even at all? Why?

End of a World

The Matrix Online ended this week. After a run of about 4 years, Sony decided to finish it off with an apocalypse. Players were invited back to see the end as the game graphics changed to show the world falling apart and supernatural beings arriving to clean up.

Tabula Rasa ended similarly not too long ago. Rather than slowly (or quickly) merging the servers and watching the community shrink to just the dedicated few who straggle on forever and continue to scoff at anyone who plays a new (easier) game,  Tabula Rasa and the Matrix Online celebrated the end with clearly defined closure.

But now what happens? What about the identites created in these worlds?

When Massively first announced the closure, comments began to surface lamenting the demise. One in particular commented that even though the game was far from perfect, he would miss being able to simply “jack in” and run around.

Few forms of entertainment disappear entirely. Old games, movies, and music can just be downloaded. Maybe we can’t see or play them in the original context, and maybe we can’t recreate the original experience they once gave us, but we can still visit them anytime we wish.

An online game, however, is gone. Dead. The being that we were there is also gone and dead except in our memory. There’s nowhere for them to live anymore except in some kind of cyberspace afterlife where stories are told and experiences narrated. Perhaps in the death of a world and its identities, the book of fiction they create can be closed.

But I don’t know that we want that. Is it the point to finish the story? Part of what is so great about this form of interactive storytelling is that it’s alive and continually telling.