An MMO Christmas Carol

Vetarnias

"I don't think there has ever been a good MMO, nor will there ever be one", Ebenezer Scrooge remarked at one particularly frugal Christmas Eve dinner.  I shall spare you, gentle reader, the passionate conversation that followed at his table; suffice it to say that Scrooge, before the sun would rise again, would be made to pay for his remark, with possibly eternal consequences.

After the departure of his guests, Scrooge went to bed early, but not before remarking to himself: "MMO gaming? Bah, humbug!" Removing his slippers, pulling the woolen blanket over his frail chest, he quickly fell asleep -- but what an awakening was to follow!

"Scrooooooge," lamented a funereal voice, seemingly coming from the wooden door of the bedroom wardrobe, "Scroooooge". It was barely human, but the master of the house recognized in it the familiar rolling of the "R" that had been a staple of the speech pattern of his late friend, Jacob Marley. Scrooge rose from bed hurriedly to confront the voice, but an immense pallor soon took hold of him as Marley's spectral frame, translucent and barely recognizable, floated towards him amid the cold air of the room!

"Marley! What do you want from me?" Scrooge asked tentatively, extending his arm behind him as if reaching for a nonexistent fireplace poker by his bed, this, after all, being the twenty-first century.

"Scrooge," he said, "pray remain quiet, as the salvation of your soul might depend on it. Your lack of faith in MMO's shall lead you to perdition, as it did for me! But to avoid you this terrible fate, I have been sent to offer you an ultimate chance at redemption. This night, this Christmas night, you will be visited by three spectral entities, the Ghost of MMO's Past, the Ghost of MMO's Present, and the Ghost of MMO's Yet to Come. Listen to them, and repent!"

"Bah, humbug!" Scrooge snarled as Marley vanished before his very eyes.

Scrooge, still shaken by the appearance of his late friend, succeeded at great lengths in falling back to sleep -- only to be awakened by a barely human shriek!

"What is this?", Scrooge queried, half-scared, half-asleep.

"Learn to play, noob!", replied the voice.

"Who are you? Are you the Ghost of MMO's Past?"

"I am indeed the Ghost of MMO's past. My name is... was... Harold J. McGankington, Hardcore Gamer, and I have come to show you the glories of games that are now dead -- dead like me, such as Shadowbane and Ultima Online."

"Ultima Online still exists."

"It's dead. Trammel killed it."

"But it's still online, so you can hardly say..."

"Stfoo!"

"Stfoo?"

"Damn acronyms, how am I supposed to pronounce them? Ess Tee Eff You. Shut the f..."

"I think I get the idea."

"Anyway, Carebears killed off online gaming, but you can't say there hasn't been a great tradition of sandbox gaming before Everquest gave Carebears the notion that they didn't want to be victims of our leetness."

"I think it might not have occurred exactly as you said."

"Of course you wouldn't know, because World of Warcrap came along and took all that we had left away from us! Where have all the sandboxes gone?"

"Your playstyle has killed them."

"Noob. You probably suck at PvP. You can burn in hell for all I care, it's like a permanent ganking zone for unbelieving Carebears like you."

If a spectral version of quitrage ever occurred in the history of mankind, it must all have happened before Scrooge's bloated eyes in the middle of this fateful Christmas night, for, as soon as the Ghost of MMO's Past had pronounced these parting words, he vanished!

With a feeble and unconvincing "bah, humbug!", Scrooge returned to his bed, and had not yet fallen asleep when a voice started whispering right next to his ear: "Eleven million players..." Scrooge opened his eyes and saw a large floating mass that seemed to greet him with a bow ending with an underwhelming flourish -- it reminded him of the Three Musketeers without the grace. Having a closer look, Scrooge now saw the ghost letting his gut protrude and lifting his chin, in the manner of an aristocrat surveying his fief, fully satisfied with his omnipotence -- think Louis the Fourteenth without the foresight, or, if you prefer, Louis the Sixteenth.

"Eleven million players", the voice spoke again.

"Would you be the Ghost of MMO's Present?" Scrooge asked while stepping away from his bed, towards the spirit.

"Dornzorf, at your service" -- once again the clumsy musketeer gesture -- "but I would correct you; there is only one MMO in the Present, and it is the one that is payed the most."

"Maple Story?"

"World of Warcraft. And nothing is stopping the juggernaut."

"The ghost who just left was not particularly fond of it."

"He has no life."

"I rather agree, considering he's dead."

"World of Warcraft haters need a life. You can play World of Warcraft casually if you want, or hardcore if you want, it caters to every playstyle."

"But I'm afraid I don't really like World of Warcraft. Is there nothing else at present?"

"World of Warcraft is everything there is."

"Well, I recall EVE is quite successful, too, even though I can't say I enjoyed playing it."

"You have flying mounts and a seamless world in World of Warcraft, while EVE doesn't even let you walk out of the cockpit."

"Still, I didn't like World of Warcraft."

"Another World of Warcraft hater who comes to spew vomit on the game that eleven million people pay to play! Xfire statistics..."

"Statistics don't mean a thing beyond commercial viability."

"World of Warcraft is the King of MMO's because it has the most subscribers."

"That's no indication of quality. I mean, it's like McDonald's or Britney Sp..."

"That's a bad analogy. World of Warcraft is like Elvis Presley, the King! Eleven million players!"

"Is that all you can say? 'Eleven million'?"

"That is all which matters."

"Then why even bother with the Ghost of MMO's Yet to Come?"

"Oh, true, he still has to come around, does he? I don't see why. Do you know what it will look like in, say, 2030?"

"No, and I'm not sure I want to know."

"Activision Blizzard will have 89% of the total marketshare with around 200.000.000 western active subscribers on their Battlenet. The just retired Bobby "Smarty" Kotick announced another new MMORPG a week ago: the Revenge of Thrall. Asking for the reason why the goup makes 10 billion dollars yearly revenu out of MMO's .... he simply smiled and said. " .... Because the competition has no idea what people like ..." Yesterday Dec 31 2029, we celibrated the 10 year anniversary of the mmorpg.com demise. As people at the end of the decade suddenly came to realise what was the difference between good and bad taste in playing video games."

Scrooge recoiled.

"I think I prefer to wait for the Ghost of MMO's Yet to Come. Perhaps he bears better tidings."

At that moment, eleven million flashes of light blinded Scrooge's eyes, but in less than a second, the room returned to its usual state, as quiet as a cinema on a Tuesday morning, or a Warhammer Online server at any time of day. Scrooge began walking back towards his bed.

"Stay where you are," came a sinister voice from behind him. For the first time during this night, Scrooge felt genuinely afraid. He turned around, slowly, as though his fate were already sealed.

"Are you... are you the Ghost of MMO's Yet to Come?"

"I am."

"What is your name?"

"My name is of no import, but you know my kind. I always look ahead, and I have come to show you what is about to happen in MMO's. And it looks *great*!"

Without leaving the room, the Ghost of MMO's Yet to Come projected images, by means of some supernatural apparatus, on the wall of the bedroom, of gamers of coming years, wearing faintly futuristic clothes, slavishly crouched over the keyboard, playing massively multiplayer games. Some of those games Scrooge did recognize, if only by theme -- Star Trek Online, or Star Wars: The Old Republic -- and others seemed familiar, yet remained unknown to him: the games of the distant future. One after the other was more breathtaking in graphics than anything he had ever seen; the uncanny valley had been bridged, everything looked perfectly realistic, the virtual damzels-in-distress looked ravishing, with full voice acting to complete the illusion. These were virtual games in which Scrooge could easily have lost himself for hours. On the speakers, the sensual voice of a voluptuous woman could be heard imploring the chivalrous Sir Player:

"Please collect ten rat tails and return them to me for your reward."

And variations of it over and over again. Whatever the game being projected was, no matter how realistic the rats looked, the necessity of gathering their tails came back with the persistence of a Wagnerian leitmotif.

"Is... is that it?" Scrooge gasped. The ghost, however, was grinning, seemingly impervious to the horror that now occupied every wrinkle and crevice of Scrooge's face.

"It is. The type of game that will make you say, 'I dropped Ultima Online, both EverQuests, Earth & Beyond, Star Wars: Galaxies, Matrix Online, Lord of the Rings Online, EVE Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea, City of Heroes/Villains, Final Fantasy XI, Aion, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and even World of Warcraft, but the next one is going to be different, it's going to be fun, and I'll definitely pre-order it.' Isn't it grand?"

"No! No, it can't be!"

"That is the future, and I, the Ghost of MMO's Yet to Come, wholeheartedly embrace it. You could even say I have it on pre-order!"

"No! Get away from me! Get away! I want to see nothing more of this! Please, please, leave me alone, and away with you and your nightmarish visions of the future!"

Scrooge woke up, perspiring profusely. Wiping his brow with his wet sleeve, he pushed aside the blanket of the bed, put on his slippers, and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Pouring himself a glass of milk, he could be heard muttering to himself: "MMO gaming... bah, humbug."

And from that day onward, eternal damnation seemed to Scrooge a very small price to pay indeed.

Vetarnias

Seasonal bump.

Also, reflect on whether anything has changed.

Obaki

Lol cool story. Made me think of in-game christmas events, currently enjoying a few christmas contests on browser mmos like maple story and MojiKan.