Balance or Blandness?

smurfmasterx

 

Marxism and Capitalism in the modern MMORPG

 

I’ve been playing mmorpg’s for a long time.  Too long really.  It started when I looked over my brother’s shoulder at a computer screen and said “Hey what’s that? looks fun,” and then sat down for 7 years to play Everquest.

 

Looking back it’s hard to imagine being so impressed by those blocky polygons and angular monsters. 

 

It’s no mystery that mmorpg designers (much like Luke Skywalker) are under increasing pressure to bring about “balance.” Balance is a simple and beloved concept amongst gamers: an even playing field with only the slightest advantages for the hardcore. 

 

If a designer puts in a sword that might grant its owner too much power, it matters not how hard or how much organization and teamwork it takes to get, the sword is too powerful and unbalances the game.  It must be removed.

 

This is pretty straight forward Marxist thinking, and there seems to be a genuine fear in game developers to deviate from this ethos. 

 

This is almost entirely due to the implementation of PvP in mmorpg’s.  Before PvP, Sword of Ultimate Smash Everything had a place in video games.  It could spawn endless envy, as well as form a multi-tiered class structure in the game, but it it also inspired determination.  And to be sure, there was plenty of snobbery (albeit well-earned snobbery) going around because of such items.

 

Then PvP came along, and the soft murmurs of “This game is unfair…” slowly became roars of “Balance this game now!” which at first only extended to equalizing the classes and races of the characters, but in time spread to the power of items.  Soon, the sword of a god was barely a step up from something you could get from an arena vendor.  Soon chance became a stronger modifier to your character's social standing than action.  The game designers had to make it fair for the socially awkward (and lets be fair, that constitutes a large portion of the gaming collective), and to do this they had to make the miserably dull “Global Loot Table,” an idea so red it would make Trotsky blush.

 

This is something you often see in any communist society: generic blandness. Since it boils the blood to imagine anyone having more than you, or something that dwarfs what you have considerably, it’s better to make all possessions similar and easily obtainable.

 

Since PvP has become a part of almost every modern mmorpg, you can’t have people running faster than other people, or god forbid cause a Chernobyl-grade uproar by having one class do something better than another (aside from very basic: range, tank, healer identities, which too are being melded into indistinct roles). 

 

To better illustrate why I feel these two social philosophies truly effect the modern mmorpg--which, as expected, seem to mimic the effects these philosophies have on actual, tangible societies--I will be using two games as models for the opposing trains of thought: The original Everquest (specifically in its early years before Sony infused Marxist ideas into it) and Guild Wars 2, which is an entirely socialist structured game. 

 

Let’s look at the similarities first, ignoring the obvious graphic improvements that have occurred over the years. 

 

Both games you start as somebody who is more or less a nobody.  You are usually in rags, with no money and wearing shabby clothes.  If you’re lucky you get a rusty sword or something similar.

 

In both games you must go out into the world, seek work, and improve your station in these fictitious worlds (i.e. your level). 

 

It is clear that the goal is to become as powerful as possible, and even though it seems to be a very popular expression in mmo’s these days, often coming from females (but not exclusively) that they play only because they enjoy  “The community” aspect of the game.  But don't be swayed by this--the most feverish competitors I have ever met in an mmo are usually women.  For the majority of players in any game, the goal is to win, as well as a few other vanities players would rather not openly admit to.  If you are on an American server, you can be fairly certain that everyone around you is highly competitive, after all, their entire lives they have been groomed to be so.

 

But let’s not step too far outside of this realm of discussion.

 

In both games there exists lore—or more bluntly a plot—but the lore in Guild Wars 2 seems muddled by its grand scope (or the apparent grandness of it).  After a month of play you are scarcely aware of any king or dragon that stirs excitement at its mention, as opposed to Everquest, where you very quickly learn the names of powerful monsters and notoriously dangerous places as you would reading The Odyssey.

 

Consider the following selection—a reflective diary of my times playing both games, as I remember them:

 

In GW2, my warrior is going through the motions.  There are cutscences where I listen to my warrior.  Obviously, I am just reading the story as it unfolds, or skipping the scenes entirely which I have begun to do.  I’m merely a witness to these events, only facilitating their coming by doing as I’m told.  This is already establishing a powerful communist ideal: You are not in control of your future--it is already written for you. 

 

In Everquest, my bard is outside the city gates of Freeport (a fitting name), and I'm wondering where I should go.  There are no bright paths on the map or circled areas or checkpoints or other devices to make my life so easy I barely have to sit up at my desk.  I see a gnome disappear through one of the city walls.

 

My warrior is slow and keeps saying things like “So Much Power!” which has made me turn the volume off because not only is it redundant, but it is just another unwanted reminder that this character isn’t my own creation, which I am well aware of by now.  I have killed someone important, some big ogre that was taller than the other ogres and twice as hard to kill.  The ogre dropped a useless rock and a sword that is worse than the thing I just found on a dead deer (which I killed for some reason).  There is an event nearby, and a cluster of nameless people are hacking away at something that is exploding so much color that I can’t quite make out what it is.  It eventually dies, and I get a gold medal, which seems odd to me because I barely scratched the…rainbow tornado?  Everybody scatters like cockroaches before I can even notice their names.  Wait…what’s my name again?

 

My bard is in the Commonlands, and I’m wondering where I could get some new songs.  Perhaps I have to save up for them and buy them, or find them on dead monsters.  Clearly it would be absurd if they just magically became known to me as I killed stuff.  I find a party near a zone line who are fighting skeletons. 

 

They are waiting for an important monster to show his face.  One of them is a dwarf Rogue and he can turn so invisible that even the gods couldn’t see him.  The enchanter has charmed an animal in the woods.  The pet is very strong but dangerous—sometimes the spell breaks and the enchanter must make haste to apply it on the monster again, before it destroys him.  I join them.  They are powerful and the exp moves faster.  I envy them, someday I will get better weapons and join their ranks.  The skeleton with a name spawns and we kill it—barely.  It drops a sword at least 8 times better than what I’m swinging.  The sword has a name.  It’s unique.   Sometimes this monster isn’t carrying this one; sometimes he carries a worthless necklace.  I’m lucky, I’m told.  Sometimes you can spend a week here and never see this sword.

 

The warrior has helped so many farmers and has run from checkpoint to checkpoint and is desperately trying to obtain some kind of identity for himself.  Everything he finds is so painfully bland he can barely muster the energy to consider the items meager improvements to what he already has.  The warrior has methodically teleported all around the map to make sure he’s walked over anything significant.  He’s cleared this map, his prize, comrades, is…let him check, he forgets its name…something…of the wolf.  This does not bring the warrior satisfaction.

 

My bard has been asked to join a guild.  The guild is widely known to be very organized and the officer who recruits me tells me I must prove myself before I can be a full member.  Almost immediately after the guild officer speaks to me, he invites me to join his guild in an epic struggle against a frog king in a place known as Lower Guk.  I may need an escort, people are being sent to meet me, there are no maps, but there are spells for this sort of thing, and it just so happens that bards can track other players.  I use this skill and find them.  Inside, I am impressed when a mage summons me right to him and the group of people who are preparing to engage the nefarious Froglok King.  When we are done with the fight, some lucky dog gets an axe from the King, after an auction that uses a brilliant system called DKP, or Dragon Kill Points, which is a point system that keeps track of how much time and work you do for the guild, and then lets you use these points for loot.  You can save your points for anything! After the tense auction is concluded, a wizard teleports our group out, amazing! 

 

The warrior has been running around a mountain for twenty minutes trying to imagine how one would navigate their way to the view point at its peak, which he must get because he has seen the other 6 views (all of which he gave the same amount of attention as Clark Griswold did at the Grand Canyon) and he must have this last one so he can get his paltry reward, which might be ever so slightly more powerful than the hunk of junk the warrior is swinging now.

 

He stands at the peak, and consults his map.  He gets a headache.  Why is everything so obvious? He wonders.  He knows if he walks fifty yards in any direction there will be some Podunk farmer who needs his help, or some caravan that needs escorting, a heart and maybe a big orange circle where the cockroaches have gathered.  He joins World verse World.  He consults the new map.  It’s a convoluted mess of symbols and charts.  He runs for an hour and finds no one.  Finally he notices the crossed swords mean a battle.  He finally gets to the battle, but there is no real point of him being there.  One side darts in, darts back, like the ebb and flow of people perpetually trying to nuke from the back ranks.  His death seems very meaningless. He runs back to the fight, dies again, and runs back like fleshy fodder. Those who are on his side (he guesses they are on his side because he can’t hit them) wins the fight.  This victory seems meaningless—a small chunk of experience is rewarded and some karma, which can be used at any commissary officer to purchase a generic item.  There is little variety in the rewards.  He leaves the pointless battle and finds himself back on the peak.  Where should I go? the warrior wonders, while staring at the endless expanse of equality that could easily be Russia.  There seems to be nothing to be done but sleepwalk his way through levels, gaining minor and unremarkable advantages as he goes. 

 

I have grown very powerful through my hard work and dedication.  I have my epic weapon, which took the help of my guild.  It took a lot of strategy to bring the dragon Trakanon down, who had banished me to the tunnels during the epic battle, luckily we were organized, and a healer was stationed nearby to provide assistance, allowing me to run back through the tunnels to join the fray.  With the dragon teetering on the precipice of death, and only a few of us still standing, our last healer gallantly using her last heal to save our dying warrior before she herself is taken by the dragon’s poison, the mighty dragon, finally and with a wretched gasp, succumbs to our fury in a deafening thud.   We had won and it feels important.  My guild has helped kill this dragon mainly to help me, because that’s what guilds do, but there are also some nice rewards from the raid.  All across the land people ask us how we did it.

 

When people see my epic weapon they ask me how I got it.  They ask if I can help them get their own and I say it’s pretty hard to do but I will help them out when I can.  A lot of people get frustrated and quit.  I can’t do it for them—they have to want it for themselves. 

 

I can now levitate from one of my songs and move at breakneck speeds.  I can make my group attack lightning fast and also make them invisible at will.  People are always asking me if I would join their group because bards are great at pulling one monster at a time to the group.  Some classes can’t do this.  Our guild is discussing a fight with Lord Inquisitor Seru, a mad king on the planet Luclin, who is encased in his city as well as his eremitic paranoia that is so common in dictators.  Nobody has conquered him yet, and nobody knows what power and treasure lies in his chambers. 

 

The warrior has found a guild, but still he seems to be spending the bulk of his time running around maps and flailing in clusters of strangers and forgettable monsters.  He has 50% of the map completed and yet feels like he has simply ran from one spot to another and not died in the process.  Everything seems to be rewarded with a C.  Not a C+ because that might make somebody jealous.  Bored to tears, he lazily teleports to the furthest edge of land that he can, and waits for a boat to come and take him to Norrath, where he’s told a man can be anything and do anything.  The warrior is tired.

 

A warrior has landed on the shores of Odus.  His possessions are meager and unremarkable.  He asks me to duel for reasons I can’t be sure of.  I make him submit with a few swings even though we are the same level. 

 

He suddenly barks indignantly at me: “How come you get that sword? That thing is overpowered!” 

 

And I kindly tell him: “You like this thing?  Then you should go get one,” before I levitate off the ground and disappear in a flash.

 

So maybe my point is delivered a bit heavily here but you get the point.  The reason EQ endured for so many years had little to do with how easy it was, and everything to do with how challenging it was and how much opportunities it offered to distinguish your character as original.  Even with very few graphic models for armor, and only a few hairstyles, the identity of everyone I played with in Everquest seems entirely unique if not memorable.  GW2 players appear as what my warrior saw as cockroaches: devoid of personality and ambiguous in purpose, existing purely to scrounge and stay in motion.  Are they having fun? I sometimes wonder.  How can anyone really have fun being so confined to mediocrity?

 

It’s a question that might have puzzled Marx himself had he considered it.

 

 

 

jinxxed0

Like they say. If you get on that bus....You'll get there.

smurfmasterx

And I must apologize for any gramatical/punctuation errors that may have made it by my tired eyes.  If I was getting paid for this I would have given it a much better edit.  

Vorch

...what the hell did I just read.

You seem to  have divided your critque into two parts: 1) GW2 is socialist/Marxist 2) GW2 is bad vs EQ is good.

 

1) GW2 is socialist/Marxist

-In PvP, everyone has access to everything. Period. It's been a staple of fighting games and some FPS: your skill and experience proves who wins, not what you are wearing.

-WvW. Unbalanced PvP. Zergs come from nowhere, small groups choke supply lines, points are captured and lost. It's supposed to be fluid. Granted, it is difficult to defend a point, but it is not impossible. Those damnable Asuran Golem Suits prove that.

-PvE. The story is a matter of preference. Imo, the pacing is off if done piecemeal, but seems a lot better if done all at once or in large chunks. I don't like trehearne, but no one does. As far as lore goes, I've had the opprotunity to read Ghosts of Ascalon and Edge of Destiny. I've also played GW1 fully. I feel that these events should be better portrayed in the main story GW2, but the information is readily available if you choose to look.

 

2) GW2 is bad vs EQ is good

-Nostalgia is powerful.  However, I would humbly disagree with your opinion. You are entitled to like EQ, but I truly don't agree with your assertion that GW2's world is "bland".

A DE may or may not be there. A dungeon may or may not be contested. A Temple may or may not be open. The game is not static; it exists on a continuum that is rarely seen in the MMO genre. And more and more is being added every month.

I've immobilized champions dead set on killing an ally so that they could rally. I've laid in wait for unsuspecting enemies from other realms, pouncing on them while their guard was down. I've fallen from clock towers and risen from the depths of Catacombs.

 

GW2 is goes out of it's way to provide the tools for adventure for those who want to immerse themselves. It's not perfect, but imo, it's a cut above the rest.

 

And simply rewarding everyone does not make something socialist...they are not redistributing any rewards at all..