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True racial/ethinicity in an MMO?
Malachi1975
Member Posts: 1,079
Okay...so the topic may have thrown some of you a bit becuase you were expecting a rant, but I actually have a question. I was wondering if there is any MMO out there or on the horizons that has true ethnicity? What do I mean by that? Well I'd like to see a fantasy styles MMO with true nations. Not just Dwarves and Humans and Elves or whatnot. I'd like to see large scale lands with capital cities. Each capital city could and would be a different ethnicity.
Wouldn't it be nice to travel to eastern lands and see perhaps persian characters, characters, weapons and armour? Or travel a bit further and see an asian influenced land?
It seems so many MMOs just have "Humans". Not sure if they do this for ease, for fear of causing racial strife, or what. We as a species do have a pretty varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds. For once I would like to see that.
It's all part of an MMO concept I have had for quite some time. Sadly, other than writing, text, history/lore, and storyline I really wouldn't be able to do much in the way of MMO creation myself. Not to mention my vision is probably a bit on the grand scale. But it would really be nice to see massive continents with actual nations/. No just the hodgepodged blend of "generic" ethnicity we see now.
Dunno if there is anything like this really out there or in the works but it sure would be refreshing.
"What is it I have against Microsoft, you ask? Well, you know how you feel when you wait for an MMO to come out and when it does you feel like you've paid to play it's beta test for another 6-9 months before anything even thinks of working the way it should? Being a network engineer you feel that way about anything Microsoft puts out."
Comments
heh i think i know a reason why that idea is kept in Historical games, such as WWI, WWII, Veitcong, BF, BF2, etc.
ok, think of it as a MMORPG, you KNOW FOR SURE, there will be alot of gangs, Bloods, Crips, Diablos, etc in a game like that, everyone would play with their own etnicity, we see alot of that in the real worl dalready.
Games are made to get away from evil things like the real world man...
what im trying to say, is like... us americans right now would be like,
"LETS GO HEAD TO IRAQ AND RECORD VIDEOS OF HOW US AMERICANS WOULD TREAT THEM AND HOW THEY SHOULD!!!!"
and the Germans would want to counquer Europe, etc.
it would just practically, seriously, would be the real world, except infinite lives, and played on a 17", 19", etc monitor...
thats all i gotta say man
-Phrequency out
Main character in Pure Pwnage, Jeremy as himself and Teh Pwnerer...
http://www.OriginNow.com
irth online has ethniticies...not real life connected ones but fantasy like
umm 99.9% of all MMORPGs have ethnicities...... its a race....
Main character in Pure Pwnage, Jeremy as himself and Teh Pwnerer...
http://www.OriginNow.com
AC1 has 3 human races that oddly resemble the real world cultures. "Sho" architecture resembles Asia. "Aluvian" are white, live in woods and grass lands, architecture is typical European/American. "Gharundim" could be considered Arab, they are darker skinned, live in desert in hut type things.
Then there is the new race being added in the expansion. They are blue people but look at the box and tell me what kind of person you think it resembles... here
AC1, UO, come closest to what you are looking for. The only choices are humans, and/or human-like characters. In a way AO (without SL expansion). But technically there are no humans in AO. (They are called Breeds. Synonym for species. Genetically engineered to be better than humans. Homo-Superior.) But if you can find a mmorpg that has exactly what you listed, and it is able to pull in a profit, more power to you and it.
IMHO there will never be one though, because a company will make more profits from having non-human species/races/breeds.
I want to further add that the reason why the majority of modern mmorpgs all have European-based stories, species, races, ethnicities is because of the history of modern RPGs and MMORPGs:
In world history, Europe is still a baby. Non-European countries, and people, have super-long histories of myths, folklore, and legends that go back before Europe became civilized. Not only that, but the majority of European legends come from non-European origins! (For example European legends of European gods come from Roman legends, which come from Greek legends, which come from Egyptian legends, which come from Sumerian Empire legends. ((Asia, Ethiopia, and Middle East.)) It goes even further back, but the risk of getting tooo far off topic is greater LOL!
JRR Tolkien was tired of non-European countries having rich mythics, folklore, and legends. He set out to create Europe's own version of myths, and legend. He did this with Middle Earth, "The Simarilian", and the rest of his books. Tolkien wrote this, and said this, as the main reason why he wrote his books. During the time Tolkien wrote his books, the British Empire was still formidable, still had incredible influence in the world. Tolkien's books become best sellers worldwide, and get aggressvily pushed world wide. The stage gets set for everyone world wide to have in their minds Tolkien's (and the "new" European) idea of European-based legends, myths, and lore. Tolkien's books become soo popular that they spawn a new leisure activity - boardgames based on his works - Dungeons and Dragons. This catches on and becomes super popular world wide. Further building on the European-themed fantasy, lore, myths.... stage set by Tolkien.
This leads to the idea of another new leisure activity - computer RPGs. Most notably the Ultima series, Bard's Tale series, Phantasie series, Temple of Apsai series, and others. This beocme super-popular worldwide. And further cements the stage for European-based legends, myths, and lore. This leads to the idea of yet another leisure activity - computer MMORPGs. The snowball continues rolling - the idea of European-based, European-themed lore, legends, and myths is further pushed. This is why one sees European-based humans, cities, cultures, themes, in the majority of MMORPGs. Even though non-European countries easily outnumber European countries. Non-European countries are far older, have far longer history of myths, legends, and lore. And far richer. And even though the majority of European legends, myths, and lore comes from non-European countries.
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Until more non-European countries start making their own MMORPGs, start researching their own country's myths, legends, lore...... then the majority of current MMORPGs will continue to have little to no racial/ethnicity among human avatars. Little to no differnce among the game enviorment when it comes to different themes based on human ethnicities. Gothic influenced buildings? Ethiopian influenced buildings? Persian, Chinese, Tibet, Japanese, S. American, Mayan, etc... influenced buildings, enviorment, geography, and lands?????
Great responses. The only real I used "humans" in my example was because we obviously have the most knowledge on the differences in culture there. I'm not speaking specifically of "humans" or saying that it should only be "humans" with the different cultures in the games. Just as it stands, and as you pointed out in the true shallowness of western culture lore, there's not many species in games that have this cultural difference. Or even when they do, it's just not touched.
Let's take "elves" as another example. Elves are another of the "common popular" races in modern MMOs. Most of us are familiar with elves from one of many lore sources. And again, most of us are even familiar with difference cultures in Evlish Society. Now I'm not talking Legloas vs. Santas Chief Elf. I am talking about Dark Elves, Wood Elves, Half Elves, High Elves, Blood Elves, and any other number of evlish derivations that are out there in many universes these games have created ( or thier universes may have been created long before the MMO ie- Warcraft ). There's just plain and simple no real use of these cultues. Sure, Everquest 2 gave you a chance to play one of many "races" of elves but that was it. You could be one. You never saw much of the culture. Why because you were thrown into the mixing bowl know as Qeynos. All "European" human influenced. Perhaps you were in Freeport, which had a Gothic feel to most of it, again, European.
I just think there's an untaped potential for "realistic" feel that is ignored. Now, while I agree with you that NO ONE wants to play an MMO that is just "real life 1.0". Gaming is an escape, but suspension of disbelief is a MAJOR part of the RP of MMORPG. Right now just about EVERY MMO out there ( and I only say just about because I've not played them all ) leaves you feeling zero emotion attachment for your race, character, empire, or the game universe in general. You know as sell as I do that if people felt a bit more attached to their characters or game universe that it would extend the longevity of the game. World of Warcraft is a perfect example of the sterility of environment. People delete their lvl 60s all the time just to reroll to the other side. Why do they do this? Becuase there's really no benefit to being a Human Mage or a Night Elf Rogue or a Tauren Druid ( besides very MINOR racial traits ). I won't go into my thoughts of WoW too much but I will say it's a shining example of the Cookie Cutter Syndrome where you NEVER have the chance to feel "my character is different than most others" simply because you are a dime a hundred dozen. That's the pure and simple fact becuase in games like that all you do is read the forums to find out the best equipment and skillset for your class from the min/maxers out there and go with the crowd. You're character is simply nothing special because you can't be anything special when you're just a clone.
Now you might be saying "Okay...so what does all that have to do with the cultural differences you say are missing?". First, let me say that I am not saying it has to be an Asian Culture, Persian Culture, Egyptian Culture, or any number of other "real world" cultures. We, they, or whoever is making the game can pull anything they want out of thin air and create brand new cultures but they are going to be influenced by the real world strictly because that's how our minds function. Eve Online is a shining example of this. 4 Empires that are tens of thousands of years into our future but you can see modern similarities in the influence of each Empire ( even though the devs of Eve are JUST NOT beginning to put the cultural differences of each Empire to SOME use in the storyline ). Now, to address the "what does culture have to do with standing out in an MMO". Simple, different cultures would have different styles of weapons, armour, fighting, music, food, housing, and any number of other things. You have to admit that the state of things right now every tank looks like every other tank in games out there. As does every rogue/thief/mage/priest whatever class you want to point out. Why is this? Well it's because the devs are a little lazy. "X" set of chest armour is THE premier piece of chest armour for anyone planning on being a warrior. Therefore, every warrior busts their butts to get that chest piece. What does that get you? An abercrombie and fitch league of like-dressed warriors.
Now, to use try to put a little bit of what's in my mind to words ( and trust me that's harder than it sounds :P ). Let's consider a "warrior type" for this example. And again I will use real life cultures to illustrate my example only because I've not taken the time to create new cultures myself ( let alone the concept art I would have to create to show others "what it looked like" ). Let's compare how different a Persian Warrior, Asian Warrior and a European Warrior of say...1100 AD would be. You'd see entirely different schools of though in weapon and armour styles. Not to mention fighthing styles. You're European warrior would be weighed down with protection while your Persian Warrior would be set for speed as a defense with a very NASTY offensive weapon and again on another hand your Asian Warrior would be a mix of the two with hardened light armours as well as a nasty attack system ( weapon/style combined ). But these warrior would be VASTLY different. And they would each have to attack each other differently than they would a warrior of their own style/culture.
Basically, I think the shallowness of "difference" in MMOs really stinks. The devs are taking the "short route" for "balance" by making everything and everyone the same in just about every regard. Size, sex, race, whatever you may be looking at, all the same in every way in every game. Rather than understand that there ARE differences but that also means there are stengths and weaknesses. Leaving it up to the player to decide "OH! This is the weakness of my "character". I need to work on putting my strength foreward". I mean, let's look at the poor Roman foot soldier vs. the typical Germanic Warrior. We're talking a good what...50% size difference at least? 1v1 the Germanics could probably play "Toss the Roman" if the Roman went head long at the Germanic. But what idiot Roman would? No the Romans knew how to use tactics and exploit weaknesses. Their combat equipment showed this as the adapted for each new foe.
I won't go on anymore other than to once again completely agree with you that Western Culture is young and fairly shallow. Which is why I really wish someone, somewhere could realise that as a species ( humans ) we have a rich, vast pool of lore and culture all around the worlf. I wish they would realise this and reflect it in a game. I think such a game would be just one step closer to having such a realistic sense ( no...not so realistic that it turns into a job not a game. But that would be gameplay not background ) that people can really be drawn into feeling that they are part of a living, breathing universe and they might actually mean something. All of us who have EVER playing PnP RPGs know that we were much more "involved" with our characters because we had a direct GM contact to that universe and he/she could make it feel alive ( assuming you were lucky enough to have a good GM ). This is the feel that needs to be brought back to the MMO world. If we keep going the way we are now we'll be playing clones full of clones forever.
But...that's just me and I have way too much time to think things through.
"What is it I have against Microsoft, you ask? Well, you know how you feel when you wait for an MMO to come out and when it does you feel like you've paid to play it's beta test for another 6-9 months before anything even thinks of working the way it should? Being a network engineer you feel that way about anything Microsoft puts out."
That in and of itself is the modern problem. Developmental teams are stuck in the "tried and true" methods with no through of REALLY breaking out of the box. This is why we're getting so many clones of clones of clones. If MMO Inbreeding. Sooner or later we're going to end up with the Burrow of MMOs unable to reproduce itself because it's infertile. It's showing in the community more and more every day. Gamers are looking for something new. I speculate ( but it's at least from years of experience with other players in MMOs ) that even the life-span of the playtime of the average MMOer is dropping dramatically. It seems very few people stay with these MMOs for years like they did with EQ1. Dark Age of Camelot seems to be one that is holding long-term players. But that's another topic. What we need is a shake up of the developmental community. They're going to HAVE to move away from the molds soon and try something new. Could you imagine if movie special effects were still the same today as they were in the 80s? You probably wouldn't be rushing off to see the Claymation Fantastic Four movie. Sooner or later the devs are going to have to realise that MMOs are just like any other business out there: Change or get left behind.
"What is it I have against Microsoft, you ask? Well, you know how you feel when you wait for an MMO to come out and when it does you feel like you've paid to play it's beta test for another 6-9 months before anything even thinks of working the way it should? Being a network engineer you feel that way about anything Microsoft puts out."