I Want to Be the Hero Again
Apr 7, 2008 Games
As a computer gamer I’ve played a lot of role-playing games. I’ve virtually rolled-and-saved my way through sci-fi, fantasy, steam punk, post-apocalyptic and even a few modern ones. None of these games were perfect. Some of them, like Baldur’s Gate, Deus-Ex, System Shock and Fallout, were pretty dang close to it. Some of them were, at the very best, “challenged.” Yes, that’s right! I’m looking at you Battletech: Crescent Hawks Inception!
But regardless of whether or not the games were near perfect or nearly nausea-inducing, each of them did something that none the MMORPGs of today just can’t do: they made me the hero of an actual story.
I wasn’t the DPS of the group, or the Mezzer or the Nuker. I was the leader of the adventuring party destined by my mysterious past to make a band of strangers into living legends. I was the star-fighter pilot they could rely on to come through when the chips were down. I was the center-point around which the fate of a world revolved around. I was the kind of person that grandfathers told their grandkids about while sitting around the hearth. I was a hero. I wasn’t one of many, I was one of a kind.
Nor was this some simplistic story pieced together with little bits of quest descriptions. It wasn’t some flimsy construction of text boxes you clicked through in your hurry to go kill 10 more rats. No, these were stories. These were Stories about thousand-year destinies and prophecies. Stories of struggle and survival and betrayal. It wasn’t the game that held the filmy pieces of the story together. No, it was the story that game the game its life and that kept you playing over and over. The stories had their characters and so many of them had depth and life and really became alive as you progressed through the story. Minsc and Boo, Maniac and Angel and even HK-47 all became more than just pixels, they became part of a complex living, breathing universe.
When I look back on these games, some of them not so long ago, I realize how empty the games of today really are. No matter how many elves and dwarves I can kill giants along-side or how many comrades-in-arms I can stand beside under the onslaught of the enemy, they cannot take the place of a story that makes us want to play. We don’t play MMORPGs to find out how the story ends. We play them to level-up. We play them to get phat lewt. We play them for the social aspect. Some people use them as what basically boils down to cybersex for LARPers. No matter why we play now, it has nothing to do with the story.
Unfortunately, MMORPGs are pretty much all we have to look forward to these days. I’ll play them and I’ll definitely enjoy some of them but each time I play them I feel the goodness that used to be the CRPG slip just a little bit farther away.
Tags: computer, gaming, MMORPG, Role Playing Rants, RPG
Ever tried Guild Wars? It has a story that fits any single-player game, you end up being the hero, and the story itself is made of cutscenes and voiced conversations.
Actually we have tried it, and it certainly is the closest thing to the old-style games that the MMORPGs have to offer. It’s not perfect, of course, the game is still focused on group play but is kind enough to provide some lower level minions for those of us that aren’t into that. It aways reminded us of NWN.
But it’s certainly a step in the right direction. The problem is that I don’t see anyone else headed that direction!
Shawn’s last blog post..I Want to Be the Hero Again
In an MMO you have to play differently to a single player RPG. There’s no way everyone can be the hero (well, discounting things like City of Heroes/Villains, but even there what I say here may apply). You can still be A hero tho - you just have to be your own kind of hero.
Take Neocron - this MMO had massive potential, unfortunately the developers just couldn’t deliver - however, it was still one of my best experiences. While I may still have been a member of a group attacking outposts or just arguing in-character with other players, I was a hero in my eyes. I was a Fallen Angel, a freedom fighter, battling against the forces that were attempting to quell our rebellion against the evil CityAdmin and their enslavement of the populace.
Other players were their own kinds of heroes - there were renowned player run shops (in a game which only had code for NPC shops - the GMs did however give nice apartments with “all-access” buttons to shop owners) who could get you almost anything at the right price.
There was a City Merc clan who worshipped “the big yellow ball”, more City Mercs who would actually play the role of mercenaries and could be hired to help your clan take outposts.
Where do I think games^Wvirtual worlds go wrong in this regard? Player^WCharacter actions don’t matter enough. In Neocron everything was pre-scripted. If the side the GMs wanted to win an event was losing, they’d suddenly spawn more NPC fighters out of nowhere. While Fallen Angels major clans were allied with the Twilight Guardian, the GM run news sources were reporting that they were worst enemies.
MMO developers need to start paying attention to what’s going on in their world and reacting to it. In my opinion, so what if you have to rewrite 3 months of storyline you’d got ready in advance. I don’t care. But I do care when the immersion is broken by what is essentially a player-vs-player event suddenly turning into a player-vs-player-and-npc event for no reason. It takes the fun out of the game IMO.
Thanks, and I completely agree with reactive environments to Player events. MMOs are sadly lacking in a responsiveness of its world to the players within it. It was one of the ways the old style games still beat the new. Old style games were designed around a single interaction: you. thus they could be made to change in response to your actions. Couldn’t agree more!
However what you really hit on the head was the fact so many games lack the immersion, that glorious and willful suspension of reality, that some of the old CRPGs had. I agree that the possibility is out there for amazing games to be developed, but I don’t see any developers trying to do anything different!
Dude, it’s called The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Game of the Year Edition. Hell, III: Morrowind isn’t bad either
You’ve had to have heard of this. You’re thrown into a world of might and magic in which you must survive by your very wits. True the game play gets slightly repetitive but the graphics and the features and the fact that you’re there to save the world, and you’re just some mysterious prisoner, more than make up for it.
Dude! I sure have heard of it, and it is remarkable. It’s sitting in my game rack. It’s the sort of thing I’m talking about, alright. Only one problem:
It’s the only thing like it anymore. There was a time *many* games had this sort of story line and quality. I’m beginning to think it’s a dying breed!
Bariguy’s last blog post..I Want to Be the Hero Again
I like your post. At 24 years old with 20 years of computer gaming in my past, I find that the experience which you describe as missing in RPG has to be finite by necessity. All those single player games with the story lines were more like reading a good book than is doing the text bubble chase in WoW.
What with work and humans, I don’t really have time for that sort of online experience. I play Battlefield 2 a good bit with a few friends on a regular server, and it feels that the adrenaline rushes available in MMoRPGs (I played DAoC for three years of college) are far more costly than a similar rush available in frequent, dynamic firefights. Then, to get the good book feeling I occasionally pick up games like HL2, The Witcher, World in Conflict, all while waiting for Fallout 3.
I recommend them all.
The time and effort thing is a big deal, too. With the old style RPG games you immerse yourself in it, usually with few distractions, until it’s time for beddy bye! Then you can stop. the world and game doesn’t go on without you. The game waits for it’s hero to return.
I was a little disappointed in the Witcher. It just missed something, it never held on to me. But I, too, am seriously looking forward to Fallout 3. I loved the first two.
Shawn’s last blog post..I Want to Be the Hero Again
You can be the hero!
I ran acros this a few days ago. Very funny! And not much less complex than most FPSs.
Shawn’s last blog post..I Want to Be the Hero Again
i think one of the best rpg games ive played was morrowind.
it took me months to get anywhere.
ive not played any of the newer ones, like oblivion or its expansion packs cos i dont have the time, i just remember morrowind being fantastic.
oh, and zelda:links awakening on the gameboy when i was a kid =)
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You should most definitely play Oblivion if you can. Absolutely gorgeous and great gameplay, especially if you liked Morrowind.
Also, I keep forgetting to mention Mass Effect. Delicious RPG fun.
There are some good ones out there, I just wish they weren’t so few and far between.
Shawn’s last blog post..I Want to Be the Hero Again
Bethesda is coming out with an MMO. Should be a lot like Oblivion.
I’m waiting on a few things, actually. Rumors of a new Entry from Bethesda will be on the list! I’m also waiting on Dragon Age, should it ever make it out of the starting gate, Fallout 3 and rumors of yet another single player from Bioware.
And I’ve got some hope for MMOs, too, with some betas I’m involved in really showing promise in holding me, but still I’d really like to sink my teeth into a really good story-driven RPG.
What was wrong with Battletech: Crescent Hawks Inception? Admittedly I was probably like 10 years old when I played it, but I remember it being awesome.
Now I am tempted to see if I can dig it up and play through it again.
Actually a ton of classic games here
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give http://neosteam.gamengame.com/ a try its a new Steampunk MMO