Justifying the limits on player influence

Bless me, readers, for I have sinned; it has been three months since my last confession. In the past few weeks, I have not been faithful to World of Warcraft. I have been cheating on WoW with another game, and I am a bit ashamed of it because it has meant less inspiration for topics I could write about for this blog. Who is this mistress who has pulled me away from the game, you ask? She is a tempting one, one who has caused many to falter from their chosen paths. She is the indie game sensation... Minecraft.

It's understandable if you haven't heard of Minecraft, but the fact that it is the most successful indie game of all time, and it's only in alpha, should say something about the phenomenon it has become. I could never do the game justice with my own explanations, so I'll just direct you to YouTube user SeaNanners, who explains the game quite well in his "Welcome to Minecraft" series. You can start with part 1 here and go on as you please. I invite you to watch his video (or even a few of them) if you aren't familiar with the game, since it will give you a better idea of where I'm coming from when I talk about these two games, World of Warcraft and Minecraft.

Minecraft is an interesting game. It's a sandbox game, a game that answers the question of, "What do you do in this game?" with "Whatever you want to." It's similar in that respect to games like Dwarf Fortress or Animal Crossing, especially the latter, in the much of the fun that there is to be had is driven by the player's creativity, rather than things like missions or other objective goals. This may sound boring to players used to games where what you do in-game is entirely driven by what the game designers want you to do, but once you adjust to this freedom and all of the possibilities it provides, some pretty amazing things are possible. I, for example, built in my Minecraft world, complete from scratch, a volcano which is continually erupting. Someone else has built a sixteen-bit computer in Minecraft, and a group of people worked together to build York Minster Cathedral to scale in the proper size. It's pretty amazing what one can do in this game.

But what does this have to do with WoW, you ask? Well, playing Minecraft has made me realize just how little freedom we have in WoW, even when it seems like we have so much. Sure, there is plenty to do in this game--raids, leveling, battlegrounds, crafting, fishing--and yet, we are very limited in how we can tackle all of these options. If we wanted to try to take Warsong Gulch by destroying our opponents' entrance into the battlefield, rather than just capturing their flag, we couldn't do it. If we wanted to try taking Icecrown Citadel by just flying to the top of the Frozen Throne, we couldn't do it. If we wanted to finish a quest where we act as a double agent by converting over to the other side, rather than by returning to the side we were working with before, we couldn't do it. Though there are many things we can do in WoW, how we go about those activities is really pretty linear. We can choose how we fight Blood-Queen Lana'thel on our way to Arthas, but we can't try using deception, espionage, or even diplomacy to get past her. When starting a death knight, we can't choose to remain an agent of the scourge and play on the side of evil if we want to. What we do and much of how we do it is all decided for us.

This kind of limited freedom is something I have discussed before, such as when I discussed how we players really don't have any power to change how the plot of WoW progresses, and when I discussed how we players can't use the knowledge we have to change our character's actions, for their actions are dictated by the plot of the game. Having given it some thought, though, I can now see why our actions in WoW are so limited and so inconsequential: for a game of this scope, they have to be.

In terms of justifying the lack of consequences of our options, one of the things that makes WoW, in my opinion, great, is that everyone gets to have the same great experience when they play, as long as they are willing to put in the effort. Someone who started playing five years ago and someone who started playing five months ago both have equal objective odds of being able to complete the Wrathgate questline or take down the Lich King, as long as they are both willing to put in the same amount of work. Now, if our actions had greater consequences for the game's world, some of these experiences could be lost, and new players would have no chance of experiencing them. Without the use of phasing to show the consequences of our questing in Dragonblight, new players would come to the zone and see that every significant thing that needed to be done had been done. If a player completing the Wrathgate questline caused the changes that are currently phased to happen permanently to the zone, newer players would have no chance at seeing this amazing questline. And if killing the Lich King permanently crippled the enemies in Icecrown Citadel (as killing their leader should), then newer players wouldn't experience the satisfaction of beating that raid when it was as difficult as it could be, and their satisfaction would be shallower for that reason. Or even worse, if players killing the Lich King killed him for good, players who were just a bit behind in getting to him wouldn't be able to fight him at all. In short, WoW must remain a static world so that new players can experience it and all its majesty the same way veterans get to.

As for the limitations on the kinds of choices players can make in how they tackle the game, suffice it to say that WoW is a huge game. Blizzard has enough on their hands trying to make a game as expansive as WoW is now; imagine how much work they'd have to do if there were multiple ways of going through it. If, for example, death knights could decide to stay with the scourge, Blizzard would need to design an entire set of quests to see those death knights to level 80 (soon to be 85), and that would take away from time they could spend developing more content for the rest of us. If the game didn't include so many different areas of play, perhaps there could be options like this, but because we have so many options in terms of what we do, we can't have many in terms of how we do what we do. It's just not feasible.

Real ID and the future of WoW

Thinking, always thinking... and thinking alone, mind you.

It has now been a week since the most worrisome saga in WoW's history ended, and I will now discuss what I intended to discuss when I first began writing my last post, Disabling Real ID for great justice. If you are sick of hearing about Real ID, then you'll be happy to know that after this post, I won't touch the topic again unless some new development makes it worth writing about; I promise. Also, in this post, rather than talking about Blizzard's plans when I talk about the development of Real ID, I'll be talking about Activision-Blizzard's plans, because the direction that Real ID is taking may not be in Blizzard's hands.

Allow me to start with a confession: in case you couldn't tell from my repeated championing of the soloist cause, I'm an introvert. For those who don't know, and for those who need a reminder (as non-introverts often do), introverts are people who find time spent with other people tiring, and the more people they spend time with, the more tiring it is. Introverts need alone-time after spending time around other people because quiet contemplation and self-meditation is how we re-energize. Conversely, extroverts, the opposite of introverts, get their energy out of social interaction and find time alone tiring. Leave an extrovert alone for a hour or two and he'll reach for his cell phone; put an introvert in a crowd for an hour or two and he'll be looking for a spot where he can spend some time to himself to recuperate. (If you want to know more about introversion, Jonathan Rauch's "Caring for Your Introvert: The habits and needs of a little-understood group" is an excellent write-up on the subject.)

Why do I bring my introversion up? Because, after reading Psychochild's post on the Real ID issue (which I found on Larisa's blog), I realized that a good deal of the angst we had over the Real ID fiasco could have come from our introverted tendencies. As Psychochild puts it, the internet has traditionally been the realm of the introverts. Because introverts find focused, genuine discussion in small groups much more bearable than more superficial discussion in large groups, we flock to the internet and the focused communities it can create. Digital activities in general are more likely to draw in introverts because time spent at a computer is usually time spent alone, even though, when we are on forums and the like, we are communicating with other people.

However, as Psychochild wrote, "a funny thing" happened to the internet; it became social. Social networking arose out of the extroverts' desires to use the internet to keep track of their ever increasing social interactions, for example, and online communities became larger, because the formerly small communities that the introverts flocked to simply wouldn't do for the extroverts. WoW, it seems, has also become a victim of this phenomenon. Thanks to its increased appeal to the casual player (because they prefer alone time, introverts are more likely to be dedicated players than extroverts are) and its growing popularity, which has the effect of causing more extroverts to bring their friends into the game, WoW is following the general trend of the internet in that it is becoming more of an extrovert's stomping ground than an introvert's stomping ground.

Because more extroverts are flocking to WoW, it doesn't surprise me that Activision-Blizzard would think that making the game more social in nature would be a good move, and the Real ID change was likely a first step towards making that happen. Real ID itself is a lot like social networking in its nature, and Activision-Blizzard was probably hoping to jump on that bandwagon to increase the appeal of WoW. This is where they crossed the line in the eyes of their introverted customers. As Psychochild says, "The problem is that introverts really don’t like being forced out into the open. Choosing to put information out is one thing, but when told that this is the only option, we’ll get fighting mad. Especially if sharing information is the gateway to a text-based communication medium like the forums, which is one of the old-school forms of communication that introverted geeky types enjoyed. In essence, Blizzard told introverts, “Expose yourselves to others or we won’t let you participate in something you probably enjoy.” When it’s put in that context, it makes sense that people would raise a fuss. But, I suspect that Blizzard hadn’t considered this, and figured that everyone has already joined a social network and wouldn’t mind."

Indeed, many people have already joined a social network, and that isn't surprising. After all, only 25% of the population (approximately) is introverted, while 75% is extroverted, and extroverts are the type to gravitate towards a social networking platform. From a marketing standpoint, it makes sense that Activision-Blizzard would jump at the opportunity to cater their game to extroverts. After all, it's probably more profitable to market a product towards extroverts than introverts, especially since extroverts, because of their social nature, are more likely to spread word-of-mouth advertising about the product in question. Between those facts and the rise of social media, is it any wonder that Activision-Blizzard and Facebook have been discussing ways to cooperate and integrate their respective technologies? It's a logical result of the extroverts' desires to bring more of their social tendencies into what has traditionally been the introverts' realm.

And sadly (sadly for me, at least), I see that trend continuing into the future. As the WoW gets more popular, with more people opening up to the possibility of casual gaming and with Blizzard developing their game to cater to the casual gamers, more people are going to play. Now, what do extroverts love? Large groups of people to interact with. And what do introverts shy away from? Large groups of people to interact with. These facts sustain a vicious cycle that causes anything that becomes popular to attract extroverts and drive away introverts. Quite simply, WoW is a victim of its popularity; as WoW becomes more popular, more of the WoW-playing population will become extroverted, as the size of the community drives away the introverts that got this game off the ground. And with a more extroverted player base, you can bet that changes like the Real ID change will be pushed harder by Activision-Blizzard, and will probably be more well received. If they've learned their lesson from this attempt, their going to make this happen slowly, until Real ID reaches a point of integration where the use of real names on the forums isn't that big of a stretch.

Now, for you extroverts (if any of you reading this are extroverts; as Psychochild says, those who are serious enough about WoW to read/write blogs about it likely at least have introverted tendencies), this may be a good thing. It will mean that a genre that was typically not designed with you in mind (MMOs) will finally be open to you. However, it also means that we introverts will need to either adapt to this changing game and try to find ways to limit our social interaction within what will likely be an increasingly social game, or just move on to other, less popular and more introvert-oriented games. I can imagine a future for WoW where telling your guildmates that you don't use Real ID will be equivalent to telling your real-life friends you don't use Facebook, and this will likely be in a world where Real ID is not dissimilar from Facebook.

So, to those of you who look at a future like this with disdain and loathing, hoping it will not come to be, I say, enjoy this while it lasts. Enjoy Cataclysm, read up on all the news you want, concern yourself with the seeming inferiority of one particular element, be it a class's talents or a profession's new patterns. Revel in these relatively minor concerns for as long as you can, for we have been given a glimpse of a dismal future where, for us introverts, game balance will be the least of our concerns. And for you extroverts, well, your time will come. It may be at our expense, but it will come...

Now please excuse me; the druid needs some time to mull over all this. Don't worry, Monday's post will be more cheerful than this one; I promise.

Alts for their own sake?

Full disclosure: I'm a recovering alt-oholic. For as long as I have been playing WoW, I have always felt the temptation to see how the other nine sides live. The sheer number of alts I rolled that never made it past level 20, or even level 15, astounds me sometimes. I used to go through a very predictable pattern with my alt-itis: I'd grow envious of one class, roll alt of that class, give it a profession I was envious of, play it, get board with it somewhere in the 10-15 range (or sometimes even before then), and repeat that process about six times, give or take. I would then have a mini existential crisis where I would look at that screen of alts and wonder, "Why do I keep rolling alts that I never play? No more of this!" I would then log in to each alt individually, sell all of their stuff, send the money to my main, and delete them. I would then promise to myself that I would not roll another alt without having a good reason to do so. I have gone through this whole process at least four times thus far, enough times to have gained some insight into how and why it happens.

One thing that is consistent with most of the alts I roll is that I never roll them for the sake of just leveling them. In most cases, what motivates me to roll an alt is the desire to use that alt in end-game content. It's usually jealousy of that class's abilities and perceived strengths that draws me away from my druid. Perhaps a class looks fun to play as a DPS, or perhaps the class's healing or tanking style looks more varied than my druid's and thus more engaging. Inevitably, though, I realize that it will likely take me months to reach that point (that point being level 80), and I realize that I will likely never be able to use my alt for group content. (What's that you say? Run dungeons on the way to 80? Um... no.) And with the possibility of using that alt for level cap content gone, my motivation to level it goes as well.

So it seems the issue is a disjunction between my motivation for rolling the alt in the first place and the amount of effort I am willing to put up with to get it there. After all, when you roll an alt, you start with a very small selection of that class's abilities, and if the goal is to play the class because of the class's playstyle, it's disheartening to only be able to start with a skeleton of that playstyle (it's really just the ribcage, if we want to stick with that metaphor). That's part of the reason that I've always thought that a good middleground between the people who want to be able to start alts at level 55 and the people who think we shouldn't be able to do that would be the ability for us to start our alts at level 20. That way, you skip the most boring levels and start at the point where most classes start to come into their own and feel like the class they are. In other words, you could skill the lol-smite/lol-wrath/lol-judgment stages in which the classes are incredibly boring to play. But that's a topic for another time.

Of course, the obvious answer is to just roll an alt for the sake of playing the alt, for the sake of experiencing the class as it evolves and comes into its own. My most successful alt, my shaman, who is now level 66, was rolled for exactly this reason, which is part of the reason why I have stuck with him for so long. So why isn't this enough of a motivator for me to stick with an alt? Why isn't playing an alt for its own sake enough to motivate me to roll an alt?

I think it has something to do with the issue of meaning. Perhaps in WoW, as in life, we desire a meaning for our actions, a motivating factor to motivate us to play. Fun can certainly be that motivating factor, but I see fun in WoW as similar to happiness in real life: they're both one answer to the question of what to live for, but for some, they are insufficient answers, not enough to make all it worth it. Perhaps you don't know what I mean, but maybe some of you reading this do; maybe you have experienced the dissatisfaction with living for day-to-day experiences rather than for something greater. Life isn't constantly enjoyable, so living only for the moment can backfire when that moment isn't a particularly good one.

Alts are the same way. They are certainly fun, but some parts of the leveling process are just plain grueling, including the lol-phases listed above, the 40-50 stretch, quest items with aggravatingly low drop-rates, etc. In those moments, it can be easy to forget the fun times you had with your alt and the fun times you will have if you continue playing. That's where that long-term goal comes in. That long-term goal is what will keep you playing through those uninteresting stretches, because achieving that goal will make it all worth it.

So the real question becomes, are those long term goals necessary, or are the fun moments themselves enough motivation to keep playing one's alt? I guess this is just a question that every player needs to answer for themselves.