I’m taking a quick break from writing about Barriers to MMO Entry to discuss some recent developments related to the MMO world which you might have heard about.
Those who check gaming news sources regularly will have noticed that Blizzard is planning on releasing an expansion which seeks to completely revamp certain aspects of the lore to lure back gamers into the tender embrace of the behemoth, not only by introducing a cataclysm into the old world Azeroth, but by infusing the different races with new classes to adapt to the cataclysm that is about to envelop World of Warcraft.
What does this have to do with MMOs in general and Lord of the Rings Online in particular? Well, looking at the announcement from a critical point of view, it seems to all boil down to what gamers want as opposed to what gamers value in the game they’re playing.
The announcement of Cataclysm has brought forth a gigantic hype machine that essentially bowled over most of the competition. It also piqued the interest of many bloggers who thought the leak was a hoax. Tobold, one of the more prolific bloggers out there with regard to MMOs, has even resubscribed to World of Warcraft, if only to see the old world one more time and bid it a fond farewell.
There’s nothing wrong with that of course, as the announcement was bound to create these sorts of reactions in people. I think MMO gamers want something new and exciting to enjoy, and they want a breadth and depth of experience that makes them both feel comfortable and adventurous at the same time. For some, it doesn’t matter how they get that new experience, but for others, myself included, there are stipulations to acquiring that new feeling.
The thing that I find off, I suppose, is that the lore of WoW has been constantly changing (note that I didn’t say evolving) to fit the needs of the game. While I can understand the addition of new races from a lore aspect, the ability of the Tauren race to suddenly be able to wield the power of the Light baffles me, because they’re such a shamanistic race to begin with.
This is contrary, to some extent, to other games, wherein a certain respect to lore exists. Sure, you can take some liberties with the lore in LotRO and create enemies of certain things that were never formally seen in the books, but that’s not so bad. Changing the lore to allow for people to satisfy their desire to do something new just makes me feel a little sad.
WoW, LotRO, WAR, and all the other MMOs out there have their own bits of respective lore, and I think that lore should, to some extent, remain as core to the game. Bring in all the hellfire and brimstone you want to change the world, if the lore can support it, but don’t simply change the lore for the sake of appeasing the fanbase and making more money.
This does bring into question my alignment towards the game. Will I go back to WoW when the game gets released? There’s a good chance of that happening, sure. Will I like it? Perhaps. Will I respect Blizzard for what it’s doing? Not as much as I used to, at least with respect to WoW’s lore. Call me cautious about the whole thing, I suppose, because until details have been finalized in the code, I’m going to watch Blizzard to see if they mangle the lore further or give it some respect.
I’m not about to fault Blizzard for altering their lore for the sake of their business (though they hardly need more), after all, gaming isn’t just a game for developers. I do like how this reinforces my belief that WoW has no real integrity with respect to its setting however as that has always been what put me off from playing the game and it always annoyed me when people who loved the game would try to pass it off as some literary masterpiece within the MMO genre.
Obviously we haven’t seen any real masterpieces within MMOs yet, although a case could certainly be made for EVE Online. But this move by Blizzard, assigning all classes to all races, really hurts any movement in such a direction. It reminds me of how ADnD 2nd Edition had such harsh restrictions on race and class and then 3rd Edition just eliminated the restrictions completely. I think it really speaks to laziness on Blizzard’s part ultimately, it takes far less effort to churn out revamps to the lore than it does to introduce a new class, and Blizzard has no excuse for being lazy considering their subscription numbers. Why they couldn’t instead introduce a new Hero class is beyond me as I would think that would excite the players a hell of a lot more, but I suppose they will take what they can get.
As a clarification, it’s not exactly opening up all classes to all races, but in some cases, some of the new race-class combinations kind of throw the lore out the window.
That kind of disregard rubs me the wrong way, I suppose.
How did the Tauren gain the ability to use the power of Light?
“Aliens did it.”
Alcasm is right, Blizzard gives a damn about its world and lore. The WoW story is even worse than some of the worst stories written for D&D. But people let Blizzard get away with it and are even excited about it.
Something happened after Warcraft 2, a hype train started rolling that has not stopped since that time. I liked Warcraft 1 the most, but then Metzen went mad and I wonder why so many people can stand his broad shoulder fetish.
Blizz does all for the effect, giving a damn about logic and continuity, as many modern films do.
But this does not create a “world”, even low level roleplaying in such a shitty setting is unfulfilling and useless, I would even say just impossible.
Flight has regularly to be switched off in battlegrounds, makes the world feel even smaller and sacrifices basically all world design for the kick of flying for flying’s sake.
But people already resubscribe to WoW again, right now, because a cataclysm was announced for late 2010. They might also sell us the revamped Diablo and Starcraft series around that time for more money (pay for maps, game broken up in 3 chapters and so on)
Blizz is a phenomenon — they can do for what others would be flogged. They are good, no doubt, but everyone sees to turn a blind eye once they screw up and fanbois come to the rescue.
Talk about WoW PvP and class balance in general… it is not there at all. Think about Paladins and DK’s who were quite intentionally overpowered in patch 3.0 and now are with DK’s and druids the most played classes.
People tend to forget all that and go back to a faction grind dailies, then raid game with a lore that makes one laugh hard.
If Blizz takes a dump on their players heads, people are excited. Other companies create cool stuff, too, but they are much more questioned and criticized while Blizz gets away with answers like that:
Q:Why are there Worgen DKs?
A:Because it’s cool?
It actually reminds me quite strongly of Bethesda’s flawed design aesthetic when it came to Fallout 3. They would insert stuff into the game for no more reason than that it was “cool”, game lore be damned. Couple that with an almost complete disregard for the setting’s lore in general and you get a bastardization of the Fallout universe. Fallout 2 shared this problem to a lesser extent (thankfully it had talent such as Chris Avellone working to disguise it as best they could) but it was trying to evolve the Fallout universe whereas Fallout 3 is just a shameless attempt to ape elements of the originals. It all boils down to consistency and realizing that sometimes you have to sacrifice “cool” to maintain verisimilitude.
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