Tickled Pink: Are we solving a puzzle or living a fantasy?

Euripides at Critical QQ wrote a post where he talked about his lack of enthusiasm for lore when he's raiding. While he appreciates a well told quest chain, it's irrelevant in a raid situation. Kael'thas could as well been a featureless blue cube named "final boss" with abilities called "Phase one ability" and "Phase two ability". Raiding isn't about storytelling, it's about laying a puzzle. This post tickled the raider Larísa and the non-raider Elnía.

Larísa:
I'm torn when it comes to lore. I really am. Let's put it this way: One part of me wants to pay attention to it, wants to get involved, wants to live the story. Isn't this what playing an MMO is about? Escaping into a distant world, seeking the adventure, playing our roles in the history. But no matter how hard I try to listen, my mind starts to wander when it's time for storytelling in WoW.

The first time I saw Lord Jaraxxus, I found it a bit amusing to see that little gnomish warlock and then the huge dude incoming. But not even at our first date could I focus long enough on the dialogue to actually hear what they were talking about. Because when I raid - I raid. I don't care about stories. I care about performance. No matter what hero or anti-hero or bad guy or whatever we're going to face, my mind is somewhere else. I ask myself: am I at the right position? I double check my buffs and players I'm supposed to buff one more time, just to be sure, even though I've checked it a dozen of times before. I plan for my opening attacks. And above all - I pay full attention to the pointer, to see when it changes to a dagger, the signal for me to throw my favorite starter - mirror images. All those speeches - with or without excellent actor performances - is just a background noise. The only voice I'm listening to is the one of the raid leader and the only text that matters to me is the raid chat, the mage channel and the ranged channel.

So to be honest Euripides, I'm quite with you. Jaraxxus could as well look like a cucumber - I wouldn't notice much of a difference as long as his abilities were the same.

Unfortunately this lack of interest for in-game storytelling doesn't only appear when I'm raiding. I'm afraid there are a ton of great stories you can get through the quest lines which I've missed too. I'm reluctant to admit it, but it's very rare that I stop and read what the NPCs are trying to share with me in those let-me-tell-you-a-story-quests. Normally I click it through as quickly as possible, impatient to get to the yellow question mark and head along to the next quest. Maybe it's because of my lack of experience of game storytelling, maybe it has to do with the game mechanisms and the incentives to constantly progress our characters. Or maybe the narrative parts are rather poorly written. I just know that there is something that doesn't work. I fail to lose myself in the story of Azeroth. At the most I see a hazy version of it in the far distance.

If I'm going to become involved I have to do it outside of the game, by reading Warcraft novels. Thanks to a generous donation from Ixobelle I've read a few and I enjoyed them a lot. They haven't got Nobel prize potential - to be honest they're rather crappy written - but they tell the story about Azeroth well enough to make me interested.

Still I can't say that I listened more carefully to what Ilidan had to say in Black Temple just because I had read about him. Once I stood in front of him I looked at him and thought to myself: "hey, there's a celebrity", in the same manner as I would have looked at one of the wax figures at Madame Tussaud's. And then I went back to my normal raiding mode, thinking about what this "Final boss" would do in phase one, two and three, not giving a damned about who this guy was, what he had done and why I was fighting him.

I'm sure I would look differently at it if I was playing at a RP server. Who knows, may I will one day? But as things are now, I'm definitely not living a fantasy. I'm solving a puzzle.

Elnia:
I don't see myself as engaged in solving a puzzle or living a fantasy. I do understand the puzzling part because I have done five man heroics and some of the fights can...well...could offer some puzzling challenges. I say could because I have been level 80 for only about five months and what I have learned about running heroics is that patience is the primary challenge. Whatever strategic decisions might be needed usually go out the door once you either find an over-geared party or become over-geared yourself. The best evidence of that is the fact that I have most of the achievements for the red protodrake and never once have I been in a PUG that deliberately set out to get those achievements. They just...happened. So unless you happen to do heroics at level they are basically /faceroll; no puzzle at all.

Nor do I really see myself living a fantasy, although that is the more appealing direction. As I mentioned in my post about improving questing the problem I have with the story is that it remains discombobulated to me. I think Larisa's point about the boss being a "celebrity" is spot on. For me, the Lich King is akin to Paris Hilton; someone who is famous for being famous although I couldn't actually tell you why. His name is on the box cover; I see his picture on the loading screen; but he has no relevance to what I do in the game outside of one or two quests. It's strange to me because as a non-raider I would think raiders would care more about the deeds of the summit bosses than us little schmucks in the trenches; after all, you guys are killing the bosses; don't you even care why? But it appears you don't.

At the level we are speaking about Warcraft is a game. I enjoy playing it. I like to explore the world; listen to the music; complete some achievement in the game to give me a feeling of accomplishment. Maybe there is a sense of a puzzling but it's the entire game universe that's a puzzle. How does the mechanics of this class work; where does this road go; how do I defeat this mob; how can I make 10,000 gold in one day. Yet there is also a sense of wonder, of being in a different space and time; of projecting myself into my character so much that when she gets whacked from behind I jump in my seat. So in that sense it's a fantasy too. So do I play for the intellectual challenge, for the imagination; neither fully and both a little bit. Let me quote that grand-papa of gaming, William Shakespeare, who had Hamlet solve a much more serious riddle with this immortal strategy: "The play's the thing." Yes, the play is the thing that reveals the consciousness of the king. I play to play; it's enough.

How I turned into a grinding moron

Did you believe that Larísa is one of those players who think for themselves? Did you think that she wouldn’t behave like a mindless sheep? Did you expect her to stand above the faceless crowd of morons and slackers?

You lived in a lie. Gevlon, listen to the breaking news and get your illusions shattered. Larísa has transformed into, if not slacker, at least a moron.

Since a week back, I’ve joined the squad of Bar Addicted Players. And this is not a side effect of my membership in the Brew of the Month Club. I’m referring to another kind of bar – an old-school, hypnotizing reputation bar.

Yep. I’ve decided go ahead with one of the 33 things I want to do before I quit the game. I’m going to get myself the ultimate symbol of grinding and vanity in Azeroth: a completely useless and pointless Winterspring Frostsaber mount. The only way you can get it is by grinding yourself to death to become exalted with the Wintersaber Trainers.

Waiting for a PUG
What sparked this project was one of those lonely nights when I once again spent hours trying to find a 10-man PUG. While I know that there are players who don’t mind walking around in Dalaran in circles while waiting for something to happen, I’m not one of those. It gives me rashes all over the body - I have to DO something. I want to have a goal and a direction, something to hold on to.

A natural one would be to level an alt. Who doesn’t like to see the ding-sparkles all over the screen and then head to the trainer to see what yummie little gifts he has in mind for us? However, the LFG system doesn’t allow that. I can’t disguise my lvl 67 druid as a full-epic-mage looking for a 10-mangroup for ToC. So that isn’t an option. My main is always my first priority and she needs badges, period.

Another idea of things-to-do while waiting is to quest randomly, doing a huge bunch of quests that still remain for to do in Icecrown, Grizzly hills and ZulDrak. But for some reason I can’t find the motivation for it. Since I’m not heading for the Loremaster title, I don’t see any goal to strive for. It’s just a time-killer. And even though you can make some gold on it, there are more efficient ways to become rich.

Why not AH?
The most sensible thing would probably to spend the time at AH, trying to make some good deals. The advantage of this would be that I would still be in range to read the Trade channel, where some players (for a reason I don’t understand) prefer to announce their runs rather than using LFG.

I normally don’t need to gather gold to keep myself fit for raiding. By simply transmuting an epic gem every day I’m online, I get enough to cover costs for repairs and consumables and I’ve been steady around 5k gold for as long as I can remember. However – if I doubled my fortune I could buy some crusader orbs and get myself a new shiny dress before I manage to acquire enough dkp to get it from the guild.

The only problem is that I hate, simply hate the AH grinding activity as such. I more or less fall asleep every time I try to go through the lists for business opportunities. I’ve never cared about the stockmarket in real life either. And that’s why I’ll never escape into AH while looking for a group.

The final alternative of what-to-do could be PvP – and it happens from time to time that I do it. But it lacks something – the feeling of progress, either towards a goal, or skillwise. I just don’t get anywhere with it.

And this is how it comes that I ended up looking at my 33-list and decided to go for the frostsaber. I wanted to do it at some point, why not now? I’ve always liked the crispy winter landscape, and since I was in a lonely mood, it seemed fitting to physically move myself to the most empty and remote area of all.

I imagined there would be no one there except the trainer and his pet, forever at watch high up on the rock. And so I set out for my lonely mission out in the wilderness.

An altered state
Somehow this grind isn’t quite what I expected. The burnout and sickness of the whole thing which I had thought would arrive after just a few runs is still missing.

Admittedly, I’m doing the same thing over and over again – currently two quests, which require me to kill bears, those butterfly-like flying creatures and two sorts of guys in a village. However, something strange happens after a while: I slip into an altered, meditative state of mind. I come at peace, void of troubling thoughts. It’s soothing. And even if I still want to find a group I’m not quite as frustrated as I was before. I’m not in any hurry.

Sometimes the grinding coma is interrupted by the presence of other players. Obviously I’m not the only one who has gotten this bug. When the peace is broken by horde players, I usually grumble a bit to myself, wishing I could teleport them to any other spot of Azeroth by pure willpower. KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY SHAMANS, WILL YA!

When the other guys are alliance, things become more complicated. It definitely pays off to group up for the kill x amount of mob-quests. The respawn timer is horrendous, not at all like the one associated to the Son of Hodir quests, which adjust depending on the amount of present players.

You have every reason in the world to keep competition to a minimum and join your forces. But on the other hand: if I do so, I will lose my spot in LFG and no one will know that there’s a mage who is willing to bounce into ToC any minute. In a group, this mount grind will turn into my major activity instead of a sidekick while I’m waiting for the real stuff. And I’m really not that insane. Not quite yet.

But I’m on my way. The bar is steadily growing. Just two more rounds and I’ll be honored. It makes me feel strangely good about myself.

Say hello to Larísa The Moron!

Cataclysm Release Date: February 1st, 2010

I have been an advocate since before Blizzcon that Cataclysm will release before March 1st, 2010. The purpose of this post is to share my reasoning with you.

(1) Given that Blizzard has already announced Cataclysm at Blizzcon 2009 it makes no sense that that they will wait for yet another Blizzcon to go by before the release. In fact, it makes no sense for them to announce the new release and then wait an entire year before the product comes out. Whatever suspense they build up with the end of Wrath will be dissipated if there is a six month gap between the end of Warth and beginning of the next expansion. Further, the summer is the slowest season for playing the game and it makes no sense to release a game at a time when people have no desire to play it. In short, it's inconceivable to me they would release after May 1st, 2010.

(2) There is precedence for releasing a game in mid-winter (Northern Hemisphere). The Burning Crusade was released January 16th, 2007. In fact, with Wrath being released in November 2009 both expansions have been released in wintertime. So another winter-to-early spring release is in keeping with that pattern.

(3) After Wrath came out Blizzard publicly stated that their goal was to make expansions on a yearly basis. While it is true that Blizzard does not always keep its word in such matters, there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to think they can't keep that pace. Furthermore, Blizzard stated at Blizzcon 2009 that they had already started working on Cataclysm before Wrath was even launched. Anything in summer of 2010 would mean that the company was not merely off target; it would mean that the third expansion took just as long as the 22 months it took to complete as Wrath. That's unlikely.

(4) Patch 3.1 dropped in mid-April 2009. Slightly less than four months later patch 3.2 dropped in early August. Patch 3.3 is on the PTR and a four month gap means it would drop no later than December 1st. A release day after March 1st, 2010 would create a yawing gap of content. In fact, all three patches have been essentially raid patches with no new solo content to the game. The idea that Blizzard will go six to eight months with no major updates (either raid or solo) to the game is inconsistent with recent practice.

(5) A release date after March 1st misses a landmark sales opportunity: Christmas. Christmas is the busiest shopping period in North America. With Patch 3.3 coming out no later than the beginning of holiday season it's inconceivable to me from a business point of view that any company, let alone Blizzard, would fail to have some major Warcraft product for sale during that time period. A release date of the first three months of 2010 allows them to market and sell pre-orders during the holiday shopping period.

I could go on but for me that's enough. There is a constellation of reasons why it's highly improbable that Blizzard will release the next expansion after March 1st, 2010. Given the release status of Patch 3.3 I expect it to drop mid-November, a public announcement of the release date of the next expansion during the holiday season, and the next expansion to release February 1st, 2010.

Why scaling may not be such a brilliant idea

It’s time to start scaling encounters in MMOs!

The sender of this message is no less than Wolfshead, who in an – as always – very well written blog post argues for a flexible raid design, where the encounters scale seamlessly. According to Wolfshead, it shouldn’t matter if you are 9, 11 or 12 players who want to kill a certain boss. Let the hp and damage change with the numbers and don’t force people into fixed sets of 5, 10 or 25.

When I first read his article I was all on his line. How many times haven’t I been in a situation where we’ve cursed the current model for raid design. If you’re the 11th or 26th person who has signed up for a raid and it’s your turn to sit out, I assure you you’re all up for scaling!

But after thinking about it a bit closer I can also see another side of it. Not everyone would benefit from scaling, and I thought I could as well share this perspective with you. Not because I disagree completely with Wolfshead, but after all – it takes two for a discussion, and hopefully it can help Wolfshead sharpening his arguments even more.

Giving odd players a chance
So why doesn’t Larísa think that every raid encounter in WoW should be flexible?

Well, one thing is because it might work the opposite way to what Wolfshead suggests. He wants to make sure that no one is left out, that everyone who wants to raid will have a chance to do so. And if you’re only seeing raiding as something done in close knitted guilds, this may be true. But how about the newcomers? How about the guildless, the lone wolfs, the players who can’t quite fit into the regular guild raiding schedule because of job or family?

Today those players can get their raiding fix by PUGing it. Sometimes you can find a pure-from-the-scratch PUG. At least ToC and Onyxia are PUGed these days at 10 as well as 25 man on normal mode (hardmodes is another story). But there is also the option to grab one of the last few spots in a semi-PUG. You can benefit from those guilds who manage to get 8 players together but not 10 and be a “filler”. The entrance level won’t be astronomically high. They’ll be happy with whatever additional contribution you can make, since the alternative had to do it with too few people, something that could award honor and achievements, but not any additional loot. This is a wonderful chance. And if you grab it and prove yourself a good player, it may even be your entrance ticket to apply to the guild.

What would happen if they scaled the encounters? Would those 9 friends find it worth it to open up and let an outsider join their party if the only reward is slightly better loot? I don’t think so.

More room for goblinism
I also think this system could risk to create a very unforgiving environment, where everyone is required to carry exactly his own weight in every single situation, or else they’ll be kicked from the raid.

There wouldn’t be any room for people who are slightly further down on the learning curve or gearing process than the rest of the party. Just by their added number they’ll burden the rest of the raid with increased difficulty. The benefit of adding them won’t outweight the cost and then you could as well kick them.

Mind you, of course I too embrace the principle that everyone must do their share of the job in the raid, that there shouldn’t be any people getting free rides. But there will always be people who are slightly worse than others and I think the scaling principle risk to be pretty harsh for them.

Lack of flexibility
Another worry about the flexible scaling encounters is actually the lack of flexibility they provide. If the resistance and difficulties you’ll encounter will decrease and increase with the number of players you have, there’s no way for you to increase the challenge by your own initiative by undermanning an instance. Today you can 8-man for instance the 10-man Naxx, enjoying the difficulty and the small room there is for mistakes. It takes some thinking tweak the strategies and think of the best way to compose a party when you’re doing it on fewer people. This possibility will be gone.

My final objection is that it will be harder for guilds to benchmark themselves to others. Yeah, I know, it’s politically correct to say that we’re only competing with ourselves, and if you’re in a very casual guild that is also the truth. But I think most guilds that are somewhat serious in their raiding are at least a little bit competitive in this. This doesn’t mean that topping the progression lists of our realms is our main goal, absolutely not, but it’s quite common practice that raiders throw a curious glance at the list from time to time. When we climb a few steps on the ranking after a new boss kills it makes us proud, especially when we know that we have a lighter raiding schedule than some of the guilds below us.

But how do you benchmarks guilds that have done the encounter in different scales? Wolfshead suggests that the encounter should be slightly more difficult the bigger it gets - more difficult than the calculated added strength because of more players would be. How long would that curve be stretched? Would the guild with the biggest raiding force get the highest ranking?

Conclusion
I’m not convinced that a not settled amount of players for an encounter is desirable, in spite of the good arguments that Wolfshead puts up. However I think it would be interesting to see more of it in some sort of non-instanced raid encounters. Once upon a time there were outdoor world bosses in WoW (well, technically I think they're still hanging around, but they're doomed to oblivion). I never experienced it myself, but it sounds like fun.

And I can’t help being tickled at the thought of the EverQuest event that Wolfshead describes, when 200 players defeated a supposedly unkillable dragon. I definitely would like to experience something like that – provided that they found a way to keep server stability up and lag at a reasonable level. It could give us back some of the adventure feeling we're missing, to quote another great post from Psychochild.

Is the solo-friendly trend threatening the MMO idea?

Is the MMO genre evolving in the wrong direction, as it's becoming more and more oriented towards solo gaming? Yes, if you should believe the signature Longesc, who wrote a comment at Tish Tosh Tesh. It was so well put that I'll quote a huge chunk of it:

"Today gamers ask for more and more things and content to do in their GAME, but all this is not adding anything to the VIRTUAL WORLD. The social component of MMOs is receding, and I wonder if Blizzard’s latest “Guild achievements” stuff for Cataclysm is going to change that. I very much doubt that this will besuccessful if it is done in the way of “achievements” for doing this or that grindy thing or collective grinding of achievements! […] These to-do-lists bugger me a lot,personally. But this is my personal pet peeve, one does not have to do it, after all. What is much worse is that >all< (really, almost everyone) people are going for this are basically eliminated from the game, as they are busily working/grinding to Valhalla. I damn the whole genre if it cannot evolve out of this particular direction that is prevalent nowadays."

I think Longesc is quite right, and in this post I'll explain why.

From solo to group playing
When I started to play WoW in the beginning of 2007, I had no idea about what kind of world I was entering. And while I was fascinated by the avatars I met - thrilled by the thought that they were controlled by real persons, spread over all of Europe - I didn't expect or ask for them to interact much with me. I had my hands full learning to move around in the world, understanding how to use the spells, getting to know the concept of questing, gearing, levelling. Even though I stumbled upon a smallish casual guild pretty early, we were rarely online at the same time and I spent most of my time playing on my own. And I was happy with it.

As time has passed however, my interest for solo playing has decreased. After all - the NPCs, the quest models, the game mechanisms are pretty much the same. The execution - for instance the graphic artwork - may vary a bit, but the rest... I can’t help thinking sometimes that it’s only "more of the same", although at a higher level. STV tigers are traded for Nagrand clefthoofs or Sholazar rhinos.

The reason why I’m still so fascinated by WoW after +2.5 years of playing it is definitely the M as in multiplayer. It’s the interaction within this huge family of geeks that makes the game worth playing. It’s the other players – the carebears as well as the jerks - who will give you those unexpected thrills: the successes, the fails, the annoyances, the giggles. Without the social aspect, WoW wouldn’t be anything but beautiful scenery with some button clicking therapy added. It would be a distraction, not much different to playing solitaire card games or solving sudokus.

So from my point of view, I’m not happy with the development towards a more solo friendly game. Not at all.

Market driven development
I know I’m not speaking for all players – on the contrary. Of course the development is market driven. Blizzard wouldn’t change the direction of the game if they thought they’d lose customers from it. The change is just reflecting an ongoing trend in society. People want to be independent. They don’t want to make commitments and give definite promises about turning up at a certain time a certain day – not even to friends. They want to be able to switch plans in an instant if a more attractive offer comes up on the cell phone.

And it’s the same in WoW. Players want to be able to play it in small chunks, and without having to wait for someone else to party with. That’s why Hogger lost his elite label. That’s why we’re supposed to level up all on our own nowadays. That’s why they’re putting so much effort into making long lists of solo achievements, to make sure that we can spend tons of time on our own in game. The community asked for it.

The effect for a player like me though is that I can’t play the game the way I’d like to. I don’t have any real life friends playing WoW, who I can talk into coming online. I haven’t played since vanilla and hence I don’t have any huge friends list. The few I had seem to have vanished. They’ve jumped to other games, gone horde, whatever. At least they’re not there when I’m online.

Outside of the scheduled raids, I often find myself left on my own. This doesn’t stop me from trying to find a group. Last weekend I spent hours and hours in LFG trying to find a PUG for a 10-man instance, without any success. Finally I gave up and logged over to my druid alt. She is currently clearing Nagrand and had a ton of group quests in her log. So I asked in general to see of anyone of the players in the zone would be up for it. And what was the reply I got? “You can solo those quests”.

Yeah. Maybe I can solo it. Especially with a druid. But it’s not what I’m looking for!

Just a bigger console game?
In one way you can still say that WoW is a multiplayer game. After all there are many players online at the same time using the same server. However, they’re spending more and more time sitting in their own little sandboxes, building their own small castles, rather than making joint forces, building a HUGE palace together. At the most they may throw a glance at each other, benchmarking to see the worth of their own achievements.

I understand the reasons to make more solo friendly content, and I can sympathize with it, since it makes the game available to parents and others with very limited gaming time. But ultimately I’m not happy about the direction the MMO genre is currently heading. And I ask myself: when does an MMO stop to being an MMO and turn into just a bigger console game?

Is it OK to apply to another guild while you’re still guilded?

Some players are lucky enough to find their permanent home in WoW right from the beginning. Love at first sight. A family to belong to until it’s time to say goodbye to the game. Good for them.

However, most of us will change guilds a couple of times during our wanderings through Azeroth. It isn’t always out of our own choice. Our guild may disband, transfer to another server or die off, going turning, dead and inactive and leaving us alone and abandoned. Time to move on.

But sometimes we’re initiating the change by ourselves. The guild that we joined once upon a time doesn’t correspond to what we’re looking for in the game. Maybe the guild has changed. Maybe we have changed. Maybe both. Whatever reason there is, we want to quit the relation and terminate the social contract.

The question is how to do it. Is it OK to send in applications to other guilds while you’re still guilded? Or should you leave your current guild before even thinking about contacting others?

Guild philosophy
There are different opinions about this, and I think they’re based on guild philosophy. Some people see the guild as an employer, who has hired us to do a certain task – tanking, healing, dpsing bosses, paying us with loot? Others think about it as a brethren, like the adventurers in LOTR, united by a mission, with sworn loyalty to each other and the good cause. There are guilds where the internal relations are so cold and impersonal that the guildmates could as well be NPC:s. And there are guilds where the members are closer each other than they are to their real life family and friends.

How you look upon applying to other guilds while still guilded depends on what kind of guild you are. The important thing is that the policy is clear to everyone. If you think that guild applying people are showing disloyalty and disrespect, and you’d rather kick them from the guild if you’d find out – you should make this clear from the beginning. Transparency is always a good start to prevent dissonances in the guild.

For my own part I’ve always looked upon the guilds I’ve been into as “brethren” rather than as "businesses". All guilds have been on different points on the scale of seriousness and progression, but my feelings towards them have been the same. While I wouldn’t hesitate a second to throw in applications for other jobs while still employed in real life – I’ve done it several times myself – I would never do the same in WoW.

When I left my former guild and joined my current last year, I didn’t apply before I was guildless. It’s a matter of honesty. Guild shopping while still in a guild would feel like posting pictures of me at a dating website, regardless of the fact that I’m married, just to see if I could find myself a better husband.

Doing it the right way
I can’t help wondering a bit about what makes people apply to other guilds behind the back of their current one. While there is a good reason to hang on to your current job in real life – it’s easier to get a job if you already have one, unemployment is frowned upon by many employers – I’ve never seen that attitude in WoW. On the contrary. If someone applied to my guild, being guildless, and could give good reasons why they’d left their old guild to look for something else, they would get my respect for it.

The only reason I can think of is character progression and gearing. As long as the guild gives you access to more upgrades than pugging would, you may be better off hanging around, keeping improving your character and your chances to get the spot in the guild of your dreams. But it’s definitely not the way I would do it.

So, from my point of view, is it ever appropriate to apply to other guilds while guilded? Yes, it is, provided that you’ve agreed with your guild to have an “open relationship”. It could be stated in the guild policy, but it could also be the outcome of a discussion with the management. If you’re unhappy with the current situation, the first natural step should be to talk with the officers about it. If you still think you’d be better off moving on to another guild, you shouldn’t count on that this will render you an instant guildkick. It could be a win-win situation where you could stay in the guild, helping it to progress and giving it some more time to find a replacement, until you’ve found your new home. If you handle it like this, you’re likely to leave with good references and the blessing of your former guild.

And isn’t that just SO much better than sneaking out through the backdoor?

How I almost became a game reviewer

A little while ago I got a letter from someone working for Electronic Arts. They were about to launch some game called Dragon Age Origins in a couple of months and the writer offered me a free copy of it if I wanted to write a review.

I looked at the e-mail suspiciously. Thes ender address hadn’t got anything to do with the game in question. Was it some sort of setup, someone trying to install spyware on my computer to sneak into my WoW account?

After a little bit of research I decided that the letter probably was for real. I had never ever heard of the game, but it did exist and they had some flashy website marketing it with trailers and pictures. For a second I felt a little bit flattered. They wanted Larísa’s view on this? They thought that this innkeeper somehow could have an influence on the reception of their upcoming launch in the gaming community? Wow.

But it didn’t take long before my inherent Jante Law instincts were triggered and I told myself: “I've already seen a few mentionings about this game on other blogs. They’ve probably spammed the whole goddamn Blogosphere with their offer. They have picked MMO blogs as one of many channels on their marketing plan and they send this letter to any address that remotely can be associated to blogging in the hope to get the buzz out. Cleaver. But I shouldn’t believe for a second that I’m a special, chosen one.”

Qualifications for reviewing
The next question coming up in my mind was of course: should I accept the offer and ask for a free copy? And I’m still not quite done with it.

It’s not that I’m not familiar with the concept of getting copies in advance in order to write reviews. When I worked at a newspaper I wrote a lot of reviews, never about games of course, but on books, especially novels. It was all very uncomplicated. I was an independent journalist (at least I wanted to think so) and I wrote in an unbiased way what I thought about them. Most of the time I was a very goodhearted, kind critic to be honest, since I focused on reading and writing about books that I thought would interest me. The stuff I didn't like, I usually ignored.

But this case is different. The Pink Pigtail Inn isn’t a journalistic product. It’s a personal blog, without any ambitions to be objective, accurate, covering all sides. And what troubles me even more is: am I really qualified for writing a review? Admittedly I didn’t have any degree in literature and still managed to write decent book reviews. But at least I had a broad background of reading. If you look at my experience from gaming, it’s thin to say the least.

Could a person who has played Lemmings, a few hours of Civilization and WAY too many hours of WoW have anything relevant at all to say about Dragon Age Origins? As far as I’m concerned I don’t even know how to play it! It appears to me that it’s a solo game rather than an MMO, but I’m not entirely certain about it.

Maybe you could argue that there is a certain refreshing quality when you write about games from a noob perspective. I can easily describe how this game would be experienced by someone who’s coming into it with completely fresh eyes. And there could be a point in this if they’re aiming to reach a new audience, which lacks pervious gaming experience.

But on the whole I don’t think it would work out, especially not as consumer information. To be able to grade a game and look how it performs in different aspects, you need to have something to benchmark it against – apart from WoW.

Thanks but no thanks
The letter is still in my inbox, and at the moment I have no plans on accepting the offer. The main reason is that the time I can set aside for gaming is limited, and my obligations in WoW when it comes to raiding will always have priority. I can’t see how I possibly could get this into my schedule if I want to make a serious job as a reviewer. And besides: The PPI is and will remain a blog with a distinct WoW focus.

So it will probably end up in a: “Thanks for asking, but no thanks. I don’t feel qualified to make reviews about games.”

Unless someone else can come up with a very good reason to accept the offer.