If you asked me to name the most sophisticated pastime available in the world of entertainment, I would have to say that thing that is the book circle. Half of my life I've attempted to cajole people I've had the opportunity to meet in the flesh to spend as much time as I do reading the books I think matter. I had no idea that would be a failed enterprise, and with that beloved community in mind I have wasted many years on the web in pursuit of some sort of collective pseudo mind meld. And so if I interpret the gist of Thomas Mann correctly, I've been on a fool's errand. The individual, like the cheese, stands alone; absorbing, fermenting, smelling solo, hoping only one day to be appreciated at cocktail parties among the brainy, powerful, wealthy and beautiful. End of metaphor.
What I have found to be a much more reliable form of sophisticated shared experience has been online gaming.
I'm a writer you see. All day it's what I do. Except that I write for computers, which in turn, control people. I've been aware of this fact since day one. I am one of those people who hates to be misinterpreted, so I have some satisfaction in knowing that those fruits and delights my programs serve up cannot under any circumstances be delivered to those who don't follow my precise instructions. This is the secret power of the programmer. We change human behavior. It's the same writer's conceit, the same as any Hollywood screen or jokewriter. We change lives.
Now I recognize that online gaming is not really the be all and end all. It could be, but it's going to take another generation for it to evolve to the level of sophistication and interactivity of, say playing in a marching band, and probably two before improvisational jazz. But hey, a flute has too many buttons for most of us. When I'm doing real-time analog first person gaming, all I care is that my child can catch the ball. For most of us, what's out there works just fine.
I have yet to play an MMORPG for a substantial amount of time. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, I have a fairly high resistance to cheesy sword & sorcery. Your basic dungeons & dragons stuff doesn't impress. Secondly, I've found some of the players, well.. too many of the players to be just juvenile or perversely odd. Let me qualify this by saying that the bulk of my experiences are dictated by There, SecondLife and the original Everquest. I have flirted with getting World of Warcraft this year, but I have yet to make the leap. But there is something about this league of PC gamers who get completely immersed that feels a bit too weird.
Now I can say that I do want game immersion. I was a big fan of Myst from day one, and killed countless hours hacking and slashing through those lovely logical jungles. I also enjoyed the early Tomb Raider stuff, and The Dig earlier still. But there seems to be a fine line between immersion and obsession that I simply cannot cross. Being committed to online millions in the form of some avatar is just wrong. Those who know me know that I'm all about do instead of be, and most of the MMORPGs seem to be about be. So I like online shooters and racers, but not those in which you invest significant time trying to seduce other people into recognize your avatar socially. See the difference? Besides, who's going to outdo The Sims?
If I'm going to sink hours upon hours of time in a virtual world online, I prefer real-time strategy. So you will have found me fairly deep into Rise of Nations. Rise of Legends is <strike>coming</strike> here(!)and having seen the preview, I think it's going to be even better. When it comes to RPGs, I truly enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic all the way up the the final boss battle, which in the end seemed completely superfluous. KOTOR2 held my attention for about one fifth the time and then I dropped it like a hot rock. Fable, depsite the criticism that it was too short, seemed to me to have achieved perfect balance. That's one I played twice.
None of this, however, compares to the passionate work that is the creation of Bethesda Softworks, Elder Scrolls IV, Oblivion. Imagine Myst but bigger, scarier, and richer. Even for an inveterate player like myself, the visual experience is stunning. There are areas within the world of Oblivion that generate visceral reactions as powerful as any film visual. Oblivion is, hands down, the grand universal heavyweight dominating champion of RPGs.
For those of you who may not know, an RPG or Role Playing Game works like this. You are given a character. You dress it up like a doll by picking up items in a world that you walk around. Each item you pick up gives you certain attibutes, you gain skill by using the item at the appropriate time. Mostly they are weapons or magic spells or money. You do this in order to fulfill a quest or many quests. Play is open-ended. You go where you want to go, you interact with other characters if you like. You fulfill your quests or you just wander around checking things out. You might become good or evil depending on what kinds of acts you perform.
A good RPG, in the fanboy world, must take at least 40 hours to
complete by a moderately skilled player. Nothing so sours a games
reputation as being easy. I can't think of anyone who has complained
that a game was too challenging. (Of course that would probably be one
in the Myst series). Too small, too clunky, too predictable, full of
inconsistencies? No real plot? Those would be killers in the RPG world.
I can imagine the sense of pride with which the programmers of this work must have. They serve a higher calling in programming, which is not necessarily to control, but to augment. We often think of our best programming creations as tools and environments. If a user can intuitively use a tool in an environment, we are successful. The game of Oblivion has massive environments which are strewn with tools. They are so intuitive that the player must challenge himself with choices about which to use. So there is a deep adventure on both sides of authorship. The programmer wants to write something that doesn't force the hand of the player, the player wants to enjoy the experience but get through it.
Oblivion is the fourth in a series of adventures in the Elder Scrolls universe. The prior episode was entitled 'Morrowind'. Of it I wrote in 2002:
as has been said, morrowind is massive, immersive and all that. in this review i want to simply warn you about what happens next. you have to be like me, and take it to a level at which you can conquer at will and then switch to a completely different character or else your interest may fall off a cliff.
morrowind now leaves me cold. i don't know. i think some of it has to do with me living a bit less hermetically than when i first bought it. also i think that i like a bit more skill based playing. when i finally got my hands on metal gear solid, the contrast was clear. skill development in morrowind is painstaking and slow. the arsenal is too large. morrowind is very much like life. the range of skills is enormous. you can only guess how long it will take you to master them, and you don't really know if that is the thing that will bring you success, but you try it anyway. you are invested because of the time, you really build a self in morrowind.
i mean clearly, you need to be able to kill the various sentries and guards in order to progress to the level implied in the game, but it would take at least 3 months of game playing to reach that level.
in the middle of playing as a nightblade, basically the equivalent of an auror in the harry potter series - a killer of evil mages, i suddenly got interested in alchemy. so here i'm developing the skills so that i can be a good thief and short swordsman and political being all so that i can get lots of money to buy powerful potions and charms, and i discover that an alchemist, with just a few tools, can go around picking mushrooms and make their own. so i sell all my weapons and go picking flowers and looking for books with recipes. but clearly no matter what i do, i can't get my alchemy skill level up to par.
switching play styles in the middle of a game is an enormous and interesting challenge and it made the game more worthwhile to me, but the character you choose will have some hard limits. they do some fairly interesting things with genetic predispositions in morrowind. it's very nicely balanced though. there are obviously many approaches to the same problems but either way, it takes a virtual eternity.
so the deal is, get into it deeply, and when you have the hang of it, switch to a new character and start over. this will double your pleasure. but then finally, you will be sick of it and wonder how you spent all that time on the game.
So here you get the fundamental aspect of RPGs, Time. These worlds are far too large and interesting. The investment in your character is huge. You have to really fight against being sucked into...well Oblivion. As for me, this time I am inviting Oblivion. I intend to play this game all the way through, handle every quest, explore every town, learn every skill. And who knows, I may become evil and kill every man, beast, orc, elf and plant in the world.
Writing about what is appealing about these kinds of games and Oblivion in particular is difficult. It's not an easy genre which is well understood. Of course there is standard gamer information, we want to know the quality of play and the features. But that seems not to do enough justice to the art itself and the sociological impact of the existence of these games as an artform. But I hope I've scratched that surface.
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