J.C. it’s a Tauren! Get in the car!

Session Time: 90 minutes. Two days ago. Job hunting sucks. ahem Progressed Shalalah to level 10, cleared out a couple of quests, and managed to still have rest left over.

As stated, job hunting sucks. That’s been the key thing preventing me from playing; after eight hours searching Monster and HotJobs fending off people who think I’m perfect for this wonderful over-the-road trucking position in East Buttcramp, Wyoming, or (my personal favorite) the guy trying to get me into a check-fraud plot, saying, “C’mon, they can’t all be scams!”, I’ve very little desire to sit in front of a computer and grinding away at something even more demeaning and less rewarding. Still, in between doing loads of laundry Wednesday morning, I did manage to get an hour and a half of play in.

I will admit to one important thing, though: the game is growing on me. I’m finding it a lot easier to slip into the world as soon as I log in. Probably the most telling fact is that, after grinding out 20 kills for a quest, I actually smiled. Yes, I enjoyed it. I had fun, dammit, and that scares me.

There was a sense of satisfaction about surviving a battle with two or three wolves by the most narrow of margins. It’s a sort of a cheap thrill as I’d accidentally gimped myself (I left my Earth Totem in the bank before realizing that I need it to cast Earth Totem spells– who’da thunkit?). Still. There’s nothing that was done that couldn’t have been done in any other RPG– hell, you don’t even need an MMO to do seat-of-the-pants escapes (just play the original Final Fantasy). So what exactly is it?

I mentioned this a little while ago, but the Taurens are the ’spiritual’ members of the Horde. A Tauren takes harmony with nature seriously; the land is something to be respected, not exploited. The world is made of what is material and what is immaterial, and harmony between the two sides of the world is of the greatest importance. We have been charged by the spirits who watch over us to safeguard the land for our children and our children’s children. It’s not just our sacred duty, it’s the meaning of our existence. The Tauren is the steward of Azeroth.

And I got all of this knowledge just from playing through the quests and accomplishing the tasks. Not even paying too much attention to the in-game text. Just the general feel of the quests. That’s saying something.

It’s often been asked, “Why play through an MMO at all? It’s just grinding.” And yeah, for the most part, an MMO is based solely around killing things and optionally selling their loot. But what keeps a player interested is the story, the content, the trappings surrounding the grind. Can you get a good story from other places? Of course; they have these things called ‘books’, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. Can you get the story of Azeroth from a book? Wait, bad example…

I’ve always held that the greatest role-playing game in the world will be the one where the players’ actions directly dictate the way the overall story plays out. No individual quests that everyone gets, no mindless grinding. Everyone has a task, and every task serves a purpose to advance a story. When the players accomplish a task or fail to do so, the development team puts out content for their next move. I want to see a ginormous, developer-DMed game of Dungeons and Dragons where nobody feels insignificant for even a single second.

Of course, that means PvP combat. Which is what I’m planning on doing very soon now…

The Good: The story is starting to pick up. I’m getting ready to leave Mulgore and head out into the Barrens for the first time. Cross-server PvP sounds interesting.
The Bad: It’s not entirely clear what was changed in the latest patch that directly affects me, but apparently it was important. I still feel extremely lonely.
Opinion Change: Improved, but this may just be a case of “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. I suppose the game could work well as a casual pursuit, but for my part I intend to go hardcore this weekend. Namely because no placement agencies work on Saturday.

Add comment August 25th, 2006