A bit of a whinge about Multiplayer Stories

Most games today claim to want to make the player feel “heroic”. It’s an admirable intent; for a lot of people gaming is a form of escape, a way to be someone they are not – and most of us aren’t axe-wielding defenders of the planet, so it’s nice to be one for a short while. And it works... for single player games. For the most part, in single player games, the whole world must revolve around the player but I would question the applicability of this concept in a massively multiplayer context.

In a single player game the whole world can be controlled by the developer to expand and contract around the player. If they succeed in saving the town then the local crier can sing his praises and the populace can hold a parade in his honor: “Huzzah for Ballbag123, the saviour of Little Fartling!” you can be the hero because the world is built for you to be the hero.

In a multiplayer setting the world is built so that we can all be heroes, I get that. But when everyone is a hero, no one is. None of your actions can have a true permanent affect on the game world as doing so would take that content away from another player. So, we are all supposed to suspect disbelief when the “Great Dragon of Morcock” who you had valiantly slain all but 10 minutes ago pops up again and starts hurling fireballs: “Hey guys, you know that dying thing I did? That was a joke. LOL”.

Guild Wars 2’s (is that correct use of the apostrophe? My grammar-nazi senses are tingling but they may be off as it’s a Monday morning) personal story is seeking to solve a little bit of this problem by creating personalised story which acts almost as a single player campaign built into a multiplayer context. Essentially, it’s a dynamically evolving personal storyline which you can either play on your own, or drag your friends along as well.

I do think, however, that this is a bit of a plaster (that’s a “band aid” to you guys across the pond) over the actual problem. Shoehorning a single player story into a multiplayer game doesn’t solve the problem of how to tell a compelling story in a multiplayer context. Hopefully, the dynamic events system will go some way to patch this particular hole.

I draw the line at Panda

It’s a relatively arbitrary line which distinguishes what is “acceptable” and what is “unacceptable” in online games. If you reject the idea of playable intelligent pandas, why not reject the idea of playable intelligent wolves, cats, bears, goblins, plants or zombies? Why is the panda where the line is drawn?


Is it the markings? Racist! Could you live with playing as a beaver, but not a skunk? As a horse, but not a zebra? As a monkey, but not a lemur? Pfft... you make me sick.

Of course, I’m simplifying it for comic effect. In fact, WoW is a game I know little about and I’m only really using this whole panda- people debacle as a microcosm of the insane logic upon which MMOs are built.

Ps. This post is also built upon my long held assumption that the greyscale animals mentioned above are actually just olde-worlde versions of the other animals I stated. You know, before they invented colour television?

T-t-t-t-touch me!

Games come in all shapes, sizes, formats and age restrictions, but almost every single one has the same tool in common: hands. They hold controllers, flick switches, move mice, press buttons and tear hair out when it all goes to pot. You might argue that in fact the most used tool of a gamer is the brain; a fair point, I’ll concede. However, I’d argue that for the most part whilst you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, think with your brain etc – they all feed that information into actions carried out by the hands.
There are obvious exceptions; Kinect and to a certain extent Wii and Playstation Move remotes employ the whole body, and that strange new game where it measures the electrical activity of the brain and translates that into movement are all examples of such. But for the most part if you want to play a game, you’re going to need to use your hands.

I find it odd, then, that the one thing the hands do best – touch – is a sense which hasn’t really got past the “rumble pack” stage it was at about two decades ago. We have the capacity for such vast experiences through feeling something with our skin. We can tell shape, texture, viscosity, weight, movement and relative force. Thermoception (temperature), equilibrioception (balance) and even nociception (pain) are all wondrous functions which our body permits us to use and yet they are largely (with the exception of balance and the Wii fit system) unexplored in game design.

Of course, it’s an area which would have to be explored delicately. We don’t want developers shocking 12 year olds with 40000 volts, recreating the feeling of being shot in the gut by a high powered 50 cal sniper rifle etc. Furthermore, the ability to replicate the warmth, texture and movement of human skin would have many… *cough* sordid… connotations.