I just spent precious worktime reading through a selection of blogs. All more or less related or connected to WAR.
What really keeps amazing me about the blog entries is well pictured in my former post about the content and it's value to the generic player. The WAR blogs mainly tell about the game mechanics, how PQ's and RvR works and maybe, just maybe, about how the blogger's character survived through the evening.
But where are the detailed descriptions about the lore and background, which is so living, depressing and haunting in the original Warhammer IP? The WHFRP, though based on the miniature game's rules, contained a wealth of background and material from which to create content, and the initial opposition of the humanoids and Chaos Gods was so promising. And the additional material in the form of Tomes and manuals just made the creeping Chaos even more tangible to the player (and GM alike).
Nobody writes about the content. Only the mechanics.
I'm feeling like a complete idiot over here.
Like I earlier stated, in WoW I'm a horde player to the bone. Even to the point that I had really hard time accepting that my son wanted to have an Ally toon. Well, I gave up, but so did he after a while and switched to Horde. But that's another story. However, now that I have been forced to play on the Ally side, I've come across long and wonderfull quest lines that I feel are lacking on the Horde side, and I've found the 'other side' of the Azerothian lore. Or I'm unravelling it to me currently. As I don't have a background on the Warcraft-series, I don't have any previous understanding of the background of the world. I just have to rely on the information I get from the game to make a coherrent picture of the lore.
Sadly, World of Warcraft has done what the WAR bloggers are doing: cast the content aside and put the emphasis on playing the game. Instead of playing the game, by which I mean that this wonderfull role-playing environment is being used not as a place to adventure and grow the character, but to find a way to win the game, which -because of being a fantasy role-playing game- cannot be won.
I doubt that all the Bartle-test Explorers really are explorers. Based on the enormous emphasis of winning the game I'm pretty certain that most of them are achievers and/or the term explorer is somehow misused in the test results. It's not exploring for finding out new things, places and monsters in the game, but to explore the limits of the mechanics and finding a new way to win the game.
I am an explorer first. But I'm digging in the lore and places, finding more delight in new places and acquaintances than in beating the opposition to pulp. But I have to admit that I'm affected by the other players and their ways in the game.
And other bloggers.
I'm off to read a scroll.