Copying on copying

I had just a brief run on WoW yesterday, only to notice that I really hate when I have to wait for the battleground to start. The thought occured to me already last night, but it condensed while I was driving for work: if you can queue for scenarios from anywhere in WAR, why can't that feature be copied to WoW?

And how on the spot I was. Seems that the great minds think alike. But then again, I had commented on copying from WAR already in another fine blog.

But not to delve into the issue Syp so nicely pointed out any more than to say that from merging the best ideas and most working concepts of the former generations something beautifull will emerge. There will not be any leaps in MMO's until the technology moves on to new ways to play or poses new ways to interact within the game or UI. The generic concept will be the same: player creates -or is given- a character, alter ego if you please, to venture in a make belief world of fantasy/science fiction/fable and progress through the content. What could change except the outlook and perhaps the way this concept is presented? Majority of the whole 'new game' would be copied from the former ones anyhow.

It's not the copying I would be worried about, but the quality of the copying. If some crucial element is copied fully, but executed more poorly than the original, then it's something to worry about, as then the original idea of the concept must have been lost by the copier.

The only way to 'copy right' in MMO's, movies, tv-series, programming etc. is to copy the concept and make it work better. With the 800lb mammoth gorilla as the benchmark, how could you not copy the most renown parts of it?

Enough.

I just noticed that I don't know how to play Warlock. And I'm not sure I want to know how to play one, either. I have never been too keen on the pet classes anyhow, and to me this is just one of those. I'm willing to stand at the back seat, keeping people alive, or at the front row getting up close and personal. But not inbetween, like pet classes seem to be.

I'm out for the day.

WAR again... or then not.

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.