The Big Picture

The Big Picture

Boris:  That’s it? One course in “The Big Picture”. 12 credits.
Dr Harry Wolper:  It’s very big. 12 credits probably isn’t enough, it’s so big.
Boris:  I think I’ll go back down to registration.

From “Creator” with Peter O’Toole as Dr. Harry Wolper

The concept of a “big picture” varies depending on one’s outlook on life. Even attempting to discuss the big picture may seem like hubris. However, at the risk of seeming a bit impetuous, we will plunge into the deep end…

Opinions, as grandfather was wont to say, are like assholes. Everyone has one and more often than not they are full of crap. One common phrase that is often tossed about when opinions are being handed out is…

“It’s just a game.”

In the case of all the mmos, multiplayer and console games we play this is quite true. From moment to moment we may consider parts of the virtual world important to us, but all it takes is for some major event to occur as a detractor to make it all fade into perspective. There is nothing to give one a view of the big picture like stripping away the bottom layer of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Still, the advent of Marshal McLuhan’s global village made reality by the internet has brought people together that normally would not have met. Like the dark cloud that surrounds every silver lining, people have become virtual neighbors who normally would never have associated with each other, in fact the very nature of an mmo thrusts this upon us. Conversely, of course, this means we have had the opportunity of touching the lives of people it has been our honor to get to know in at least some small way. Yet when that silver lining wears thin, and the dark cloud surrounding it starts to show through, we meet those for whom the anonymity of the internet brings on a perception of empowerment allowing actions that would get a gun pointed in their faces in the average city.

Sometimes people are just out to crap in someone else’s punch bowl. Sometimes the consequences of their actions don’t even occur to them. And there are those times, unfortunately, that individuals are just out for wonton destruction that they think they can get away with.  This is all tempered of course, by the nature of one’s viewpoint of the world.  For example, if you were to dump a load of cat crap in the average dog’s food bowl, most of those four legged friends we have had would yell (if we may indulge in a bit of anthropomorphism for a moment here) “oh boy tootsie rolls!”

The unfortunate tendency when one puts enough apples in a sufficiently large barrel is for more than a few to turn out on the moldy side.  More often it is the case that mmos have more of those special chapeaus called “asshats” than a milliner. Often there follows a  concept of game play that is carefully honed by so much Mountain Dew and Cheetos that it would kill a herd of Yak. 

Unlike many other games like golf, football and politics, there is no easy way to tell who “won”.  MMOs don’t have any sort of a meaningful score and there is no way to “finish” other than running out of things to do. After all, there are only so many times to make use of the virtual equivalent of “counting the holes” in office ceiling tiles. This, of course, doesn’t stop the average player from telling everyone else around them just how any given game should be played, usually followed by the well thought out descriptor that the ability of other players “sux” (note that it is important to use the “ux” ending in these cases rather than the “ucks” ending).

Now I am sure if there were a way to actually do it, I would hear some voices at the back of our virtual room say “but didn’t your own Julie tell Hellcity whatsits off about his “take your marbles and go play someplace else” project? If so, you would indeed be correct. And that, of course, is where we draw the line. There is a tendency to forget that there are real people on the other end of the pixels and that has more implications than just hurt feelings.

First, as Beau Turkey so aptly pointed out here just because something can be done in a game doesn’t mean it should be done. To stretch a point, merely because the right tackle for the Green Bay Packers can bring a 2×4 into the game and beat the quarterback for the Chicago Bears senseless with it doesn’t mean he should. Now at this point we could all debate back and forth what rules do and do not allow until we were all blue in the face but that is not the point. The line in the sand should be drawn where one person’s good time is at the expense of someone else’s misery (and we don’t mean just that the Chicago Bears lose the game).

Even if game mechanics allow a certain action, consider what happens when that goes unchecked.  Case in point, Warhammer Online. When Paul Barnett was a guest on the show he pointed out that what one group of players wants out of a game often contravenes what another group of  players want. When the game mechanics allowed players to gain experience entirely in Scenarios (battlegrounds) that is exactly what happened – despite the fact that the stated point of the game, according to its developers and publishers, was the realm versus realm combat. Once the game mechanic was in place it was the players who decided how they would make use of the game, and even the virtual equivalent of hanging a hunk of meat around the pariahs neck (the RvR lake) couldn’t make the neighborhood kids play in it.

Beyond that, when those reviewers (whether they be bloggers like Tobold or professionals like those who work for Eurogamer) tell other players that a game is a “bad game” rarely do they take into account the result of their actions. Even if the reviewer does add “in my opinion” (which in writing is a given anyway) rarely does the reader let that part sink in anyway. The example we have used again and again are the professional “reviewers” who tell potential viewers that a movie is just a “bad movie” only to have it be a big success and a fun movie to watch.  Conversely, we are often told by reviewers that a movie is an “artistic success” and not a “financial success” when they think a movie is great and no one goes to see it anyway. In short, on the other side of every “this is a bad game” review, there is someone who’s hard work (and often job) is on the line – and that is a case where no one needs to teach anyone else a lesson, and truly the whole “how many developers does it take into a light bulb” joke comes in to play.

So before we turn this article into a book (it is already close to a wall of text) we will simply say that even if this is not the big picture, it is more of it than most people are willing to consider.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team