World of Warcraft players are beginning to hit the game’s cap on gold, according to WoW Insider. The cap of 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper is a result of the game code. Blizzard has not commented so far.
In terms of story and character development, massively multiplayer online games are different beasts entirely, but it’s nonetheless interesting to consider how they function. Level caps exist in most games even outside this genre, preventing things from getting to easy and overbalanced. If you could get to level 9,000, somebody would, and it would end up being just like that episode of South Park.
But to have a ceiling on every quantifiable aspect of your character means that there’s a point of stasis and perfection, a point where you literally cannot develop anymore. At some point, after years of playing, you’ll be the max level with the best items and the most gold and there’s nothing for you to do but stand around Ironforge and gloat.
Is your WoW avatar a character, or a bucket you’re trying to fill to the brim for Internet prestige?
(Note: I’m grasping for news. Slow week in the story department.)
Gamers regularly make choices when playing a game. But what if those decisions were truly important? What if they changed the future of the plot?
An article in the most recent issue of The Escapist looks at how games in multi-media franchises treat “canon” — the official position on plot and characters which is necessary to ensure continuity in series like Star Wars that span films, shows, books, graphic novels and games. That is, you delivered 100 pizzas in the Spider-Man game, but is that the Sam Raimi-approved number of pizzas delivered by Spider-Man?
This may seem like the realm of nerds and Star Trek enthusiasts, but the changing relationship between canon and video game tie-ins raises an interesting question: What if the player’s actions and choices tangible repercussions in movies, games, and books to follow? What if the player could influence a franchise in a way that readers and film and television audiences cannot?
Chris Dahlen’s Escapist article, titled “The Open Source Canon,” looks specifically at The Matrix Online, a tie-in to the Matrix films with an interesting catch. Troy Hewitt, a writer and community event manager for the game, said in 2005, “Our intention is that players who play a really big role, or make a key decision, become part of the Matrix canon, and they become part of the story.”
In other words, The Matrix Online’s player-driven events and their conclusions are part of the official canon. This includes everything from small quests to major plot events given to the community to play out. In 2005, one of these events resulted in the official death of Morpheus, demonstrating the magnitude of the story decisions players are allowed to make.
Continue reading ‘Protagonist or Pawn: Canon in Video Game Tie-Ins’