Day: June 2, 2013

Captain’s Log: Modern Day

It’s one of those nerd questions you’ll answer eventually: who is your captain? Kirk? Picard? Janeway? Those other guys from the Star Trek series that I didn’t watch? Usually after giving your answer, you justify it. Kirk was the original captain and the heroic space-cowboy. Picard was the diplomat. Janeway was tough as nails. And so on.

Picard has always been my pick for captain, but my reasons go beyond the fact that The Next Generation was my favorite series. Part of the reason is that Patrick Stewart is just an amazing guy.

If you want an example of the kind of person I think all men should aspire to be, take a look at this video of a fan Q&A session at a convention. The entire video is excellent but it’s at about 5:44 that really stands out as Patrick Stewart discusses his own childhood experience watching his father’s domestic abuse of his mother:

As a child in my home, I heard doctors and ambulance men say, Mrs. Stewart, you must have done something to provoke it. Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument. Wrong. Wrong. My mother did nothing to provoke that. And even if she had, violence is never, ever a choice that a man should make. Ever. 

It’s a cultural cliche to scorn people for regarding actors and celebrities as heroes. Kids shouldn’t look up to movie stars, not when there are doctors and soldiers and police and scientists and so many others who are working hard to save lives without any of the fame or fortune that the celebrities of the world receive. And those people are heroes, undeniably.

But I think it’s important to recognize, too, the contributions to the world that a person like Patrick Stewart can make with moments like these. When a person like Patrick Stewart speaks, people listen. The power of language holds within it the power to change minds. It’s a power every bit as real and valuable as any new technology, maybe even more-so.

So it’s important to recognize those who use their voices and their status to help champion these messages. Star Trek seems to be a bastion for these types; I’ve already talked about why George Takei is excellent. Whether it is on behalf of gay rights or speaking out against violence against women, I’m glad that their voices are being heard. I’m glad that sometimes, the people who play our fictional heroes turn out to be pretty heroic in their own right.

The woman in the video who asked the question has her own write-up of the moment that’s worth your time. It has a few pictures that are particularly poignant.

Exploring Forgotten Lands

When I worked at GameStop, once or twice I managed to get a free copy of a game. They were usually promotional copies that were given out at manager’s conferences, the idea being that if you play and enjoy a free game, you’ll generate more sales through the enthusiasm you pass off to customers. I should note that this plan didn’t always work out if the game happened to be terrible.

I acquired several games like this during my few years there but there were a couple that I never got around to playing: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and EverQuest II. The reason I never installed or played either game was twofold: first, both games came out during the darkest days of my World of WarCraft addiction, so the idea of playing another fantasy-themed MMO was neither appealing nor necessary. Second, both of these games required subscription fees. Even though the discs were free, I’d still have to pay to play; it wasn’t like getting a free Xbox 360 game where I could try it out at no cost to myself beyond time invested. For those reasons, my copies of Vanguard and EQII sat on my game shelf for several years, unopened and gathering dust.

Although I’m cured of my WoW addiction, every so often, I still get this strange, random urge to play an MMO for a little while. When this urge happens, I’ve found that the best way to satiate it, rather than reinstalling WoW is to try out one of the many, many MMOs that I ignored during their release due to the WoW addiction. Sometimes, this doesn’t end well: my brief time with Lord of the Rings: Online was uneventful and plain to the extent that even the promise of being a wizard loremaster wielding a sword and a staff together couldn’t hold my interest. I played for a few hours and then uninstalled the game.

Yesterday, the Vanguard box on my game shelf caught my eye. I’d read somewhere that the game had gone free to play, which meant I could try it out without having to pay anything. What the hell, I figured. I installed the game and made a Dark Elf Sorcerer.

Generally speaking, Vanguard is one of the many casualties that tried to compete with the WoW juggernaut and lost. I’m honestly surprised that there’s still support for it, when better loved MMOs like City of Heroes have been shut down. Maybe that’s the secret to Vanguard’s life-span. It’s not so popular that its maintenance costs outweigh the benefits of keeping it online. Or maybe Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is just that determined to keep it going.

Coming into an MMO like this years after the fact is a somewhat surreal experience. Unlike returning to WoW, there is no nostalgia filter that colors your every experience. Things feel both new and old at the same time; familiar due to the mechanics that all MMOs now use and yet alien because you’ve never seen this class or this world. There’s also the feeling of stumbling upon something hidden, something that’s been passed over by the rest of the world. There are still people here having fun and enjoying their game. It’s their own little world in a way that the WoW juggernaut can’t be. Everybody knows WoW. Everybody has their Horde or their Alliance experience; you’re not unique or special there.

Playing Vanguard feels like being a virtual-world archaeologist. The mechanics are pure WoW: push button, kill stuff, talk to guy, kill more stuff. The fact that I can play a dark elf is a large draw for me, even though I realize, mechanically speaking, this isn’t really a big game play alteration. I’m a little bit curious to try out some of their other classes, particularly the Necromancer and the Blood Mage. The Blood Mage sounds especially cool: a vampiric sort of healer that restores her party members by siphoning life away from others.

Will I stick with Vanguard for long? Probably not. The reality is that I quit WoW because I was bored of WoW. I was tired of quests, tired of reputation grinds, tired of push-button, kill stuff mechanics. The MMO genre has stagnated into a Pavlovian treadmill: kill stuff to get better stuff that helps you kill more stuff. That was a fun cycle the first three times I ran it, but now I want something else. I want to do more in a virtual world than just kill things. I think back to my time with Ultima Online and how much fun I had playing interior decorator with my own house. I want gameplay that moves in that direction: world simulation instead of just theme-park experiences.

In the meantime, however, exploring Vanguard is an interesting experience. It feels like a forgotten land, not by virtue of its world design, but by the fact that this is a place that few gamers have wandered. There are 10 million+ gamers who know the world of Azeroth. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time there. I know all its lore. I know its conflicts. I know it and I’m bored because I know.

I don’t even know what the world in Vanguard is called and for a person whose two basic motivations in a game are exploration and the story, that’s a strong draw. So I’ll play and I’ll wander and I’ll find my way through a virtual world that few have known or likely ever will know.