Overly Positive

Geeks are usually smart people with a good head on their shoulders. Ask any geek to rationally explain to you why you shouldn’t be afraid of cellphones giving you disease, computers being able to see that you visited the Hello Kitty fansite 450 times in the last week, or anything else that would normally freak you out, and they’ll be able to do it with typical aplomb.

Ask them what they think about one of their favorite games receiving a hotfix because an ability is broken, though, and they immediately become an irrational whirlwind of rage – crying, pounding the ground, and generally having an outburst online that John McEnroe would be proud of. Read any forum, check any fansite, pop into the comments section of any video, and you’ll find these tinfoil hat wearers everywhere. To them, any explanation leads to a definitive conclusion, any set of words can be connected together to fill a hidden agenda, and even a seemingly innocent update about the inclusion of in-game donuts is evidence of some larger scheme designed to do something else, whether that is good or bad.

I’m kind of not sure what makes the tinfoil hat so comfortable to wear, but I do know that it is certainly something that an optimist like me isn’t really interested in putting on my head. For one, it’s a lot of effort. Tinfoil is light, to be sure, but the weight of reading between the lines at any possibility of finding something is a heavy and stressful job. It’s also exhausting, too. If for some unknown reason I was to run around in circles waving my arms around whenever someone said something to me about lunch plans, I think I’d have very sore arms and aching legs. Multiply that by a few days and a few hundred posts and you’ve got someone for whom it is a literal mental strain to actually read anything. Rough stuff.

I think that removing the tinfoil hat is something that will go a long way towards simply enjoying a game for what it is, what it could be, and what it inevitably always has to patch to be. Yes, there is a reason for doing and saying a lot of things, but finding out about them along with everyone else, right from the horse’s mouth, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To be perfectly honest there are more important things to worry about other than the fact that the latest and greatest something is going to put you to the road to ruin. Games have so much more to them than what the developers tell you about them, whether that is how you personally enjoy them, how your friends perceive them, and how they change the industry overall. Worrying about the methods and design of how they get there, or hidden motivations or agendas is ultimately just has a negative effect – so I say, enjoy those in-game donuts. I know I am.

Unlike the tasty steak on the right, which I would probably devour with reckless abandon, I kind of like to savor the MMO releases that come around the corner. Savoring in this context means many things, but the meaning that comes to mind is appreciating what you like before you consume it.

I get how hard this is, though. The siren call of open beta, events, promotions, and convention appearances sometimes screws around with your need to keep things a bit sane until release. When you get a taste of what you could be playing, for some it becomes a bit of a drug, causing people to obsessively check forums, camp RSS feeds, and overall unabashedly show their desire to have more.

But there is a value to allowing yourself to build your appetite a little instead of taking little nibbles or bites. For one, the prospect of burnout is farther away. Yes, having that MMO steak is very much an awesome thing, but there is no such truth like “too much of a good thing”. Even if you could eat steak all day, every day, eventually, you’d get sick of it. Trust me – a known chocolate addicted friend of mine went to work in a factory and years later cannot stand even the smell of chocolate in the room. It’s a dangerous thing, I tell you.

I do honestly think that the most beneficial thing to savoring your MMO appetite, though, is the fact that it allows you to enjoy it for what it is, as I said when I started this post. I think that in an effort to sate a constantly unsatisfied hunger, a lot of people will tend to obsess over the little things (and get upset over them) rather than understand the big picture, the whole experience, and the entire meal. I’ve employed this for the last 3 or 4 years, and trust me – when you finally get to the table and start to eat, it tastes that much better.

Today’s image is not so much about my subject matter as it is the conditions outside that I am currently writing in.  If you’re in my neck of the woods in the Midwest, you know what I’m talking about, so stay safe!

While bundled up with a blanket in front of the computer, I popped a look over at other blogs as I usually do and caught Syp’s post about being an outsider looking in when it comes to following an MMO and what different perspective it might bring. Focusing in on one particular word, it’s perspective, I think, which can ultimately help fuel a positive outlook on whatever MMO you happen to be following at the time.

As Syp said, following a title and getting caught up in the drama and community subculture is definitely an effect which manifests itself in the types of opinions you have on the MMO in question. But it’s not just the community or drama – it’s pretty much everything in terms of decision-making, methodology, and consequences. I’ve had the pleasure of having varying degrees of involvement, and it does certainly change your idea and perception of the scope of executing an MMO project. Being in does give you a bit more insight on not just the community, but all the moving parts it takes to get an MMO off the ground.

That being said, being on the outside isn’t so bad, either. You don’t have the inside track, but what you do have is an ability to look objectively and globally at the way things are hashing out for an MMO. If you’re a fan who casually follows a particular product, you’re not as invested in the happenings and inevitable ups and downs of said product. It allows you to pull back, take a look at everything at a 30,000 foot level, and perceive the far-reaching effects much more than someone caught up in the drama, as Syp tells us. Think about how something like Sim City works, where you can zoom in to catch your people at work or pull all the way out to take a look at the city proper and how it operates. That’s the kind of perspective that being on the outside of an MMO box brings.

Casual fans of an MMO always seem to get short shrift for the fact that they don’t instantly know the latest news, that they can’t see right away how much a decision can impact the product, or how they seem two steps behind the latest and greatest opinions. But I don’t find it to be too bad and say it’s a good thing because of exactly that. The opinion of a casual, outside follower always has a chance to open up a new way of looking at an MMO that people hadn’t really thought of before. It also allows those who are in the inner circle to gain an idea of how their fellow fans who aren’t so hardcore are responding. And there’s also the fact that it’s the critical mass of it all – one thing the hardcore followers and fans of MMOs talk about is how their voice represents a certain portion of the playerbase, one that is credible and meaningful. But what they don’t understand is what kind of positive impact having the true majority of average MMO players, the casual player, has on the overall vision and idea of how to make an MMO fun.

The best part about being an outsider looking in? You’re the target market that is desired. I think we’ve all seen and know that the hardcore and devoted followers, while they certainly have needs to be catered to, are more or less guaranteed one way or the other to either love or hate a game. But the casual, outside the box followers are the ones that are desired because they’re either on the fence or looking for a reason to get into a game and check it out. In the hopes of creating more of a core userbase, we’ve seen that many MMO developers will tweak their design, tout certain features, and overall provide a friendly presence to those outside looking in, hoping that they’ll take a chance and get into the MMO house. This, more than anything, is probably a good reason why you could stay a casual outside the box follower – because who doesn’t like having to be competed over for your affections?