I’m an emotional guy.
I’ll give you a moment to recover; clearly, I should be taciturn, tough, controlled, and have abs like a mogul field. That’s not really me.
I *am* an emotional guy. I’m happy with that. This evening, I was watching a crime drama called “Wire in the blood“. It’s about a psychologist who works with the police on murders, child abductions, serial sex crimes. Nasty, nasty stuff, and the shrink in question is (appropriately?) messed up as a result. Tonight, Bryn & I were watching some old episodes which, as a sort-of background to the primary stories of horribleness features a young boy who’d murdered his parents. Over the course of a couple of episodes, in fits and spurts, we got to meet this young man via his occasional meetings with Tony (the shrink), whether he was fighting with the prison/hospital staff, desperately trying to work out who he should be as an adult, or carving his real name into his arm, having been “released” with a new identity.
Apologies if this turns out to be a spoiler, but you’ll probably not be too surprised to learn that things didn’t end well. Ultimately, this young man couldn’t cope with the things he had done and took his own life.
I sat on Bryn’s sofa, crying.
…
There’s a game called Dreamfall, written by Ragnar Tørnquist and made by Funcom. It’s a sequel to “The Longest Journey”. I’m ashamed to admit, I’ve never completed “The Longest Journey” but I have finished Dreamfall. I finished it on a Friday night and, yes, I’d been drinking and yes, rather than a night out with friends I’d spent my Friday night alone with Dreamfall. But I finished Dreamfall that night and it made me cry. Like a (drunken) baby. If you haven’t played it and you have any interest in adventure gaming, do give it a shot. For more info, take a look at Rock Paper Shotgun’s coverage, although be aware that Mr. Walker is (justifiably!) unbiased.
…
Why would I bring these things up? Principally because it’s not something I’ve got from WoW, not as yet at least. Sure, there have been the occasional quests where there’s been a faint twanging of heartstrings. The horrible story about Malygos and Keristraza, and others. Please don’t think me heartless, but none of these had quite the same effect at the time, no matter how unpleasant the story in retrospect. In the case of Keristraza, I don’t think I really grasped the horror until the second time I played those quests.
Of course, I can’t (and don’t) necessarily expect the same level of emotional involvement from a massively multiplayer game as I might hope for from a single-player game. Naturally, the opportunity to write specifically and singularly offers the writers of a single-player game greater opportunity to grab me by the heartstrings. That said, I *am* emotionally involved in Warcraft, with the members of my guild, with my in-game friends. I care about my characters, in a peculiar way I haven’t entirely internalised yet. The hooks exist, to make me laugh, cry, sad, happy, exhausted, exhilarated.
Perhaps this is just one of the tradeoffs of MMO play. In return for the opportunity to bond with, play with and experience content with others, we willingly give up on the idea of storylines or NPC characterisations which are sufficiently complex to provoke a response. Perhaps these things exist in game, and I’ve managed to skip or ignore them. Perhaps they exist for many players, but just didn’t quite do it for me. I don’t know.
I do know that in pretty much any form of entertainment I consume or interact with, something that makes me cry is generally something I consider a bit special. Not because I’m desperately emo and want to spend my evening sobbing — quite the opposite. An MMO which could provide storylines which allowed me to share feelings with friends (delight, despair, horror, hope and beyond) in addition to the now-standard dungeons and raids could be the last MMO I ever played.
*puts on gruff manly voice*
you are SO emo :p
i think it would be hard to cry whilst playing an MMO, purely because you interact with other people that might not share the same level of emotion for a particular part of a story, thus being less inclined to get emotional as a result, it’d be almost like breaking down into tears while on the tube cause you read in the paper a kid got tickled by a horse…
maybe thats just me though :p
p.s. need to sort taht beer out soon.
Yes, you’re probably right re: the balancing effect of other people. It also occurs to me that the extent to which you invest in your player-character will also influence your reaction to world events.
And we’ll sort out that beer soon. I promise not to cry on your shoulder or anything *sniffle*.
Completely random, but THANK YOU! I’ve been wanting to find the title for that show for ages. I saw an episode at some point somewhere without seeing the name, and I loved it. The actor who plays Tony (British, right?) is really good and I’ve seen him in some other good things as well.
When it comes to WoW I agree that there aren’t as many things tugging your heartstrings. I think what makes me the most sad is the things that aren’t clearly obvious, but that you know about after reading it somewhere. Like the references they’ve put in to people who passed away. I still get teary-eyed when I think about that little boy who was sick and got to design the Tauren quest giver with the dog that was lost. Who later died and they added an Elder Ezra to the festival in his memory as well. Crusader Bridenbrad is similarly sad, but I have to admit that the little boy somehow touches me more. I’ll click on the Tauren NPC any time I run past him – and it’s almost creepy because you know it’s the boy who does the voice. He will talk to Alliance as well as Horde, and neither faction can kill him.
But other than that, while quest lines can be sad etc. it’s just never the same as when watching a movie or reading a good book. I’ve never played a game that made me cry, but then I don’t play that many games so that could be why 😉
The actor is Robson Green 😉
I think games are actually like any other media w.r.t emotional response: if you are invested in the story, in your character, in your (for example) companions, then you can experience the same feelings you’d get from a book or a movie. It’s just currently rare that games do the groundwork required — plus there is an element of “I am willing to care about these virtual creations” required that people don’t necessarily bring. I’m a) a big soppy, and b) prepared to care given half a chance, and those huge emotional bumps are still relatively rare. Hmm. Must make a list!
I felt that for a while, the last quest that put a lump in my throat was the one where you help out the little ghost girl in the Plaguelands. And then I started on the Netherwing quest grind.
And promptly was hit with 2 NPCs whose words made me stop and think. And yes, both times there was a lump in my throat. But…we’re not supposed to feel that, because well…”it’s a game”, “it’s not real”. So we hide it away.
But I think our emotions can be shown in different ways. I still have the letter from my little Draenei orphan in the vault, taking up a valuable space. And in LotRO, we went through a questline which saw one of the NPCs end up dying. One of the instances had us laying stones at their cairn. The quest reward was a ring, which was no good to me statswise. I kept it purely for the memory.
So yes. Look into my vault, it’s where I pin my heart. It’s where I keep those grey trash items that were given to me, or my character, items that mean so much to me.
Oh, and if you’ve not watched it, never, ever watch Mask (the 1985 fim with Cher and Sam Elliott) without a huge supply of tissues. It’s a truly lovely film but I bawled the house down.
Yes, that Plaguelands quest sequence was pretty sad. I guess that’s another problem — it takes time to build an attachment to a character or characters, and even the longest quest chains are still relatively short.
I’ve seen Mask, actually. Funnily enough, that sort of film (the “weepies”) tend not to affect me as much. I guess if I know something is designed that way, I tend to ignore it. Contrary, that’s me.
Agreed. I had a lot of attachment to my Lotro character, but I suspect I rp’ed her far more and had plenty of time to build up. And I had more rp interaction with others.
Nothing wrong with contrary! (Got to confess I found myself nearly crying at points in District 9, which really isn’t THAT sort of film. The irony of it all got to me though)