(This post is extremely long-winded, but it's also an issue that's close to my heart, so read at your own risk!)

MMORPG. The acronym makes some people cower in fear. The word means poison to others, a genre of video game that they will never ever go near due to all the horror stories that they've read or heard of. However, for a lot of people, the MMORPG genre is a kind of video game to get fully immersed in, to meet new people and go adventuring in, an awesome gaming experience. For me, the genre is becoming a great analog for an old substance abuse problem some I've never had...I want to quit, I know I have to some day, but I can't just take the pain of following through with it, so I stay one more day.


A Brief History Of My Trip Down The Rabbit Hole:

Back in 1999, a game was floating around on the internet named Graal. The premise was simple, play a game that resembled The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past on your computer, just with about 200 other people on a server playing with you at the same time. The game had guilds, mass chaos and a rather simplistic design in retrospect but enjoyable PVP, and I was hooked almost instantly, pouring countless hours into the game just goofing around and having fun. This was before the days of Pay-to-play popularity, so the game was easy to get friends into and when it eventually did go pay-to-play, at the time you only had to pay once for your account and then never again.

Eventually though, they began to implement more and more pay-to-play features and the game died a slow, agonizing death. Then, in about 2003, I heard about Final Fantasy XI..and I was enthralled with the idea of playing Final Fantasy with my friends. However, I was only about 16 or 17 at the time, and really didn't have a way to pay for a monthly fee, so when the game came out on the computer one of my good friends went off to play the game and I desperately wanted to join him but couldn't. However, I was absolutely determined to get the game, and when March 2004 rolled around (The month of the PS2 release) I desperately begged for the game and the ability to play it, even offering to give up my computer and promising to never ask for another gaming system again as long as I could play Final Fantasy 11. Over 75 levels and 4 expansion packs later, I still think Final Fantasy 11 has one of the most superb story lines of all time.

My mom worked for a gaming company at the time and used all her connections to get me into a beta for a little game called World of Warcraft (She knew how much I enjoyed the series considering the only two PC games I ever owned for about 3 years were Warcraft 1 and 2). And thus begun my adventures in Azeroth, and once again, 4 level capped characters and 1 expansion later, I was enthralled by just how much there was to do!

Problems first arose when I was playing Final Fantasy XI. As any former or current FFXI player will happily tell you, the game is grueling until you get used to the pace, and at the time there was so many people playing that it was hard to do anything without stepping on other people's toes (Valkurm Dunes, I'm looking at you!). Eventually though, I persevered and made some absolutely invaluable friends and enjoyed the storyline and the party mechanics the whole way. I became very attached to someone who I'd play the game with all the time and eventually she quit due to school becoming too demanding (we were both in college at the time) and then when I sat there in game, level capped, pretty decently geared out..it hit me... I wasn't really having very much fun anymore.

Being so caught up in the experience of leveling and constantly doing things with friends or my linkshell never let me stop and really analyze if FFXI was really the game for me. And like anyone who hits level cap for the first time, the feeling of "Awesome! Now I'm really getting to the meat of the game!" set in. Then you find out that your time will be spent sitting in zones, mostly idle waiting on large monsters to pop that you have to compete with other players to claim just so you can get new items. Tolerable at first, especially with some awesome first kills under my belt, I felt that I could easily balance doing homework and school and a social life with these silly "Pay attention for 5 minutes every half hour for 3 hours" demands. However, as the game expanded, things like Dynamis and Sky became highly appealing to also do, adding more hours onto the already demanded 3 for those rare drops. As I'm sure you can imagine, eventually the scheduling became impossible to make everything..coupled with the fact that I'm a completionist by nature and my good friend who I spent a majority of my time with had quit and wasn't around to help me through my moments of boredom, I ended up eventually just quitting.

Then another good friend of mine started discussing WoW with me. He was going on vacation for a week and he said I could use his account the entire week (a maxed, level 60 warrior) to just do anything I wanted to with, as long as I got him at least 100 Honorable Kills. Believing it could never hurt to try, I bittorrented the game in advanced, installed it and patched it and then started playing. At first I was absolutely surprised by how much the game had changed since I had played it in beta, and eventually I became absolutely addicted to Alterac Valley, racking up 2000 kills in that week he was gone. Having a lot of free time on my hands at that time, I decided to give it a shot. My first characters, my lovely Night Elf Druid and Troll Hunter, hit the level caps and once again I found myself at that point where I said to myself "Awesome! Real stuff now!". Having adventured in Dynamis in FFXI, I found raiding in WoW to be absolutely stellar, I'll forever remember my first Ragnaros and Nefarian kills, as well as the host of other baddies that in my eyes, needed to die. My horde guild eventually broke up due to drama, but my alliance guild is still an incredible group of people, even if many have moved on and their days of 40 man raiding are long over. As the guild I was in was progressing through Naxx, my old FFXI friend returned to that game and asked that I join her, and being an immense sucker for past relationships that I am, I of course went back.


The Beginning of the End

And so began a massive amount of ping-ponging between Final Fantasy 11 and World of Warcraft (which also included a brief stop in Guild Wars). It wasn't that I didn't enjoy either game, as a matter of fact I enjoyed them both for completely different reasons, and If I could have at the time played both at once, I would have. However, both games had things that I, as a human being, was highly disturbed to see. Not being one to tell people how to live their lives, I was mostly a silent observer as I watched some people truly devolve into questionable at best behaviour. Watching people ignore their children or significant other to kill a boss was minorly disturbing. However, after seeing incidents of people selling their body for loot, viewing people cheating on poor, unsuspecting partners, hearing parents ignore their child's cry for food for over an hour to raid.. I began to slightly get more unsettled. But like I said, people will live their lives however they want to, but I kept in my mind the kind of human being I never wanted to be like. Granted these people weren't a large amount of the population, as in almost every MMO I've played the general playerbase has been insightful and helpful (Barrens chat aside).

I'll be the first to admit that probably some of my personal relationships have suffered because of my gaming, but none suffered more than when I was playing a MMO. I've fortunately realized what was going on 90% of the time and have successfully saved and refocused on when my attention was needed, but this leads me to my current position.

The Inherent Nature of Self-Destruction

Just recently I've been toying around with Warhemmer, playing with some of those friends I made on both FFXI and WoW when I came to a realization. I wasn't enjoying the experience anymore. I don't mean Warhammer specifically, because honestly I think it's a stellar, fun title, but the "MMO experience". The thought of grinding levels to participate in end game activities that go on for months if not years into the future as my account is sapped money every month just isn't very appealing anymore. Games like WAR, WoW and FFXI are each fantastic in their own way, but mentally I don't have the energy to deal with another game that's very nature is to get me to play as much as it can.

Which leads me to what I think is the biggest problem with most MMORPGs: They are designed to be addictive! A company would not charge monthly or put out a game that they knew players would have their fill of quickly (which is something I think the Guild Wars developers did fantastically, even if the game leaves something to be desired). The pacing of MMO's tend to be very slow and methodical yet rewarding, which is actually counter to how a lot of other comparable games are. I look at WoW and Warhammer's PVP, and while it's a fun system, it's far too slow and mathematical for me these days to sit back and truly enjoy, I'd rather pop in Call of Duty 4 and kill people or go score some goals in NHL 09. The RPG aspects of the game are also skewered in my mind, having recently beaten Persona 3 and being the habitual Final Fantasy conqueror that I am, MMO's have too many build-up-to-moments to get that fully complete storyline for me to enjoy. In Persona 3, the final boss was the final boss, and while they did add on another chapter to explain more story, both those chapters are pretty complete, with sufficient build-up and a climactic battle.

MMO's, in comparison, are designed to never end and so have these big important story battles throughout large parts of the end game, but never really in a way where it can be built up to throughout the entire game, there's usually too much other stuff going on. So you end up killing a boss that eventually becomes meaningless in the grand story as a new boss is patched in (a fate that has befallen Illidan, and will eventually befall Arthas as well in the WoW universe). This type of game design, coupled with recent additions to them like achievements, more accessible powerful items and a greater focus on appealing to the casual market of gamers leaves a game that is designed to suck the player in and never spit them out.

Have I outgrown MMIORPGs? Possible. Is it a game genre I don't enjoy? No, quite the opposite, I think most of the MMO's I've played are fantastic, but they simply demand too much time and/or too rigid of a schedule for me to play among a myriad of other problems they pose. Am I sad that many of the friends I've made and experiences I've enjoyed in these games is over? Yes, but I've finally conquered my greatest addiction... The MMO genre.And I couldn't be happier.

I decided to put my own twist on the interesting Monthly Musing.



Mortal enemies in video games. Deep hatred lasting an entire series is not something you see much of these days with supposed main bad guys that flip flop between "bad" and "good" on a whim. It's actually kind of disheartening that so few good, dynamic relationships are left these days. Let's face it: In terms of Nintendo, Bowser hasn't really been an angry green fire-breathing lizard with real motive (not that he had much of one to begin with) in a long time and Ganon is usually an appearance late in a Zelda game caught crossdressing between a pig and a human wizard yelling "Don't forget me!". Not even enemies lauded in the past as great video game bad guys have much substance... I mean all Sephiroth really amounts to is a guy with a long sword and some serious mommy issues.

This leads me to my favorite antagonist/protagonist relationship in video game history: Samus and Ridley. But wait you say!? Neither of them really talk! How in the hell can a deep and complex relationship exist between two characters that never talk to each other? Though you may have to dig a little, I daresay that nobody hates each other as much as these two do.

The following paragraphs will contain spoilers to my favorite game series of all time, so you have been warned!



For the uninitiated: The first meeting of these two mortal enemies occured rather nonchalantly in Metroid on the NES. The first game pretty much copped out with anything backstory related (which was understandable) and only really refered to Samus' story as "shrouded in mystery". So the first meeting of these two opponents was only marked by how awesome and/or hard the player thought Ridley was. Metroid II did nothing to deepen the hatred since Ridley wasn't even in the game. But then...a little game came out that changed this relationship forever...



And thus begins of one of the greatest games of all time with a squeeling green blob. However this game used Ridley as a plot device, and if you were anything like me, by the time you got to see everyone's favorite flying lizard again, you wanted to blow his ass up for starting the entire mess. Samus then goes on to defeat Mother Brain and blow up the planet, but Ridley remained the catalyst for the entire adventure...and so began the true relationship.

I forgot precisely when, but a little manga came out that gave this relationship an entirely new set of dynamics. Set pre-Metroid (and followed up with beautifully in Zero Mission), the manga tells the story of how a little blond hair 3 year old and her colony get sieged by space pirates. Ridley rains death and destruction upon the planet, killing Samus' father in the process. But then this happens:



Strangely enough, this leads to the only conversation both these characters ever really have with each other (Read from right to left for it to make sense):



And right when you think the dragon might pull a Bowser and go all soft and cute and wimpy for a three year old...this happens:



And thus, Ridley slaughters Samus' mother right infront of her eyes. This often talked about and hinted at part of Metroid lore is absolutely integral to the entire series and helps compose the framework of who Samus is. Ridley proves that he is the catalyst for the entire series unfolding the way it does. This event also changes every single meeting these two characters have from then on out, becoming a lethal cocktail of revenge, hatred and longing to destroy one another. Samus becomes the monkey wrench in all of Ridley's plans and Ridley becomes the target that Samus will blindly chase to the ends of the galaxy just to blow out of the sky one more time.

While Ridley may not be in every game, other than Metroid II, he has a hand (or his snout) in every adventure Samus goes on. The very definition of who Samus is comes from what Ridley did to her. It's no suprise that when it comes to the last game in the chronological timeline (Fusion) the SA-X finds it fitting to take the form of Samus' greatest individual foe, taunting her to fight Ridley one more time.



For some, Ridley returning is a bad joke that happens far too often in Metroid games (why it makes sense and how it fits is something I can get into another time). They may not talk and taunt each other, but that's because this hatred is so strong that there is no room for words, just pure all-out war. The next time you play a Metroid game and you hear that familiar Ridley music and that all too familiar roar... feel the hatred.