What's My Motivation? : GW2

Tyria is a land not just of seasons but the archetypes of seasons. The country of the Charr glows with the rich tones of deep autumn. Honey gold and darkening blue, all the colors of the Fall. Queensdale stretches out across the long, high summer of between-the-wars. North with the Norn midwinter snow lies Christmas card pristine.

Mmm! Smell that mountain air!

Look past warring centaurs, angry ghosts, berserker insurrectionists. What's left is idyll. This is how most MMOs begin; blue skies, green fields, warm sand, clean snow, bright, clear sun. Villages, towns and farms where people, still familiar furred or feathered, huge or small, go about business that's easy to understand, asking only help that's simple to provide.

These are places that feel good not just to visit but inhabit. Life could be good here. Life is good here. 

Carry your rabbit? Why certainly, madam!

Fast-forward to the end game. Such a loaded term. Beckett took the title of his masterpiece from gaming but it sometimes seems gaming has snatched back from Beckett tropes of alienation and despair. Shall we go? Yes, let's go. They do not move.

It's not Beckett I blame for all this, though. It's Tolkein. He's generally the go-to guy for blame it's true but in this case there's a specific. It's that "journey", isn't it? The little guy starts out in an idealized Edwardian vision of the Cotswolds and ends up in Hell. He marked the trail that we have to follow. Only when Frodo got there he threw the damn ring down the hole and came back. We get to stay on Mount Doom forever.

My eyes! My eyes!

There's always just been a cataclysm and there's always about to be a war, if it hasn't already started, and it's always the Last War (and where have I heard that before?). There's always a Dragon to kill and the undead are always swarming out of their graves and the sky is forever rent with purple slashes and a hand reaching through from The Void. End game? If only! It never bloody does end, does it?

For once, how about we start after all the misery? How about we step into a world torn asunder by malefic forces, riven by war and shattered into ruins and we put it back together? How about a narrative where our characters leave the scorched and blackened lands where nothing grows but poisoned purple rot and set out on a quest to find somewhere worth living? And find it!

Here should do nicely, once we get rid of these locals

I'm tired of guiding my characters through fascinating new worlds for hours, days, weeks only to be rewarded with barren landscapes, ugly scenery, harsh colors. The air gets thicker, the horizon closes in and it no longer matters what dyes I used because the light casts everything in a sick, green hue. I came all that way for this?

Dunno about you, boss, but I feel right at home here!

Ah well, the lot of the Hero I suppose, and mustn't we all be heroes if we want to grow? No settling down in The Shire for you, my lad. Just shoulder that pack and off you go. Gandalf wouldn't take "bugger off, you interfering old man" for an answer and doesn't every game designer secretly see himself as Gandalf, moving each mere mortal player to take up a destined role in some greater plan they cannot hope to understand?.

Thank the gods for snow, at least. Even a miserable, trammeled snowscape like Carpathian Fangs is nicer to look at than ash and magma or brackish swamp. Seems Frostgorge Sound's my new home for a while. I just wish I could find somewhere warm to sleep.