Everyone Loves A Parade : GW2

It wasn't long after I began playing EverQuest, seventeen years ago this November, that I stumbled upon a community-organized event. Not specifically something by or for the then-substantial role-playing community, although there were many of those; something looser, more inclusive, with which anyone could join, in or out of character.

The one I remember  most vividly from those very early days was Talent Contest held on The Stage, an open-air theater on the west side of the much-missed original Freeport. Mrs Bhagpuss and I just happened to be passing by when we heard the event being announced in /ooc so we went to see what was happening.

We ended up sitting on the dusty Freeport ground for a couple of hours, watching mostly inept and amateurish performers take the stage to recite poetry or act out barely comprehensible skits. It felt like being in a true alternate reality. It was magical.

Over the years I've seen countless similar community events, from ad hoc improvs that drew a crowd
to huge, organized extravaganzas that took weeks of planning and were trailed across the interwebs months in advance. There have been mass protests and sit-ins, marches for and against all kinds of causes or outrages, demonstrations and celebrations of every stripe and kind.

The biggest and best known can require detailed rules of conduct for the audience like Weatherstock in LotRO or dire warnings for innocent bystanders like Burn Jita, which even managed to break into the real-world global news agenda, because EVE.

The best community events, though, are always the ones you just happen upon. I was in Citadel sorting through my banks as usual on Sunday when someone in guild chat mentioned they'd just seen a whole load of Quaggans marching through Lions Arch.

Quaggan Parades are a thing in GW2 and have been for a while. If you google you'll find a whole load of links to YouTube videos going back several years. Here's a small and annoying one from 2013 or a somewhat larger, better-organized and certainly better-shot version from the year after.

I can't say I've ever shared the widespread affection for Quaggans. I prefer to make jokes about their culinary potential rather than coo over their supposed cuteness but it can't be denied that to catch a whole gaggle of Quaggies toddling along is a bit of cultural milestone in Tyria. Kind of like naked gnome races in EverQuest and about as ethnically sensitive.

It took a bit of effort to find the amphibian posse. The first instance of LA didn't have them so I whispered my guildmate, partied up with him and zapped across to his map, where I found the Quaggan horde trundling through the east side of the city.

Arriving in a rush I hadn't thought to grab my own Endless Quaggan Tonic from the bank, where it waits, hopelessly, not having seen use for a very long time if, indeed, ever. Even if I'd had one on me I still wouldn't have blended in because I only have the Black and Blue versions and almost every Quaggan in this particular parade was red.

It was a very well-organized event, with two Commanders leading the way and everyone following at walking pace. Large turnout too. There was some mention of  charity involvement but in the fifteen minutes or so that I spent following the Quaggs no-one rattled a bucket or linked to a website so I remain none the wiser on what we were supposedly supporting.

Eventually the conga line arrived at the portal to Lornar's Pass and all the Quaggans passed through into the snowfields beyond, where, in a marvelous piece of theater, most of them turned blue. We all hung around for a few minutes while the organizers started to sort out advanced parties of non-Quaggans to head out along the proposed route and clear it of hostiles.

Around then I made my excuses and left. A parade is one thing but this was starting to look like a recreation of the Long March. How many Quaggans made it and where they eventually made it to is going to have to remain a mystery.

This minor, meaningless, serendipitous happenstance is a very small example of what's spoiled offline RPGs for me forever. No matter how brilliantly written and realized, no matter how finely-tuned the AI, with current technology there is simply no chance that you'll ever experience anything like this in any virtual world that isn't populated at least in part by other people.

Maybe one day we'll have algorithms or even sentient AIs that can provide the same level of found fun-making on the fly although the recent example of No Man's Sky suggests that day could be a long time coming. In the mean time I'll just carry on enjoying every new online gaming day as it comes - freighted with the unexpected courtesy of my fellow players.

Happy Never After : GW2

Oops! Spoiler Alert!

I guess it's a bit late now...

Thing is, it really doesn't matter. Whatever you do that's the ending you're going to get. Might as well know it up front.

When the link to Drooburt's Last Wintersday popped up in the launcher I thought the name sounded familiar. As I progressed through the storyline and reached Droobert's descent into alcoholism in the tender care of the Lion's Arch skritt an image came back to me.

Wasn't Droobert the quaggan sot we first discovered slumped outside the door of the bar in Dry Top, begging for change to dampen his endless thirst? Why, yes it was, as the ending of the Twine tale revealed or, at least, hinted heavily.

There are a lot of quaggans. I can't say I keep up with them all. Some I remember because they are so very, very annoying, like the one in Frostgorge Sound that yelps and moos about "Icebrood attacking Moshpoipoi" or whatever the infantile name of his ludicrous village is supposed to be.

Others stand out for the sheer effort the writers have expended on them, the prime example of which would have to be that increasingly desperate couple harried from map to map by Scarlet and her invading armies. They reminded me of Unlucky Alf from The Fast Show, harmless, inoffensive, hated by the fates. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reddit remembers Drooburt but I'm afraid I didn't, though I guess I should have. I was there outside Martinus' unnamed bar, handing the down and out amphibian a few silver during his brief and controversial stint as a gold sink. I can just about recall being taken aback by his horrific death, when Mordrem vines overran Prosperity, Dry Top's oh-so-ironically named mining town. If nothing else, I really should have remembered his celebrated return as a ghost at Halloween - I must have seen him reprise that performance not three months ago.

I was at least able to summon up some vague shreds of familiarity as I worked my way through his retrospective. Mrs Bhagpuss couldn't even remember who he was when reminded. I don't see that as any kind of indictment on the quality of the writing, though.

Rather it suggests to me something I've felt about GW2 since the outset. The real strength of the franchise lies not in the mechanics of the gameplay and even less in the grandiose overarching narratives about Dragons and Demi-Gods. It lies in the breadth and depth of the world-building; all those small lives that vanish in the middle distance.

Syp was eulogizing today about the storytelling brilliance of a wagon ride in WoW. I agree. If we're talking story then this is what I come to MMOs looking for and I welcome it wherever it's found.

Although I have to say, given the choice, I'd prefer to get my slices of life in the game itself.

To Be A Charr : GW2

In a comment over at KIASA, Spinks said "GW2 is fun but (dare I say) not very compelling". That hasn't been my experience, not exactly, but I have found that my first compulsion hasn't so much been to play the game as to document it. I've taken hundreds of screenshots, made copious notes, taken videos and written blogs.There was a point when I was beginning to wonder whether I was playing a game or doing a research project.

Thankfully, that moment has passed. This weekend, for the first time since beta, I felt that I wanted to play the game more than I wanted to write about it and even as I type this I'm aware that I would rather be playing. That's a good thing.

Finding His Voice

The tipping point has been the coalescing of the character of my Charr ranger. I loved the Charr as a race from the moment I first created one in beta and 99% of my entire time in GW2 has been spent as a cat but it's taken a while for that general adoration to refine into a specific affection for the singular Charr that represents my viewpoint out onto Tyria.

No MMO really falls into place for me until I reach an affinity with character. The world can be beautiful, the gameplay fluid and thrilling, the storyline fascinating; none of that will hold me for long if a character I'm playing fails to take on a life of his or her own. I don't roleplay but I do character-play and developing an innate understanding of what the character I'm directing would want and, especially, how he would express himself, is the paramount factor in whether I find myself immersed in a virtual world or just playing a game.

Name one.

Since I'm not a gamer and not much interested in games or gaming, playing a game won't hold my attention for long. Longevity in an MMO requires that at least one character finds a voice. That's just now beginning to happen in GW2 and I have the feeling it will happen again and again, because the world of Tyria offers an exceptionally strong platform on which characters can be built.

Just as the eight classes appear even at a quick glance to be very different from each other, so do the five races. Playing an Asura will not feel like playing a short human any more than playing a Charr feels like playing a Norn in a fur coat. Will it even feel the same to grow up Charr as Ash or Iron? I don't know but I want to find out. From such different and fully-realised starts in life each new addition to the team that can never meet must stand the finest of chances to make that elusive transition from notional to natural.

Skritt are in Whispers. Just sayin'.

And then, beyond lie such possibilities. It's far too soon to be thinking about expansions but already I am. In all the time I've played MMOs I have never wanted to be a frog. The one and only time I ever played one was at the launch of Everquest's Legacy of Ykesha expansion and that character is long gone, never to be missed. Now, though, I would play a Hylek in a heartbeat. Or a Quaggan. It will come as no surprise, naturally, to know that before either of those I would play a Skritt.

One day. One day. For now, to be a Charr is enough.