What MMO'S have done to our logic

[Deleted]

All of the chips are in the center of the table in a clutter of multicolored circles. The two men stare at each other through shaded eyes, fingering their two precious cards. Four cards lay face-up on the table. The next card will decide the victor. It's anyone's game, and it's all in. The dealer pinches the corner of the top card, slowly turning it upward. It looks red, no black; a diamond? It's…it's… Whatever.

No really, whatever.

If Runescape were a movie, things would be a bit different. Characters wouldn't wake up in Lumbridge feeling no different than maybe a bit less wealthy, holding a timer counting down when their magical item-saving grave poofs into existence. If a character takes a wound, he can't heal it by consuming sharks en mass. And swords won't suddenly be rendered useless by praying to Saradomin, either.

Of course, if the game played like that, we'd be spending a lot of time hiding under tables waiting for our bones to knit back together, which I'm sure you all agree would be a bad game mechanic. Nonetheless, as in all video games, the "danger" aspect is strikingly low at first glance.

When playing one of my favorite games, Kingdom Hearts, for my beloved birthday present, the Playstation 2, whenever Sora kicked the bucket, you'd be introduced to a screen asking you if you wanted to continue. Not from the last save point, or last check point, but from the last three seconds. While this made gameplay far less aggravating, it took the stakes down several considerable notches. As such, the stakes were not losing the game - it was sort of a matter of pride. This game is babying me to the point of embarrassment, so I'd better not die or that's a notch on the wall of "I suck." However, for other games like Call of Duty, the stakes are a bit higher - dying results in a loss of not only the battle, but of progress - you'll be sent back with all the enemies respawned and your weapon the same as it was at that point in time. Stakes are essential in any game or story.

So what about Runescape? Can we recognize the stakes? Stakes keep us playing; stakes keep us interested. So what are we putting at risk when we play Runescape?

Rest assured, Jagex has put something at risk into their game; however, Jagex's stakes are neither edible nor mortal. Their stakes are of a different kind – time. Every time we play, we dedicate an hour, two hours, maybe. If we play every day, we dedicate maybe seven or ten or fourteen hours. For some of us, that's almost twenty-five days a year that we're investing. Interestingly, while normal video game stakes hold your attention, Runescape (and most MMO) stakes shackle you to your character. Think about it. You've spent so much time on your character, you'd be hard-pressed to quit, right? It'd be like spending two years, working daily on a novel, and then you just took it to your fire pit and used it as kindling. The work would have been for naught.

Same with Runescape. The stakes are more personal than anything ingame. Loot can be made back. Hit points can be restored in a few seconds. And levels are never, ever lost. But if you leave the game, eventually you leave behind more and more work. The more time you invest, the more valuable your character becomes. Look at your Adventurer's Log. Chances are you're somewhere in the fourties or fifties in the amount of days you've played. Could you just quit, knowing that you'd put that amount of time into the game for so long?

That's partially why people never really stop playing - they can't take the loss as a given, so they go back thinking, "Oh, I can quit later," which is a bloody lie, because the more you play, the more you put on the line when you finally do quit.

Imagine you're going on a journey on foot. You walk a mile, and then turn around, wondering if you should go back. But it's a whole mile to go back to where you started! But you can't just stand there, or you're wasting time. So you decide to keep on going. Eventually, you get ten, twenty, fifty miles down the road, and the thought of going back becomes unthinkable. You can walk slower and take longer breaks during your trip, but that's not going to solve the problem.

I'm not saying that Jagex is an evil demon in the shadows waiting to suck in the next impressionable kid into its game-death-trap, but this is one of the things that holds us. It's not our items - it's the time we spent to get it. It's not our levels - it's the hours we've invested in them. This is what MMOs offer: we'll give you something to attach yourself to, and in return, you must continue to play. That's the invisible contract we sign when we play Runescape for a few months - the further we go down the road, the more we have to work to walk back.

That is what we risk when we play, whether you're a skiller, a warrior, or a player killer, it's all the same. What's at stake isn't our items; it's our time.

[shinjihirako]

That's why I don't invest in that sort of thing. I keep away from the online MMO's, plug in a quick game to mess around with and once I beat it 2-5 time I go and sell it. Now for some on the amount of times beating it, your milage may vary. Either way it will be the same way with BBS, though I may take a shot at the no-leveling thing, sounds difficult and I want a challenge. Either way, I really couldn't stand runescape, was really crappy if you ask me. Also for loss in games, try 40th day, doesn't save what you customed before you started so you end up having to do more than just shoot up some guys to get back to what you had.