So there I was.
Trapped in a world so drenched in anxiety and worry you could practically taste it. The sun was high noon, leaving no shade for what few children could be seen in the barren and paved landscape. The radio was pumping out Highway Star as I sat in my car, windows down, a whisper of wind all that kept me from expiring in the rising heat.
It was then I saw him; a man with a mustache so spectacularly drooping one wonders if the heat had already partially melted him. A face set in a scowl so deep and fierce it could blind men whose gaze lingered on it for too long. On his shirt, stretching to contain girth I won’t even attempt to describe was a card; Drive Test Official.
It was time to get my G license, and God help anyone who got in the way.
Anyways, that was my Monday. I’ve had a couple days alternating between incredibly busy and spectacularly lazy, so it’s been a bit of a dry stretch for posts. I’d say sorry, but you know that’s not the kind of working relationship we have here! The only thing I can say is I failed myself on a tiny note during those days. I had intended to make a post or two intentionally small. A hard task for me on the best of days, but one I hoped to make easier by my natural inclination to distraction on my weekends off. Regrettably it turns out that instead of just posting a wee bit, I don’t make posts at all – and I don’t think anyone is going to give me the credit needed to justify that as simply an exceptionally small post. However, whether I post or not things still keep happening.
Gaming News!*
As should be blatantly obvious to anyone who reads even half of what I post; I enjoy myself a good Role-playing game from time to time. Now role-playing games aren’t what I’d call dull in terms of innovation, but they do seem to move at a slower pace from an outside perspective than any other genre of games. All of the creative merit is handed to the players in the game which means a massive overhaul of the system to make something feel new-ish would probably just be seen as a hindrance. But this hasn’t completely kept the pen and paper groups from finding new outlets.
MMORPG is what we’re looking at here folks; specifically the first major community I’ve come across in them that’s run entirely by Role-play fans, and frequently only by other fans. It’s using the huge game World of Warcraft as its base medium for players to interact, and through some bit of magic they managed to make the entire thing free for everyone. World of Warcraft may be uniquely suited to this role since due to its massive popularity it had long ago been figured out by various people on the internet, and thus there are readily downloadable versions of it that you can use to set up independent servers with. The group of people in question we’re dealing with work under the title Prologue.
Prologue took the easily accessible version of WoW and modified it. Heavily. However, despite this extensive work on their part to augment the game it can still be installed with literally one ready-to-go download and a single zip-file from their site that you unpack in a clearly labeled folder. Idiot proofing is always an understated element of design, and one that they’ve evidently kept an eye on from the start.
What they’ve actually done is revamp WoW’s primarily monster slaying system into allowing players to build and create entire military encampments, town, and cities on the open world of, well, warcraft itself. Where in the original game all of your classes were relying on fighting arch-types, in Prologue you can opt to be a shop owner or a mayor, or a grand architect. The levels of variety means there’s literally nothing you’ll really need in the world that another player isn’t role-playing as, and consequently a very real functioning community begins to develop inside the server. For those of you who’ve only played pen & paper the analogy would be like if you had an amazing omnipresent GM in a game that could host hundreds of players in a dynamic and changing world in which you can still leave a real and lasting impact. In other words, pretty much everything you could ever want.
What adds to it is it’s not just capable of hosting hundreds of people, it already does. Since their re-launch a couple weeks ago the server has boasted a continuous population of 230-250 (the last twenty slots dedicated to Prologue staff trying to keep everything running smoothly), which is where their server caps it and starts a queue. The queue itself has gone over 100 regularly at peak hours and is only now being resolved with huge server upgrades. They anticipate a drop-off of 20% in the future when the buzz dies down, but that still leaves hundreds of people playing at any one time. But its when you get perspective on the quality that Prologue really shines.
Most people who’ve already attempted Role-playing on the main servers of games like World of Warcraft will know it’s a hit or miss experience that leans despairingly heavily in the direction of miss. Remember kiddies; 90% of everything is shit. This holds true when it comes to random role-players on the internet. Prologue gets a leg-up here though due to the difficulty in finding it and murderously vigilant in-game GM’s. This sort of GM is the second tier type though; the sort that bans idiots, but doesn’t necessarily host events (even if many do anyways. Old habits, eh?). This in line with a variety of unique systems on the server concerning player lives has kept the community surprisingly good. From what I’ve seen bumming about their servers it’s an experience I’d recommend to any other Role-players who’re looking to try something new. Its fun, the people are nice, you’ll have a blast. And hey, even if it’s not your thing; it’s free! What have you got to lose?
* Holy shit a mid-post title!
