Wait, that’s Racist!

In my last piece I talked about how I wish for more obscure races in MMOs and briefly went into theoretical gameplay mechanics that could be done with them. I would like to talk on that a little more, but this time more in the fantasy political realm and how racial discrimination IN A FICTIONAL FANTASY SETTING can actually be beneficial.

As some of you may know, some of the earliest MMOs can have their roots be traced back to Dungeons & Dragons, and type of pen and paper game where imagination (and the Game Master) is your only limitation! A human, an elf, a dwarf, and a really short guy go on an adventure, a tale as old as Lord of the Rings (because seriously, where did you think you heard this from if you didn’t play D&D?) And throughout their journey each of them contributes in some way. Perhaps the elf is exceptional with the bow and can take out foes at a distance, the dwarf sweeps through hordes of goblins, the human swindles others with his looks, and the midget crawls into places where Health & Safety would panic. Each of them have an ability, but what about… social status?

Well it’s no surprise that a good word from the dwarf could get the party into a dwarven city, after all these characters have backstories, places that they hail from. So why should it be any different in video games? I remember in Final Fantasy 14 your race did not matter much at all, perhaps there would be a few bits of unique dialogue, but be short or tall no one cared. World of Warcraft is a bit better at this, where new Forsaken (Undead) did not have an initially good reputation with their own faction. Hell the fact there are two factions, the Horde and the Alliance separated by different races is pretty neat.

But I think even more can be done with this. Emphasizing accessibility and discrimination among race and social status can beneficial in game design. And my proof of this comes from a 2003 GameCube game, called “Final Fantasy, Crystal Chronicles”. Much like D&D being the roots of early MMOs, I am convinced that CC has taken similar inspirations. A thief, a mage, warrior, and a jack of all trades, of all different races or tribes hop in a wagon to go save their village, a story as old as two paragraphs back. A simple premise, but its mechanics and systems are very engaging and only help the immersion and sense of roleplaying. And the best part is, it was 4-player co-op! So you could argue and bicker over funds and food, and who gets to be the water boy.

After completing dungeons each party member would receive a letter from their family. Here they can send gifts back home, improving their relationship.

If you were the son of the town blacksmith, (and assuming you had a good relationship with them), you could receive discounts. If you sent home a cow to your family, every year you could get milk from them. Each player character had their own personal taste buds where they heal more depending if they ate something more appealing to them. Their likes and dislikes of foods even change over time based on their diet!

One example I remember, that actually was the whole reason I decided to write this piece in the first place, was a particular benefit of the Yuke race in CC. Around the mid game the gang would come up to a town by the name of Shella. Normally you could just walk into a town, but this one had a particular rule…. Yukes only*. Yea, that’s right! If you weren’t a lean thin furry bucket wearing bird man, you could take your dumb ass and throw it in the river. Either that or go to a nearby dungeon and fetch an item, and then they’d let you in no problem! When I first came across this as a kid, and even now when I think about it, what a cool, annoying, and interesting idea for a game mechanic. Unless you were or had a Yuke in your party, you weren’t allowed into this town. That one little gate that can be open or closed solely based on one player’s race, is fascinating. Runs or playthroughs of the game can become different because of single choice, to be or not to be a furry bucket wearing bird boy.

Yukes

Each player’s character is unique and different, with downsides and advantages in the physical sense as well as the social sense. And it’s these differences, these opportunities for discrimination that creates new obstacles for players that can, well, be solved by having a friend.

However, to what extent something like this should go is another question. After all like foods, not all ideas will work with another. How extreme should societal benefits be? What areas is it completely safe to have such an idea? Should gatekeeping be a permanent obstacle or something that can be overcome with enough grinding regardless of race or heritage? Would gatekeeping really be an issue if the toll fee is small or if it’s an area that’s rarely needed? What about both low and high extremes where toll fee varies by day? In some games simply adding this kind of gatekeeping may be fine. But for others the entire game may need to be completely redesigned just to fit it in properly. I could never see something like this making it into a game like Final Fantasy 14, whose target audience is largely casual, but also because so much of the game is focused around being able to do everything on one character. We can view World of Warcraft’s two factions as a form of this system already where no matter which faction you pick you can’t enter half the game’s towns without being mauled by a guard.

It is not just a matter of game balance vs fun factor either, development time is something to consider as well. Is it worth it to give each player their own backstory? And to what extent? How fleshed out should it be? Well it seems Guild Wars 2 attempted to tackle this by allowing the players to pick some predetermined backstory, as well choices later on in their adventure. Personally I did not touch much of Guild Wars 2, but another player informed that your choices basically decide which areas you’ll be heading to level up in, but beyond that not much else. This wouldn’t surprise me as the starting zone featured voice acting for YOUR player character, I could not see them keeping this up for very long.

This raises even more questions, how should a player’s story be determined? Should it be something you just pick as you create your character? Or maybe it’s something you decide as you play the game, like with existing reputation systems? Maybe have a permanent choice later down the line that involves becoming a part of an organization or family, with all the benefits that it entails? Runescape did something like this, even though it only impacts two quests.

 … The more I write this, the more I realize how much of a can of worms this subject really is. In the future I might go back to these questions and apply them to specific MMOs as a critical thinking exercise, but for now let’s end this off with brainstorming some ideas, that’s always fun!

Ideas for Societal Mechanics in MMOs:

-        Gatekeeping: Where player race, reputation, and/or backstory impacts accessibility to certain areas. This can include towns, dungeons, bosses, leveling zones, and even small secrets.

-        Family Recipes: The origins of a player’s character can give them exclusive access to unique crafting recipes that cannot be traded, but the products shared. These recipes could also be discovered later on through unique quests.

-        Regular Rewards: Sometimes an MMO will have “log-in bonuses”. Personally I am not a big fan of log-in rewards, but maybe having them be based on your race or faction affiliation could be something worth looking into. Kind of like the family rewards from Crystal Chronicles.

-        Easier/Harder Quests: This idea would involve more work from the developers, but perhaps some quests could be easier or more difficult depending on one’s race or reputation. Imagine being able to skip certain steps of a quest just because of your origin.

-        Unique Quest Roles: Very rarely there will be a quest in an MMO that has you cooperating with another player. Like in Runescape, having more quests where your permanent role, be it from race, faction, family, or organization be a requirement in the completion of someone else’s quest could be neat. Imagine if you had to get a blood sample from various races of players, or maybe someone’s family heritage is a piece of a puzzle to unlocking a dungeon, or maybe you need a signature from a specific combination of race and class.

Now imagine if these systems were put into an MMO. Well you might hate it, but some others, myself included, may very much like such an idea. It’s ok to have advantages and disadvantages that go beyond a race’s biology. My point is that a player character’s heritage can be used in making interesting gameplay mechanics. I believe that this can be used to further emphasize player uniqueness and individuality, something I personally think more MMOs should do.