The Evolution of Online Dragon-Slaying

Posted by Zonk on Friday December 9, 2005 @10:37AM from the nagafen-says-hi dept.

1up has a second article in a series on the evolution of online games. This entry wonders aloud about the MMOG player preoccupation with dragon-slaying. From the article: "Are we really that happy to hang out with orcs all the time? Apparently, yes. According to mmogchart.com, an MMO research site run by Bruce Sterling Woodcock, fantasy-based RPGs account for approximately 85 percent of the market share of all current MMO players. Aside from the recent exception of City of Heroes (which lets us swap out our leather elven tights for spandex superhero tights), most games that don't let us brandish +3 battleaxes of dorkdom and slay mightye beastes have fallen over like level 1 rats." We've previously discussed the first article in this series.

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Re:Suspension of disbelief by cluke · 2005-12-09 11:32 · Score: 2, Informative

EVE is sci-fi, and it does it well. You can save your personality into a clone, and this can live on after you die. Makes even more sense to me than resurrection in a fantasy setting - in WoW, for example, how could there have been a terrible war if people can be resurrected willy-nilly? Or, to paraphrase that list mocking RPG conventions, it's the "Why didn't they use Phoenix Down on Aeris, then?" effect.