So, settle in for a long read if you care to.
And no, before you see the name “FFXIV” and jump to a conclusion, I’m not saying Wow should just become FFXIV, they’re two drastically different games and I like them both and think both games have aspects that the other could learn from
currently, and this is something I’ve been considering for a few days right now, currently I would not even call Wow an MMORPG.
sure it’s an MMO… but where’s the Roleplay?
and I don’t mean flat out RP servers like Argent Dawn EU.
what role do I play in this world? in this in-game community?
in the world I am a champion, a maw walker, a meaningless generic title that gets thrown about all the time, with no meaning, no weight, it’s completely and utterly meaningless.
and even then characters forget I am that thing between patch cycles and expansions.
the last time I actively played a “role” in the world was Legion, as the leader of my class order, I had no idea what the druids were doing in their hall etc, I was Deathlord and that was that.
Then since the start of BFA I’ve literally been a pointless nobody with a grand title, an unimportant errand boy who’s also apparently a high ranking member of the alliance, or a prophesied “Maw Walker” in the shadowlands, whilst once again essentially being an errand boy.
So - in the games’ narrative world I do not exist, am not made to feel like I exist, I have no role that I am playing, I am a faceless entity known as champion or maw walker.
So how about the game’s community, it’s playerbase, do I play a role there?
…
Well not really.
I’m just another tank to everyone, my appearance means nothing, my name means nothing, I’m referred to as “Tank” in dungeons, or sometimes on odd occasion more specifically “DH” or “Paladin”. And by and large it’s only while in content that people will even communicate, save for a few specific servers, like the earlier mentioned Argent Dawn EU.
So YET AGAIN I am not playing a role, I am yet again a faceless entity, randoms in dungeons calling me tank is a near equivalent of the story characters calling me “Maw Walker”. I have no identity on that, I’m not an individual for someone to talk to, in that scenario I am simply a tool, a tool that distracts enemies while they kill the enemies and nothing more.
My name means nothing.
My appearance means nothing.
Now for the comparison to FFXIV…
FFXIV gives an extremely rigid and strict narrative experience, you ARE the Warrior of Light and you have no choice in that, and that isn’t for everyone and I understand that completely.
But it’s done in such a way, dialogue conversation in cutscenes is done in such a way that there is plenty of room for YOU to paste YOUR personality onto your character, through your very appearance, my character is a tall as hell edgy guy with a big sword and you see that in all of the dialogue cutscenes.
but also how that dialogue is written, in every cutscene your character pretty much just nods in acknowledgement, but the dialogue itself feels like it is addressed to YOU.
Alphinaud isn’t talking to the Warrior of Light, he’s talking to ME.
I understand the character’s woes, I’ve seen their struggles, I’ve taught them lessons, they’ve taught me lessons, and SOMEHOW I feel completely differently to certain scenes than say one of my friends did, we both felt the same character with the same lines of dialogue addressed the way we were individually thinking in that moment.
So without a doubt, I do play a role in FFXIV’s world, and that role is me, the characters refer to me as the Warrior of Light, but that’s a formality, I have more identity than that title alone and the characters are written to acknowledge that.
and the wider gameplay too, my role in the playerbase, I am a tall person with a big sword that looks metal as hell, people can spot my identity, who I am, from a mile away, be that just by my chosen aesthetic and character design, or because they do know me, they recognize me, I can run into Limsa Lominsa or Old Sharlayan and chances are I will see someone that knows me or I will see someone that I know, even just running past a stranger, I’ll likely recognize their name.
FFXIV doesn’t have class talents, every class is the same gameplay someone else would get with that same class, a good Dark Knight will play exactly the same as another Dark Knight who’s also good., there’s no wiggle room for your own choices there, same as in the story quests, there’s sometimes some dialogue choices but they don’t have impact.
and YET there’s so much more room to imprint who you are, the role you want to play, on your character.
it is an RPG that happens to be an MMO, everything you do, from the character creation screen to the super high end difficulty end game content and everything inbetween, everything is built and engineered to allow YOU to imprint your personality onto your character, and thus experience the story and the video game itself in a much more personal way.
There is absolutely none of that in Wow, again to reiterate, I’m just a faceless entity known as Maw Walker to the characters, and Tank to people I come across.
Wow needs to re-add the RPG back into MMORPG