Matt Black
First Post
Never played EQ, but to me "World of WarCrystalMeth" would be a more accurate name, except it doesn't flow as well.
Forked Thread: "The Death of the Imagination" re: World of Warcraft
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
Never played EQ, but to me "World of WarCrystalMeth" would be a more accurate name, except it doesn't flow as well.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
No, it's not more accurate. WoW is intentionally a lot less OCD in its design than EQ.
Anyone thinking WoW is bad in that regard should hold onto their hats and try a month or two of EQ.
The Little Raven
First Post
Nothing like spending hours upon hours grinding out a level, then trying to get back to a safe place so you can log out and go to bed, only to die because of something stupid, and losing hours of work... as well as having to spend an hour or more trying to get your corpse.
According to what I played of Vanguard, he still does. There's a prime example of a developer who didn't learn from his mistakes.
Desdichado
Hero
Am I the only one who thinks that arguing over which illegal drug playing WoW vs. EverQuest most resembles is... uh... weird?
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
It certainly sheds an interesting light on the ... habits of posters and their experience in such matters.
Mercurius
Legend
I fell behind due to Real Life busy-ness, so I might not be able to catch up entirely, but I wanted to at least respond to this:
First off, let me clarify by saying that I may have been a bit harsh on fanfic in that it certainly could be very imaginative. The main issue for me is that the writer isn't creating their own world but writing within an already established universe. That is, they aren't "giving birth" to something new in terms of a setting or context, even so than the typical D&D campaign world. A D&D campaign world uses certain already-established tropes and may (or may not) play with them, tweak them, customize them. But fanfic takes it a step further by using an already-created world.
This is not to say that fanfic cannot be good fiction, it can. I am not talking about quality of writing, characterization, plot, etc. I am talking about the act of imagination.
You could say that there are (at least) three basic levels, in this context, of the degree of derivation, also equating with how much the creator/writer has to actually create: 1) fanfic; 2) D&D-style (or any pre-determined style) of campaign setting (or novel); and 3) what could be described as an "independent" creation. And of course it is really a greyscale, especially between the latter two levels, because even the most "independent" worlds will have elements of other worlds, and everything has its influences (nothing exists in a vacuum).
Examples of the three would be, respectively, writing fanfic or running a game in a pre-made setting (e.g. The Forgotten Realms); creating a campaign setting in a basic mold (e.g. homebrew D&D worlds, traditional epic fantasy or sword and sorcery novels, etc); and creating a world and/or story with relatively unique elements (e.g. Talislanta).
But of course derivation is only one cross-section of imagination, because truly weird stuff--while being less derivative--could less imaginatve or "creatively juicy" than other more traditional works (I often find that extremely weird fantasy creations are less substantial, even imaginative, in that they try too hard to be unique).
It really depends. But my point being, the act of imagining can be more or less active, more or less from oneself, more or less "one's own."
First off, let me clarify by saying that I may have been a bit harsh on fanfic in that it certainly could be very imaginative. The main issue for me is that the writer isn't creating their own world but writing within an already established universe. That is, they aren't "giving birth" to something new in terms of a setting or context, even so than the typical D&D campaign world. A D&D campaign world uses certain already-established tropes and may (or may not) play with them, tweak them, customize them. But fanfic takes it a step further by using an already-created world.
This is not to say that fanfic cannot be good fiction, it can. I am not talking about quality of writing, characterization, plot, etc. I am talking about the act of imagination.
You could say that there are (at least) three basic levels, in this context, of the degree of derivation, also equating with how much the creator/writer has to actually create: 1) fanfic; 2) D&D-style (or any pre-determined style) of campaign setting (or novel); and 3) what could be described as an "independent" creation. And of course it is really a greyscale, especially between the latter two levels, because even the most "independent" worlds will have elements of other worlds, and everything has its influences (nothing exists in a vacuum).
Examples of the three would be, respectively, writing fanfic or running a game in a pre-made setting (e.g. The Forgotten Realms); creating a campaign setting in a basic mold (e.g. homebrew D&D worlds, traditional epic fantasy or sword and sorcery novels, etc); and creating a world and/or story with relatively unique elements (e.g. Talislanta).
But of course derivation is only one cross-section of imagination, because truly weird stuff--while being less derivative--could less imaginatve or "creatively juicy" than other more traditional works (I often find that extremely weird fantasy creations are less substantial, even imaginative, in that they try too hard to be unique).
It really depends. But my point being, the act of imagining can be more or less active, more or less from oneself, more or less "one's own."
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
No, what's weird is that many members of the ENWorld community, many of whom can cite issue and page number of an issue of The Strategic Review when it comes to when a D&D concept first appeared, seem to be completely unaware that WoW is not the first MMO, nor that it's built on the shoulders of EverQuest, Ultima Online, The Realm, Meridian 59 and countless MUDs.
It's the equivalent of kicking Mike Mearls in the shin for something Dave Arneson came up with.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
So, are you playing a lot of WoW these days?
Mostly just on Saturday nights. You gotta let the wife have a night off now and then to recover.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
So is it your opinion that a GM running a published adventure is supressing his imagination and his time would better be spent designing his own campaign worlds? In fact, he's really supressing his imagination if he doesn't design his own system.
Well i know we are not supposed to start an edition war an all...but did you forget about Islands of Kesmai on compuserv....way before the other ones...
Heck your character was just a friggin letter on the screen....freaking $6.00 an hour to play a dang letter.....
Last edited:
Similar Threads
