Wishing for Excitement: The Old Republic

I want to be enthused about The Old Republic. It's Star Wars and Bioware and pretty cinematic trailers. It's supposed to answer questions left hanging from Knights of the Old Republic and is set far enough distant in time to avoid the wearied distaste I felt after reading many many books about Han and Leia and Jacen and Jaina and Ben and haven't I seen too many stories about Jedi going to the darkside already?

But the lack of enthusiasm persists. And while it's tempting to base it on a diminished interest in Star Wars, or the simple fact that I tend to find listening to voice acting tedious when I can read the text three times before they're halfway through speaking it, neither seems to be the real cause of my response.

Quite simply, I don't want a game that appears as if it will tell stories in the same way as a single-player RPG. Being told I, in my uniqueness, arranged a treaty or defeated a horrific foe leads to a collapse of the suspension of disbelief the moment I acknowledge that everyone else is just as unique as I am. I want stories that acknowledge the multitudes of players, and can set them up as special without framing each of them as the one to accomplish some notable event.

In many ways, the divorcing of the story my character is following from one I can share from other players continuously frustrates me, and I wish for other approaches to storytelling.

The problem with challenge.

"Challenge" is a word I see thrown about quite a bit in various gaming discussions, and is usually framed as something that is decreasing.

There are several issues with such discussions, primarily related to how broad of a concept challenge is in video games. E.g., my ability to beat Halo games on Legendary has only a limited relationship to how good I am in the game's slayer mode, let alone my skill at raiding in an MMO or my ability to solve puzzles in Myst.

This means that a challenge can involve such things as reflexes, puzzles, physics-based puzzles, resource management, the use of math to optimize characters, and the ability to memorize complex strategies for a certain encounter.

Some of the discussion on this topic also can degrade to an attitude of hostility towards newer players, or those playing games considered more casual. Such rarely seems to consider how time restrictions and lack of experience, along with some of the technical issues involved with many PC games, can push players towards less demanding content. Insufficient tutorials tends to exacerbate this issue as well.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be looking a bit more in-depth at these various issues, along with providing a few embarrassing anecdotes about my own encounters with challenges in gaming.

The piano puzzle is my nemesis.