Pre-Buzz on RV: “A Second Job?”
I may end up writing regularly on the upcoming Roma Victor game. I am seriously looking forward to this one and am currently planning on pre-purchasing the game because, as promised by the devs, pre-purchasers will have exclusive access to the game world 2 full weeks before the commercial boxes hit the stores. The early days of any MMORPG are always a fascinating and fun experience. Yes it can be frustrating too since bugs are worked out and downtime comes with little or no notice when devs bring the game down for maintenance (ie WoW), but I have found it just fun to observe how players begin forming the economy and in-game social mores.
What attracts me to RV is the purported historical accuracy of the game, and the number of options it allows for players. It is much more in line with “The Sims” than any other MMORPG I have played with the possible exception of Final Fantasy Online (which was still a swords and sorcery world but had a very deep crafting system).
Anyway, this “historical accuracy” component of the game has also raised some questions in my mind in regards to how fun it might (or might not) be. There was a recent post in the RV forums which I found to be very articulate and echoed some of my doubts as well. Let me quote at length:
I’ll preface this by saying I’m not in beta, and my research time into RV is roughly a week of reading the forums and supporting sites. Please no flames; I’m just giving my initial impressions and I’m posting this for feedback rather than saying “how I bet RV will be.”
As I read the forums, and the push is realism, realism, realism. Hey, I’m all for realism for things to be historically accurate, but the *true* reality of Rome was that life was tedious, especially by present day society’s current standards of instant gratification.
I’m reading posts with c
ontributing forum members saying things like:
- “If you come to a river, you might have to walk for days to find a good place to cross.”
- “Most people in that time are born, live, and die right in the same spot.”
- “Crop rotation would provide realism, and so would flooding.”
- “If you hurt your arm, it may take weeks of rehabilitation before you can use it again, and there may be permanent damage.”
Now, I’m not arguing that this isn’t realistic. These are ideas that break the mold in a constant stream of cookie-cutter MMOGs. But the bottom line… is it fun? Is the fun sustainable? After waking up at 05:30, working all day and getting home in the evening, am I going to be saying, “ooo, hot-diggity, time for some hot crop-rotating action, and maybe I can chop wood for an hour after that!”
With all MMOGs, there’s a honeymoon period where you’re so excited to play where everything is cool. “Hey look, I’m chopping wood! That’s so neat!” However, in week 6 if you’re still chopping wood, there’s a problem. But hey, that was what life was like back then, right?
I might also add that:
1) In the Roman Empire, in which slaves were the vast majority of the population, the vast majority of the vast majority of slaves really were doing the most brutal and degrading work that existed. For example, a typical slave may be born, worked in mines as soon as he reached an early pre-adolescent stage, and died a handful of years later from mining related diseases or mishaps and maltreatment. Yes there were those slaves who did reach citizen like status, gaining prominence as merchants, crafters, and military leaders, but the vast bulk were treated like human garbage. Thus, if you want “realism” and start in RV as a slave, your doing pretty damn extraordinary if you even manage to get so far as obtain a few nice tools, let alone learn skills or obtain some semblance of private property.
2) The status of women. Basically, women were also treated like shit. They were considered objects and not humans. In RV, female characters just would not have access to particular occupations or skills beyond serving and maybe some other basic manual labor skills and crafting abilities.
Anyway, the debate continued:
In any other game, if your homeland is invaded, put your entire house in your magic bag and go somewhere else. But now, if you are in danger, you fight. Your house took a while to build, its worth something. Think of the game as a second life, but a life where nothing seriously bad ever happens. If you die, you get reborn. If your house burns down, you can build another one. Sure, there might be some work… but there is also a lot of fun. Just like real life.
And here is the response:
If I spent a month collecting resources and money out of abject poverty as a newly freed slave to build a house, and someone comes along while offline and asleep and burns it down, explain to me how it’s fun to start over.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong if this is not how the game works.
Again, this is justification that the game will be fun because it’s realistic. As realistic as we’re dreaming, it is in the end a game with no real world consequences. If repeatedly restarting with nothing because some antisocial, non-RP kid has 24/7 to play and finds it hilarious to repeatedly make good on his pyromaniac predisposition at your expense ...
.. like that doesn’t happen.
Heh Heh. I’ll continue to post thoughts about this one until it comes out later in the fall.
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