In MMORPGs, being heroic is the name of the game right from the start. But are our favorite characters truly heroic? Can they be heroic when the Lich King respawns over and over rather than dying when slain by an intrepid band of characters? In this week's Player Perspectives, MMORPG.com columnist Jaime Skelton takes on that very issue. See what she thinks and then jump into the discussion on the forums!

So, what are these heroic deeds? In most media and cultures, these deeds represent a task that fulfills a few special criteria. It must be something that has either never been done before and will never be done again (slaying the mighty dragon), or something that is done on rare and momentous occasion. The mission must be given for the good of all, not the benefit of a few; often a mission of world impact rather than simply helping a local family. Finally, the mission must be nigh-impossible at its end: it must be a challenge so stupendous, the hero-to-be must be prepared for certain doom.

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A hero is someone who acts above and beyond what a normal person is capable and willing to do. Therein lies the problem. When everyone is performing a heroic feat, well, it's not so heroic anymore.

When everyone is a hero, noone is a hero.

My dream class would be to get to play a truly austere Monk style class that doesn't need or want most gear.  Who can either eschew rewards for quests or have some manner to quickly donate the rewards where needed.  To drift along unnoticed in the world and try to leave the smallest ripple of good behind.

I know that is not entirely on the subject, but to me that is a hero.  Selfless, unassuming, unarrogant and not flashing big shiny weapons and gear around feeling that they are somehow superior due to having them.  The biggest problem with current MMO design to me is that so many of them are just about chasing the next "carrot", that next big gear upgrade.  Why can't there be other rewards than gear?  ughhhh, if I put my Gamer DNA up here it would explain a lot though as far as my own views on gear and such, lol.

Good article subject.

For non-instanced, named boss mobs it gets even weirder.  You have to find and kill someone so horrible and evil that it requires you to wait in line behind other heroes that are also waiting to slay this villain that just so happens to already have 3 corpses laying on the ground that haven't decayed yet.

Standing in line to heroicly kill someone already dead...one of the lowlights of MMORPG unique features.

Jaime,

I really think MMO creaters have it all wrong with this "You are the one", "Save the World" type garbage that they are pushing. Of course that seems phoney and plastic and cartoonish....because IT IS. Heck, it's that way in Novels and Movies that go that route too. So unless you are going for cartoonish on purpose...that's really a bad way to go (IMO).

That's NOT the way a game/novel/movie needs to go in order to make a protagonist feel heroic...as fas as I'm concerned...that is even a little bit the anthisis of heroic.

Lets take an example from real world events.... The guys who landed with the 1st wave on Omaha beach, survived, breached the Sea Wall and started pushing inland and helped make victory in WWII a reality..... Were these guys any less "heroic" then Luke Skywalker, Conan, etc?  Not in my book.

I'd love to see an MMO developer that pushes for that sort of feeling... because I think it's both achievable from a Multi-Player standpoint and it's far less plastic then the "Save the World" junk....and it certainly should give the player every much a feeling of heroism, if not more so.

Originally posted by ZoeMcCloskey

My dream class would be to get to play a truly austere Monk style class that doesn't need or want most gear.  Who can either eschew rewards for quests or have some manner to quickly donate the rewards where needed.  To drift along unnoticed in the world and try to leave the smallest ripple of good behind.

I know that is not entirely on the subject, but to me that is a hero.  Selfless, unassuming, unarrogant and not flashing big shiny weapons and gear around feeling that they are somehow superior due to having them.  The biggest problem with current MMO design to me is that so many of them are just about chasing the next "carrot", that next big gear upgrade.  Why can't there be other rewards than gear?  ughhhh, if I put my Gamer DNA up here it would explain a lot though as far as my own views on gear and such, lol.

Good article subject.

Can't agree more.

This is why quest driven, storyline MMOs leave me feeling less immersed rather than more immersed in games.  I wouldn't mind a game where I end up becoming a farmer, an entertainer, a crafter, a trader, or simply a wandering, exploring mercenary.  I'd rather create my own motivations and my own stories.  I never got to play the old SWG, but the way people describe it, I think I would have liked it, and I'm sorry I missed out.  I suspect this makes me a niche gamer and that I shouldn't hold my breath hoping quests will go away simply because I loathe them with the same deep loathing that looking at a grocery list or a to do list inspires in me.

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Jaime,

I really think MMO creaters have it all wrong with this "You are the one", "Save the World" type garbage that they are pushing. Of course that seems phoney and plastic and cartoonish....because IT IS. Heck, it's that way in Novels and Movies that go that route too. So unless you are going for cartoonish on purpose...that's really a bad way to go (IMO).

That's NOT the way a game/novel/movie needs to go in order to make a protagonist feel heroic...as fas as I'm concerned...that is even a little bit the anthisis of heroic.

Lets take an example from real world events.... The guys who landed with the 1st wave on Omaha beach, survived, breached the Sea Wall and started pushing inland and helped make victory in WWII a reality..... Were these guys any less "heroic" then Luke Skywalker, Conan, etc?  Not in my book.

I'd love to see an MMO developer that pushes for that sort of feeling... because I think it's both achievable from a Multi-Player standpoint and it's far less plastic then the "Save the World" junk....and it certainly should give the player every much a feeling of heroism, if not more so.

 

 

 

Such a world already exists in EVE.  No one person is a cartoonish hero or villian, yet the EVE universe is full of players of both types.  There are legendary fleet commanders who manage to take over large sectors of 0.0 space, only to have it all taken away again for a varieity of reasons both dramatic and logistical.

There are famous spys who manage to disolve corps, or steal billions or scam someone out of even more.  There are battles where few prevail against many. There are minor heroes in every fight, people who make or break the battle on their actions, w/o it all seem shallow or fake.

There's even heroes who help people, leading training corps, or help out new players just to improve the game community.

All sort of heroes running around EVE, and I wish more games could provide this experience. Outside of a sandbox universe though, I can't see a themepark game being able to offer the same experience, though there's some titles like Citidel of Sorcery that claim they're working on such a system.  We'll see.

MMOs exist in a grey zone between fiction and simulation.   In fiction the author shows you the consequencs of actions.  In a simulation the author provides you a way to test the consequences of actions. Ideally, watching a single run of either game should feel the same.  In a fantasy fiction, you should find yourself believing that there was a real consequence on the other side of every choice.  In a fantasy simulation. the stories that emerge should feel epic as all the components link together.  Where fiction is a risk of failing is when we cease to believe that the consequences shown are true to the world imagined or where we want to take the road not taken.  Where a simulation is at risk of failing is when it degenerates into a rut - repetitive and unfulfilling. But there isn't a clear dividing line between the two - an MMO is mix of both.

But thinking about heroism, are there better ways for a game to *offer* opportunities of heroism.  Pure fiction forces heroism upon you.  Pure simulation offers few guarentees that anything you do will feel heroic.  Do you really need to save the world to be a hero?  Or can a game of saving kittens be as fulfilling as overthrowning world-shattering demigods on the brink of ultimate power?

As long as nothing in MMORPGs matters, there can be no player heroes.  You save the princess, you and thousands if not millions of other people.  Usually while you are saving the princess, thousands if not millions of people are doing it as well in their own little instances or quest chains.  Before you saved the princess, thousands if not millions of other people did as well.  After you have saved the princess, thousands if not millions of other people will do so as well.

There is no risk.  How can there be any reward?

This is why I'm really... REALLY looking forward to Guild Wars 2. True, it still keeps the whole "You're character is special... you are destined to change the fate of everything (just like everyone else)". But at least the whole game mechanics are going to change. You wander into a field where there are angry boars around and kill them, they won't respawn. You decide to hit the bathroom during that bandit attack, the town they were attacking is destroyed. Every move you make could have consequences in the shifting dynamic, pendulum world. I'm sure eventually that field will be populated with boars again, but only when the chain its a part of makes sense for the boars to return and not just magically reappear. This, to me, sounds like a real MMO. Every choice you make, even in indecision, will have an effect. The PC's will esentially still be mercenaries, performing deeds for the sake of a reward... but the results will be more visceral.

I know... I'm a fanboy, already. Heck, even RIFT will have more dynamic content... but if they can pull it off, it will be a genre changing MMO.

When everyone's a hero... no one is a hero.

The hero status should be a limited earned RANK or NPC only.

For mmorpgs anyway...

That's what I liked about DAoC in its old days, before ToA. No one was a hero straight off the bat. The PvE was designed to fit in with an idea of the realm at war. The PvE really didn't matter. What mattered was the RvR and how players perceived each other. Some players became well-known amidst the community: spies, scouts, battlegroup leaders, great guilds, etc. That to me is more heroic than anything PvE can provide.

Is it such a big deal in PvE what a hero is? I don't think so, but player recognition can be a great addition to any game experience.

It's pretty much impossible to feel like a hero in a MMO. I've never felt like a hero in any MMO I've played. When I want to be a hero I go play single player games.

I don't see how a hero can be made when there's no way to save the universe or whatever. Any action you make in a MMO doesn't matter at all. The game still goes on whether you "save the day" or not.

Yea, I can't do more than grin when in MMOs NPC greets ya as Hero and Savior of the World and then mentioned - there is 10 rats in my cellar, would ya be so kind and save me from those :)

One thing a bit closer was in old EQ1 (pre-instance period) when some gods and very hard bosses were on timer 1 or even 2 weeks. That means from tens of thousands players in server only 52 or 26 in year could have chanche to get that Famous Sword/Wand/Ring etc. And when ppl woke up Sleeper and could manage to kill him (what wasn't in plans of devs) that was real event about what knew all EQ-world in every server.

That possibility is hardly underestimated by devs - they good drop sometimes legendary mobs for short time (or why not only once). OK, I understand in instanced game it's not imagined to disain one hard instance to have it ran once but in open world ya can change a bit stats-dmg type etc of roaming dragon, give him new name and let it drop not game-breaking items but some kind of normal high-level goods with Name plus say tooth for every participant he can master his ring, necklace or whatever.

This gives variety into game and some feeling of uniqness and Be-Hero for them who happen first to solve how to kill that mob and whose raid could it do too. To say ppl start to whine - I pay for game and must be able to get Everything - isn't correct. That is into what whiners trained devs. There is many competitions and tournaments in world where ppl pay to participate in them but nobody whines if not everybody gets gold medals or Grand Prix's.

Originally posted by Orious

The hero status should be a limited earned RANK or NPC only.

Which is more important: the sport of the game or the empowerment fantasy of the game?

Go out and become a hero. In real life. 

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by Orious

The hero status should be a limited earned RANK or NPC only.

Which is more important: the sport of the game or the empowerment fantasy of the game?

Empowerment/fantasy... for mmoRPGs. Sport of the game for FPS/Lobby games, which WoW actually fits into now, as a sports game mmorpg ha ha.

This however means different things for different people. I began playing mmos a long... long time ago even though I'm only 22.

For console games, they can keep doing what they are doing. I'm a big fan of Demon's Souls difficulty, but Metal Gear Solid/heavy rain story. Those things saturate the console field very well. MMORPGs, however, should be something else, in my opinion. Now, they focus on the console style single-player aspects more so than the fantasy world. I have a hard time believing a world like WoW's as I had a world like Lineage 2s. You needed friends in L2...lots of them to succeed. It had way more "worldly/massively cooperation" and the best could obtain the title of Hero and receive special perks.

People hated L2 because they didn't care about the other things it offered. People enjoy WoW mostly because there's little inconvenience. Quests vs grind? ...both are just as mindless as the other. Inconvenience can add to the fantasy and the world and make it more believable. I'm actually a pretty casual player, but I still feel this way.

That being said, there should be games that fit all preferences. There should be games that focus on the world/fantasy/ believability. There should be games that one can just jump in and have fun, without caring about some of the more artistic aspects of video game development. But no one should discriminate against the two. Some look for quality of fun and some look for quality of something else... and something else. There's always an niche that can be field. There's money to be made everywhere.

I did rat on WoW, but it actually fits a whole lot of niches at once. It deserves the number rating given on this site... which happens to be equal with L2s. 

*Sorry I derailed, but I just was answering a question*

You can /msg me if you want to respond to it.

very simple solution for heroes in MMO: let players make heroes among themselves. not everyone is fit for it. it's just fact of life. if player wants to be pampered, they should play single player games.

Originally posted by elistrange

Go out and become a hero. In real life. 

 

I try, but every time I kill someone, the cops show up before I can loot the corpse! 

Go attempt to motivate people.  In a motivational forum.