Ahaha, yes, I know, I am greeting myself in the 3rd person, but, yes, hullo again to you too.
I has been a while hasn’t it kids! I know I was meaning to come back with some work from my film studies, but production has not yet kick started (it will… very very soon! in fact… in about 11 days, how exciting!).
Anyways, what prompted me to come back here… hrm… let’s see… two corresponding and equally inevitably colliding reasons:
1. My thesis on MMORPG structures (yes, coming from a closet WoW nerd, it seemed more that likely I was going to one of them kind of academics)
2. The impending release of Final Fantasy XIV, the spiritual successor to the first MMORPG that I ever played and loved/hated (you never truly love an MMORPG, it’s always a self-defeating relationship).
So, firstly, to start my first serious posting of 2010, I would just like to say, Sen. Stephen Conroy, for once in your puny little life, I applaud your insistence on a National Broadband Network with or without Telstra (who will fail if don’t join the scheme for it seems likely they will be unable to compete with it in a marketplace. Sounds like socialism? Who cares! It’s good for you, me and the rest of Australia). I will be interested to read the $25 million report they faffed on about it.
No, seriously, to start with, while I am much more knowledgeable about social structures, particularly theoretical meritocracy, and the ins and outs of MMORPG’s, that doesn’t necessarily mean I have organised them into a coherent format. So, to blab on about the first, I am currently at the stage where I can finally start contemplating my first serious chapter to ease me into full on argumation mode: MMORPG’s a history!
Currently, I have a half completed introduction and a mostly completed review of existing literature. Here’s something I would like an input on, oh scrawny singular reader of this blog, most likely to be myself. Is the social structure, ideology, concept, whatever you want to classify it as, of meritocracy analogous to the learning and progression system, and consequently forming society within the current generation of MMORPG’s (I am talking the 3rd generation here: post Everquest II and World of Warcraft), and, if it is, is that a bad thing?
I suppose before you can even answer that, you might need a small explanation as to what meritocracy is. Well, for those of you asking, meritocracy is a society based on a definable and scarce metric of some human competency, for example, IQ. As resources defined by are current technology is finite, academics have been forever contemplating a way to distribute these resources in an ethically and morally sound way (keep in mind ethics and morals and wholly human constructions and, as such, open slather to interpretation), and that is where this idea of merit comes in, as well as the argument of whether allocation of resources should be decided by being a “supportive” society or “opportunistic” society. Seems a rather convoluted concept, right? And yet, I believe no-one, at least no-one in western society would argue against its basic premise.
We all have a right to an opportunity to excel
Again, this is highly open to interpretation, although I won’t go into it (I tried it once in a 40 minute presentation and it didn’t work… I’ll keep telling myself: at least I know what’s going on)
So, now that you have an idea of what meritocracy may be, what say you?
If you can justify it all the better (saves me work, heh). Either way, I’ll be back towards the end of the year with my definitive answer.
Anyway, apart from the fact that my love of MMORPG’s was “birthed” by FFXI, FFXIV interests me in an entirely new way, and, for that reason, if I don’t get a beta key, I’ll stab someone for it (evil grin). But, in all seriousness, it is the first in the 3rd generation of MMORPG’s, or, considering the gap between the last AAA grade MMORPG was developed, possibly one of the first of the 4th generation of MMORPGs, that has implemented a skill system. A system that, while still provides progression (without progression and scarcity of it, there would be no motivation to play), does not provide an explicit way to rationalize inequality. And, I will be extremely interested if this turns into a solution for the current woes for most MMORPGs of short-lived”ness”.
Also, this will be, hopefully, an oppurtunity to experience and investigate, as an anthropological participant observer, an MMORPG from it’s commercial birth.
Dear god, santa, the tooth fairy, whatever deity you can think of, please let me have a Beta Key!
Till next time: Chum signing out
Follow-up: well it turns out, SE had the stupidity to hand me a beta key! I’m currently in London but as soon as I get back, first impressions are on the way!!!
