Willing Suspension of Disinterest
Jan. 15th, 2004 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechLast night I picked up Morrowind: Game of the Year Edition, which basically consisted of Morrowind and its two expansions all as one set. I figured that since I will soon (I hope) reach the end of Temple of Elemental Evil, it'd be good to do something a little more adventure-gamey, and a little less tactical-simulationey.
The selling point of Morrowind is its large scale immersiveness ... your custom-made character is dropped in town and you have the whole world to wander around and play in as you see fit. You can be brave and heroic, evil and devious, or scholarly and pacifistic, whatever floats your boat. There are plots to get involved in if you wish, but you don't have to. For that matter, you could walk from one end of the world to the other and never talk to anybody. (You'd probably have to fight off some monsters, but that's another story.)
It sounds really cool on paper, and on an intellectual level, it is. But after an evening of getting my bearings, I found myself reminded of the "U-View" from Mystery Science Theater 3000: a TV invented by the mad scientists that showed you what you would be out doing if you weren't at home watching TV.
(Frank: "Wow, I'm playing tennis with Christina Aguilera! She's giving me a great big kiss! My life is GREAT!")
After all the complaining I do about how I don't have time to write my own stories, do I really want to spend the precious few hours I do have wandering around in somebody else's fantasy world? Books, movies, heck even more convential CRPG's cut out the hours and hours of nonproductive time between scenes because, really, that time is wasted.
For that matter, do I want to bother spending the time needed for my barbarian to practice with his axe, when I could actually spend that time practicing real, live kung fu?
I dunno ... there was a time when I would have thought Morrowind was the bee's knees. Now, I'm not sure that my time isn't more precious.
-The Gneech
The selling point of Morrowind is its large scale immersiveness ... your custom-made character is dropped in town and you have the whole world to wander around and play in as you see fit. You can be brave and heroic, evil and devious, or scholarly and pacifistic, whatever floats your boat. There are plots to get involved in if you wish, but you don't have to. For that matter, you could walk from one end of the world to the other and never talk to anybody. (You'd probably have to fight off some monsters, but that's another story.)
It sounds really cool on paper, and on an intellectual level, it is. But after an evening of getting my bearings, I found myself reminded of the "U-View" from Mystery Science Theater 3000: a TV invented by the mad scientists that showed you what you would be out doing if you weren't at home watching TV.
(Frank: "Wow, I'm playing tennis with Christina Aguilera! She's giving me a great big kiss! My life is GREAT!")
After all the complaining I do about how I don't have time to write my own stories, do I really want to spend the precious few hours I do have wandering around in somebody else's fantasy world? Books, movies, heck even more convential CRPG's cut out the hours and hours of nonproductive time between scenes because, really, that time is wasted.
For that matter, do I want to bother spending the time needed for my barbarian to practice with his axe, when I could actually spend that time practicing real, live kung fu?
I dunno ... there was a time when I would have thought Morrowind was the bee's knees. Now, I'm not sure that my time isn't more precious.
-The Gneech
