A moment of WoW stuff. Avert your eyes, if you dont care about the kind of stories we tell with video games. Though I would suggest that you should care. Theres this moment before the seventh boss in the current raid content, Siege of Orgrimmar, thats really pretty heartrending. To tell it properly, I have to go back to the start of the current expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Bear with me. In Mists, Blizzard added a new race, the Pandaren. They are quite literally giant panda people. For the first time, this race is available to both factions. I thought that was a nice touch, partly because Ive never been comfortable with the whole all orcs are bad, all humans are good, all elves are mysterious sort of stereotyping that goes on in fantasy games. So if you decide to play a panda, you start in their home territory (an island on the back of a giant turtle) and adventure there for the first ten levels. You meet two NPCs as you go along, Aysa Cloudsinger and Ji Firepaw. Jis in love with Aysa but is too shy to broach that subject. Together the three of you are trying to figure out whats wrong with the turtle and save your home island. Ji and Aysa have different ways of going about solving problems, which causes a little strife between them, but for the most part theyre each just trying to do whats best. You also meet the two factions in WoW, members of whom have washed ashore on your turtle-world. Of course, their presence is at the root of the problem youre trying to solve, which is a theme for the entire expansion. At the end of the turtle story, you have to pick which faction youll go to. Aysa chooses the Alliance, and Ji goes to the Horde. Their separation at that point is a little heartbreaking, because theres this mutual attraction that is torn apart by little differences, and the separation is further reinforced by the built in animosity between the factions theyve chosen. Whichever side you choose, you go with the appropriate NPC to that factions capital, and experience a little bit of seeing your chosen faction through the eyes of this neutral party, kind of for the first time. Theres some foreshadowing of how things will go with the rest of the expansion. Anyway. Here we are at the end of the expansion. Things have gone bad in the Horde (my faction of choice since I started playing) and its been decided that the Warchief has to be overthrown. Horde rebels join with the Alliance to siege the Horde capital of Orgrimmar. After a couple fights you breach the gate and fight your way inside. And of course, Aysa is with you, and Ji has been captured and tortured by the Warchieft. And theres this scene of their reunion which is absolutely heartbreaking. And while youre clearing trash and prepping for the next fight, Aysa cries over Jis nearly dead body, promising that they can go back to the turtle and be together now, and then she carries him out of Orgrimmar, begging him not to die. There are little moments like that throughout the game, narratives that are dropped in and often missed. And it has taken over a year of game time to tell the whole story, time that youve spent actively working through the plot lines, seeing the damage we wreak in Pandaria, seeing the eventual result of our presence, and then trying to fix what weve done wrong and only making things worse. And all that time, the lives of the characters around us go on, go through tragedies, pick up the pieces of the wreckage and carry on. I dont know, man. Its some beautiful stuff. Dont tell me games arent art. If you dont see the art, youre just not looking.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 15:17:05 +0000
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