As a family, we play games. Some of them we play together and some we play as individuals. We play games on our computers, our phones, our tablets, our TV and on our table. My wife and I have been gamers since we were kids and it was one of the things that has been a constant in our relationship right from the start. Because of this our son has been introduced to games from a very young age as well, both tabletop and digital varieties.
I'd been playing GuildWars 2 for almost 12 months when Warhammer: Age of Reckoning announced it was closing down. My wife (along with her mother and grandmother) then needed something else to play. Given I was already in GW2 and it has a good population density along with plenty of PvE and PvP options they decided to come across. We also purchased a copy for our son - he'd spent the last couple of years playing DDO and LOTRO with me and we thought it would be nice for him to be able to play with all of us - and it's been great!
He's picked it up like a duck takes to water (which is no surprise), and he's switched from using the arrow keys to WASD which has even given his grandmother the impetus to switch that that as well. He's learned his class (he's playing a Ranger as his main - just like daddy) and he does very well with it. He can quite happily wander around the world, doing quests, participating in world events and finding the vista's and skill challenges dotted around the place. We also introduced him to the "story quests" that begin when you first create your character and continue through until you reach the level cap.
Jump forward to a few weeks ago. It's a Saturday afternoon and we are all playing, the boy and I have been grouped up for a bit to do some events and then he goes off to do his story quests while I go and do some crafting. He's up to the level 71 quest (Liberating Apatia), so he travels to Mount Maelstrom to help rescue an NPC that you group up with a few times in previous quests. Unfortunately the rescue doesn't quite go as planned as Apatia has been corrupted by the evil you are fighting and instead you have to release her from her suffering (at the end of your blade). Once done you then go back to her home town and proclaim the legend of Crusader Apatia.
We didn't realise the impact these actions had until later that night.
My wife and I were sitting watching some TV when we realised we could hear someone crying. We went into the boys room and there he was, sitting up on his bed, tears streaming down his face. We calmed him down and asked him what was wrong. It took a while but he was finally able to tell us that he hadn't wanted to kill Apatia, he wanted to save her but he couldn't. As you can imagine this tugged on the heartstrings in a major way. We had a long discussion about the game and the decisions that they have to make to tell the story. We also decided that it would be a good idea to for him to have a break from GW2 for a little while.
This also got me to thinking about the nature of narrative in games, be it single player or multi-player games, and the impact that it can have on the player. One of the best examples of this in my opinion would be Bioware's Mass Effect series. The decisions you make through that game have a direct and long lasting impact not only on the characters but also on the world. This goes some way to explain the furor at the end of the ME3. Players invest very heavily in their character and the stories they create with it. We are more aware of it in single player games but it's there, just below the surface in MMO's as well. The attachment people feel to their characters in things like WoW, Everquest or even DAoC is there. These characters have evolved over years in most cases and while people won't talk about it, they care about them deeply - keeping folders of screenshots, writing fan fiction about their exploits or commissioning artists to create artworks depicting them.
Bioware was also at the forefront of making the narrative an integral part of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I played this when it first came out and while there were teething issues (like pretty much any MMO release) the narrative structure was there and worked I feel, very well. This brings us to GW2 and the way the developers have created an engaging story through their "Living World" content and the story quests. The Living World concept is not new, but the extent to what GW2 has gone is. Whole content arcs built around a developing story that keeps players engaged rather than an annual expansion pack that gets players back for a few months until they have completed the new content is, in my view, the way forward.
I have no doubt that in the future, we will see more and more games that have deep and engaging narratives that are just as important if not more so than the combat mechanics or flashy graphics. And when developers get all these things together, that's when the magic really happens.
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