Player freedom vs. story in games

This is a rant that I have been thinking about for the last week or so. I have avoided writing it earlier because all my thoughts about the subject seemed disconnected and not really going anywhere. That would end up leading more to confusion to any reader than really giving some food for thought. I think I may have found a good way to flesh out the subject enough to achieve my goal though but we’ll see.

Let me warn right now that this is will be a very big rant, with most of it probably not making much of a sense. Hopefully it will still be an interesting read to someone out there. If not, let me know in the comments and I will strive to do better next time.

Oh, yeah. If someone found  this because they googled Deus Ex: Human Revolution, sorry to disappoint but there is only a mention of the game by the end of this long rant. Still stick around for a bit and see if there is anything in this blog that you like. 🙂

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What if gnomes were like elves…

This is a sort of follow-up post to the previous one. You see, someone in the The Perfect 10: Why Elves are the Scourge of MMORPGs article commented that we don’t need games with more elves. Instead we need a game with more gnomes. Kinda like the multitude of different elven races we often see in fantasy worlds.

That got me thinking about how that would work out…. Follow after the jump to see what it could be if there were a dozen gnome races in a fantasy world!

Disclaimer: I do not hate gnomes. In fact I find them quite funny and their inventions useful. Well, useful until it blows up that is. The only reason I am doing it with gnomes instead of another race like… say, orcs, is because it is easy. Which also goes to show another good point of them: flexibility. If I get crazy enough though I can try doing it with other fantasy races. :p

EDIT: Ops! Forgot one of the gnome variants. It was added now.

Read moreWhat if gnomes were like elves…

Public Service Announcement: The Elf Threat

Most people who have played MMORPGs with me are well aware of my hatred towards elves. I rarely, if ever, explained much about it though, making it look like it was just prejudice against an innocent fantasy race. In fact I have very valid reasons for it.

Being the lazy bastard pragmatic guy I am, I will just point you to Justin Olivetti at Massively who expertly wrote all the reasons of why elves are such a dangerous plague to the fantasy landscape:

The Perfect 10: Why Elves are the Scourge of MMORPGs

Hopefully his article can make more people aware of the threat posed by those pointy eared freaks to everything that is good about fantasy. Or at least why they are so annoying.

Just one small note though. Do not lump the half-elves together with the elves. If anything they are as much victims of those tree-huggers as the rest of us are.

In a more serious note, I have been having some technical issues in the last few days. More fleshed out posts will resume as soon as possible.