This chapter felt like a repeat of chapter 2’s discussion on social interaction. Maybe not a repeat, so much as it could have been placed in or after that chapter as reinforcement. Also a lot of the anecdotal information seemed pretty unique to the players described. Words With Friends (WWF) was pretty popular for all of 2 months, sort of like the first phase of Pokemon GO. I personally didn’t play with people I hadn’t seen or heard from in a while, but with people I conversed with everyday. WWF was peripheral to social interaction, but this chapter made it seem like a marvelous tool at first. My friends would not gauge the moods of other players based on words used, but simply exchange expletive colloquial banter with one another after a play.
Some of the game choices seemed romanticized by Isbister’s or a referenced journalist’s experience. Journey was truly an emotion driven game. The solitude of traversing the landscapes with this visage of an avatar was art that even non-gamers could appreciate. Heck, reading this book in my office, a coworker asked where the cover art was from.
“It looks like an ancient painting.”
A quote that I took to heart was “In literally no MMO I’ve ever played have I felt that need, but in Journey that sense of camaraderie. It’s deeply affecting.” Kain, Journey Review.
I kind of mocked a lot of the references this book has made, from the Love Plus, to the Kotaku articles. This writer in particular struck me with a bit of ire though. It sounds like he’s only played one or two MMOs for a short period of time at that. Isbister notes that internet connected video games are able to make a sort of Summer Camp community for players. The MMO communities differ vastly from game to game. If Journey can be compared to an MMO, then so can Demon’s Souls, alone in a world where literally everything tries to kill you, the signs of other ‘phantoms,’ are welcome lights in the darkness… if you’re even able to see them.
*****This next section(rant) goes well beyond 400 words:*******
For a more refined MMO, the first Square-Enix online title: Final Fantasy XI (FFXI) ran before World of Warcraft (the unofficial MMO benchmark) was in its prime, and was one of the only comparable competitors along side the Everquest series. World of Warcraft (WoW) and Everquest (EQ) feature similar game mechanics to the point that newer MMOs were considered copies of either. Quests gave experience, levels were defined, and missions start where NPCs have big yellow “!” or “?”. FFXI was totally different, from either. It was based in Japan, where the communities were more tightly woven. Quest gave no experience points, gil, nor any indication of begin, middle, and end. Players would have to pay attention to the quest giver’s dialog, and possibly decipher where they would find what item or event they need to complete the quest. This is where a lot of the community driven information sites came in. I may have heard of Allakhazam before I heard of Wikipedia. More experienced people would share what they knew about quest lines in order to help newer players. There was even a Mentor System that players could wear next to their avatar’s name.
For leveling, players would have from Lv.1 ~ 12 to learn their Jobs alone, and they could switch at any time they found a Moogle. After Lv. 12, monsters would be too difficult to fight solo, so hunting parties were a necessity. Anyone who played FFXI, can give a look of dread if you mention the Valkurm Dunes( Lv. 12~19) or Qufim Island (Lv. 19~25), the lower level party spots. These areas in themselves required a half hour or more of journeying out of the starting areas, and a whole lot of patience to avoid aggressive monsters. The resurrection spell “Raise” was not learned until Lv. 25, so dying there was a real struggle. Unlike WoW or EQ, there was no feasible way of leveling solo past these zones for most jobs except for Red Mages and Beast Masters.
When players got to the max experience of Lv. 50, they aren’t greeted by the usually fan fare of leveling up to Lv. 51. Instead they have to find the trainer NPC “Maat.” This spry old man has apparently trained in every job according to the lore. He gives players a series of quests in order to lift the level caps (50, 55, 60, 65, 70). These quests were the first test of end game content, as normal groups of 6 wouldn’t be able to fight nor traverse the dungeons where quest items laid. Each quest to break the level caps had motivational titles as rewards for the metaphorical climb; “Horizon Breaker,” “Summit Breaker,” “Sky…” “Cloud…”
The Lv. 70 Cap was different. This quest allowed players to group farm specific job testimonies, from monsters with equivalent powers to those jobs. The real test was a fight with Maat himself, one on one. Up until that point this game had forced players to form groups for literally everything. This fight strips players of any assistance as well as abilities from sub-jobs, which were essential to the meta gameplay mechanics for partying. Normal monsters of jobs would have one or two spells, but this fight took all of the attributes and abilities of the players current job level. The players literally fought a primed-mechanic computer version of themselves. For almost a decade, this was the final test for players if they wanted to continue unto the end game content areas with a reasonable degree of safety. If they failed, they were sent to farm another testimony, and told to train harder. If they succeeded they received the apt title of “Star Breaker,” and they were able to join the raids in places like the (literal climb to the) “Sky region of Tu’Lia,” to fight game-lore angels (modeled after players with multiple classes) and gods (modeled after Japanese deities).
To me, this was a drastically more affecting ‘Journey.’ Journey would have been the equivalent of a necessary quest line in this game. Raid groups and end game content held people’s interest for years, while Journey has fallen to the wayside of academia. The replay ability of Journey feels skew to the anonymity of your partners. You can meet someone and have this awesome adventure, but why put yourself through that when you know you’ll never be able to distinguish them in the event of a disconnection? Sure the similar mentality to a Mentor, Power-leveler, or generally good-Samaritan can lead to a white robed visage aiding a new player, but it’s not like they are going to go out for coffee or beers with this person later. Friends, can only really help one another if they are over the player’s shoulder coaching them. As cynical as it sounds, the social aspect is flawed, to be seen as more of a social experiment. Academics studying video games, such as the EXTRA CREDITS group, can use this game for random unbiased data for human interaction. Demon’s Souls too had this issue of loose social interactions, through the weak soul-messages and blood stains of ‘last moments.’ While Journey never got a sequel, the Souls series has evolved up to “Dark Souls 3” where, given conditions, players are more easily accessible to ‘phantoms’ they know. When a big aspect of these games is said to be social dynamics, the player base will favor the games with the given choice of partners they can trust.