Within “Blood Scythes, Festivals, Quests and Backstories”, Tanya Kryzwinska outlines the function of traditional myth in immersing players in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft. “The primary and highly recognizable mythic pattern that informs and structures” WoW, according to Kryzwinska, is the “epic hero quest format, wherein various forces work to help and hinder the hero-player on route to achieving particular goals” (Kryzwinska 386). Citing the work of Joseph Campbell, Kryzwinska goes on to note that the hero quest is something “that figures strongly in the collective consciousness,” providing a “shorthand way of setting expectations and a proven mode for encouraging identification” (Kryzwinska 386). By undertaking quests a player is imbibed with a sense that he or she is playing a role in the story of the game world, thus further promoting identification with the virtual representation of their character.
Growing up playing video games I always more readily identified with characters on the darker side of the hero quest continuum. For example, the first time I picked up Final Fantasy for the NES I played exclusively as a band of four thieves, later realizing that within the structure of the game this made it incredibly hard to be successful. Given that thieves lacked any single ability that came in handy (save for being very adept at running away from conflict), I quickly found that while my party was good for getting around within the game world, they weren’t necessarily as useful when fighting dragons and the like – which was unfortunate, as the completion of these quests was the fundamental goal of the game.
As a result I often found myself working against the rules of the game in an attempt to find loopholes to advance my party, as the conventional approach (level up, buy the right weapons, take on quests directly) didn’t work given the limitations of my characters. Ultimately I grew irritated with the entire endeavour (as the limited number of outcomes the 8-bit game world afforded essentially made it impossible to subvert the system), and was forced to abandon my futile pursuit of glory and restart the game with a cast of characters who more directly adhered to the conventional tenets of heroism.
When creating my World of Warcraft character nearly twenty years later I once again found myself gravitating towards a character on the shadier side of adventuring. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Swindlor the Cowardly was transplanted into Drak’thul and immediately set to work weaselling about with great aplomb. What I quickly noticed was that WoW’s gameplay and the realm of Drak’thul were far more conducive to a nomadic, disreputable existence than some of the titles I had played growing up – which at first was something I embraced wholeheartedly. Battles were fled from, other players’ winnings were stolen, and more than a few arrogant words were dispensed over a fleeing shoulder. This increased freedom came with a price however, as with countless other players freed of the constraints of “heroic” behaviour I quickly became a target. Countless times over the first few days of playing WoW I was challenged to ill-advised duels and chased across the land – sometimes for violating the norms of gameplay, but more often just because my character was relatively weak and thus easy pickings for other morally-compromised characters.
At this point I once again found myself wondering if I might not have a more enjoyable experience if I did choose to tap into a more traditional mythic structure and play the game as a hero. By choosing to play as a villain, I was immediately forced to step into an antagonistic relationship with a multitude of players who had a great deal more experience (and thus power) than I did, and my ability to effectively learn the rules of the game was stunted. Ultimately this approach resulted in my experiencing a very limited view of the mythological structure of the game, primarily because the myth of Swindlor the Cowardly was one of cowardice and victimhood. While providing an interesting study in digital first impressions and the manner in which norms are enforced in a MMORPG, my initial experience with WoW was hardly the sort of immersive one that a player could expect from a more traditional interaction with the rules of the game – primarily because I spent more time in the graveyard racking up my resurrection tab than accomplishing anything of note within the game world.
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