Tuesday's Takes:
Love Makes the
Virtual World Go 'Round
By Mercurie
"Love makes the world go round," as the old saying goes. Indeed,
love has been the subject of countless plays (Romeo and Juliet, by William
Shakespeare, for example), books (Wuthering Heights, by Charlotte Bronte),
and movies (Casablanca). And, contrary to the belief of some that love
was invented by courtly poets in the Middle Ages, it seems to have been
around as long as humans walked the face of the Earth. In fact, one of
the oldest poems in the English language is a love poem, "The Husband's
Message", one of the few surviving poems from the Anglo-Saxon period.
For examples of love poems and songs, we can look even further back, to
ancient Greece and even ancient Egypt. Humans have apparently been falling
in love, well, as long as there has been humanity.
Should it be any wonder,
then, that love should play a part in MMORPGs? It seems that in addition
to slaying monsters and seeking treasure, people enjoy role-playing romance.
Indeed, I have a friend whose Everquest character was involved in a long-running
relationship with another character. She even went as far as deciding
that one of her other, "younger" characters was their daughter!
It seems to me that this is nothing unusual. While she is, in fact, my
only gamer friend who role-played a romance in EQ, I know from other gamer
friends that this is not an unusual occurrence. Of course, I also understand
from these same friends that many of the female characters are played
by men. I would think that this fact could put the kibosh on any idea
most straight guys might have of role playing love affairs with another
character in a game. (At least until they knew the real life gender of
their potential partnerÂ…)
Of course, where there
is love, there are bound to be weddings. Friends have told me about the
weddings held in Everquest. I don't know how true this is, but apparently
the GMs would even be available to act as ministers in order to marry
characters in the game. I have heard tell that the weddings were sometimes
lavish affairs at that. Indeed, some people seem to have planned more
for their weddings in the game than they did their weddings in real life!
I understand that officially there are no weddings in EverQuest 2, although
that doesn't stop characters from marrying each other. At any rate, weddings
in EQ and EQ2 seem to be popular enough that there is even a web site
for wedding scripts <a href="http://www.expage.com/weddingscripts">EQ
Weddings</a>!
So far, I have just
talked about role-playing romance in MMORPGs, instances in which two friends
just decide their characters are in love. Another phenomenon is when the
real thing springs up between two players. Really, this should not have
been unexpected. Where large numbers of people interact, a few of them
are bound to fall in love. There have been people who have met the soul
mates in one MMORPG or another. Quite naturally, when this occurs, their
characters will often be in love as well. As a result, there have been
instances in which people have held weddings in their MMORPG of choice,
to coincide with their weddings in real life.
I rather suspect that
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will not be different from any other MMORPG when
it comes to love. People will role-play love affairs between characters.
Players will fall in love with other players whom they meet in the game.
And I rather suspect that there will be weddings in the game (there probably
have been in the Beta, for all I know). As an old Latin proverb says,
"Love cannot be commanded."
As to whether love
has a place in MMORPGs, my own thought is that it does. MMORPGs are essentially
free form dramas which the developers and players create and expand together.
If, like other dramas, they seek to mimic that which is found in real
life in some small degree, then love must be a part of MMORPGs. Quite
simply, two players playing out a romance between their characters is
little different from the person who enjoys watching When Harry Met Sally
or reading Wuthering Heights. As far as players falling in love with each
other, well, there is nothing any of us could do about that, even if we
disapproved: the course of true love simply will not be hindered. For
better or worse, just as love is a natural part of the human condition,
it seems to be a natural part of MMORPGs as well.
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