[MUD-Dev] RPGPlanet article: The Evils of Character Progression

[Raph Koster]

Found at http://www.rpgplanet.com/content/voice/characterprogression_a.shtml

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The Evils of Character Progression in Online RPGs
- by "Great Hierophant" <mailto:feedback at rpgplanet.com> (5/21/00)

When we consider role-playing games, one of the first things that come to
mind is character advancement. Advancement is crucial in a game with a story
that has a beginning and an end. Like any good story, a RPG must show that
the PCs have grown through trials and perils. The developers of RPGs do this
in two ways. The first way is through demonstrating character changes. As a
result of his experiences, a character can change his outlook on life, his
attitude towards his friends, and gain wisdom through suffering and loss.
These changes are primarily shown through dialogue and cutscenes, especially
in RPGs with fixed character progressions. In these types of games, such as
all Final Fantasy games, a character's advancement is fixed. He will
progress as he goes through the game. The element of choice is not there. In
other types of RPGs, like most Ultimas, a character is given more latitude,
but eventually he must travel down a specific moral and attitudinal path in
order to complete the game.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have massively multiplayer, online
role-playing games, where this side of character progression is controlled
almost entirely by the player. He dictates his own attitudinal choices,
although his role-playing style is influenced by the rules and prohibitions
of the game. The story in an online RPG is of his own making, and there are
few set paths to follow. Everyone who plays an online RPG experiences
character progression, because everyone "starts out as a newbie." To make
this point clear, I will illustrate. An Ultima Online player has many
choices when he begins his online experience. He could make his character
begin as a lowly tradesman, building up his characters to become warriors.
He could either test his mettle in dungeons against monsters, or (until
recently) become a player killer, destroying other players with glee. In
EverQuest, the options are limited to being a fighter type, a magic user
type, or a combination of the two. His character choices are set down, and
they will dictate his playing style to a great extent. In character
progression, good and evil are relative, and whether a character becomes a
paragon of virtue or a treacherous cretin is less important that the fact
that the advancement has taken place.

Character progression is a complex phenomenon, being affected by many
different variables. By far the most common variables among role-playing
games are items and money; skills, statistics, and levels; relative power
and influence. I feel that these are the most invidious of variables that
affect character progression. Their relative importance to actual
in-character role-playing cannot be overestimated. The desire to increase
the quantity and quality of each leads to an ever increasing spiral of greed
and obsession. The near obscene importance attached to these three criteria
of character progression and worth by many, if not most players, can lead to
an unhealthy addiction to a game. It is obvious that I am criticizing the
most talked about facets of online RPGs. It is ironic that players'
fixations with improving their characters through increasing their
characters attributes and abilities cause them so much consternation,
considering that increasing the above is essentially an empty exercise. I
will now discuss the problems of each of the three "evils" listed above
individually, often drawing on parallels with reality, which are illustrated
by the concentration on these criteria.

As in the normal world, a person's worth is often measured by his property
and his goods. In the online world, a character can easily be pigeonholed by
what he does and does not own. In Ultima Online, the owner of a castle is a
person to be respected and admired, even though it could be that the only
thing to admire is his bank account. Such a person can more easily attract
guildmembers to his banner than can a needy player struggling to get people
to cooperate when hunting monsters. Property leads to instant recognition,
even though the owner may be pompous, arrogant, or supercilious. Even though
there is not the problem of housing on EverQuest or Asheron's Call, items
make the man or woman. Having the appropriate magical items becomes
increasingly necessary to compete as characters level up. Having items and
gold above the norm can bring about a similar, if somewhat lesser level of
instant respect as the castle owner of Ultima. This is only how other people
view characters with a great deal of property, the question of how players
see their characters worth in property is next on the agenda.

As part of the undesirable triumvirate with statistics and levels, item
accumulation plays a very important role in the player's vision for his
character. This can lead to several unfortunate results, from causing
reckless greed and dying from it, to spending unnecessary time hunting
monsters and players, which becomes tedious very quickly. As in the offline
world, this lust for wealth and worth can lead to strained relations with
other players, inappropriate budgeting, time wasted accumulating the
necessary wealth, and dissatisfaction with the newly acquired property. The
extreme example of online greed adversely affecting a person's real life
lies in the online auction phenomenon. This I call eBay development, where
it is easier for the obsessed player to gain virtual items and wealth
through sacrificing real dollars rather than taking the time to acquire it
online. It is also common for accounts to be auctioned, saving players from
having to build up their characters (see below). Neither alternative of eBay
development is particularly desirable, as the money wasted could go to
buying games that place less demand on item accumulation and the time wasted
could go to more enriching activities [ed. the EverQuest licensing agreement
now strictly forbids such auctioning]. In real life, it is said by spiritual
and religious believers that it is an empty and hollow man that goes through
his life solely accumulating wealth. Although I am not necessarily convinced
of the applicability of this long held religious principle in substantive
world, I believe that it is fairly close to truth in online RPGs.

Depending on the game, skills and statistics vary in importance. In Ultima
Online, they form the basis of tangible character advancement, while in
EverQuest, levels are the more important measure of a character's potency.
What does not vary, is the supposed importance attached to these variables.
A level 50 character in EverQuest is supposed to be respected, both for the
accomplishment and for the "greatness" of the character. This seems to be
more powerful when dealing with stranger, especially lower level strangers,
who don't know how the player actually achieved this. There are several
possible explanations that could lessen the high level character and the
player in the eyes of his fellow human beings. He could have bought his
character online on eBay. Perhaps he simply set a macro program to rapidly
increase his skills, which was more common on Ultima Online until recently.
Many people raise their characters quickly by exploiting game bugs or
through programs that give them an illegal advantage. Still others play the
game compulsively for hours on end, driving out almost every other type of
activity. There are labels for these types of players, respectively: idiot,
macroer, cheater, and loser.

There is another symptom of the dominance of skills and levels in online
RPGs, that of the power gamer. This is the type of person, who does not
attempt to role play, but makes his experience dependent both on his
statistics and items and other characters' statistics and items. These type
of people would be more at home playing Quake III or Unreal Tournament, but
do not have the skills to compete at either. To these people, the "r" in RPG
stands for "roll" rather than "role". Although the power gamer enters the
game with his priorities on items and levels, the unfortunate aspect is that
other players quickly learn that playing in this type of fashion is the only
way to get any value from the online experience. If they do not play with
their eyes constantly on the inventory or the statistics screen, they will
quickly be lost in the teeming hordes. They will ask themselves what they
are doing wrong as they fail to keep up with other characters, played by
power gamers. Any attempt to role play will be immediately drowned out by
inquiries and discussions about items or statistics. The first and most
important part of character progression, developing and refining a virtual
personality, is neglected in favor of leveling up and accruing wealth. The
value of leveling is rather low in my estimation, as the time invested in
gaining the levels, whether it be fighting similar but ever more dangerous
monsters and or repeating the same tasks over and over for hours does not
seem all that interesting, exciting, or even fun. Suggestions for more
enriching activities are many, while similarly tedious tasks are ordinarily
avoided by most people.

Our third and final undesirable evil of online gaming concerns power and
influence. It is obvious that "weak" players cannot command the respect of
potential guildmembers, and are usually unwanted by most guilds anyways,
unless they know someone in that guild or have another powerful character.
He may be able to compellingly role play his character, which would make him
interesting and valuable to other people, but he has no place in the
group-oriented online RPGs. He is forced to adventure without the support of
good friends until he can get himself to a "proven" level. A higher level
character is not automatically guaranteed to be a good leader, either for a
guild or for a monster hunt. Such a player could be selfish, trying to take
more for himself and his friends than for others. He could a be coward,
preferring to run rather than to help his comrades when the hunt becomes
dangerous. The cowardly impulse is heavily encouraged in both games, as a
high level EverQuest character can lose much of his good work through death,
while an Ultima character loses all his items and some fame when he dies. He
is also stuck as a ghost, dependent on strangers' charity to get him back
into the game properly. It is also possible that while he can command
himself through a fight or through a hunt, he cannot command others
effectively. Although it becomes more unlikely as characters level up (they
have more to lose), the leader could be reckless and bring them to disaster.

Leveling up with great magical items does not give the great increases in
individual power that the player expects. The monsters become exponentially
more powerful at very high levels, especially in EverQuest, requiring
greater and greater amounts of teamwork to defeat. A player with a level 50
character will have little to do if no one will adventure with him. The
monsters are also rare and spawn in a single spot, leading to the laughable
situation of crowds of guildmembers waiting for hours for one monster to
show up. In Ultima Online, the greatest supposed mark of influence for
either a player or a guild is to possess a tower or a castle. These and
other housings are questionable badges of honor as they are only used as
trading posts, storage facilities, meeting places, and for bragging rights.
Given the potential of housing for role playing, the fact that housing is
only given a mundane role is an indictment of the concept in online RPGs. It
is clear that reputation and power are based upon inappropriate values in
online RPGs, and that the true role player, whom should most likely be given
the respect and influence he deserves, is wasted on faceless high level
characters and the power gamers who play them.

It is clear that online RPGs suffer from the unnecessary effects of the
unholy three: acquiring items and wealth; overdeveloping character's skills;
statistics and levels. These have an inappropriate influence on a player's
power and influence. This style of playing, power gaming, has little place
in the true role player's gaming style. He realizes that this will lead down
an unpleasant road, tedious and draining, ending in an empty experience. If
he plays these types of games, he plays them on his own terms, dictating to
the game and the other players rather than having everyone and everything
else dictate to him. The true role player neglects this in favor of the
better aspect of character progression, developing alternate online
personalities. He seeks to refine his character by seeing that character's
worth as part of himself, and this satisfies him a hundred times more than
the power gamer who sees satisfaction in terms of gold or levels. The true
role player uses the online RPG to meet new people and to enrich his life by
working with other people in an alternative identity, exploring new meanings
of freedom, friendship, and excitement in the process. It remains to be seen
if these types of games can offer a true role player the forum necessary to
develop his characters, or whether these games are so fatally flawed in this
direction that he must wait for a stronger game to nuture his needs. This
will be judged in a future article.

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