Brown, D. and Kryzywinska, T.: "Following in the footsteps of the fellowship".
The authors play Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), and discuss how the game "tolkienise" the MMORPG format, looking at the game as text. They go through the features of the game and show where the game is different from the books, and what this means to the player, starting with the first parts of book and game - either a map or a character creation screen. They point out the importance of the players' knowledge of the storyline from other media, and how maps, with the possibility to explore, comes as the player gains experience, as a reward for completing the first quests. The maps can be used during play, and change with the explorations by the player, which underlines the difference between the static paper maps of the books, and the flexible, dynamic game map, which actively invites and rewards player exploration.
Maps are important to the first part of the article, and the authors show how they are both referencing physical maps from paper or parchment, while being digital, dynamic and useful while exploring the game. They also underline the importance of the original map drawn by Tolkien for The Hobbit. This maps is also important in the movies. The authors use the maps to talk about the value of the hand made, and citing Tom Conley claim that maps both authenticate (through craft) and distance the viewer (through special effects.) The authors, however, find that players seek out the carefully crafted illusion of the game, and appreciate it's careful creative work as well done craftmanship, rather than a distancing middle man between player and somehow authentic real of the fantasy object.
Beautiful and distinct places makes traversing the game landscape bearable and even interesting, despite the predictable nature of quests. But the landscape and colour schemes also work to communicate theme, associations and meaning, from the summer innocence of hobbit and human lands, to the autumn sadness of the elven lands. This is an example of the geo-metaphor (pp 24), also mirrored in language (harsh sounding names), where colour and atmosphere is used to make the player uncomfortable.
In pg 26 the authors address a specific problem for MMORPGs made from epic tales. Not all players can be the main characters. They cite Jenkins talking about Star Wars, and the problem of every player wanting to be a Jedi. In LOTRO this is solved by letting the players explore the areas not explored in the books, and the quests function as tour guides. The epic quest chain moves players away from the familiar storyline. The characters from the original fellowship show up as NPCs and trainers of different classes, and allow the players to fight along side them or interact in specially designed quests. The author demonstrate a simple form of phasing that lets the game change gently through play, and point out that the game draws on the rich lore of Lord of the Rings to create a fictional space that leaves room for the players to fill in the story, whether they already know it or not.
In a discussion of how LOTRO renames player stats we see how the fiction merges with the play mechanic as players don't lose health, but hope, a further example of tolkienisation (pg 36). Other named spells, threats and supports adhere to the lore of the narrative universe. This is expressed through the fellowship play, where there is less emphasis on min/maxing damage, and more on staggered output with support and healing being as important as steady damage (pg 40).
LOTRO World map
Dynamic map Bree-Land.
National Geographic on maps.
Finding a map of Middle Earth with notes by Tolkien.
Majkowski, T. Z. : "Geralt of Poland: The Witcher 3 between epistemic disobedience and imperial nostalgia."
Epistemic - relating to knowledge.
Majkowski starts out with the kind of discussion which has become painfully familiar in gamer forums, the question of whether or not a game is racist. He quickly summarises the most commonly seen online discussions, where there are two groups stand against each other in a discussion concerning the political correctness of the game: Those who feel that a Polish "medieval" game should remain "true" to the ethnicity of the area, and those who feel that the moment there are dragons and magic in the game, "true" has left the building anyway. This article leaves both positions behind, and points out that there is definitely inherent racism and cultural appropriation in the game, but it is not the same as as we find in the Anglo-American debate of what racism is. The problem is not as much whitewashing as marginalisation in relation to an ideal European center of civilisation.
This is where Majkowski questions if the game design is an act of epistemic disobedience - a rejection of an English-language dominated discourse, where the nuances of a culture based in a different language sphere builds in a different knowledge and history. Disobedience because the designers created the game for a global marked, but the expressions of conflict are rooted in a very specific European history and center/periphery conflict.
Sapkowski, the author of the Witcher novels, created a European fantasy, not a slavic one, and this is visible in the stupidity and cruelty of the local people. Poland has been overrun and colonised repeatedly, and what might have existed of original culture and folklore is all but lost. This is expressed in The Witcher through the civilising influence of the outsider, The Witcher, and the contrast to the mediterrenean lands of the norse.
There is clearly racism in The Witcher, and we see it in the treatment of the non-human races. But the racism that connects to the real world history of Poland is expressed in the contrast between the superstition, cruelty and stupidity of local rulers and the enlightenment of the southern Europe or respectful, honourable co-existence of the northern Europe. At the same time the stories they draw on are part of a universe of folklore built as a reaction to centuries of imperialism, colonalisation and persecution, in a nationalist drive for nation building by the Polish Romantics around 1820.
In Majkowski's reading of the game, Geralt is the modernizer, and the people of Velen, despite their rich tradition and culture, need to be elevated. Geralt brings with him a disregard of social st
anding that is part of the French-inspired enlightenment. This allows the designers to fit the slavic culture into a world view that suits a western European and American market: one where the enlightened European champion of equality saves the people of Velen from themselves. This fits well with the game mechanics, where the protagonist can be the agent of modernity.