fears
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Storyboard: What are you scared of?
I've made it pretty far into October without a single article that could be seen as remotely Halloween-themed, so I think I'm doing pretty well right here. But that's changing right now because it's time to talk about another topic that I thought I'd covered long before: fear. Unfortunately, fear is also difficult to address in a logical fashion. Fear itself isn't logical. From a logical standpoint, there is nothing serious that a spider can do to me. I'm thousands of times larger (no fat jokes please) and have access to a variety of tools; it just has eight legs and poison that's generally harmless to me. That doesn't mean I'm not scared of them, despite the fact that logic dictates that I should be more scared of seeing a bear in the woods. So I'm not going to talk about that. What I will talk about is giving your characters fears that feel real, making sure that you're afraid of things that work, and portraying those fears in a consistent way. After all, even if fear isn't logical, it certainly is understandable with a bit of effort.
The Daily Grind: Do MMOs play upon your real-world fears?
There's a friend of mine who suffers from extreme acrophobia -- the fear of heights. It's so bad, in fact, that she experiences anxiety attacks if she gets too far from the ground or goes flying in an MMO. This phobia's kept her away from certain zones in games if these areas utilize a lot of high-up places. I know of other people who experience a terribly common fear -- arachnophobia -- and struggle with the appearance of giant spiders in MMOs. You know, the critters that practically every online RPG is required to include by law. I've even heard of cases where Hunters in World of Warcraft chose spider pets to gain an edge in PvP, if they so happened to be fighting an opponent with that particular fear. It's a strange question, but here it is nonetheless: Do MMOs play upon your real-world fears? Do you struggle with parts of your game, or know others who do, because the devs happened to recreate a personal phobia of yours? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What produces a visceral reaction in you?
Every RPG has giant spiders. Inevitably. Despite the fact that such creatures couldn't possibly support their own body weight and other natural physics problems, you will find them. And arachnophobes the world over will cringe, because it will usually culminate in having to dive into an entire dungeon filled with spiderwebs and chittering eight-eyed things the size of a Hummvee. Not to mention all of the quests where your character has to smash them and then rifle around in what's left of their corpse and you get the general idea. If you're not comfortable with the idea of unholy, bulbous, overlegged creatures scuttling about, these parts aren't terribly comfortable even though you know it's just a game. Today, we ask you what produces that sort of bred-in gut reaction when you come across it? Giant bugs, blood, and slimy things are all common ones for a negative reaction, but there are others, and some of them might even be unique to your own sensibilities. So we'd like to know, what gets you at a basic level, even when you're totally aware it's just a game? (And if any developers are reading right now, bonus question: why all the spiders, guys? Come on.)
The only thing we have to fear... is spiders
Moony on WoW Ladies is freaked out by the Burning Crusade. But unlike most of us, she's not freaked out because all the new instances look so awesome, or because she loves playing with the new races. Nope, she's freaked out because there are spiders. If you've ever been to the Spider boss in ZG (or the spider nest in LBRS), you know how creepy the creepy crawlies can get in Azeroth, but apparently on Bloodmyst Isle (a new Draenei zone), they get even creepier-- so much that she'd rather run back to Loch Modan to pass by that quest.And surprisingly enough, a few people share her pain. I've never really been freaked out by spiders in WoW, but I was kind of sickened by my first trip into the insect nests on the eastern border of Feralas-- those winged beasts are icky for sure. And Silithus, of course, although by then I'd gotten more used to it. And some people have other fears brought on by their travels through Azeroth-- one commenter has a fear of heights that shows up from time to time while jumping off of zeppelins, and a few other players have issues with swimming really deep while that little blue bar drops. And it's not always fear-- this past weekend, I was running Baron, and it occurred to me just how disgusting the abominations are-- not only are their guts all hanging out, but they actually vomit on players they attack. That's sick, man!Have you been freaked out or sickened by something in the game? Blizzard's great because they play on central parts of our culture when creating the World of Warcraft-- from pop stars and entertainment to myths and legends, even to our basest fears. Have they ever actually got you shaking in your Wolfrunner Shoes?
