T
The Fifth Man
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- #31
It really doesn’t pay to try and find any sort of historical rationale for DAoC. MMORPG Game developers have to abandon reality as soon as they have their first brainstorm. Why ? Because characters have to be sustainable to keep the players interested. And that means no death. No death is almost always justified by “magic”. At which point, realism is gone.
Sure you could make it more realistic. I’d be quite interested in a game in which there was no stealth, only archers, melee and cavalry. Collision detection to allow shield walls. Injuries which damaged your effectiveness (rather than either being fully effective or dead), and only humans or different human clans/tribes/nationalities. There’d be no “levelling” as such to improve strength and constitution, although you could probably work out a training system to allow for skill improvements. You could even throw in time-specific weaponry and armour. But to maintain a consistent society of the sort which attracts MMORPG players, you couldn’t have permanent death. So realism will always stop somewhere, and once you’ve abandoned that central premise, there’s no point dying in a ditch over any other unrealistic aspect. What roleplayers do is to essentially form their own rules of what is consistent with the fantasy world they play in and what isn’t. There’s no right or wrong other than those which the players themselves apply to their own games.
On the subject of Arthur, by the way, “Welsh” and “English” are misleading terms. Arthur – insofar as he can be shown to have existed - was a British (romano-celtic) warlord from the West Country who gathered enough fighters to inflict a series of defeats on the incoming Saxon, Angle and Jute (German) tribes invading from the east. This prevented their gradual colonisation of what is now England for several decades, but then it resumed. The “Welsh” are effectively situated in the parts of the island where Romano-Britons retained control, while the “English” (from the name of the “Angle” tribe) are situated in the parts of the island which the German tribes conquered. It’s important not to take this stuff too far though : it’s a small island and we shag each other a lot. There’s bugger all difference between your average bloke from Anglesey (home of the druids), York (capital of Viking England), Salisbury (centre of the Saxon Kingom of Wessex) and Bath (last bastion of Romano-British civilisation).
So actually, the central idea of a Romano-British Kingdom besieged by barbarians from Hibernia and Midgard is not entirely without historical foundation. The Hibernians did indeed exist, as celts from Ireland frequently raided the shores of what are now Wales and England. The Midgardians are essentially the brutal German tribes who invaded and took over much of eastern England.
The main thing is – don’t go looking for consistency. It’s a fantasy world. So it’s consistent with itself, and nothing else. Oh, and have fun !
Sure you could make it more realistic. I’d be quite interested in a game in which there was no stealth, only archers, melee and cavalry. Collision detection to allow shield walls. Injuries which damaged your effectiveness (rather than either being fully effective or dead), and only humans or different human clans/tribes/nationalities. There’d be no “levelling” as such to improve strength and constitution, although you could probably work out a training system to allow for skill improvements. You could even throw in time-specific weaponry and armour. But to maintain a consistent society of the sort which attracts MMORPG players, you couldn’t have permanent death. So realism will always stop somewhere, and once you’ve abandoned that central premise, there’s no point dying in a ditch over any other unrealistic aspect. What roleplayers do is to essentially form their own rules of what is consistent with the fantasy world they play in and what isn’t. There’s no right or wrong other than those which the players themselves apply to their own games.
On the subject of Arthur, by the way, “Welsh” and “English” are misleading terms. Arthur – insofar as he can be shown to have existed - was a British (romano-celtic) warlord from the West Country who gathered enough fighters to inflict a series of defeats on the incoming Saxon, Angle and Jute (German) tribes invading from the east. This prevented their gradual colonisation of what is now England for several decades, but then it resumed. The “Welsh” are effectively situated in the parts of the island where Romano-Britons retained control, while the “English” (from the name of the “Angle” tribe) are situated in the parts of the island which the German tribes conquered. It’s important not to take this stuff too far though : it’s a small island and we shag each other a lot. There’s bugger all difference between your average bloke from Anglesey (home of the druids), York (capital of Viking England), Salisbury (centre of the Saxon Kingom of Wessex) and Bath (last bastion of Romano-British civilisation).
So actually, the central idea of a Romano-British Kingdom besieged by barbarians from Hibernia and Midgard is not entirely without historical foundation. The Hibernians did indeed exist, as celts from Ireland frequently raided the shores of what are now Wales and England. The Midgardians are essentially the brutal German tribes who invaded and took over much of eastern England.
The main thing is – don’t go looking for consistency. It’s a fantasy world. So it’s consistent with itself, and nothing else. Oh, and have fun !
mainly from Denmark and Norway. Swedes went east and founded Russia and went down to the Mediterranean.