Opting Out of the Fashion Wars
807 words.
MassivelyOP did a Daily Grind post that led me to an unexpected insight into my current view of MMOs.
I think I’m vaguely on the record as saying MMORPGs aren’t in a very good place right now. I have a bunch of reasons for that which I won’t get into here. The relevant information for this post is that most of the reaction I see to my offhand remarks is, “What are you talking about? MMOs are better than ever! Stop being so negative!” I understand why sites with a vested monetary interest in the MMO genre would say things like that, but I’ve never really understood how Joe Average MMORPG Player could be excited about the giant void of perpetual beta and blandness ahead of us in the genre right now.
Until now. Today I think something clicked, with this Daily Grind post. Now I think I understand at least one of the disconnects between me and the rest of the MMO community.
Daily Grind: Do You Play MMOs For The Fashion Wars?
My answer to that Daily Grind has always been a definitive “Nope.”
I have no interest in MMO cosmetics. I’ve never purchased a cosmetic outfit, mount, or pet in an MMORPG. By that, I mean I’ve never seen a cosmetic thing in a store and reached for my credit card to buy it. There may have been a few times when I bought a cosmetic thing (mainly in RIFT), but all of those times it was because I had some spare gems in my account, the item was cheap, and I couldn’t find anything useful to buy.
Furthermore, I don’t go chasing cosmetics in-game, either. If I ever end up with matching armor or a full gear set, it’s because the game gave it to me in the normal course of playing the game. I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever done any “grinding” just to get one or more cosmetic items. I’m always primarily interested in the stats on the gear pieces more than what they look like. If the gear with the best stats all happens to match, that’s just a bonus.
In fact, I actually enjoy wearing mismatching armor in MMOs, because I know it irritates people, and I know it leads people to underestimate my playing abilities.
Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Wait a second, I *know* you’ve posted pictures on your blog of your character wearing nice matching gear sets before. Particularly in FFXIV.”
Well, that’s true. I put some of them in this post. But in Final Fantasy XIV, gear appearance is very much tied to gear stats. If you need new gear to increase your item level to get into a new dungeon, you don’t have much choice but to get a new outfit. When I post pictures of my character in FFXIV wearing an outfit, I’m showing you the stats of the gear as well as the appearance of the gear.
There was also that one time I played with the glamour system in FFXIV. I never did much with it after that, because glamours are a pain in the butt in FFXIV. I’m *definitely* not going to deal with cosmetics if it’s more involved than a couple of mouse clicks.
Now that I think about it, I suppose I could say that I did “grind” so I could buy that Sylvan Goobue mount in FFXIV as well. But the grinding process also leveled up alt jobs as well, so it wasn’t *exclusively* for the purpose of buying the mount. And, as it turned out, I never actually rode that mount anywhere. I just took a couple of screenshots and that was it.
I’m not saying I don’t have cosmetic *preferences* in games. I might pick one outfit over another outfit if they’re both available to me. If two pieces of gear have the same stats, I’ll pick the one that looks better to me. And I very rarely go out of my way to *get* a set of gear with a particular appearance, unless it’s easy to do and/or I’m really bored.
I’m just saying I never consider the appearance of my character to be part of the core gameplay mechanic or the “goal” of playing an MMO. I never log into an MMO just to “look” at my characters. I always log in to “do” something. And that might be one of the big differences between me and the rest of the MMO world right now, and why everyone else is happy with the state of the genre and I’m left wanting.
There’s a lot of truth to the statement that “fashion is the endgame in MMOs,” and today I realized that might be one of the big reasons why I’m not very excited about the future of MMOs right now.
Archived Comments
bhagpuss 2019-10-18T19:49:21Z
Given that video gaming is primarily a visual experience it hardly seems surprising that looks have become so important. It has, as far as i can tell, always been that way in MMORPGs. The main thing that’s changed is that now the engines can support a very wide range of exotic appearances when in the past they couldn’t.
When Dark Age of Camelot launched in 2001 (from memory) one of the big selling points, other than Realm vs Realm, was the abilty to dye armor. I remember it being one of the things people talked about most. Around that time and for a few years afterwards, one of the loudest demands in every MMORPG was for cloaks. If the game had cloaks, the demand was for cloaks with animation.
In EverQuest back all the way back in 2000 what everyone wanted was a weapon with “particle effects”. Having a sword that glowed or, better yet, shot out sparks was the height of cool. Later, as most games got dyes and cloaks and sparkly weapons (and let’s not forget “wizard hats”, always in demand) the calls started for ways to store the looks and use them separately from the items they were attached to, so players could have the looks of one item and the stats of another, not, as you suggest, be stuck wearing things that looked ugly just because the stats were better.
My point is that fashion has always been the end game of MMORPGs. The whole concept of parading around the bank in your Raid gear, which goes back at least 17 or 18 years, relies on the gear looking amazing. Yes, the idea is also that other players envy the stats, but they have to notice you first before they inspect you.
In our house, going back almost two decades, we used to refer to MMORPGs as “dolly dressing games”. It’s a more appropriate term than anything with “RPG” in it!
Telwyn 2019-10-19T08:59:08Z A really interesting perspective. The phrase “I always log in to “do” something.” really speaks to me. Many would contest gathering transmog gear or the like is valid and rewarding gameplay, which is fine for them, but I’m left totally cold by grinding just for a look. I play to progress my characters through levels, new skills and other ‘rpg’ progression elements, and also to experience the story. I’m not that motivated by gear (i.e. stat) rewards particularly, gear appearance even less so. I’ve always felt slightly out of kilter with the bulk of the MMO playerbase in that regard…
Shintar 2019-10-19T22:38:41Z Chiming in just to say that this resonates with me as well. It’s not that I’m against having a good-looking outfit when it presents itself, but the trend of the “biggest” rewards these days always being things like cosmetic outfits, mount skins or pets has never appealed to me either. I’d rather take something that makes my character stronger/faster etc. any day.
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