Watching another isekai anime I could not help to notice a repeated use of the title, called "floor guardian". Even good takes on the videogame genre such as Overlord series do that, many others copy that.
However, what a floor guardian even is, if you look at world of Warcraft for example, you will not find one in the entire game. Most likely this is part of player jargon and used in lieu of boss, possibly something culturally acceptable and meaningful for a Japanese person.
Boss is a term used by players a lot, but it is never used by a game itself or in game characters. Reason for disparity is due to different objectives for communication between players and between NPCs in game.
Players need to communicate fast and precise. The game is fast paced, and any delay can be costly. There is no time to nitpick on titles of each individual character, a simple precise term that denote their role in game is needed. That is why players use terms such as: boss, trash, loot, CC, DPS, tank, healer buff, nerf and so on. These are technical terms that sum up much more complex actual names for spells, characters and other game aspects as well as denote their role in game. Refer to OMGWTFBBQ article (net rather than my blog) for the full list of abbreviations used by players.
On the other hand, NPCs in game and the game plot has to tell the story and immerse players in the world. To do that each character is given elaborate name, sometimes title and a role in the organisation they are part of. No real-life organisation would have a floor guardian and no person referred as boss has this written down on their business card. The game imitates reality so by extension it has none either. Instead, each NPC has a certain role in one or the other in game organisation. These range from royal and even divine titles to humble farmhands and shop keeper assistants. Each character is someone in the big world the game designers want to portray.
Broadly speaking both forms of communications are equally important for the whole experience. Player's jargon is needed to actually play and communicate with fellow players. The story language on the other hand allows you to feel that it's not just a game with game pieces, but a living breathing world, full of all sorts of people.
Any fiction is just as good as how well it can suspend our disbelief that its real. Yes, underneath the hood it's all numbers and game mechanics, they are important to master the game, but they are not why people play in the first place. People play because they find the world game set in compelling. Yes, it is a fictional fully made-up world, but if its likable and believable enough then people will keep coming back to it.
That is why what happens in this world is important. A one careless plot twist that does not fit the established world or characters and this whole illusion of the world falls apart.
That is why good actors train themselves to actually believe they are who they play in the movie. That way they can act like it really happens and viewers looking at them could believe it too. They cry like their own wife and child died in front of them, then bash villain like they a person who killed their loved ones.
A bad actor does half-hearted act that breaks the illusion and expose the 4th wall, allowing audience to realise it's all an act, no one died and there are cameras and director on the other side.
Characters calling themselves floor guardian is that kind of breach of 4th wall act. If you look on WoW lore, every dungeon boss has actual title and role, they are, chef wizards, lead engineers, cannoneers, fighting instructors, captains, inquisitors, lords, even school headmasters and so on. Behind every title there is a story and a role they play in their organisation story wise. Same with characters talking about game rules and game mechanics. Phrases such as gift game or geass scrolls are all such artificial concepts that expose them as mere game mechanics.
For example, NPCs in WoW do not say such things, they act like characters in screen are real people, experience real like sorrow or joy if someone dies or saved. In short act like real life people would in similar situation. Citizens of Darkshire is afraid undead or Worgen going to kill them all one of these days and then implore player to help them fend-off these threats off. They also ask you to contact every other Stormwind friendly locality and ask them to send help. All responses however are negative as they have too many problems of their own and could use some of Darkshire help if they can spare any.
That get you invested too as you realise that you are possibly the only one who stands between Darkshire and its obliteration at the hands of Worgen and undead. When you save them, they call give you gifts and promise to remember you, tell tales and celebrate your victories like in historical myth. You can become as immortalised as Momotaro, or Minamoto, or Till Eulenspiegel or Ivan Susanin or crusaders, name it. You saved them from a certain assured destruction, story wise that it. Yes, you will be remembered by fictional people, but still.
Yes, really game will not break if you do nothing and they will not die, but it's the illusion that they will that makes people love the world as much as they do and continue to play classic. This is one and quintessential thing that classic got right compared to modern WoW.
Generally High fantasy stories are like Lord of The Rings or cliche WWII movies. JRR Tolkien got the formula right in his books, that is why they are so loved by the fans.
In High Fantasy enemy is devil incarnate and trying to destroy everything and exterminate everyone; we either win or die. There could be variations on how exactly they plan to destroy everyone, or whether they honestly admit to their designs or believed so by their opponents. If they do not plan to destroy everything and kill everyone and can be trusted and negotiated reasonable terms with, then why all the struggle with fighting them to death. Let's just make a deal and have peace of our time, Neville Chamberlain style. It's the impossibility of compromise that makes all the struggle against the enemy necessary. When plot fails to deliver that impossibility of peace, it cheapens the whole experience.
It works in real life as well. Take even recent war between Russia and Ukraine. Russia called Ukrainians nazis and refuses to negotiate with them. Ukraine and Europe in turn consider Russia untrustworthy genocidal power who seeks to destroy Ukraine and Europe. It is not a situation where there can be trust in any agreement, not backed by something more concrete, like force and guarantees.
Originally WoW followed this formula faithfully. For as long as they continue to follow this formula, fans were happy.
In later expansion they started to deviate from it. NPCs started to admit that not much will change even if you do nothing. You no longer save them from assured destruction, just kill some mobs to earn some gear. Story progressively went somewhere else.
There are no antagonists to speak of. As I wrote in one of my previous articles about WoW, western stories are almost always antagonist driven. No antagonist is almost as good as no story.
Before enemy was deadly and good guys are completely hapless without you. You were the center of all efforts to win and save Azeroth, everyone else either supported you or relied on you. It was all about you. When Nietzsche talked about Will to Power, he meant this: the power to decide the future of the world.
After you end up being an accessory to the dodgy protagonists like Garrosh or Sylvanas and later even Shadowlands Jailer if I understand story correctly. It's no longer your show, it's their show and you are just an extra. You are no longer the power, they are, you are just around. You can have that IRL, as IRL most of us can affect nothing, why bother playing the game.
The reason to play games is to feel more powerful and influential than you really are. Games can give you what reality alas cannot. That fulfilment of Will to Power. When games and other entertainment stop giving you that, then why continue?
If it's not about you, everyone can be just as fine without you, then why play, why struggle, why invest into the game, what all these efforts will accomplish? Videogames were one of few opportunities for an average person to feel they are important and matter a lot. If you take that away than what remains? Crunching numbers until your numbers are bigger than their numbers?
It is the same with isekai or any other anime. In some anime, like Code Geass you feel that future of the world is at stake. You can feel invested.
Yet other shows make you feel discouraged instead, system is just too strong or stiff or inert, and you can never change it no matter what you try.
Back to the original topic. When writing about videogames, player jargon and game story narrative should stay distinct. Authors should not mix them as that breaks the whole thing apart. Instead, two distinct narratives should exist side by side, one describes the action from story point of view, and the other describe in in gamer's jargon terms.
To achieve that one way is to make one character speak in jargon and the other in story terms. One of the players, invested in story or narrator can give plot context of what is going on, while another experienced player will speak jargon instead.
As I was often writing in my articles, quality of writing has declined in all media, movies, anime, videogames. In this article I have describe how it declined exactly and how to fix it. Hopefully it will result in more and better stories across all media.
No comments:
Post a Comment