MMOs | Aspect of the Hare

Project Gorgon is currently in playable alpha, and because why not, I’ve been messing around with it.

I downloaded it intending to mess around for about an hour, but then I ended up playing it for like three hours. And then playing it again the next day. And honestly I’ll probably play it again later today, too.

This is a (primarily) two-person project crafted with a lot of love and the result is a delightful old-school RPG with a big focus on exploration. Think Elder Scrolls. Like, think early Elder Scrolls. Daggerfall but with Morrowind graphics. Add two cups of some other people running around, a pinch of Everquest, and then a sprinkle of great humor and hat-wearing bugs for spice. This is what is currently cooking in the Project Gorgon oven.

I’m not exactly sure why I find this game so charming. I think it’s because it just tosses you out in the world (well, it tosses you in a tutorial cave, but there’s a cheat to bail if you want to) and gives you no other real direction. There are quests hidden around, but there are no quest markers of any sort, so you actually have to learn the names of NPCs and what they do and where they are. The game just revolves around the idea that this is a whole new world for you to explore, and it isn’t gonna hold your hand. Like I said: old-school Elder Scrolls.

Anyways, it’s probably not to everyone’s style, but I just find it to be a really charming game so far, even if I have no idea what I’m doing! Go check it out if it looks like your kind of thing.

As a returning blogger after a long hiatus I have opted to participate in a lovely program called the Newbie Blogger Initiative this year. I do feel slightly, uh, awkward being involved as a newbie when this blog is almost eight years old, but I digress.

The Newbie Blogger Initiative is aimed towards video game bloggers, and most of the ones I’ve seen are blogs about MMOs. Most of which are not WoW. What I find interesting is that MMOs, as a genre, have such a following. Many people proudly call themselves MMO gamers. Not me. I’m just a gamer. (Or, to use my preferred term, a “video game enthusiast.”)

Many people can clearly remember the first game they played. Not me. I was born alongside the Atari 2600, the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Commodore 64 and I grew up with my tiny little paws wrapped around a joystick. There has not been a time in my three decades of life that I cannot recall games as being a major part of my existence. When I began playing WoW oh so many years ago, it was not because it was an MMO – it was because it was another video game (and one set in a world I was already familiar with, since I’d been obsessing over Blizzard games for many years already.)

To this day, I don’t really play any other MMOs. I don’t really have anything against them. But between all of the other games I regularly play the heck out of, I suppose I feel like I only have time for one MMO. And that MMO happens to be my first true love in the genre – one World of Warcraft.