Vana'diel Career Day
I was sitting down today, thinking one of my deep thoughts.What? I do enjoy philosophy, you know. I'm not all about the video games.
And you think you know me.
So, I was thinking about FFXI and about how everyone ends up an adventurer. Every single person who logs in ends up as a hero bringing justice and peace to Vana'diel.
Really? Everybody?
I don't want to question the realism of the game, but what the hell? Are you really telling me that EVERYONE gets to be an adventurer?
You'd think someone would have to log in and end up as a janitor.
Or a bus driver.
I mean, I'm all for people having a good time, but somebody's got to pick up the trash.
Can you imagine the amount of garbage left around Vana'diel? Monster corpses and noob corpses, broken synths and dropped items.
Geez, the Sushi wrappers alone would flood the streets.
Shouldn't some people get to log in and roll up a nice janitor character?
Maybe there are players with REALLY low standards. Maybe all of that running around and adventuring looks like too much work.
Even if they don't want to, shouldn't we MAKE some of them?
I'm just saying that not everyone gets to be a special, unique snowflake.
Not everyone gets to be a doctor or a lawyer or a quarterback. Somebody has to get stuck with the really shitty jobs in life.
Why should an MMORPG be any different?
You log in and get your retarded ass a broom.
And what about the NPCs? What does it tell the children of Vana'diel that everybody gets to grow up to be a famous adventurer?
Kind of setting them up for disappointment, isn't it?
See, the thing is everybody gets to grow up and be a famous adventurer EXCEPT THEM.
Somebody has to mind the Chocobo stables or those fruit stands in every city.
What the hell was wrong with those people that they didn't get to be adventurers? We have functionally retarded players everywhere that get to go out and kick monster ass. What f&%@ing remedial class were these people in?
Oh, Billy, you colored outside the lines. Hope you like shoveling chocobo shit for the rest of your life.
Speaking of kids, why don't we see more kids around Vana'diel?
Yeah, yeah. We got the retarded kids who run up and down the same street day after day. We all know about those guys.
But where are the regular kids?
This is a world full of weapons and magic. You can literally make fire appear out of nothing and use it to light small woodland creatures ablaze.
If this game was realistic, West Ronfaure would be filled with children lighting bunnies on fire.
You'd assume they'd have some pent up rage to get out what with finding out they were destined to be selling distilled water for the next fifty or sixty years, while players who can barely string a sentence together get to save the world from unstoppable evil.
Tell me you wouldn't light a goddamned bunny on fire.
Honestly, I don't now what's worse: the fact that an entire world's native people are stuck acting as or menial servants while we run roughshod over their land...
Or the fact that I spent more than an hour thinking about that today.
And where I could find a bunny and some lighter fluid.
... Don't judge me.
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 6:31 PM
13 Comments:
First.
And very true! The folks that should be stablehands mucking out the Chocobo manure end up saving the world...that's just wrong.
I think it would be cool if you could have different jobs in a game.
It wouldn't be like the _real game_ per say, but it'd be cool if, for instance, an hour every month you had to act as the president of the Republic of Bastok. Or for WoW fans, you get to be Thrall (or for the alliance "people", you can be Wrynn).
I think it'd be cool. And then yes, get stuck with janitor duty, or goldsmith shop owner, or head chef in Windurst.
Something more than just an adventurer. That's what you moonlight as, right?
Ever meet a Trekkie who's just an enlisted man/woman? Nope. Oddly enough, they're all officers. Apparently, Starfleet has a standards issue also.
And how come people who say they remember their past lives never seem to remember being anything boring? They're all adventurers, too!
Hell, we can't even all be [GM]s.
Well yeah, all the NPCs start out as a Chocobo stable boy or whatever. Then after an hour or two of that they're ready to kill their adventurer clients. That's why there's a constant stream of new mobs to fight.
And if you think about it, an adventurer is basically just a hobo with a sword. No constant job, they don't pay taxes, and most of their homes are filled with rusty buckets because they can't afford real furniture.
I mean think about it. Who else would be desperate enough for cash to risk death and dismemberment for 10 gil?
So there you have it. Those useless NPCs actually look down on us idiots who slaughter vast hordes of rabbits just to buy one bottle of apple juice.
Lord of the Rings Online actually has players who refuse to fight and spend most of their time in civilized areas working on crafting and quests like 'Sneak a pie past some hungry hobbits'. Apparently you can get up to 20th level this way.
So, yeah, apparently there are players who are perfectly happy to play janitors. Or cooks or musicians or what have you.
Here is what is wrong with all those people in Vana'diel who are not adventurers:
They don't have players controlling them.
Poor sods.
That should be your new punishment. Instead of putting people in Morion Gaol, and feeding them to a dragon; you should make them do community service....then feed them to a dragon. (Don't want them to think they would get off easy now)
The way I see it is this, the NPC’s are the smart ones. They rake in tons of gold and never leave the safety of the city. Think about it, you know they jack the prices for adventures, they buy the crap you don’t want to next to nothing, then use it to make stuff they sell at high prices back to us. The 400gil map you just got probably cost him 2 gil to make, (you know they have to have printing presses.) and was most likely mapped out by an adventurer. The nice furniture that you buy for 100,000 gil, well I bet the guy who cleans the stables bought the same thing for 500 gil, cost to make and that mats at the “locals” cost. The reason why I say this is because I’ve seen it. I use to live in a tourist town. And the prices were really high, but if you showed you ID and it said that you lived there you got a discount. That 30 dollar shirt was 15 for me, it was great.
At first I was thinking:
"Hey...sign me up for that Gynocologist position."
Then I actually thoguth about it.
"Okay...sit on here and put your legs in the stirru- OH MY GOD!! You are NOT a woman!! Get out of here right NOW!!"
I don't want to be a gynocologist in FFXI....
Give me something safer like that Galka that's got to dig up tiny bits of copper all damn day for a few coins.
I might be mistaken, but doesn't shoveling Chocobo droppings equal playing WHM with a bad leveling group? :)
As a passionate healer I sometimes certainly wish to poke my eyes out with a pencil, so Chocobos actually aren't that bad after all...
Since you bring it up, I've always thought SE should move some of the townie npcs around occasionally. I mean... I know they can't be doing something new every single day - but after half a decade they haven't budged a single step. My mannequins have moved more than that. Kinda creeps me out.
see the one thing you forget Dave is the NPC's get paid the big bucks in the form of government stipends (like the oil stipends Alaska residents get to live there) to stand there all day and annoy us by saying the same thing over and over, while we have to go out and toil and tire to barely scrape by.
occasionally if an NPC gets bored they go become a gilseller. I mean, you cant interact with them beyond the set script either way, so...
That's what NPCs are for.
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