Hey, remember back when people used to type “first!” as the first reply to threads? Yeah, that was funny for like a whole week, and then people did it ironically for a few years, and now you almost never see it. Why? Because no one cares.
There are some “firsts” humans really do care about. First president. First person on the moon. First person to free climb a really tall thing and not asphyxiate and die. I get it. But the “first!” meme died because nobody cares. Being first is kinda random, but especially on the internet. Anyone could’ve done it. And your first will be followed by a zillion other people who can also do it, only they hopefully said something more than first.
This is kinda how I feel about world firsts in MMOs. I’ve been “first!” to accomplish some things in MMORPGs before, and you know what? I don’t feel like they’re worth bragging about. I definitely don’t think they deserve in-game achievements or whole event tracks to challenge people to go do them, but first. I wind up rolling my eyes at how transparently obvious it is when studios try to make world firsts a whole thing, and I don’t think it’s because I’m jaded. I still get wide-eyed at so much in MMOs. Just not at being first. (Especially knowing some internal QA team actually did it first. And second. And third.)
How about you? Do you care about world firsts in MMOs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
