There’s an interesting element to a lot of games where you have places where the layers of gameplay break down. Your character in World of Warcraft is a character, ostensibly. The NPCs in the game regard her as a person and interact with her as if she is just a person in the world. But she is also just a game piece, no different than picking the top hat in a game of Monopoly. And the thing is that this is not a binary choice; for every player, these ideas exist on a spectrum.
A lot of people do not regard themselves as roleplayers, but they still want the world they play in to have a certain degree of cohesive existence. Others regard themselves as roleplayers but do like having weird outside cosmetics in the game. Today, we’re asking the simplest version of the question: Do you see your MMO characters as characters or as playing pieces? When you log in, are you taking control of a person, or are you choosing to play as the top hat tonight?
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!
