I do like elves. The fairy tale elves, The D&D elves.... Though most MMOs' version of them somehow doesn't appeal to me that much. Not enough attitude and character to them.
Also, I wonder why we don't see more Forgotten Realms type elves: short and slender. Not tall like Tolkien elves.
Yes, I'm sick of 'traditional' Tolkeinesce fantasy. The elves especially so.
We are not alone in this, nor is it new.
Long before any MMOs were made, back in the days of RPG meant Pen and Paper, a miniatures company effectively broke the mold by making their line of Barbarian Elves. They were the first. They also sold out something like 3 batches in a row.
Just goes to show that a lot of people are sick of the namby pambie tree hugging elitists, and have been for a long time.
Did you know there is a P&P RPG called Talislanta that in it's first edition boasted, "No Elves!". It's been over 20 years and the 5th edition now declares, "Still No Elves!".
So why does the Tolkein style stuff still persists? Probably a combination of it's familiar, lack of imagination, and an inability of many to break away from sequelitis.
As an example, most of those people think science fiction and fantasy can't coexists unless they are in opposition to each other. Along those same lines, they also think that the Sci-Fi stuff can only happen after the Fantasy. (Ancient world of magic now threatened by the newly created high technology...)
There are exceptions to the rule, but not often enough. The tend to be more along the lines of garage group projects and third string companies. Rarely the polished and popular gems we would like, assuming they actually come to market.
Freakin' A-men! I'm sick and tired of damn elves. You can throw dwarves in there too. And any other derivative of these fantasy species. Gnomes? Goblins? Get the F outta here! That's why these days the MMOs I want to play aren't high fantasy ones: EVE, City Of Heroes, Star Wars: The Old Republic.. and specially, I'm looking forward to The Secret World. Guild Wars 2 at least isn't calling their damn elves, elves!
What I don't like are all the crappy MMO titles these days so perhaps we need a:
No Crappy MMO Manifesto
Instead.
Just a thought.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I do NOT support your anti elves, wizards, orcs, etc movement.. Why you ask? Well my friend, fantasy MMORPG's are supposed to be filled with everything that makes up mythology and fiction, hence elves, wizards, dragons, fairies, orcs, goblins, dwarves, magic, etc etc etc.... Without these elements in the game, what will make the game a fantasy mmorpg? lol..
If you want to play a mmorpg like Eve, Love, or any other non traditional fantasy style game, then that's fine, go and enjoy it.... But true fans of mmorpg's are those who started playing them with PnP D&D years and years ago.. My first role playing experience was when I was like 6.. It was the phantasy star series, followed by Shinging Force and Final Fnatasy "mystic quest"
In my own opinion, a MMORPG isn't truly a MMOG unless there is an assortment of mythological races, classes, quests, dungeons, and of course a livable breathable online world you share with thousands of other people...
How you felt about Eve is exaclty what I felt the first time I logged into the original Everquest 11 years ago.... To me, that is what a fantasy MMORPG should be... Anything else isn't truly a fantasy mmorpg, in my mind..
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
What I don't like are all the crappy MMO titles these days so perhaps we need a:No Crappy MMO Manifesto
Sure. But the pivotal question, as always, is: Who decides?
Any dictatorship that doesn't include me as the head of state is doomed to fail. I'm sure you feel the same.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Elves don't bother me much...it's the portrayal of a certain type of elf that does. The daisy eating, tree hugging, leaf wearing, glitter skinned elves bother me. If an MMO had some cigar smoking, gun toting, jeans and workboots wearin, smudged up kind of elf, I don't think it'd bother me at all (dear MMO gods, please let some AAA dev pick up the Shadowrun license).
Cliffhangers Production has acquired the Shadowrun license some time ago and they work on a browser game "Shadowrun Online".
About elves, I think nobody has done elves in PC games the way they really are ...
A step forward would be to remove elves from the budget of playable races. No person I know of has lived for hundreds of years and could live the feelings attached to longevity. i.e. why they're attached to their environment that strongly and have trouble to change. I'm a follower of the "Tolkien elf mythology".
I don't mind elves. What I do mind, however, are the constant WoW-clones and their linear/simplistic mindset.
Seriously. Battlegrounds? Redundant Raids? Linear Progression?
Mankind has landed on the moon. Do you mean to tell me that this is all we are capable of within the MMO realm?
Yup problem isnt races or even lore. Its the gameplay.
Its like saying WW2 genre is crap. If all you played was COD or MOH ya I would get tired of WW2 games too. But play Company of Heroes or Hidden and Dangerous 2 and you will discover its gameplay over settings.
If people want to change elves to B'elves or use Vulcans its still going to be boring gameplay b/c WOW, EQ, LOtRO, etc all play the same. Dont go blaming fantasy genre.
Though to add to that im tired of most RPGs in general. They all are watered down. Again nothing to do with elves. Few RPGs that look unique are actually on console. Dark Souls, Dragons Dogma, etc.
So maybe the fantasy genre is to blame for generic gameplay. D&D and NWN and Diablo created this mindless gameplay. But i see it in star wars game too.
i don't really see wat the big deal is the more races a game has the better it is imo and i don't play elfs but i don't have any problem seeying them ingame i don't udnerstand the reason to loath a fictional race so much its a game the more fiction the better
And while I agree with most. I also think that elves are not to bad. But oversaturation and copy cat buisness practices are what we are all tired off.
Look at elves in Witcher : Agressive militant terrorists, bent on suicide killing of any human they find.
Thats quite original. Why not...
Don't get me wrong. I could still stomach elves if they're presented properly. The elves I'm ranting about are the pretty ones you always see in MMOs. I can not name the last MMO that did not feature elves that were NOT willowly, inhumanly good-looking and ... yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
Skyrim! Wait...err..;)
I spent a good hour and a half trying to make my wood elf on Skyrim look halfway decent and it still looks like her face was run over by a truck. Sorry but I like my characters looking reasonably attractive.
Things don't get overused for no reason. One moment the crowd is cheering for change, but the moment you try to give it the change it'll tear your budget apart saying that your alternative is "not to their taste", "wierd" or even outright "revolting".
All this overused stuff is overused because it's the golden spot. Take a look at any other imaginary race and ask yourself - would that one survive as long as elves did without causing a similar reaction? The answer will be no. And most of the time, not even to a comparable extent.
Change is a good thing, but without any other strong direction able to apeal to an audeince big enough to justify the investment all you'll be getting is a lot more elves, a handfull of faliures, and few rare sucessful exeptions.
Eve, btw, has virtualy no humanoid races, seeing how it is about ships and noone even gets to see the pilot unless specificaly looking for the picture. And even then those are mostly ugly (or atleast they were a couple of years back).
So I suggest to get over this "elvofobia", find a game that offers something new in addition to those "elves" and the next time you see a "vertically-challenged man with excessive body hair" remind yourself that he is keeping the game afloat.
Does this mean it is FINALLY time for Asheron's Call 3?
I mean instead of elves, dwarves, gnomes -- they actually managed to put a world together with virindi, olthoi, and lugians.
You do NOT need to use ANY of the "original" fantasy races. You can create a world that is completely different with all different monsters etc.
This is one of the big things that AC did that other MMOs didnt do before or after.
---
Note we are talking fantasy -- not scifi which by definition has different things than elves dwarves etc. Personally I do not like scifi because offense trumps defense (IE the gun of whatever era).
no elves world was very big factor to me to choose play guild wars and age of conan. i loved in shaiya where elves were just enemies to kill
Playing: Rohan Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
The premise of this article seems rather misleading. There are fantasy genres that don't involve elves. And do we really need another thinly disguised marketing campaign for EVE? I mean, I was sort of with the author through the Love commentary, but then came mention of EVE, and the author lost me.
I guess what bothers me about this article (and potential series of articles) is that the author attempts to tie horrid, tired gameplay to the Fantasy genre when, in fact, what is being lambasted is simply horrible gameplay. It has nothing to do with the fantasy genre.
I don't mind elves, I'm just sick of every one of them being a variant of Lotr elves.
Really, I'm sick of high fantasy, I want a different type of fantasy. However would people accept it? I doubt it, if it doesn't follow similar settings to Lotr or D&D, people would complain. I remember someone complaining about Vanguard having non-traditional classes, they have the traditional classes too, but oh god you can't have anything different.
Go ahead keep making typical High Fantasy, but I wish someone would make something radically different. Where is the next Lotr, D&D or at least Warhammer? I think it's about time fantasy had a new highly influental fantasy, this goes for all fantasy not just MMORPGs, something for my generation.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt "Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
ELVES ARE OVER-USED, AND IM TIRED OF THEM! BUT IT IS ESPECIALLY THE ASIAN-MARKET THAT HAS ABUSED THEM, IMO! (A dozen or so new ''mmo''s come out of asia almost every day, and almost every single one of em providing us with scantly-scantly dressed elves with some (by now) tremendously cliche' anime charasterectics......ugh..
I think there is like serious ADD going on here.. because the first part was on point, then all of a sudden it went all askew, but I agree with the point.
I dont dislike elves but i think they have been watered down into pussies. From my DnD days i always thought of elves as tall slender extremely hot arrogant assehats who had no peer in magic use or archery. They knew they were hot and could melt your brain with a look. They tolerated other races, because they were not evil they just knew they were atop the pecking order.
What we get today as elves is just indicative of mmos today boring unimaginative, copies or clones of each other,god forbid they have a skill or attribute that wasnt fair or balanced for a magic user, who were stupid enough to pick a magic using class that wasnt an elf. I blame WOW and all its clones for this, also the whiney kids who have to have balance because they put no thought into picking a race that suits their class.
Comments
I do like elves. The fairy tale elves, The D&D elves.... Though most MMOs' version of them somehow doesn't appeal to me that much. Not enough attitude and character to them.
Also, I wonder why we don't see more Forgotten Realms type elves: short and slender. Not tall like Tolkien elves.
Yes, I'm sick of 'traditional' Tolkeinesce fantasy. The elves especially so.
We are not alone in this, nor is it new.
Long before any MMOs were made, back in the days of RPG meant Pen and Paper, a miniatures company effectively broke the mold by making their line of Barbarian Elves. They were the first. They also sold out something like 3 batches in a row.
Just goes to show that a lot of people are sick of the namby pambie tree hugging elitists, and have been for a long time.
Did you know there is a P&P RPG called Talislanta that in it's first edition boasted, "No Elves!". It's been over 20 years and the 5th edition now declares, "Still No Elves!".
So why does the Tolkein style stuff still persists? Probably a combination of it's familiar, lack of imagination, and an inability of many to break away from sequelitis.
As an example, most of those people think science fiction and fantasy can't coexists unless they are in opposition to each other. Along those same lines, they also think that the Sci-Fi stuff can only happen after the Fantasy. (Ancient world of magic now threatened by the newly created high technology...)
There are exceptions to the rule, but not often enough. The tend to be more along the lines of garage group projects and third string companies. Rarely the polished and popular gems we would like, assuming they actually come to market.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Freakin' A-men! I'm sick and tired of damn elves. You can throw dwarves in there too. And any other derivative of these fantasy species. Gnomes? Goblins? Get the F outta here! That's why these days the MMOs I want to play aren't high fantasy ones: EVE, City Of Heroes, Star Wars: The Old Republic.. and specially, I'm looking forward to The Secret World. Guild Wars 2 at least isn't calling their damn elves, elves!
I like elves and fantasy MMOs.
What I don't like are all the crappy MMO titles these days so perhaps we need a:
No Crappy MMO Manifesto
Instead.
Just a thought.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
I do NOT support your anti elves, wizards, orcs, etc movement.. Why you ask? Well my friend, fantasy MMORPG's are supposed to be filled with everything that makes up mythology and fiction, hence elves, wizards, dragons, fairies, orcs, goblins, dwarves, magic, etc etc etc.... Without these elements in the game, what will make the game a fantasy mmorpg? lol..
If you want to play a mmorpg like Eve, Love, or any other non traditional fantasy style game, then that's fine, go and enjoy it.... But true fans of mmorpg's are those who started playing them with PnP D&D years and years ago.. My first role playing experience was when I was like 6.. It was the phantasy star series, followed by Shinging Force and Final Fnatasy "mystic quest"
In my own opinion, a MMORPG isn't truly a MMOG unless there is an assortment of mythological races, classes, quests, dungeons, and of course a livable breathable online world you share with thousands of other people...
How you felt about Eve is exaclty what I felt the first time I logged into the original Everquest 11 years ago.... To me, that is what a fantasy MMORPG should be... Anything else isn't truly a fantasy mmorpg, in my mind..
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Sure. But the pivotal question, as always, is: Who decides?
Any dictatorship that doesn't include me as the head of state is doomed to fail. I'm sure you feel the same.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Cliffhangers Production has acquired the Shadowrun license some time ago and they work on a browser game "Shadowrun Online".
About elves, I think nobody has done elves in PC games the way they really are ...
A step forward would be to remove elves from the budget of playable races. No person I know of has lived for hundreds of years and could live the feelings attached to longevity. i.e. why they're attached to their environment that strongly and have trouble to change. I'm a follower of the "Tolkien elf mythology".
this really should be the movement about
edit: manifesto, not movement.... tho its kind of the same xD
Yup problem isnt races or even lore. Its the gameplay.
Its like saying WW2 genre is crap. If all you played was COD or MOH ya I would get tired of WW2 games too. But play Company of Heroes or Hidden and Dangerous 2 and you will discover its gameplay over settings.
If people want to change elves to B'elves or use Vulcans its still going to be boring gameplay b/c WOW, EQ, LOtRO, etc all play the same. Dont go blaming fantasy genre.
Though to add to that im tired of most RPGs in general. They all are watered down. Again nothing to do with elves. Few RPGs that look unique are actually on console. Dark Souls, Dragons Dogma, etc.
So maybe the fantasy genre is to blame for generic gameplay. D&D and NWN and Diablo created this mindless gameplay. But i see it in star wars game too.
i don't really see wat the big deal is the more races a game has the better it is imo and i don't play elfs but i don't have any problem seeying them ingame i don't udnerstand the reason to loath a fictional race so much its a game the more fiction the better
Elves are classic fantasy (and classic historical folklore). Whats the big deal? If you don't like them and a good game has them, play. Or don't.
Seems a fluff/filler article to me.
I spent a good hour and a half trying to make my wood elf on Skyrim look halfway decent and it still looks like her face was run over by a truck. Sorry but I like my characters looking reasonably attractive.
Things don't get overused for no reason. One moment the crowd is cheering for change, but the moment you try to give it the change it'll tear your budget apart saying that your alternative is "not to their taste", "wierd" or even outright "revolting".
All this overused stuff is overused because it's the golden spot. Take a look at any other imaginary race and ask yourself - would that one survive as long as elves did without causing a similar reaction? The answer will be no. And most of the time, not even to a comparable extent.
Change is a good thing, but without any other strong direction able to apeal to an audeince big enough to justify the investment all you'll be getting is a lot more elves, a handfull of faliures, and few rare sucessful exeptions.
Eve, btw, has virtualy no humanoid races, seeing how it is about ships and noone even gets to see the pilot unless specificaly looking for the picture. And even then those are mostly ugly (or atleast they were a couple of years back).
So I suggest to get over this "elvofobia", find a game that offers something new in addition to those "elves" and the next time you see a "vertically-challenged man with excessive body hair" remind yourself that he is keeping the game afloat.
hmm nope not sick of any of it at all. maybe the author is just personally sick of the fantasy genre.
Did anyone else just scroll down it for the photos, not reading the text?
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
No elves hurm?
Global Agenda failed ... did'ent anyone tell you?
Thank you!
I was going to say the same thing.
no elves world was very big factor to me to choose play guild wars and age of conan. i loved in shaiya where elves were just enemies to kill
Playing: Rohan
Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
No to your no elves...I prefer fantasy over other genres...how about no to crappy railed games...That I can get on board with.
The premise of this article seems rather misleading. There are fantasy genres that don't involve elves. And do we really need another thinly disguised marketing campaign for EVE? I mean, I was sort of with the author through the Love commentary, but then came mention of EVE, and the author lost me.
I guess what bothers me about this article (and potential series of articles) is that the author attempts to tie horrid, tired gameplay to the Fantasy genre when, in fact, what is being lambasted is simply horrible gameplay. It has nothing to do with the fantasy genre.
I don't mind elves, I'm just sick of every one of them being a variant of Lotr elves.
Really, I'm sick of high fantasy, I want a different type of fantasy. However would people accept it? I doubt it, if it doesn't follow similar settings to Lotr or D&D, people would complain. I remember someone complaining about Vanguard having non-traditional classes, they have the traditional classes too, but oh god you can't have anything different.
Go ahead keep making typical High Fantasy, but I wish someone would make something radically different. Where is the next Lotr, D&D or at least Warhammer? I think it's about time fantasy had a new highly influental fantasy, this goes for all fantasy not just MMORPGs, something for my generation.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
ELVES ARE OVER-USED, AND IM TIRED OF THEM! BUT IT IS ESPECIALLY THE ASIAN-MARKET THAT HAS ABUSED THEM, IMO!
(A dozen or so new ''mmo''s come out of asia almost every day, and almost every single one of em providing us with scantly-scantly dressed elves with some (by now) tremendously cliche' anime charasterectics......ugh..
I think there is like serious ADD going on here.. because the first part was on point, then all of a sudden it went all askew, but I agree with the point.
I dont dislike elves but i think they have been watered down into pussies. From my DnD days i always thought of elves as tall slender extremely hot arrogant assehats who had no peer in magic use or archery. They knew they were hot and could melt your brain with a look. They tolerated other races, because they were not evil they just knew they were atop the pecking order.
What we get today as elves is just indicative of mmos today boring unimaginative, copies or clones of each other,god forbid they have a skill or attribute that wasnt fair or balanced for a magic user, who were stupid enough to pick a magic using class that wasnt an elf. I blame WOW and all its clones for this, also the whiney kids who have to have balance because they put no thought into picking a race that suits their class.
As an elf myself, I want to see more elves in games