I'm still wondering about one thing, though: what's up with the simultaneous combat/crafting advancement? On its site, Sigil tries to get all lofty about it, calling some kind of "multisphere" system, or somesuch nonsense, but in reality, what is it about crafting in Vanguard that's different from any other games This is a challenge to the developer: it's going on and on about how it's going to be more interacting and exciting than what's been done before, but I've heard that tune a million times before. As for simultaneously leveling crafting and classes, I'm wonder how that will play out. Will I be working at my forge, when suddenly, the sword I'm making turns into a badger, and I have to fight it? What the heck? Sigil: please, do tell.

EverQuest II

So you've probably heard: Christopher Lee and Heather Graham are contributing their voices to EQ2. That is simply crazy. I say this because, unlike single-player games, you go through a lot in these MMOs, most of which you just sort of filter out, after you encounter it the first time. Now, I know that the characters that Count Dooku and Roller Girl will voice will be kings and queens of the world or some such, but wouldn't it be hilarious if they voiced some of the more mundane characters? If my experience with the beta is any indication, then that would be some wasted money. I'm a big fan of cutting spoken dialog once I'm done reading the text boxes, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Granted, I'd be less quick to do this in story-related cutscenes, but in the case of recurring quests, forget that. I don't wanna hear it.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that I'm being a bit of a traditionalist, in this regard. Spoken dialog in MMOs is weird enough; celebrity voice work is just completely over the top. When I'm playing these games, I'm in a weird state of mind, and one that usually doesn't entail me being immersed in these worlds. 90 percent of the time, I'm thinking about statistics, and assessing the world in the most abstract of terms: "what will the XP-per-hour rate be in this spot?" or "How much money can I make farming this zone for three hours?" Rare are the story-related elements that "bring me into the world." Usually, when an important NPC says my character's name, it just sounds weird to me. Ditto with my character model: seeing it populating one of these games' cutscenes is kind of jarring.

"Would you like to bind here?"

Rather than seeing my characters as real people in these worlds, I see them as an expansive series of statistics, with my particular avatar merely the means by which I interact with it, and emerge victorious. It's not about traveling through an intricately crafted fantasy world; it's about creating a well-oiled machine, surmounting the challenges built into the world by their creators, and doing this while telling bad jokes, making idle chit-chat. Greed comes into the equation, too, but that is a whole other story.

What EQ2 is doing is admirable, despite how misguided I feel it is. Just because I'm not immersed in these worlds in their current state doesn't mean I don't want to be. I'm just of the mind that the genre is currently incapable of true immersion, and this is mostly because of the random factor that human players bring. Amatuerishly-designed game content is also to blame, but less so. Sauron lending his voice to EQ2 is a good step in right direction, though make no mistake: it's a baby step. To big publishers like Sony, this kind of Hollywood cache is attractive as hell. But I'm guessing that players couldn't really care less. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.