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Justin Calvert Associate Editor |
To Role-Play or Not to Role-Play...
As I've mentioned in one or two of my previous GameSpotting columns, I have a definite penchant for games that allow me to play as a character that looks like me. Whenever I purchase a game with a character editor, the first thing I do is spend as long as it takes to put myself in the game, no matter how desperate I am to start playing. My Pro Evolution Soccer 3 squad boasts a mediocre right winger named Justin Calvert; I've never played any of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games as anyone but myself; and for the last two months or so I've been living an alternate life in Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided--not as Justin Calvert, but as a character that looks a little like him. What's worrying me, though, is that for the first time my character doesn't just look like me but is, in fact, me.
When I installed Star Wars Galaxies on my machine and was preparing to play for the first time, I created a character in my own image without even thinking about it. Humans are far and away the most popular species to play as in Star Wars Galaxies, but recently I've been wondering why on earth (or Naboo for that matter) I didn't opt for something more interesting. Like any game, Star Wars Galaxies gives me a chance to escape from real life and be someone else for a while, but rather than play the role of a twi'lek musician, a rodian bounty hunter, or a trandoshan tailor, I've kind of fallen into the role of a human male who wanders around the galaxy helping out players even newbier than him, avoiding player-versus-player combat and going on shopping sprees whenever he's got nothing better to do. It all sounds kind of familiar.
My Star Wars alter ego has so much in common with me that I wonder if maybe I'm doing something wrong. The time I put aside for role-playing right now seems to be spent not as someone else, but just as me, albeit in a galaxy far, far away. I do, of course, engage in a number of activities in the game that I wouldn't in real life, but when I'm not off on hunting and trapping expeditions, on Rebel missions, or crafting weapons, I can invariably be found at the local cantina discussing the week's soccer action, trading jokes from TV shows, and hoping that my taste in Ubese armor might get me noticed by a twi'lek dancer or two. Again, it all sounds a little too familiar, save for the twi'lek dancer and the armor.
Given the nature of the Star Wars Galaxies community, and I guess that of pretty much any massively multiplayer game, I suppose it's inevitable that the real characteristics of players will become evident through the behavior of their avatars. Personally I think I'd find it really hard to get into the role of an arrogant Imperial commando like the one who slapped me across the face and spat at me while I was waiting to meet a friend in Coronet Starport the other day, but I'm giving a lot of thought to starting a new character in a different galaxy to do just that, just to see if I can. It's conceivable, of course, that the commando in question is played by a guy who would behave in a similarly offensive way in real life, but I think if that were true of even half of the players who don stormtrooper uniforms in the game, then the real world be an even scarier place to live than it already is.
I guess the upside of my playing Star Wars Galaxies as a character who is essentially a well-armed and more sharply dressed version of the real me is that the players I get on well with in the game might be people I'd also choose to socialize with in real life. That said, since the odds of ever meeting these people are practically zero, I don't know what I'll really be missing out on if I ditch the human and choose to play as an angry wookiee brawler with bad breath instead. I guess the only way for me to find out is to try it.
GameSpotting 20XX
In this very special episode of GameSpotting, the editors go back in time to warn themselves of an impending disaster.
