Ever since the
advent of the internet, game designers have come up with a myriad of
ways players can interact with and influence each other while
in-game. From online shooters (both team-based and competitive),
co-op campaigns, user-generated content, and even player messages ala
Dark Souls, the network has become an increasingly valuable tool in
the designer's kit. Certain genres, like the MMO, would be impossible
without such technology. That particular genre is I what want to
focus on today, but not in a way you might expect.
What I mean by that
is that I want to take a look at the MMORPG, through the lens of a
franchise known as .hack (read: dot hack). For those of who aren't
aware, the .hack multimedia project first made its way to America in
February 2003 with the animated series .hack//SIGN (read: dot hack
sign), and a four part series of video games. This was later expanded
on in 2006 with the .hack//GU trilogy and an accompanying anime
called .hack//ROOTS, both taking place 7 years after the events of
the quadrilogy. Taking place in an alternative universe where a
computer virus destroyed all but one operating system and made
hacking a capital offense worldwide, .hack details the adventures of
various players of a fictional MMORPG called “The World”.
Most of the stories
in this universe tend to focus on one character, and their circle of
friends, as they investigate the mysterious circumstances wherein
players are falling into a comatose state while in the middle of
playing the game, with no reasonable medical explanation. While
that’s the main focus, as a franchise set within an online game, it
both implicitly and explicitly talks about the MMO genre and its
evolution (since SIGN and the original four games take place in 2010,
while GU and ROOTS take place in 2017). I want to examine these
predictions and see how “correct” they were.
