“We can’t go on living our lives in fear. I have to fight …… This is my story.”
WEEK 3: CREATING MY CHARACTER
“Video games have increasingly being deliberated as a propaganda tool to influence people with regards to some targeted matters. Design of game’s character plays an important role for such objectives”. M. Lokman, A. M. Mustafa, M. F. Mohd Fathir and A. R. Abd Rahman, “Avatar warrior: A Kansei analysis,” 2014 3rd International Conference on User Science and Engineering (i-USEr), Shah Alam, 2014, pp. 24-29.
I entered a world with tons of choices, and I was made to believe that I am a free man in this world to make decisions by myself and for myself:
I was first invited to choose a domain – a world for my character, or me. From a list of names that I have no clue what history they have – I chose “Crystal Desert” as I found that it is relevant to me in the real world – my name is “Crystal” in English.
Decision Making: My Initial Home World
Then in the next step, I learned about the five main races in the world of Tyria: humans, norn, charr, asura, or sylvari, as well as the background of these races. Again, another process of making connection started. I was first impressed by sylvari. But after comparing the characters between sylvari and human, I found that female human character was more connected and relevant to “me”. Why was I doing this? At the very early stage of the game, without actual training, I found myself ways to better immerse in that world.
Moving on, I characterized my female human character’s appearance – I found this part the most interesting and I spent most time here – though I realized that, after I closed the game, how “I” look would not make any difference of the story. I’ve played lots of video games and most of them contain a characterizing process like this, and it seems like I have endless pleasure of creating my character. “Alright, this is me!”
Creating My Character
In the few final steps, I was asked to pick some settings of “my” growth. “I” was given a name “KrystallosC”, which is the common name I use in video games. Spending approximately twenty minutes to create my character, and after a short film shown, “I” was born in the world of Tyria.
“Me” & “the World”
Here are parts of the captions from the film which was based on my decisions:
”The human race once ruled Tyria. Now we struggle to hold our ground
……
The city is my home. I was born to common folk, just one among many. My friends and I don’t seek attention or glory. It’s hard enough making ends meet. But I believe we can still shape a brighter world out of the ashes of the past. Today I stepped outside of Divinity’ Reach, to see the world.
……
Innocent villagers are in danger. Someone has to help. We can’t go on living our lives in fear. I have to fight. I have to make a stand.
This is my story.”
Now I know who I am, where I am from, and possibly acknowledge what I am going to do. Missions are crystal-clear unlike the mess that I have to face in the real life.
A game is a land with ready-made culture, history and truths, so once I enter this land, I am directed to obey the rules, either consciously or unconsciously, I start to play and think as one of the roles in this world.