How I Learned to Love the Vision

Put down the pitchforks! This is a story about not only what is infamously known as The Vision™, but about any vision. It is about what the effects of having such a vision are, and what the lack of one can harm. Because we hopefully strive for greatness in what we all try to accomplish, I feel that it is a necessary reflection to make.

To start, what is a vision? It can be put in very simple definitive terms, or explained on a more mystical level. For our purposes, it is the definition that concerns us. A "vision," regarding an end product, is having guidelines and restrictions set in stone that said product must adhere to, with some amount of flexibility. If we were using a piece of art as an example, one might say their vision involved never using any color other than the shades of blue. Or, to use only images of fruit in depicting something that is not. In an online game’s case, it could be to not use instancing. To have a large, seamless world with meaningful travel. In a piece of music, it could be to only use a certain scale for all harmonic content. It could be to use only flutes yet as many as physically possible. The guidelines and restrictions we give ourselves is what defines art.

A vision could apply not only to art, but to life and business as well. A person’s vision of their life could involve never touching alcohol. It could be to study abroad at every conceivable location on the face of the earth. A business with a vision could choose to never associate themselves with the secondary market. To create only vivid online worlds and restrict themselves from dabbling in every single successful market. To perhaps innovate and do things that bring the least popular to the forefront of appreciation.

I hope you see what I’m getting at. A vision extends far beyond level grinding and camping mobs.

What happens when you don’t have a vision? I am normally one to be fair to all sides, but let’s face it: A lot of MMOGs out there now have no vision driving them. What is the evidence of this? Unnatural additions is a major one. When the vision removes itself from something, the foreign matter that intrudes is often jarring. The biggest and most notable example of this lately has been the Star Wars Galaxies revamp. There is no doubt in my mind that money was the primary motivator for such a large-scale change. Many corporate excuses were given, but when you dig into the meat of what was changed and the time it was changed, the perspective remains: Long-time upholders of the original game’s vision were screwed in the name of capitalizing on World of Warcraft’s success and drawing those players into a new friendly SWG. Was this a smart business move? Yes. Was it driven by the integrity and vision that defined the original game? No.

Combat revamps in general are evidence of a major lack in vision. When you release a game to the public and the community wants it to be something else, what options does the developer have? It might be a tricky one for those easily lured into the light. By being “flexible” and changing the game as the player base sees fit, one might be made out to be the good guys, the development team that listens to the community. On the other hand, it shows a great lack of care for the game in question. If the combat is so horrible that it has to be completely revamped, why did that happen in the first place? It might be possible that a lack of vision corrupted the entire development process and waste was polished to releasable sheen. Revamp, upgrade. These terms are very familiar to players of those games.

What have the games, that don’t undergo these major revisions, done to maintain such a stable basis? I think there was indeed a vision guiding them and they are wholly viable games. When it comes down to it, it’s all a matter of opinion and choice on what kind of world one wants to play in. What kind of community they want to be involved with, or not.

What games, and everything else, need to watch out for are the corporate vehicles, pushing popularity and reaping the rewards. It is the pop formula, putting different pretty faces behind the same song we all know and love. It is the Hollywood blockbuster, exploding with predictability and emotionally charged music written by committee. Yet despite how opinionated and frustrated I might seem towards this type of realization, the people that create such works are still very talented. Without artistry and talent, we would never have had their works become popular in the first place. There are certainly very effective and well-done things that happen to be motivated solely by profit, and that might be their vision, but it is as a business.

So I come around in a full circle by nearly contradicting myself. If vision is good, and a business driven by vision creates products that aren’t, where does that lead my argument? I suppose I can only say that, for something to be truly effective and worthwhile beyond all means, the vision needs to engulf everything, much like a seamless world - upheld and populated to the point where one doesn’t even question it anymore.