Every MMO player knows the drill. Endure months or even years of developers touting great new features set in a beautiful, hand-crafted world, rich with detail and fully immersive. Fast forward to the day it releases and fans of the game flock into the world, eager to make new friends, get the best gear and level up their fishing skill. A couple months in and we run up against the great wall that’s composed of some of our favourite things such as: micro transactions and devs not listening to the player base. The number of players drop until a new expansion is announced and the cycle repeats. Now while this may not ring true for all MMOs, it is highly prevalent amongst the genre.
Nothing showcases this life cycle of MMOs better than the upcoming Realms of Fightinge, a MMO reality show web series (with dragons). A teaser trailer was released ahead of the show’s release and it’s filled with hilarious gimmicks about MMO developers, including turning a blind eye to hackers, rebalancing classes that were broken in the first place and of course stating that you can’t defeat bosses without purchasing items through microtransactions.
The show is the brain child of animator Josh Fortune and writer Nate Crowley, who was kind enough to answer some questions I posed to him. The following is a summary of the Q&A:
Q: What inspired you to create Realm of Fightinge?
A: We realised there were lots of stories about people being “trapped” in video games, but never stories about people who voluntarily live there, so RoF is about Colin Colinson – he’s a slacker who uses a mysterious piece of software called an Install Wizard to upload himself into an ageing MMO game, in order to avoid paying rent or dealing with the real world.
Q: How long is Realm of Fightinge going to be? And will we be seeing more of it after the first season?
A: So the series is 8 episodes, and they vary in length, but the overall running time is 105 minutes. It’s going to be coming out Tuesdays and Fridays between now and Christmas, starting on Tuesday 1st. Once it’s done, there are going to be mini episodes released regularly, and we have a second season planned if there’s demand for it.
Q: Can you give me a hint on what to expect whilst watching the series?
A: Of course, this doesn’t necessarily go down well with the game’s developers. When RoF’s new expansion – the Throne of Malfallax – comes out, they (the developers) take every chance going to make life difficult for Colin. But Colin, undeterred, is determined to get world first on defeating the expansion’s boss…
Q: In the description of the trailer you stated that Warwick Davis will be voicing a character, are there any other famous figures set to appear in your show?
A: Well, to conclude the series we’ll be doing a Christmas special (or Fistmas, as it’s known in the game) with the Yogscast, who we are broadcasting with. Lewis and Simon are both going to be in that episode, which is a bit of a treat as we’re long term Yogs fans. I think you’ll like Warwick’s character – he plays someone who stubbornly continues playing a squidman character LONG after they’ve been nerfed to be nearly unplayably bad; he’s simultaneously tragic and very, very hardcore
The first episode of Realm of Fightinge will debut on Tuesday the 1st of December.
