Our author Schuhmann is looking forward to Black Desert and has been thinking about dead cats lately.
I’ve been thinking a lot about a dead cat lately. There was one back when the PC world was still alright, in Icewind Dale 2. That was sort of the last game in that classic “Baldur’s Gate” arrangement from Black Isle Studios. The dead cat was a quest item that you found early in the story and just dragged around with you because you knew you were supposed to do that in these cases.
You find an item, you keep an item, it will surely be useful for something. That’s the law of RPGs; we’ve been conditioned that way. The harder it is to get such an item, the more important it becomes in the long run. I was proud of my dead cat because I had found it!
But then NPCs would ask you what in the world you were doing with a dead cat. It was gross to drag a dead cat around with us. Also, kind of dangerous: diseases and all! Why in the world are we actually doing this?
“I thought it would be the solution to someone’s problem and I could learn something from this experience!”
That was back then, almost 15 years ago, the first time I thought about that and also asked myself: Why am I actually doing this? And that’s exactly what I think about lately when I play Black Desert.
The Knowledge System in Black Desert is like a toy box
The new MMORPG Black Desert has a knowledge system, it has interfaces with collections and toy boxes that we want to fill. Simply because they are there. Like back in the days, sticking pictures in Panini albums – just so that wherever one belongs, one is there. No one questions: Why am I doing this?
The knowledge system tells us: In the NPC collection of the first village, you are still missing someone. You still have gaps in your knowledge here, and you haven’t fully understood all the goblins yet.
Every time we gain “knowledge” in the world, it is displayed at the top with a message: “You now know the names of the three cats of the little girl,” it says there when we fetch a cat for a girl from a well in the first real city. Then it is neatly noted and entered into a “big golden book”. Well, actually more into an interface.
And I have that feeling again: It will surely be useful for something to know the names of the three cats of the little girl. Maybe someday a giant or an archdemon will ask about it. They do that! Everyone knows that.
My expensive knowledge about “the coastal cave” or “repair” will surely be useful for something! And the fact that I broke my neck while jumping down the slope will also be good for something! Just like my 4 in math back then or the fact that I watched 10 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.
Somehow, one misses the meaning of being
It worries me a bit that I have no idea anymore what the dead cat in Icewind Dale 2 was actually useful for. But that after 15 years I still believe it is beneficial to know the names of the 3 cats of the little girl and that it gives me a good feeling… I find that somehow beautiful.
Maybe I like the feeling that the world is alright when every action and every deed leads to something, has some hidden meaning, is noted, written down, and collected. That there is someone who makes sure that all threads lead somewhere, that everything has some meaningful consequence.
And if it isn’t like that, then at least it’s a nice thought.
