When health points in the MMORPG run low, the hero often reaches for a delicious ham and is instantly healed. Or the mage sips a bit of a liquor and is once again filled with mana juice to cast more magic. But where does this system actually come from?
“Oh, there’s a delicious bread on the floor of the dungeon that has been closed for centuries. I must taste it as it will surely awaken my vitality. And the slimy mushroom growing in the brown puddle above it must be particularly healthy!” That’s what a hero in an MMORPG might think. Because food plays a very special role in role-playing games.
Food serves as healing in many games. More modern MMORPGs even allow players to cook various dishes based on recipes, which can have different effects. These include not just healing but also temporary buffs. But where do these rather unappetizing tendencies come from?
PnP has made it possible again
The system upon which all this is based traces back to pen and paper role-playing games – as is often the case with computer RPGs. Healing has always been an important topic. After a tough battle, heroes want to replenish themselves and treat their wounds to quickly dive back into the next adventure. In real life, it would probably take weeks or months for a belly sliced open by an axe to heal.
In fantasy worlds, this must happen faster. This is where magic often comes into play.
- The healer treats the injuries,
- healing potions close wounds
- and even a nap can work wonders.
That food has healing powers makes sense: After all, a good warm soup strengthens. It can also heal a wound in the game, or a drink ensures that a wizard’s mana is replenished.
A healthy diet does indeed contribute to the body’s recovery. A balanced diet supplies the body with substances that it cannot produce itself. These nutrients energize the body and help it to function. And this includes the ability to heal itself. In games, this is, of course, exaggerated.
While in a pen and paper role-playing game, it wouldn’t be a problem to let heroes rest longer after an adventure to heal all injuries, in a computer game, and especially in an MMORPG, this is not so good. In online games, it is not possible to “fast forward” time.
A severely injured hero cannot just lie in the infirmary for four weeks. And using food to heal or drinks to regain mana is a logical and good solution.
The first games with food as a remedy
The Japanese role-playing game Dragon Slayer 2: Xanadu from 1985 is considered the first game in which food was used to heal heroes. However, the principle worked differently here. The character had to eat. If they didn’t, they would lose hit points. By consuming food, they would heal slowly.
Especially the Gauntlet game series relies on food as a source of healing. Even in the arcade game from 1985, it was necessary to find food. This could even be destroyed in the heat of battle against hordes of enemies, leading to disputes among players at the arcade machines.
The role-playing game Dungeon Master, released in 1987, made it possible to gain food from defeated enemies. Giant mushrooms (and other monsters) roaming the dungeons, for example, left behind something to eat, which healed the heroes. Here you can see a longer excerpt from this classic:
At that time, it was often the case that food was absolutely necessary. In the northern trilogy of The Dark Eye (The Fate Sword: 1992), heroes had to go hunting or buy provisions in the city to have enough food for long journeys.
The RPG Ultima 7 then took this food necessity to the extreme in 1992. The hero group had to eat regularly, which led to players hauling backpacks full of food. When the food ran low, party members loudly complained about starving, which became quite annoying over time.
So, they had to interrupt their exploration of the dungeon to quickly go hunting or to the city to shop at the baker and butcher.
Therefore, Ultima 8, which was released in 1994, switched to a different system. Food was only used for healing. It was no longer necessary to eat, as the hero could not starve.
This system became established and was adopted by more and more role-playing games.
From remedy to survival
MMORPGs also use this way of making food an important game element. Because being able to heal through eating is a clever and simple method to regain HP, even in the wild. This developed into a complete game system.
Modern MMORPGs no longer just let you gather food and then eat it. They offer complex cooking features through which you must collect various ingredients based on recipes to create dishes. These then return varying amounts of health points or mana, or even provide buffs.
However, the necessity to consume food has also become popular again – in survival games. In games like Conan Exiles, it is necessary to eat and drink. Otherwise, the character can starve or die of thirst. Thus, you constantly search for food such as berries or hunt animals to cook and eat their meat. And by the river, the hero sips some cool water. Depending on the type of food you consume, it not only replenishes your health points but also grants buffs.
The tradition of food as healing in MMORPGs is long. So when you find a piece of meat or cheese in a moldy dungeon, your characters should enjoy it – after all, it promises a refreshing of health points.
If you want to know where the concept of healer, damage dealer, and tank in MMORPGs comes from, we’ll reveal it to you.
