Posted by pixiestixy on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 - 16 Comments
Tags: astral realm, dead, faction, game mechanics, high inquisitor, living, objectives, phasing, questing, respawn, spirit healer, static world, win
The High Inquisitor is a regular column at Project Lore that seeks answers to the greatest mysteries of Azeroth. Each installment, the inquisitor will attack a previously unanswered question and attempt to explain the unknown. But she won’t rest until all plausible explanations are explored. The best, most probable comment(s) will be highlighted with the next edition’s inquisition.
Welcome, dear readers, to another installment of the High Inquisitor. This time, I want to take a look at the spirit healer’s role in our adventures. But first, let’s take a look back at some of your submitted answers to the last question, when I asked where all the kids are in Azeroth.
We got a nice range of answers, from pointing out that there are kids running around, they’re just sometimes hard to find, to the thought that Azerothians have stopped having kids during wartime. The idea that I like best, however, is that our toons, before we start playing them, are the kids of the world. I thought Phanttas described it best:
I think that over time the children of Azeroth evolved to become safe from all those gigantic spiders, raging elementals and opposing faction members by turning invisible. The children stay like this while they train to become adventurers themselves, but do it in a safe way, because the creatures they are trying to take [enlarged spleen]s from can’t see them. Some of the children realise that they aren’t going to every be good enough to be an adventurer and stop being invisible to live their life running round Stormwind free of the perils of adventuring. The other children however, once they have been training for several years, suddenly get a calling to run to a certain place to start their true lives, where they become visible at last: the starting zones. If you hang around them for long enough you can see this miraculous act happening.
Now moving on, let’s explore this week’s question a bit. I’m sure you’re all familiar with Spirit Healers, those celestial beings who await adventurers who enter the astral realm between life and death, ready to guide them back to the land of the living. While I appreciate the life that my toons can continue living, I also am aware that these spirit healers also must be the reason for respawning foes in areas that we so painstakingly clear out while questing.
So here’s the question: How can any side ever truly win? Be they members of the Scarlet Crusade, tribal leaders atop Darkcloud Pinnacle, hostile centaurs or quirky murlocs, our enemies will simply run back to their corpses and respawn a few minutes after their defeat. How can any group ever claim victory when neither side’s numbers wane?
In the case of PvP, we at least have an objective that will determine the winner; Capture the flag, defend the keep, gain the most resources. In the rest of the world, our objectives are outlined in quest form: Kill 10 of these and 20 of those; gather 8 shiny items scattered throughout the enemy village. But the world is static, and so the outcome of our endeavors is less defined. After we leave, the world goes back to the way it was before we ever came. Generations later, our alts can perform the same quests.
Once again, game mechanics come into play. This is an essential aspect of MMO gameplay, and the only way around it that I’ve seen is through phased events. But phasing the whole world would be quite a task, and wouldn’t necessarily give us anything better. Regardless, I’m interested in how we can use the lore to explain the situation.
I say we need to appeal to the enemy spirit healers themselves, and convince them they’re on the wrong side. Then, we’d get somewhere.
How do you think we can get past this dead heat?
Related Posts: The High Inquisitor: On the Longevity of Food and Feasts, BigRedKitty: New Spirit Beast Found on PTR! (video), The High Inquisitor: Why Doesn’t Azeroth have Changing Seasons?, The Joke Known As Healing Numbers, The High Inquisitor: Where Are All the Kids?,
By poz18 on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
sounds chill
By Zero on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Its the same as the boss levels. You cant look at it from a linear time line of events, because its a multiplayer game, so people need to be able to do all the same quests in order to level. I dont think you could use lore to explain it, because its a mechanic of the game, and not related. Its the same as the strength of the bosses too. Just because a level 80 boss is lvl 80 doesnt mean that in the lore they are weaker or stronger than a lvl 60 boss.
By Schmitty on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Maybe every single mob and boss is our very own Tyler Durden.
By Azurienatei on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I have to agree with Zero. While one could theorize that the ‘enemy spirit healers’ are merely doing what ours are and all, its really just a game mechanic. I don’t think it has much to do with the lore. I mean, come on, wouldn’t it suck if you were told that you had to kill this one particular ‘leader’, then you got there, someone else killed them, and you couldn’t kill them, ever?
By 4Khazmodan on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
In a game with over 11 million players, you can’t have one time only spawns(even rare spawns like the plagued proto drake spawn on a timer). Especially in zones like barrens or westfall which are highly populated. You could not have respawns in a single player rpg, in an mmo however, that is impossible.
By Innosinned on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 4:00 am
If you use loads and loads of phasing, the issue of others having to kill the same thing as you is no longer an issue. In your own little world you cleansed the world of everything. So basically it is solvable, though I wouldn’t advise Blizz doing this, as it would be hard to see any other players, making it more like a single player game with a co-op mode (in dungeons) and a chatbox… Much like Guild Wars really.
So, the question remaining is, do the enemies have a Spirit Healer? We don’t really know much about Spirit Healers, I think. Maybe they only choose to resurrect those who do good in this world. Maybe we players are allowed to linger as spirits and find our bodies back, because we are needed for a future goal, like beating the Lich King or whatever comes after he is dead.
Another theory: Maybe Azeroth is actually much larger in scale, but is made smaller so travel won’t take so long (wouldn’t want to be walking for a month to get from Borean Tundra to Howling Fjord), meaning most mobs (not counting leaders and such) are just displayed in small quantities, so when you kill one, a, let’s say queued, mob takes his place.
By jackabassalope on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 8:26 am
the question of constant player and mob reincarnation could be directly tied to the ‘where the kids at?’ question: perhaps in order to bring you, me, and hogger back to life, the spirit healers collectively steal the life-force or bits of soul from all of our sperm and eggs and use it to bring us back to life.
so congrats citizens of azeroth, every time you die or kill a mob, you stop a baby from being born!!!
By Zumo on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 9:44 am
The spirit healers are on Blizzards side! Next time you die, listen closely to what they say
“Give us your money, thats right you customer, give us your money”
Its actually a little bit distorted to not make it so obvious so its like
“Give us your money ahhhhh, thats right you customarrrrrrr, give us your money ahhhh”
Serious, listen out for it
By Shagathal on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
After all these years of war the afterlife-guardian became overwhelmed by the numbers of deaths. To give it the time to punish or reward for his actions done in life the Spirit Healers were put in place. This is merely possible because the people indeed stopped having children so overpopulating the world isn’t possible and all is in balance.
By Shamtastik on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Time to exorcise them evil spirits!
By cocopuff on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
sorry to sound like a broking record but you expect way to much of this game if you really want a reason for whear they are coming from then the enemy spirit healer sounds preaty good but it think blizzard specificly desighed the game like this so these little battles we have would never end in the game narru are still fighting the burning legion even thoguh its been long since we defeated their leader
the lore never said how/if yogg and c’thul perished but i am sure most of us here have our own storys how the dreadfull old gods met their demise same for illidan, kel’thuzad, kel’thas, all the alliance and horde leaders basicly allmost every character in warcraft lore that blizz has imployed in this game that actualy died logicly a level 70 should be stronger then a level 60 and a level 80 should be stronger then both but warcraft lore never implied what cahracters are stronger then the others ,
By Fabrizi on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
i say we call on the LK to do our work for us XD
By Cirrce on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 6:22 am
And here I always thought I was seriously weird for thinking on this question in my idle moments. Good to see I’m not the only one who thinks completing a quest is so useless if the enemy just respawns again.. and again.. and nothing ever changes…
But yeah it’s hard to have it any other way. Hell, I remember how annoying it was when Wrath came out and zillions of players were camping every quest mob imaginable and I ground my teeth just waiting for the (usually) pretty fast respawn.
By BlahbahBlah on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Saurfang didn’t get a spirit healer.
By Xplosion on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
You mention that you don’t see how it is possible for one side to ever ‘win’… But look at the real world, War, for example. We go to war and win, that doesn’t mean the other side was wiped out… There will always be followers, always. So just think of respawns as followers, as far as ‘named’ NPC mobs go, well just think of that as a follower honoring the old leaders name/title…
By grandobsidian on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
rule number one of video games, what you see is not the truth.