The Casual Hermit

Words by Gregory Goh

A hermit is someone who, by choice, lives a solitary life, withdrawing from any social activity whatsoever. Casual means informal, lacking serious interest or devotion. As such, a casual hermit would be someone who prefers to be alone, but occasionally enjoys company. This is my modus operandi whenever I play online multiplayer games, especially MMOs (short for Massively-Multiplayer Online Games).


I trudged wearily through the canyon, after having cleared yet another raider camp. Huge, rusty metal double doors loomed ominously ahead of me at the base of a cliff. "Recommended team of 4 players. Do you wish to enter?" crackled a loudspeaker overhead as I touched the doors. "I work alone," I muttered, and pushed the doors open. Inside, the loudspeaker continued, "Your mission is to infiltrate this underground facility and rescue Dr. X. You have one minute to prepare. Good luck." I patched myself up with a med-kit, grabbed some ammunition and did final checks on my third mechanical arm. Without further hesitation, I slid down the ladder and into the dungeon. The guards greeted me at gunpoint. "Whoa there, mates. I'm here to speak to Dr. X." "We don't have no Dr. X." grumbled one of them. "Then may I have a word with the warden, please?" "No can do." "Well if you won't escort me, I'll be letting myself in then." I fired up my jet-pack and zipped off, leaving the dirty work to my auto-turret and drones.

An apt visualization of what I always do, alone.

Soloing a 4 person dungeon. That's what I usually do. Sounds badass, but you have no idea how many times I've had to repeat the same run, only to fail right at the end. A bad example of a solo player, I'd say. But I have my reasons for being a lone wolf, mainly because I don't have any friends. Playing the same game, that is. Once in a blue moon however, I'd successfully convince one of my friends to play with me. It just so happens that they rarely stick around. Why? Well, the planets would have to be perfectly aligned before we can even hope of seeing each other online at the same time. And when we do, the game messes us up, be it that one of us hasn't patched, or that the in-game chat fails us yet again, among other things. Such issues make playing with friends more tedious than it's worth for me, and when my best friend quit, that was when I started my virtual life as a solitary nomad.

But then, you ask, "What about all the other players? MMO's have nothing but players all around you. Why don't you go play with them?" Same reason. The time factor. Most of the MMO's I play have servers located halfway across the globe, which means the majority of the players are from that side of the world, thus a time difference - sometimes a rather big one. When I have the time to play, the rest of them are busy sleeping (except for the few night owls). I also tend to avoid strangers on the net, so I don't go looking for players to play with. Unless when there just happens to be people close to that dungeon I've failed majestically so many times over, only then will I group up, but leave the moment it's done.

Even if I befriended someone in-game, it would be just for that session, because the chances of meeting again are super rare. On top of that, our individual progress rate through the game would surely be different, so the next time I need help on a quest, my buddy would have completed it ages ago, and probably moved on to other parts of the game world. No more questing together anymore. Oh well. Time to go Kirito style. (Anime lovers will get this reference.)

Me and my turrets.

As a solo player, I usually play as a self-sustaining character class, the best class for solo-ing. Typically this would be the healer or the one with the gadgets and turrets and stuff. Being a tech enthusiast, I almost always pick the latter. This would be the character that I use to test the waters, because the difficulty would be reduced somewhat due to the fact that I have mechanical companions by my side. After putting it through its paces, my inner perfectionist would be shouting at me to try out the rest of the character classes, just to see the game world through a different perspective, resulting in my jack of all trades nature.

Unfortunately in some games, playing over as another character means that I have signed an unspoken agreement to be thrown back into the unforgiving, merciless, mandatory grind in all MMO's, to do the exact same things, all the unchanging story quests that I have struggled through before, just to progress my character. This kind of soulless and shallow gameplay leads to a very tedious and time-wasting experience, solo or otherwise. It's no wonder I gave up on so many MMO's.

So there I was, hopping from one game to the next, until I found Firefall. A sci-fi open world MMO shooter. It was love at first sight. Classes in this game are called battleframes, a mechanical suit of hi-tech armor, so to speak. The unique thing was that players could switch between any of the battleframes whenever they please, which was absolutely unheard of for me. Couple that with futuristic weapons, and a free, open world to roam in, I was hooked even since I heard about it. I got into playing during the game's open beta (since July) and boy, am I addicted already. Almost everything about this game is totally unique. The quests you get in this game are unlike any other. You have the choice to accept it or otherwise. They just lay there, waiting for anyone to come complete it. No NPC's bugging you to kill X creatures and collect Y drops.

With this kind questing system, I felt as free as one possibly could in a game. However, it is also here that my solo play style had to be suppressed. It is incredibly hard for any player to solo this entire game, partly because the game doesn't let you. Cooperation is written all over this game. Go alone into any dungeon unprepared and you are asking for a death sentence. Fortunately, you get to "die" twice. The first time your health bar hits zero, you just get incapacitated, and any other player can revive you to get back into the action. After some time or when your temporary health hits zero again, you would have to re-spawn. Furthermore, the way the dungeons are designed allows players to freely join in on the quest, to lend an extra helping hand while receiving part of the reward too. This means as soon as anyone starts a dungeon, someone else will join him within a few minutes. Never walk alone, they say. There's even a competitive sports mode in Firefall's PvP (Player vs Player) offerings, called Jetball. Think of basketball and rugby with jumpjets and weapons. I was tired of Team Deathmatches in other games so this was certainly refreshing, but that's another story. In a sense, Firefall taught me to be cooperative, and I finally have friends to play with, so my life as a hermit just became casual.

"Warning. Invasion of Sunken Harbor imminent. Requesting support from all available squads."

Suited up in a Recluse battleframe, I double checked my equipment. Toxin-laced bolts? Check. Toxic grenades? Check. Poisonous gas tanks? Full.

"You guys ready?" said my minigun wielding squad leader. "Ready." I replied. "Bring it on!" yelled the Firecat, twirling his Thermal Cannon. The healer behind us gave a thumbs up. "Turrets are hot." radioed the engineer from his nest. "The view up here is spectacular!" said the sniper perched atop a tower. I looked up towards the sky. Tiny black dots with smoke trails were approaching. "Drop pods inbound. Let's do this!" I said as i gripped my crossbow.

Freedom is often an overused word. But sometimes, at least for the more carefree of us, a little bit of freedom really brings a whole lot more fun.



Picture credit to: 
www.europreneurs.org 
Hi-Rez Studios