My House is not a Home

I lost my house in Minecraft. Not as in, I lost it in a flash flood, or a bush fire, but as in, I physically lost it. The location is no longer known to me. And you know what? I didn't care at all.

The place might as well have burned to ashes for all that it mattered. I'd built a portal, to see what happened, got bored relatively quickly with the nether realm, and then tried to come back. Little did I know, the game shirked me back to an alternate portal. That is to say, it threw me back into the world, but in unfamiliar territory.

At first, my reaction was "oh no, all my stuff is gone", but after a moment or two's consideration, I thought to myself "well, it's just stuff. It didn't take that long to make, and it's not like I can't do it again." That was the problem for me right there.

It wasn't my home. Not really. It looked like a home. It had a bed. There were some paintings. A window. Some doors. A few plants out back. If you took a picture book and flipped to a random page of a house, say, Goldilocks, then you would have the same thing. It was a meaningless husk. Just a building. If you asked a robot to draw a house, this is what you would have.

Bitch, let me tell you about Balmora. Do you remember Balmora? I sure do. Fondly. It was the first town in Morrowind. Well, the first proper town. You start off in Seyda Neen, but that place was such a podunk hole in the ground that I don't think it counts much.

Although, to be fair, it did help in creating a nice contrast, and really punching you in the dick with just how much more city there was in Balmora. You got off your prison ship, you wandered around the dinky little swamp town, a fat guy in roman armour gives you papers and tells you to go and see some old guy in another place. Nothing too exciting.

Then you see the silt strider. That was the point when you knew shit was about to get real. It was just so strage. That's Morrowind in one word. Strange. I mean, just take the tiny one mechanic there, mounted travel between towns, and compare it to, say, World of Warcraft. It's got griffins. Because it's fantasy! And griffins are fantasy too!

So you hop off the giant bug, and as soon as you're back in the game, they did something very clever. The silt strider is at the top of a tall flight of stairs. At first glance, that's not a big deal, but when you put it into context, well. It's a tall flight of stairs, at the entrance to a city, and this is in all probability, the first time you're looking at the city. Immediately, you get hit with the whole picture. You've got a perfectly angled view to see as much of the city as possible, while still getting the feeling that you're in the city, as opposed to above it.

Balmora had a lot of levels, physically. It was always sloping up and down. At the highest point, the top of the tallest buildings hugging the surrounding mountains. At the lowest point, strategically placed in the middle, a venetian canal. Lots of ramps and stairways everywhere, a few bridges. Not to mention that there were quite a few buildings that were deceptively close together - meaning that if you'd invested in the acrobatics skill, much of the rooftops of the city became available to you. Again, this being the first real town, that was important. It left a mark on you. Running away from the guards, and then dramatically leaping from roof to roof and losing them alltogether. Beautiful.

Then there were the people. Yes, people, not npcs. They felt like people because a lot of them moved around. There was a Nord lass with a big booming voice who always shouted something brash when we crossed paths, then kept on stomping down the road. There was a shady Orc fellow I always seemed to find skulking around in various back alleys who always turned to look at me, but very rarely vocally acknowledged me.

One of the key things about Morrowind, to me, was that everybody hated you. Just because you were a human. Or a lizard fish man. Or a furry. It didn't really matter. They just hated you, because.

That was really interesting. Most games pander you. Hold your hand the whole time. Make sure everything is perfect and just how you like it. Which is great, if you're Cypher, and you like Matrix steak. That's the crux of the matter right there. It's good when everything works out for you exactly how you want it to. But it certainly isn't real, at all. Things aren't perfect. Things are flawed. Innately. Flawlessness is an exceedingly rare quality, and when games dish everything out with an obsequious smile, trying to pander to your every whim, it's dull as hell, and ultimately unfulfulling.

Morrowind didn't shy away from that. People openly hated you. If you didn't have social skills, people would overtly voice disgust at you as you walked past. If they hated you enough, they wouldn't even talk to you. You want to buy a sword from that guy? Too bad, he doesn't like you enough. Deal with it.

Which leads to a whole big bag full of interesting developments. One of which, for me, was some lass in the thieves guild. She was smiling. I think she was the first person I met in the game that wasn't frowning, or yelling at me, or calling me a disgusting filthy criminal. And you know what?

I didn't talk to her. Not ever. I figured maybe if I started talking to her, she'd stop smiling, and realise that yes, I was indeed a disgusting filthy criminal. I valued the fact that there was one person in this place that maybe didn't immediately hate me, and I didn't want to risk losing that.

How amazing is it that the game affected me like that? If everybody had have been your usual happy townsfolk with one line of dialogue and a health potion on the table to steal, then the entire experience would have been meaningless.

Then there was returning to town, hoh yes. So many times I'd get lost in the world. I'm bad at that sort of thing. I'd have fought off a horde of cliff racers, have no usable weapons or armour left, no potions, no food, nothing at all. I'd be on the verge of death, crawling over the next hill, and then, the music kicked in, that triumphant, spectacular theme, and I'd see the tips of some of the buildings poking over some mountains... those were moments to remember.

Balmora felt like a town. In every way a town should feel like a town. It felt like it existed in its own right. As if it somehow kept going when I wasn't there. It existed independantly of me, because there was more than just me. My house in Minecraft? That's less of a house, and more of an enlarged closet. It's where I keep my things. That's it. It doesn't exist without me. It's dependant on me being there. There's nothing to care about.

Home is where the heart is, and, for me, at least, there was very little heart present in any abode in Minecraft. It was just where I hung my hat. Nothing more.