how long is too long?

since this week we talked about RPG's and MMORPG's and the upcoming reading reaction has a World of Warcraft theme i think it wouldbe appropriate to directly address concepts in our lectures. the lectures last week were particularly interesting to me as i am playing WoW for this class. in the lecture, the difference between virtual worlds like second life or river city and Virtual world RPG's is discussed. it is mentioned that in games like WoW you can theoretically continue to play forever by design. my question is whether or not this is a bad quality to a game? in my opinion, the longer that you play a game, the more one can potentially learn from that game.

a particular part of WoW that i really like is the fact that it covers both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. the game is quite challenging at some points and the gamer is able to explore every aspect of the game at their own will, giving complete control. at the same time, the game incorporates a large amount of reward and incentive within and outside the game experience. inside the game each player complete quests and defeats their foes in an attempt to get better gear and experience. also from the game you can develop your people skills and understand how to work at maximum efficiency.

in a way, WoW is exactly like a second life or river city and there are many people that actually do use WoW for that purpose. it is different, however, because it offers a bit more with the experience and most likely appeals to a slightly different crowd. i think that one of the best aspects of WoW is its ability to attract so many different types of people and gamers for several different reasons.

i am very excited to discuss my game as well as other games that are similar in class this week. i have found great joy in playing WoW and i hope that others can learn from and experience WoW just as i have.

Cheating

since WoW is an online game with millions of real human players playing at the same time there are not really any cheats similar to the traditional ones that include a series of buttons. i have found that every once in a while i will hear about a company over general chat that is selling gold, gear and other services. i wonder if it is cheating to use this service to change, modify or enhance your gameplay? at first i thought that it was cheating. but then i realized that the focus of this game is not educational its aimed at entertainment. maybe its not a cheat if the game aspect you are skipping or changing is not educational. at the same time though, all the classic game cheats that we grew up with do not help us skip educational aspects of gameplay and yet they are still considered cheats. but is it different to buy currency than to do a cheat that makes you invincible? i think it is not cheating if you are making gameplay more enjoyable when the point of the game is entertainment rather than education.

ive recently become a bit bored with the guild that i was in. i found that people were not very friendly and didnt interact much. so i decided it was time for a change of scenery. i joined a new guild that was a little smaller but showed much more potential as a guild.

another thing that happened recently was that i discovered that the game has aspects that are only accessible at the highest level, level 80. some of these aspects include arenas and heroic dungeons. arenas are similar to battlegrounds, which i discussed a couple weeks ago. you can be on a team of 2, 3 or 5 and you have one battle to the death with another group of the same number. you receive reward points that can be used to purchase gear and other items. heroic dungeons is a setting that level 80 characters can use when entering dungeons that will make the dungeon much harder but at the same time the setting upgrades all the loot that drops in the dungeon.

these aspects reinforce the idea that motivation was a key focus for Blizzard when they designed WoW. the very long game play eventually turns into repetitive fighting and they do a great job of periodically introducing new areas and aspects of game play thus reigniting the gamers love of the game.

its more than just vicious fighting.......

in the beginning of this course when i started playing WoW the combat aspect of the game definitely had the greatest motivational effect on me. i thrived on dealing heart-stopping killing blows and searching for my next victim. i cannot deny that i saw the educational and developmental characteristics of the game as i played but all i wanted to focus on was the thrill of the next kill.

my eyes have been opened to the many options and routes i can take to the same thrill and honor and sense of accomplishment. one of the options was brought up in class during our conference call. i explored the auction house and discovered a whole other world within WoW. i found that a player could learn economic basics through the auction house. by understanding supply and demand players must decide on an appropriate price for items that they wish to sell. in an enormous world, the auction house allows players to communicate with thousands of players over a trading network, essentially shrinking a huge realm to a much more manageable size. after exploring and putting the auction house to use i have made a profit of over 100 gold coins which is about 10 times more gold than i had before i utilized this trading tool.

one of the things that i have noticed is that i am constantly using what i have learned earlier in the game to benefit and improve my gameplay at my present level. there are many different types of monsters that i fight including beasts, humanoids, undead, demons and many more. many of my moves have restrictions like that they only can be used on a certain type of monster. this reapplication of previously learned information is a fairly good demonstration of Gee's Transfer Principle, which states that learners are given ample opportunity to practice by transferring what they learned earlier to latter scenarios.

Self-Knowledge, amplification of input, multimodal, and Discovery principles

This week i didnt get as much gameplay in as i would have liked to but, nonetheless, i increased my level by 3 and ive began to perfect and organize my general gameplay as well as my combat skills. ive figured out that the best way for me to grow levels fast is, first and foremost, to stay on task during the hours that i play. next, i have found that if i am completing quests while leveling, it is best to complete several quests without turning them in for experience and once you hit the next level you can turn them all in at once and then you are already between a quarter and half way to the next level. it gives the impression that you are leveling much quicker than you actually are and it seems to be much more efficient.

i also have been leveling recently by fighting through dungeons. it seems that in the dungeon i gain more experience at a rapid rate and the bosses yield a large amount of experience. Blizzard has installed an aspect to the dungeons that has increased the motivation to pursue multiple dungeons in one sitting, or at least increase the total number of dungeons completed. there is a tool called the dungeon finder that will put your character into a queue to either join a specific dungeon or a random dungeon. this makes finding a dungeon group effortless and it can be done while you are completing quests. a great motivational mechanism that was installed in the dungeon finder was that if you have no preference as to which dungeon you enter then you can queue for a random dungeon and when you slay the final boss in that dungeon you are rewarded with an item called a satchel of helpful goods. when you open this satchel there is a rare item that is often a radical upgrade to your characters gear.

before i took notice of this aspect of the game i would run dungeons often leaving with little to no "loot" and almost never came out with items that drastically improved the stats of my character. since it seemed like i was wasting my time in these dungeon i entered less. this reward guarantees you a solid item at the end of the dungeon thus providing excellent motivation to enter as many random dungeons as possible.

in Gee's self-knowledge principle, the gamer learns about the domain and him or herself as well as their current and potential capacities. i would say that to an extent you will learn about the domain if you so choose. a player can go through the game doing minimal exploration simply racing to the level cap. if one wishes, you could spend an entire month running through the 4 continents exploring the various environments and topographies and unique properties that correspond with each. what i think Warcraft does not accomplish is having the gamer learn about themselves. in a sense you do learn about the capacities, current and potential, of your created character but there is no point in which you will discover your own personal capacities in the "real world" besides maybe how fast you can click the mouse haha! this is mostly because the game really does not test any of your abilities as there is no need for math, history, science, or any other subject for that matter. in a select few occasions you may be required to use logic or reasoning skills but not very often. dont get me wrong, this does not reduce the quality of the game or my desire to play....... just pointing out a quality missing from WoW that James Paul Gee values in a good quality game.

another Principle that is often poorly expressed is the Amplification of input principle. there are virtually no instances, besides maybe very early gameplay, in which a small amount of input yields a large amount of output. WoW is a difficult game that requires dedication, hard work, and many hours to play and perfect.

now that is enough World of Warcraft bashing. the simple fact that the game is an MMORPG along with the intricate game design as well as the multiple routes principle, makes it an excellent example of number 20 multimodal principle. there are eons more to WoW than just text. there is virtual environments, player versus player combat, player versus environment combat, dungeons, multiple story lines, and so much more. in fact, there is so much stuff that i could probably write a novel about it all. unfortunately i dont feel like writing a novel so im not gonna go too deep into it. all you need to know is that World of Warcraft takes gameplay light years past simply text.

as i discussed earlier, you could spend days exploring the various continents in WoW. Gee's discovery principle allows the gamer to explore their new environment. the game provides guidance so that your gameplay can be organized and not chaotic. but the way in which the information and guidance is provided allows the gamer to explore and learn how to do things for themself. its a solid system that provides you with enough information to complete your quests or other endeavors but doesnt write it out step by step so that you have to figure out the best way to complete it.

i recently discovered battlegrounds, which are a haven for player versus player combat. so far i can enter two different battlegrounds. the first is called Warsong Gulch and it is essentially an extreme version of capture the flag. you attempt to capture the other teams flag and in order to make the flag carrier drop the flag you have to kill him. the other battleground is called Arathi Basin. the Basin is a collection of 5 camps or bases that include the mine, stables, blacksmith, lumbermill and farm. the goal of this game is to gain control of as many of the bases and then protect them. when you have control over a particular base it will start to create resources for your team. the first team to gain a certain amount of resources wins the game. of course there would be no reason to play these games if there were no reward. when you win a game you are awarded 3 tokens from that battleground and when you lose you are only awarded 1. each game you also get an amount of honor points based on both your performance and your team's performance. these honor points and the tokens can be used to buy special items and pieces of gear.

Practice, Probing, Multiple Routes, Incremental Principles

hey guys,

so here i am a level 23 Rogue now! ive began to notice the increased difficulty level in the game play and have come to thoroughly enjoy the challenge of more difficult monsters. last week i talked about a few of Gee's Principles and how they presented themselves in World of Warcraft as well as some of my personal game play experiences that i wanted to share with you. this week i would like to do the same but addressing some different principles. Gee's 12th principle, the Practice Principle, is one of the reasons why World of Warcraft has such a wide age and skill range. his practice principle states that gamers get lots of practice in a context where practice is not boring and gamers spend lots of time on task. the amount of time that you spend on task, fighting monsters and completing quests is entirely up to the gamer in this game. if you wanted you could spend days messing around with in game professions and PvP battlegrounds instead of progressing through quests and dungeons. at the same time though, for those ambitious players that enjoy staying on task and reaching the highest level the practice principle is exhibited quite well. a player that is efficiently grinding out experience and levels will constantly be in combat mode, fighting monsters, and gaining knowledge on how to improve and eventually perfect their skills. in other words, most of the game play, although it may be productive and working towards something, it is also practice. this also, in a way, ties into the Incremental Principle in that in the beginning of the game you start with around 3 moves that you can do and you get to practice with those 3 moves for a level or two. then as you gain levels you learn more and more moves and once again you practice with those moves for two levels. eventually you have a whole arsenal of probably more than 40 moves that each do different effects. so the gamer goes from learning the purpose of 3 moves and learning to organize the use of those 3 moves in order to defeat monsters to memorizing over 40 different moves and their uses in organized combat when the highest level is finally reached. to me that is quite an achievement and definitely shows learning.

I have learned that much of this game is about trial and error and due to this Gee's 15th principle, Probing, is clearly present. throughout the game, the player must occasionally take chances and risks because they do not know the physical capabilities of an opponent or they are unsure of how a specific quest or other aspect of the game must be played out. fortunately for the gamer, many of the more confusing portions of the game are detailed in the quest tab of the user interface but there are occasions when no such description is available. in these circumstances the player must formulate a hypothesis of how a certain choice in the game will play out then run tests in the field by attempting the planned out attack or movement. sometimes this will work and other times it wont and through this process the gamer will learn from his or her mistakes. the beauty of this game is that if all else fails you cannot die for good and there are always other players online that can offer you the help and guidance needed to complete any task thrown your way. this directly ties into Gee's next principle, Multiple Routes. the fact that every action in this game is completely up to the gamer means that the game is based on a series of choices. you come to a fork in the road, literally or metaphorically, and you are forced to decide right or left and the game plays out based on your own unique decisions. what i mean is there is not just two choices one can make in each instance. there can be hundreds of choices for one decision. take the number of moves each character can potentially have and consider all the different combinations you can make without even considering what will be best against a specific monster or best for the group you are in. you see, every moment that you play World of Warcraft you are constantly making choices and learning from those choices. a phenomenal aspect to this game is that since the whole game is based on your decisions and almost nothing in the game is permanent, you can test out multiple routes or choices if previous decisions seem to play out poorly for your character.

i guess i will continue the same pattern as last week and end my post with a bit of information on how my personal game play is going. well i grew 5 levels since my last post and ive moved on to a different town where i am continuing to complete quests. i also entered a couple other dungeons called stockade which is in Stormwind Keep and Ragefire Chasm located in Orgrimmar. ive learned to coat my weapons in various types poisons in order to do more damage and i also learned to ride a mount at level 20 which allows me to move at a quicker pace which has helped greatly in my ability to complete more quests. i have two professions, the first is leatherworking ,which allows me to create various items made of leather. my other profession is first aid so that i may heal myself when i have been injured badly. i hope to enter at least 2 more dungeons by my next post and maybe get some better gear. i am also considering trying out some of the battle grounds that are offered at my level. see you next week. BKap signing off.

game design, psychosocial moratorium, committed learning, achievement principle

now a level 18 rogue i have had many new experiences that have expresses several of Gee's principles. Gee talks about how game design effects the value, both educational and non educational, of a game and whether it will keep gamers interested. his principle of game design is based upon the gamers ability to appreciate design and design principles. at the same time, its based on the games ability to produce those effects and results. In World of Warcraft, it is more than just the fantasy worlds and intense hands on game play that captivates the gamer. i have found so far that Blizzard has designed the game based around a fairly simple concept. gamers thrive on rapid positive feedback and reward. in the very beginning of the game, it takes mere minutes for your character to achieve the next level of play. this initially hooks the gamer by providing immediate positive feedback. as your character increases in level the game play gradually grows harder and it starts to become more difficult to gain the experience needed to achieve the next level. this design feature really compliments the game as it allows gamers of all calibers to play the game at the beginning and forces the growth and development of gaming skills as well as many other skills. one of Gee's principles that is exhibited to perfection in World of Warcraft is the "psychosocial moratorium" principle, which states that learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered. World of Warcraft is a game that includes extensive combat events and scenes so naturally there will be times when your character will become injured, poisoned, gouged, mauled, ensnared, blinded, cursed or even killed. fortunately, you learn through game play that many classes and races have abilities that allow them to remove, heal, mend and escape many of the injuries that may find your character. the aspect of the game that best illustrates this principle though is that fact that after you have been killed your ghost appears in a graveyard at which point you may run back to your corpse and resurrect yourself so that you may live to fight another day. thus the gamers gets an experience in which there are virtually no risks or consequences to your actions. now obviously you cannot control how other players act as there are real people behind a different computer screen controlling them, so in a sense there is still some risk in the game but once the game is turned off none of your actions in the game have an effect. another principle that i found excellent examples of in my game was the committed learning principle. in World of Warcraft the level capacity is level 80 which allows for extremely long game play. now you may think that playing one game for that long might become boring but with four continents and a combined over 150 zones and dungeons a boring day of game play is a rare occurrence. now i can only speak for myself when i say that the world that Blizzard has created is extremely compelling and sometimes seemingly unending. in each of the zones that i described above there are probably between 10 and 30 completely unique monsters to kill or interact with. the most compelling aspect i found was the fact that every player i met was an actual person rather than an NPC (non-player character). i was able to interact with real people by working together to complete quests and more recently i was able to enter my first dungeon, which was called The Deadmines. i found that there were quests that were specific to dungeons and inside the dungeon the monsters were much more difficult to defeat thus requiring group formation and teamwork. Gee's achievement principle was also expressed in the game very accurately. each quest that you complete yielded experience and sometimes money and special items. depending on your level, the difficulty of the quest and the importance of the quest in relation to a story line or certain person would determine the type of reward you would receive. for example, one quest i complete simply asked me to travel to a certain place and talk to one person. for that particular quest i probably received something like 200-300 experience. on the other hand, the quest that i completed in the dungeon i mentioned earlier that asked me to kill a man named Edwin Van Cleef, the mastermind of the defias brotherhood, probably awarded me around 2500 experience, 10-15 silver coins ( the second most valuable coin, works similar to dollars and coins where 100 copper= 1 silver coin and 100 silver coins= 1 gold coin) as well as a choice between three excellent items. this motivates the gamer to take on more difficult challenges thus providing more opportunities to learn and achieve.

on a more personal game play level, the game has been very exciting for me i can hardly put it down. i have realized that every two levels i grow new moves and abilities become available for purchase and at level 10 something new popped up called the talent tree. the talent tree allows the gamer to specialize in a certain aspect of their player. for each class there are 3 possible talent specialties and for rogues they are Assassination, combat and subtlety. each one possesses special benefits and for each level that you gain after level 10 you are given 1 talent point to spend on your talent. i chose to be combat because after talking to another rogue player in the game i was informed that combat specialty is the best for rapid level growth. i was told that when i hit level 80 that changing to a talent that was more focused on massive amounts of damage and dps (damage per second) which means doing large amounts of damage extremely quickly will be more beneficial and provide a more enjoyable gaming experience. another exciting thing that happened to me was that i discovered guild life. a guild is a group of players that all associate under one group name and if they are a quality guild help each other on quests and raid dungeons together. i have recently joined a guild called Hunter's Blade and they seem to be a fun and helpful guild that is focused on leveling. well thats all for me this week. who knows what is in store for me for this coming week. i do plan to reach about level 22 and hopefully attempt some new dungeons and obtain new gear. im sure i will continue to learn and find examples of Gee's principles while exploring new zones and dungeons in the World of Warcraft.