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.