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.
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