Expanding the sandbox?
From Azeroth and onward the World of Warcraft has expanded and grown. The virtual world (or open world/’sandbox’) has gone from its two initial continents to now include several and with more on the way. It combines an open environment for its players to explore and interact with, but at the same time it also represents the limitations that the game presents us with. Exploring is a natural part of the game, and most players will at some point try to find their way to places that seem to be out of reach or difficult to reach. To some it is a challenge in itself to find ways to discover areas in the game that are difficult to reach, but so far no ‘new dimensions’ have been added to game.
If we look at another MMORPG like Neverwinter we find that they have added tools for the players to ‘add’ content and expand ‘the sandbox’, and then letting other players rate the experience. And one could say that WoW lets its players introduce some such additions through ‘addOns’ that lets the players track game data as well as create and adjust the user interface of the game. With the number of such ‘addOns’ numbering in the 1000s it is clear that this one of the areas where the WoW players are ‘innovating’ their game. Players also interact in other channels (official forums, guild sites and so on), but it is through the ‘addOns’ that they create interfaces for player interactions within the game itself. And when it comes to collaborating this is the only area players are given a limited level of freedom to innovate. And looking at the number of such ‘addOn’ projects and how many of them involve more than one developer it is main area for player innovation.
Now why is this interesting? It shows that players innovate. But it also shows that innovation is exclusive for those willing and able to invest time and effort into developing ‘addOns’. What I would like to see is a lowering of the threshold for having players innovate as part of the game beyond the ‘addOns’. Make it easier to create ideas, come with suggestions, rate suggestions and actually influence how the game evolves from a game experience perspective. It looks as if Blizzard both enjoys a close relationship with its gamers and that they want to be able to communicate with their players, but at the same time they have not developed any integrated services for this type of interaction.
If I return to Neverwinter and their solution for adding content to their game I really enjoy this concept, but alas it also felt like it failed on achieving what it set out to do. The solution felt a bit too simple and the created content all to often felt ‘cut off’ from the game and with little or no direct in-game connection. To a certain extent it felt like this part of the game was ‘under construction’ on a permanent basis and that everything within would have an ‘un-finished’ feel to it. Which felt sad as I really loved the concept and idea of having your players add both content and expand on your game world. So how does one continue to improve on such player generated content? I think that most gamers today that invest time in MMORPGs would love to be involved its development if it was made simple enough and easily accessible, and I hope to see this part of such game improve. Large games will always be a collaborative effort where the players are just as much a part of the creation as the actual producers and developers.
Long quest or short?
From the 5 minute Daily-quest to the several weeks long Legendary Cloak quest-line. Having spent multiple hours in World of Warcraft these last few months I can readily say that I have been doing my share of both, and I have found a few elements that I have been experiencing as hindrances rather than entertaining.
Lets start with Daily-quests as these are often how a gaming session would start out, and all in all I do not mind pursuing a few of these to earn some gold, harvest some reputation and scrape together some crafting goods along the way. Saying hi to friends that are online and checking around for events or activities for the evening. Its a good way to kick off the game session, but there are a few drawbacks. First off its the pure number of such quests and elements of the game that are considered obligatory to be able to enter into the more challenging parts of the end game (game activities after hitting the maximum attainable level in the game). Second its the feeling of work where it stops being ‘blissful productivity’ and become repetitive ‘waste’ of time I would have rather spent doing something more fun. My solution in the end has been to pick up a few very quick such quests along with a very limited amount of those that are considered ‘obligatory’ (often needed to be able to enjoy other parts of the game or as parts of longer quest-lines). Problem in my situation is progress as completing important combinations or sequences of such quests takes me much longer than someone spending most of their time online or spending more time grinding their way through these quests in larger scale.
Next is the longer quest-lines that require weeks of work to complete. I mostly enjoy this method of storytelling with one important hindrance. Game play to me is more like a good movie or a great book and less like an ongoing TV-series, so when I am forced to ‘put away the book’ or hit ‘pause’ on my movie I become really annoyed. There are presently two types of game mechanics like this where one is connected to item drops and the other to a virtual currency where there is a limit to how much of this currency you are allowed to earn every week. Going through end game instances hunting for these drops also earns me the possibility for item upgrades and is part of the end game I would be pursuing anyway. So this version of blocking my story I can live with. Its the virtual currency I have trouble with. To fill my weekly quota it is not enough to go through the end game raid instances, you also need to push through a number of Daily-quests and/or heroic dungeons/scenarios. So I grind my way through to reach the cap only to have to repeat the same grind the following week and then again the week after. It is not the first time this type of game mechanics have been introduced into World of Warcraft, but I really hope they can find better and more relevant game activities for us to pursue when working our way through some of the best end game story-lines. Not to mention the feeling of having completed an epic achievement when completing them.
Finally; do not mix PvE and PvP. These are two completely different types of game play and forcing non-PvP gamers to fail their way through numerous PvP-grinds facing massively superior and motivated PvP-players destroys my evening. Many PvE-players might enjoy some PvP to add diversity to the game, but its by choice. I found the solution for the Throne of Thunder where the players could chose to earn their reputation and progress through either PvE- or PvP-quests perfect, but being forced to do PvP as part of the Legendary quest-line was a massive game destroyer for me an I would end up dreading to have to go online to play at all.
Behavior in raids – progressing or regressing as a group
There are two side to this take on group dynamics, one positive and one negative. One set the stage for increased performance of the group members. As the result of internal competition and performance tracking or just that the presence of others help facilitate their own ability to perform. The other involves ‘hiding in plain sight’ while letting the rest of the team do the job. Positive tracking seems to be the key to make sure that all pull their weight with emphasis on the positive. Its ok to have a bad day, just not every day there is a raid planned.
Personally I subscribe to the Pareto Principle (80/20) for analyzing raid performances, and in more ways than one. Lets look at some examples of how this might be useful;
1. No matter how awesome your raid group is you will always have a someone that is having a less than perfect day. Or you can turn it around and saying that there will always be a few that are having a great day and performing above and beyond what they normally would. No matter which version of the Pareto Principle you make use of its all about expecting the balance of your group to be different from raid to raid. The number one DPS might always top the DPS trackers, but gap to the number two is likely to be different, and sometimes this has nothing to do with the game itself. Being able to identify variations like this will help you adjust strategies accordingly.
2. When given the choice for multiple strategies it is always difficult to decide if one should spend five wipes on the most promising of them or try out five different strategies and see how they pan out and then chose the one that worked best. Or test two strategies two times. There are three parts to this way of deciding on strategies. First is researching and analyzing different strategies, both the ones you can find online and those you draw up yourself. Second is about knowing your team and understanding which of these strategies are likely to work or fail. And finally how many wipes before you change strategy. The combination of these will ensure that wiping does not feel like you are running constantly into a wall hoping it will fall over due to some miracle of random luck…
3. The final example that I find important to mention is when everything is going wrong. Often when things seem to be failing all over the place there are a very few reasons for it; 20% of the errors being made are resulting in 80% of what is going wrong. The trick is to identify and fixing those key errors or if this is not an option its time to change the chosen strategy itself.
In an earlier post we touched on the topic of conformation in groups, and so far it seems that high performance creates better players as much as a low performance results in massive slacking and crappy performances. I have to admit to being a ‘victim’ of both; if a raid has set my mood on a negative curve I am more likely to be counter productive and at the same time I see that high performance encourages me to push myself harder and increase my game awareness.
So to make some conclusions; raiding is rarely WYSIWYG, and as much as there are no real clear black and white there is no pure gray either. The Pareto Principle mainly tries to focus on the fact that there is always a balance, but that it is rarely 1:1. Some things you can track with addOns, some can be tracked by just knowing your players, but some things are left open to pure intuition or even clairvoyance if you are a believer in such. And the more present something good or bad is in any given raid the more likely it is to breed more of the same.
Behavior in raids – leadership
Becoming a raid leader is not role one can just ‘take’, its a role that first requires you to conform. Just like the players will conform to their roles and their personality type the leader must first find his place in the group to be able to lead.
In a LFR the time needed to ‘hold’ a leading role is short, but for a guild raid group a leader will need time to be able to have the group work together as a team. The difference primarily based on the level of ‘facerolling’ (lack of complexity) that is possible in a LFR where mistakes are much easily ‘forgiven’ and the boss mechanics can be ‘ignored’ by some and have the raid still come out victorious. From the next level and onward such mistakes have much ‘deadlier’ consequences, and when you reach the Heroic level you also face additional mechanics that do not exist in the other levels and where there is no room for ‘mistakes’.
Even if the basic mechanics of an encounter is more or less the same for all, it becomes unique for each combination of players that take it on. And its up to the raid leader to ‘mold’ his team into a team that is ready and able to succeed. Overcoming these challenges is not just a combination of individual efforts, it is just as much how they are able to work as a team and counter any flaws or assist in enhancing positive abilities that each individual player might display during different challenges. Where each player must understand both the game mechanics for the encounter as well as those for their characters role, its the leaders role to puzzle all of this together on both a game and social level and bring the victory home.
So make sure you groom your aspiring leaders – they are a rare breed, and the good ones even more so. At the same time it seems that good leaders always bring with them a set of flaws. So the question becomes this; does the raids successes outweigh the flaws of the leader?
Behavior in raids – play your role
At the absolute most basic level raids operate with three roles; the tanks, the healers and the DPS (damage pr. second; the damage dealers). In a game like WoW the balance between these roles is critical for a raids success, but how a raid chooses to balance between them can be different depending on play style and level of progress and/or skill of the individual players.
One of the famous psychological experiments concerning the adoption of roles in the Stanford Prison Experiment which took the conformation the participants to the roles they had been given to the extreme. Interestingly you find the similar effects when it comes to players conforming to their raid roles, and this includes both their player role as well as their perceived social role. Tanks are leaders, damage dealers are superstars and the healers are the caretakers. Of course these are my own personal generalizations and when we come down to specific experiences its rarely this simple. You will find that any role can lead, the superstar is all about how ego a player boasts and anyone with a kind word and encouraging attitude can become the social glue a good raid group needs.
When you take the step deeper into the actual game play roles in a raid you will discover additional nuances; there are different tanking styles, damage dealers will be able to excel on different raid challenges and healers will differ in how they use their abilities. For a good group you need the right diversity where all the roles come together and creating a ‘well oiled machinery’. A good raid leader will be able to identify how his teams individual players perform and create tactics that match their play style.
Moving from the game to the social relations between the players you will find similar behaviors as you would in most groups. There are a multitude of descriptions of such personality types, but as an example these 7 personality types might be a place to start if you want to check how your own raid is made up; the leader, the team player, the researcher, the expert, the planner, the creative and the communicator. Optimally most of your raiders will take on more than one role, but the key to success here is to find a good balance covering several such personality types.
Behavior in raids – obeying the rules
There are rules in the game. Some of them are coded into the game and breaking them will be considered cheating and some are policies and might get you into trouble with the game company if you decide to ‘play’ with them. Then there are the ‘unwritten’ rules of the social gaming community. They are based on a certain level of consensus meaning that what might be allowed in one raid might get you kicked in another. All though nobody has taken the time to list them like ‘The Rules of Fight Club’, there are definitely a set of rules for raiding. It is more a problem of knowing exactly which interpretation or version of the rules that are active for any given raid experience. One of the positive elements of joining a raid guild or community is the fact that these rules will remain more or less the same over time, but there is also less flexibility when it comes to breaking or bending them.
I have found a few rules to be more ‘common’ than others and I have tried to make a quick list of them with a few comments as they are not always self explanatory to non-gamers:
1 – do not stand in crap
This is the rule that covers the mutual understanding that you have some idea of what this boss fight is about and that you will be able to act accordingly. This simplified version basically refers to the understanding that you should not let your avatar stand in stuff on the ground that will kill it, but is often meant more broadly and refers to having an understanding of how a certain boss fight works and that you have either already successfully mastered this or you have a decent understanding of how you might be able to.
2 – play your role
A carpenter is not a neurosurgeon, and a tank is not a healer. When signing up for a LFR you will also select a role to play and people expect you to be able to perform accordingly. When it is questionable if you are ‘playing your role’ people will most of the time ignore it, but if you blatantly take on a different role than the one you have signed up with the raid will kick you quite quickly – even if you might be able to sneak in a wipe or two first…
3 – be prepared
Directly relates to rule 1 and 2, but includes an expanded level of preparedness through having brought with you virtual goods as well as making use of add-ons and/or other 3rd party software that will enhance your ability to perform in the game.
4 – be nice
Do not be an ass, try to be friendly and polite when ever possible and avoid name-calling and abusive behavior. Even if cyber bullying is all too common these days I find that most raids have a tolerance level that only stretches so far. Emotional outbreaks will happen, but unless your actions could in any way have any positive effect you are better off rage-quitting than ‘infecting’ other raid members with your ‘social vileness’ . Same goes for handling failures and mistakes; stating the obvious will not make ‘obvious’ go away and a little kindness will always get you farther than calling someone ‘a retard’.
That last rule also seems to be the one that a random group could be more ignorant about than what you would see in a raid guild. On any account; the more rules you break the quicker you will get yourself kicked. Add to this that the more rules that are broken the more likely the raid will perform poorly it seems like a good idea to follow them.
Behavior in raids – conformation
Raids and guilds are like ‘The Borg’:
From psychology this phenomena represents almost ‘magical’ properties, and I am uncertain as to how to evaluate it beyond the questions it poses. Would a low performance gamer become hardcore by joining a hardcore raid community? Would an awesome PvP-gamer totally loose his ‘mojo’ if she/he continually helps out newbies?
At the same time there is also a social aspect to it that I am much more comfortable talking about as I constantly see this when playing. The moment a group goes social in a positive way the players will immediately try to find common ground. How are we alike? With the positive attitude comes the wish to get along. And once common ground is found there is no stopping the possibilities, and I have on several occasions taken my relations out of the game and into a bar or cafe and actually met the person. Some relationships I still have and nurture and some fade into history, not unlike in real life. But once a good connection is made you will rarely loose it.
On the negative side a good social foundation might also get the same raid group wiping for hours on the same boss even if they should have accepted the fact that there is ‘no way in hell’ they are going to be able to succeed with the present team. All you need is a few blindly positive players along with some insanely hopeful loot-junkies and the conformity can convince the rest of the players to keep at it for hours. Over time I have come to accept that I can get entrapped this way as well, and I usually try to operate with a 3-wipe rule before I give up, possibly pushing it to five if I feel lucky. Problem is that with the LFR-tool in WoW you will always have someone leaving when there is a wipe, and that means you get new members that might be just the ones you need to succeed and thus making it harder to leave if the group has conformed to a certain point.
In general the consensus seems to be that we all want to have fun and we are desperately willing to conform if this makes the fun more likely to happen. Of course ‘fun’ can be different from player to player, but for most gamers these days its about mastering the ‘toon’ you have chosen, to overcome tough game challenges, to win some awesome epic items and to have some fun while doing it.
Gunnar Øyvin Fredrikson 