In some ways the solo player sounds like an oxymoron. World of Warcraft is, after all, a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game. Doesn't multi-player mean, well, multi-player? How does the solo player fit into all this?
The Stranger is a solo player, pursuing quests individually and leveling up strictly from individual efforts. This can be a slow way to level and it can be made event slower if the player waits until the character has acquired double experience credit. Double experience credit give your character twice the experience normally acquired from killing a mob. If you do not use double experience your character will not level quickly enough and the quests will become too difficult. However, you can level without quests by farming for goods that you can use in your profession. For example, if you are a skinner, you can kill mobs that yield leather. You get points for killing the mob and you get the leather which you can use to make a variety of useful things. The things you make in your profession can help your character and extra items can be sold in the auction house. This money can then be used to buy addition things your character might need such as amour or weapons.
The Stranger with many faces is a solo player with several characters of different classes and with different professions. There are several benefits of playing this way. First, while your wait for a character to acquire double experience credit, you can play other characters. If you have a full set of characters you will have a constant supply of double experience credit. In addition, the different character can have different professions. The leather worker can supply the other characters with armor enhancers. The tailor can supply bags. The blacksmith can supply weapon sharpeners and so on. The drawback of playing multiple characters is that you have to get reacquainted with the capabilities of each one, each time you play it. It can also get confusing trying to remember the names, classes and professions of each. WoW can be overwhelming for the new player. Having a full cast of characters can make it even more confusing.
It is possible to reach the top levels as a solo player. And, if you wish to go on raids you can announce your interest in the general chat and may be picked up by a raiding team for just that raid. And you can always group with other characters for specific task.
The benefit of solo play is that you can advance at your own speed, play when you want to play, avoid guild chat drivel, avoid obligations, and most of all avoid drama and annoying people. If you are not a particularly social person, this may be the approach for you. If, on the other hand, you are social and like to get help from other people, maybe you could consider being a guildie. And that will be the topic of then post.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
One Game World, Many Games
Bainbridge, whom I refereed to earlier, called World of Warcraft a Game World rather than a game. This distinction is becoming increasing more obvious. In this post, I would like to distinguish among several of the potential games that one might play.
Game 1: The Stranger - In this game, you create a single character and pursue solo requests until you reach the desired level.
Game 2: The Stranger with Many Faces - In this game, you create multiple characters to explore different capabilities and give each one different professions.
Game 3: The Bastion of the Battleground - In this game, the player advances by repeatedly going to battle grounds rather than pursuing quests.
Game 4: The Guildie - This person joins a guild as soon as they can find an appropriate one and focuses primarily on their role in the guild.
Game 5: The Twink - This character is usually an alt and thanks to gifts from a higher level character is way over specified for their level.
Game 6: The Griefer - This character focuses on harrassing newbies.
Game 7: The Tag Along - In this game, a character is 'escorted' through dungeons and difficult quests by another player of advanced level and capabilities.
Game 8: The Grinder - The sole purpose of this character is to hang out in an area where resources can be farmed and acquire resources.
Game 9: The Vendor - The sole purpose of this character is to hang out at the auction house looking for deals and trying to get the best price for items they have to sell.
This list is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. However, it does provide an idea of the variety of games one might play in this 'Game World'. Over the next few posts I will elaborate on these roles explaining their game goals and providing some tips on how to play these different games.
Game 1: The Stranger - In this game, you create a single character and pursue solo requests until you reach the desired level.
Game 2: The Stranger with Many Faces - In this game, you create multiple characters to explore different capabilities and give each one different professions.
Game 3: The Bastion of the Battleground - In this game, the player advances by repeatedly going to battle grounds rather than pursuing quests.
Game 4: The Guildie - This person joins a guild as soon as they can find an appropriate one and focuses primarily on their role in the guild.
Game 5: The Twink - This character is usually an alt and thanks to gifts from a higher level character is way over specified for their level.
Game 6: The Griefer - This character focuses on harrassing newbies.
Game 7: The Tag Along - In this game, a character is 'escorted' through dungeons and difficult quests by another player of advanced level and capabilities.
Game 8: The Grinder - The sole purpose of this character is to hang out in an area where resources can be farmed and acquire resources.
Game 9: The Vendor - The sole purpose of this character is to hang out at the auction house looking for deals and trying to get the best price for items they have to sell.
This list is neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. However, it does provide an idea of the variety of games one might play in this 'Game World'. Over the next few posts I will elaborate on these roles explaining their game goals and providing some tips on how to play these different games.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
If it's Tuesday, This Must Be Azeroth
There was a TV show, many years ago, about Americans traveling to Europe on multi country package tours. The show was called "If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium." The point of the show, as one can almost infer from the title, was that racing through European countries is not the way to appreciate the experience of Europe. The point of a European tour is not, of course, to be able to say "I was in this country and that country and so on". The point of the tour is to experience each country.
The title of this post plays off of this observation because we see this same sort of behavior in World of Warcraft - people want to level up as fast as they possibly can. In some accounts, I have heard claims that you can level up to 80 in less than two weeks. The question I would ask is - why would anybody want to do that? If you recorded a football game, would you fast forward through the whole game just so you can say that you saw it? Of course not! The point of watching the game is, well, watching the game. And the point of World of Warcraft is playing the game not just racing through it so you can say that you played it.
There is one exception that I can think of. Let's say you have a high level character with a lot of gold on a server that does not provide the challenges that you are looking for. So, you do a character transfer to a more desirable server. On the new server you may want additional characters for any number of reasons but don't want to spend a year leveling them up to the point where they can raid and do heroics. In that case, you may be interested in fast forwarding.
To go back to the travel analogy, this would be like spending months in Belgium and then popping in for a day to do some shopping. You have already had the Belgium experience and popping in for a day doesn't detract from that.
The title of this post plays off of this observation because we see this same sort of behavior in World of Warcraft - people want to level up as fast as they possibly can. In some accounts, I have heard claims that you can level up to 80 in less than two weeks. The question I would ask is - why would anybody want to do that? If you recorded a football game, would you fast forward through the whole game just so you can say that you saw it? Of course not! The point of watching the game is, well, watching the game. And the point of World of Warcraft is playing the game not just racing through it so you can say that you played it.
There is one exception that I can think of. Let's say you have a high level character with a lot of gold on a server that does not provide the challenges that you are looking for. So, you do a character transfer to a more desirable server. On the new server you may want additional characters for any number of reasons but don't want to spend a year leveling them up to the point where they can raid and do heroics. In that case, you may be interested in fast forwarding.
To go back to the travel analogy, this would be like spending months in Belgium and then popping in for a day to do some shopping. You have already had the Belgium experience and popping in for a day doesn't detract from that.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
World of Warcraft Progess
I have been playing World of Warcraft for just over two years. If you subtract the time when I had no idea what I was doing, it is just under two years. In that time, I have created and deleted many, many characters, and tried most races, classes and professions. I tried a few guilds and became somewhat more adept at the Auction House than at the Battlegrounds. I thought it might be a good idea to document where I am at the moment and some of what I have learned.
I currently have around 20+ characters on three servers. My alliance server is Maiev and my horde server is Vashj. I have a few characters on Dalvengyr in the event that I need to do some demos or training. Not counting the spare parts on Dalvengyr, I have five hunters, three warlocks, two mages, two death knights, a rogue, a warrior, a paladin, a shaman and a priest. There are two level 70, six between 60 and 70, six between 50 and 60, and the rest below. The lowest one is 23.
My prefered class, as you can probably tell from from the above counts is the hunter. Second is the warlock. Both the hunter and warlock are ranged classes which means they stand back and shoot rather than run into the thick of things hacking (which is called melee). Both have pets as well. I suspect that there is some sort of psychological statement in one's preferred class. I prefer strategy to raw power. So rather than run in hacking, I prefer to stand back and pick the mobs off one by one. I have a warrior who specializes in melee and is now 60+. But I find leveling that character to be tedious in the extreme.
Over the next few posts I will provide some of my observations about the game, game strategies and the people who play the game. I have really learned quite a lot and if I don't write some of it down I will begin forgetting it.
I currently have around 20+ characters on three servers. My alliance server is Maiev and my horde server is Vashj. I have a few characters on Dalvengyr in the event that I need to do some demos or training. Not counting the spare parts on Dalvengyr, I have five hunters, three warlocks, two mages, two death knights, a rogue, a warrior, a paladin, a shaman and a priest. There are two level 70, six between 60 and 70, six between 50 and 60, and the rest below. The lowest one is 23.
My prefered class, as you can probably tell from from the above counts is the hunter. Second is the warlock. Both the hunter and warlock are ranged classes which means they stand back and shoot rather than run into the thick of things hacking (which is called melee). Both have pets as well. I suspect that there is some sort of psychological statement in one's preferred class. I prefer strategy to raw power. So rather than run in hacking, I prefer to stand back and pick the mobs off one by one. I have a warrior who specializes in melee and is now 60+. But I find leveling that character to be tedious in the extreme.
Over the next few posts I will provide some of my observations about the game, game strategies and the people who play the game. I have really learned quite a lot and if I don't write some of it down I will begin forgetting it.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Internal Structure of a Game
I want to take a cut at the internal structure of a game to provide some vocabulary for discussing aspects of a game and to provide some distinctions between a game of some of the related phenomena.
First, a game must have a deciding factor. The deciding factor determines who, if anyone, has won the game. For example, in Chess, the deciding factor is having a King in Check. In football, it is the team with the most points. In golf, it is the person with the least points. There may or may not be constraints on the deciding factor. In football, for example, there is a time limit whereas in many games there is not.
Second, if the deciding factor is numeric, the game must have goals which are both complete units of activity and ways to accumulate points. So, scoring in football, getting a ball in a hole in golf, or exposing your winning hand in poker would be examples of goals.
On the way to achieving a goal there may be objectives the satisfaction of which helps you to achieve the goal but for which you do not get points. You may get credit for objectives in game statistics. But, the satisfaction of the objective does not contribute to the deciding factor.
Depending on the complexity of the game there may be subobjectives which are smaller problems that must be solved in order to achieve an objective.
There may be contratints on how goals or objectives are achieved.
And, to borrow a term from Suits, there is a 'lusory attitude'. The point of playing the game is the inherent satisfaction one achieves through playing a game. That is, the point of the game is the game itself. So, if one is playing professional poker to earn their livelihood, it would no longer be a game under this defintion. There is an element of practicing for real life that makes a game a game. As soon as it is no longer practice but actually is real life, it is no longer game.
Those are my thoughts for now. I may change some of this as I figure out more about it.
First, a game must have a deciding factor. The deciding factor determines who, if anyone, has won the game. For example, in Chess, the deciding factor is having a King in Check. In football, it is the team with the most points. In golf, it is the person with the least points. There may or may not be constraints on the deciding factor. In football, for example, there is a time limit whereas in many games there is not.
Second, if the deciding factor is numeric, the game must have goals which are both complete units of activity and ways to accumulate points. So, scoring in football, getting a ball in a hole in golf, or exposing your winning hand in poker would be examples of goals.
On the way to achieving a goal there may be objectives the satisfaction of which helps you to achieve the goal but for which you do not get points. You may get credit for objectives in game statistics. But, the satisfaction of the objective does not contribute to the deciding factor.
Depending on the complexity of the game there may be subobjectives which are smaller problems that must be solved in order to achieve an objective.
There may be contratints on how goals or objectives are achieved.
And, to borrow a term from Suits, there is a 'lusory attitude'. The point of playing the game is the inherent satisfaction one achieves through playing a game. That is, the point of the game is the game itself. So, if one is playing professional poker to earn their livelihood, it would no longer be a game under this defintion. There is an element of practicing for real life that makes a game a game. As soon as it is no longer practice but actually is real life, it is no longer game.
Those are my thoughts for now. I may change some of this as I figure out more about it.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Status Granting Social Environment
Games, due to their very nature, are fun to play. This was discussed earlier at some length. However, the inherent satisfaction that one derives from playing a game does not account fully for the energy and fervor with which some games are pursued. Different games are more or less popular in different time periods. Other games are more or less popular in different locations. One of the reasons (but not the only one) for this variation is that a game is embedded in a social environment which grants status to players. This status further amplifies the significance of the game goal and this, in turn, amplifies the game experience.
The social environment of a game includes the value placed on excelling at the game; competition between players and other motivators not immediately part of the game itself. For example, there is chess, there are chess tournaments, and there are world class matches. Winning a single game is one thing. Beating a Grand Master in a World Class Championship is quite another. Similarly, winning a football game in the field behind your house is one thing. Winning a professional game or even the Super Bowl is quite another. In both of these examples, the same game is being played. But the significance of the play is much larger in the later cases.
The Status Granting Social Environment for games is, presumably, not unlike other status granting social environments. That is, things other than games have status granting social environments. There are endless examples. In some social niches, there is status associated with money and power even though the acquisition of money and power could not be considered a game other than metaphorically. The community of wine lovers grants status for people with good taste in wine or people who find great vintages. The community of coin collectors grants status to those who find unusually rare coins. And so on.
The point here is the the Status Granting Social Environment of a Game must be separated from the game itself. The Superbowl, from the perspective of the game of football, is just another game. However, from the perspective of the Status Granting Social Environment, it is a huge deal.
The social environment of a game includes the value placed on excelling at the game; competition between players and other motivators not immediately part of the game itself. For example, there is chess, there are chess tournaments, and there are world class matches. Winning a single game is one thing. Beating a Grand Master in a World Class Championship is quite another. Similarly, winning a football game in the field behind your house is one thing. Winning a professional game or even the Super Bowl is quite another. In both of these examples, the same game is being played. But the significance of the play is much larger in the later cases.
The Status Granting Social Environment for games is, presumably, not unlike other status granting social environments. That is, things other than games have status granting social environments. There are endless examples. In some social niches, there is status associated with money and power even though the acquisition of money and power could not be considered a game other than metaphorically. The community of wine lovers grants status for people with good taste in wine or people who find great vintages. The community of coin collectors grants status to those who find unusually rare coins. And so on.
The point here is the the Status Granting Social Environment of a Game must be separated from the game itself. The Superbowl, from the perspective of the game of football, is just another game. However, from the perspective of the Status Granting Social Environment, it is a huge deal.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Some Distinctions
Before this all starts getting too far out of hand, I think I'd better start making some distinctions. An objective within a game and the game itself are not the same thing. A game and a game world are not the same thing. A virtual game world is different from a non virtual game world. A virtual (game) world can be entirely fantasy or have connections of some kind with the real world. And products, such as football jerseys that exist and have value because of the game, are not part of the game but are clearly dependent on it.
Let's take the first of these distinctions. I will use foot ball in these examples because more people are familiar with football than are familiar with, say, World of Warcraft. In football, there are any number of objectives within the game itself. An objective, in football, may be to advance the ball ten yards to get a first down or to prevent the other team from doing so. Another objective may be to score a touchdown. Clearly, the first of those is a a sub-objective to the second one. One could see the touchdown as a sub-objective to winning the game; winning the game as a sub-objective to making the play-offs; and making the play-offs as a sub-objective to winning the Superbowl. So analysis of objectives can get quite complicated. However, my unit of analysis is the game and I can't see (at least at the moment) how developing a structure for objectives within or beyond the game itself advances my understanding of games. It may advance my understanding of football, but not of games.
In football, we have a clear unit of analysis that we call 'the game'. At the risk of being simplistic, it is four fifteen minute play intervals at the end of which there is a score indicating a winner or a tie. I understand all that business about overtime, elapsed time and so on. But, as I said, we are not analyzing football here and I think most people understand what a 'game' of football entails.
In World of Warcraft this is not nearly as clear. Exactly what is 'the game' in WoW? This could get complicated; but I will keep chipping away at it.
Let's take the first of these distinctions. I will use foot ball in these examples because more people are familiar with football than are familiar with, say, World of Warcraft. In football, there are any number of objectives within the game itself. An objective, in football, may be to advance the ball ten yards to get a first down or to prevent the other team from doing so. Another objective may be to score a touchdown. Clearly, the first of those is a a sub-objective to the second one. One could see the touchdown as a sub-objective to winning the game; winning the game as a sub-objective to making the play-offs; and making the play-offs as a sub-objective to winning the Superbowl. So analysis of objectives can get quite complicated. However, my unit of analysis is the game and I can't see (at least at the moment) how developing a structure for objectives within or beyond the game itself advances my understanding of games. It may advance my understanding of football, but not of games.
In football, we have a clear unit of analysis that we call 'the game'. At the risk of being simplistic, it is four fifteen minute play intervals at the end of which there is a score indicating a winner or a tie. I understand all that business about overtime, elapsed time and so on. But, as I said, we are not analyzing football here and I think most people understand what a 'game' of football entails.
In World of Warcraft this is not nearly as clear. Exactly what is 'the game' in WoW? This could get complicated; but I will keep chipping away at it.
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