FOR THE HORDLIANNCE!

The latest assignment for ICAM 120 involved cross faction questing with classmates. This meant that we were supposed to complete quests with another person on our rival faction. And as with many sitcoms about two people who are polar opposites, hilarity ensued.

The first player I grouped with was a classmate by the name of Tephillot. It was through this exercise that I learned how truly difficult Blizzard made it for players to help others in the other faction. The first obstacle was the fact that I could not actually form a group with Teph. In order to actually get any leveling done, we alternated on different quests we had. This often involved killing random creatures, and the first person to attack a mob gets the xp and the loot. As a result, Teph and I had to let the other attack first before we could even help defeat the creature.

And then there's the little fact that Tephillot wasn't protected from my spells. There were several instances where Teph or I were surrounded by creatures. When I'm in a situation like this I usually cast a spell that freezes enemies in place so I can back away and cast a large area of affect spell called blizzard. Unfortunately, when I first tried this method, poor Teph was also frozen and nearly died from my blizzard. I eventually adapted my play style to be more helpful after this incident. Other awkward moments included running away from NPCs who attacked us while the other play turned in a quest, random alliance people killing me before they knew what Teph and I were doing, or even an NPC I had to help on an escort mission chasing after Teph while I had to take down an elite creature by myself.

These are relatively small issues, but it makes me disappointed that Blizzard has put absolutely nothing in place to allow players to quest together across factions. I understand that the factions are designed to encourage PvP competition between players and it makes sense within the Warcraft lore. However, it also limits the possibilities of the virtual space, leaving players with less to do. Also, wouldn't one assume that even in Warcraft lore, there would be characters who could see past faction loyalty and work together towards the greater good for all (player characters, not the NPCs who actually do work together)? Just a thought.

MUDs and WoW

One of the first examples of online real-time virtual worlds were games called multi-user dungeons, or MUDs. These MUDs allowed users to play in a fantasy world in the same vein as games like Dungeons and Dragons, and are considered a precursor to MMORPGs. Despite the advent of games like World of Warcraft, some MUDs are still in operation today. One such MUD is the online game Dragonrealms, which is one of the oldest MUDs still hosting servers today. The biggest difference between a game like Dragonrealms and a game like WoW is the game’s interface. Dragonrealms, and MUDs in general, are entirely text-based. The game presents its world through descriptive text that forces the player to use their imagination. Likewise, every action the player can take must be correctly worded into specific command line arguments the game’s engine can decipher. While these design choices were understandable in times when computers were not powerful enough for color displays, the fact that Dragonrealms remains virtually untouched today is odd. The lack of a GUI gives the game a rather large learning curve as people learn the language and structure necessary to complete any task in the game. As a result the rate of failure in the game is much larger than in WoW. Also, the amount of detail used to describe a player’s location is often rather dense and confusing. Because the player has no visual aid to determine where he is, or where he needs to go, it’s easy to become lost amidst the text. These are all issues that do not exist in WoW thanks to the flow of the game, which is informed by its graphics.

The gameplay and social structure of both games is also incredibly different. World of Warcraft is a much more streamlined experience. The world is already defined through the game’s visuals, and NPCs only exist as merchants or quest givers. Players travel from one region to another, killing enemies, collecting items, and working with other players in order to level their characters. Because Dragonrealms does not have the advantage of pretty graphics, the NPCs play more of a narrative role, describing world elements and teaching the player how to play the game. Grinding in Dragonrealms is almost nonexistent. During my adventures I found no random monsters to fight and I was not forced to collect specific items. However, when I wasn’t grinding, I was struggling with how to squeeze important information from an NPC, so I was still spending ample amounts of time doing nothing.

Socially, WoW is a superior game. The game’s smart use of raids, and group quests encourages players to join together for a common goal. Even though Dragonrealms is a multi-user dungeon, there is little interaction with other players. Not once did I connect or chat with another player. The only clues I got that other players were online were occasional updates that a player entered a room, or was killed. To make matters worse, if I entered a room or town that was actually heavily populated, these updates would zoom past me in the game window, causing me to lose information about my location or what I was supposed to do next. And still nobody said a word to anyone else. It’s true Dragonrealms is WoW’s predecessor in many ways. But the problems found in the game are evident of a genre that desperately needed to evolve.

Adventures in Azeroth #2: Traveling the World or Are We There Yet?

World of Warcraft's travel system sucks.

There's no way of getting around it; of all the critiques and praise I have for the game, traveling is one of the biggest complaints. It makes the game incredibly slow, in places where it really doesn't need to be slow. As a result, players become easily bored or fatigued because it takes forever to get anywhere. So why does Blizzard insist on keeping this system intact? I can think of a couple of reasons:

1. It adds to the game's atmosphere

There's a reason why the game is classified as a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Part of WoW's design philosophy is to simulate a living, breathing, massive world. When a player travels from place to place, they're not always traveling to the town down the road. Their journey takes them across three continents and another dimension. Making travel time between places long adds to the sense of scale the game is trying to build. Traveling from the top of a continent to the bottom shouldn't be instantaneous because it would make the player feel like each location is crammed next to each other.

Prolonging travel times also serves the purpose of showing off Blizzard's art design. Depending on one's mode of transportation, the game treats the player to some wonderfully done locales, each following a unique motif. This includes:

Dalaran's previous location in the Alterac Mountains complete with weird ethereal aura;

The alien and barren world of Outland with two moons (planets?) in the sky;

Or the Jurassic jungle of Un'Goro Crater where giant dinosaurs will try and eat you if you so much as look at them funny.

Of course Blizzard wants you to take your time and check out all the cool locations, so forcing a player to slowly explore each place allows them to really take in the scenery.

I understand that the game is pretty, and I get the fact that Azeroth is supposed to feel like an entire world. But here's the problem: the structure of the game undermines both of those design elements. Players must constantly backtrack to parts of the world in order to do quests, buy spells, run an instance, etc. If a player must travel to the same places over and over again, they will enjoy their scenic routes once, maybe twice. After that traveling becomes a chore. During long travel times, many players will surf the web, get a snack, or even play another game while they travel to their destination. I'm not trying to say WoW needs to do away with travel times altogether, but something needs to be done so this doesn't happen:

Yep. I'm guilty of that last one too.

2. Traveling as a reward system

Despite these complaints Blizzard does offer in-game items that expedite travel. Every player starts the game with an item called a hearthstone, which allows players to instantly travel to whatever town they've designated as their home. This can reduce travel times between places dramatically if used correctly. Likewise, mages can eventually learn to teleport themselves and others to their faction's capital cities which is especially useful when a player needs to run errands like buying spells or making posts to the auction house.

The mount system also allows players to buy transportation that lets players travel across the world at a much faster pace. As a player levels they can purchase faster mounts as well as ones that fly. Some players also have the opportunity to earn mounts specific to their class or profession. For example, engineers can build a motorcycle complete with a side car so friends can travel with you:
With options like summoning spells, flight points, and mounts, traveling through the game shouldn't be that much of a problem right? Then why does it still take forever for me to get anywhere?

One night some fellow ICAM students and I decided to run an instance with each other. The problem was that we were all spread out across the world. I was on another continent and my hearthstone was not set to the continent I needed to be on. Another person had to walk there because he already used his hearthstone, and hearthstones can only be used once every 30 minutes. To make matters worse, he didn't have the correct flight point for our meet-up. Finally, nobody in our group had mounts at that time and nobody had learned group summoning spells yet. We couldn't summon everyone together until one person made it to the summoning stone just outside of the instance we weren't at. We lost 20-30 minutes of our play time simply because getting everyone to the proper destination was a convoluted mess.

The issue is that these fast travel items are practically useless because of the limitations placed on them. Yes you can instantly transport yourself to a capital and yes your epic flying mount can travel 3.8 times your walking speed, but there's always a catch. These limitations are supposed to balance out travel times but when five players all have a limitation on their mobility and are separated by continents if not planets, then getting anywhere in the World of Warcraft is painstakingly slow.

I just think there is something very wrong with the fact that you can be riding a bear who's driving a motorcycle and it still takes forever to get to your destination:

Plus the damn murlocs are always trying to bum a free ride.