SIX CORE GAME MECHANISMS OF WORLD OF WARCRAFT The following Section describes the six core principles that together characterise the

gameplay behind World of Warcraft in greater depth. The principles have been selected based on the desk research on World of Warcraft. In particular, the anthropological studies by Nardi (2010) and Chen (2012) have been a great inspiration (Chen, 2012;

Nardi, 2010). The principles selected are as follows:

Level Quest Achievements Dungeons and missions

Farming and crafting Game over and wiping

Also, these thematisations have increasingly contributed with design principles that through an abductive design process have subsequently been converted into meaningful design schemas regarding the PhD thesis’s overall problem (see Chapter 8). The individual themes are further elaborated in the following chapters in order to qualify the theoretical basis for World of Warcraft.

6.3.1. LEVEL

The term “level” addresses how World of Warcraft categorises its players’ overall effectiveness and capabilities. Each level a player achieves opens up new possibilities ( Bainbridge, 2012; Chen, 2012; Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008; Nardi, 2010). The division of gameplay into levels means that players must continuously acquire a deeper and more profound understanding of how to play (Daneva, 2017). The level describes the current ranking the player has, while the concept of levelling refers to the activities needed to achieve new levels. The game’s official strategy guide (2004) contains the following description of levelling: “Act of gaining experience by killing mobs, crafting or questing to advance your characters” (Lummis & Vanderlip, 2004, p. 7). Each level, according to Daneva (2017), contributes to preparing the avatar for coping with the in-level challenges, execution and wrap-up (Daneva, 2017). Each new level can be considered an aesthetic experience, contributing to maintaining a continuous motivation while giving the player an increasingly nuanced view of the game world and gameplay (Dewey, 1980; Nardi, 2010). The gameplay at every level thus contributes to possible choices, each of which has some form of consequence. It is,

therefore, essential to find the right balance between a level’s severity and the feeling of being able to complete it (Daneva, 2017).

6.3.2. QUEST

Doing Quest also called “queste” is one of the most central activities that WoW is built on. Quest can be defined as a task the player is asked to perform that triggers a reward ‒ so to quest is to learn (Bainbridge, 2012; Rettberg, 2008). The primary goal of solving a quest, besides an introduction to the game’s narrative, is to gain enough points to unlock new levels (Rettberg, 2008). Each quest is unique and designed to emphasise key objectives related to a wide variety of activities (Susaeta et al., 2010), and in doing so, they are part of the big story either as a solo quest or as part of longer chains of quests. Thus, World of Warcraft does not contain an extensive and pervasive quest (Rettberg, 2008). In the game’s official strategy guide (2004), the types of quest are described as kill quest, gathering quest, delivery quest, escort quest, faction quest, class quest, series quest, elite quest and, in the later expansion, world quest and daily quest (Lummis & Vanderlip, 2004). World of Warcraft is designed in such a way that the gameplay and narrative are endless, and even if a player reaches the maximum number of levels, the game still contains many activities (Rettberg, 2008). This also means that a quest does not have an ultimate meaning (Rettberg, 2008). A quest's objective goal is fixed, and there are no more alternative ways of achieving a goal – it is like kill 10 x, bring me x (Rettberg, 2008). It is not a goal in itself to figure out the quest, like a puzzle, but it is the action the quest is aimed at that is the challenge. Often, however, it may be necessary to devise innovative and smart strategies in order to complete a quest in terms of the actions required by the activities of the quest (Bainbridge, 2012;

Rettberg, 2008). Most quests can be solved solo, but there are similar quests that require players to team up in groups (Rettberg, 2008).

Many quests are based on the same mechanisms or activities, but with different narrative content. In order to discover a particular sequence or pattern of quests, the player must examine and test the effect of each of them. When a quest type is repeated over and over, it becomes a habit (Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). According to Silva and Mousavidin (2015), this form of building action patterns is a form of telescoping where sequences of actions leads to a final goal.

Thus, we posit that over time, the repeated enactment of a telescoped sequence of actions becomes a habit […] once strategies are transformed into habits, new strategies or lines of action can be integrated […] the player has become used to a specific situation that seemed challenging in the beginning. (Silva & Mousavidin, 2015, p. 173)

Telescoping is, thus, a way of developing the skills needed to achieve what is called “in-game progress” (Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). In addition to being smaller tasks, quests also help to create a narrative context of the game by providing the right information

to players when they need it (Susaeta et al., 2010). Many quests also have built-in instructions or can be considered simple training exercises that support the game later.

Other quests aim to get the player to experiment, be curious and explore the narrative (Bainbridge, 2012). Each quest in the World of Warcraft contains a tiny part of the narrative, and although research has shown that the players rarely read all the details of the quest, they nevertheless gain an overall sense of the game world from the quests being based on the same structures that are repeated over and over (Rettberg, 2008).

Quests in World of Warcraft are generally built around a very rigid structure with a simple linguistic syntax consisting of information about the quest giver, the background story, objectives and rewards (Rettberg, 2008).

6.3.3. ACHIEVEMENT

One of the unique reward systems in World of Warcraft is the opportunity to obtain achievements. Achievements can be defined as independent goals, offering new challenges. Also, the player’s progress is visible to others. Achievements are available in several variants, with some requiring specific actions, such as getting a haircut or visiting a particular area, while others are more time-consuming. The latter can be seen as a kind of meta-result that guides players in specific directions or initiates a more extended series of quests (Chen, 2012; Nardi, 2010).

6.3.4. DUNGEONS AND MISSIONS

A unique design principle in World of Warcraft is the concept of dungeons or alternative missions. A dungeon is an area of discovery within the game where a particular scenario or mission must be replayed through an often coordinated effort among multiple players. Each dungeon has its narrative and is recognised by being a defined and enclosed area or zone. It is often necessary to possess specific skills or to devise specific strategies to be successful and beat the challenges each dungeon offers (Rodríguez, 2013; Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). A dungeon is designed in a way where players must collaborate and experiment with different solution strategies to find the right combination of resources and actions (Chen, 2012; Nardi, 2010).

A dungeon may be considered as what Gee (2007) would call “semiotic domains”

(Gee, 2007). As described in Section 5.5, a semiotic domain can be defined as a specific practice consisting of varied and recognisable activities. Each “semiotic domain” can be viewed from both an internal and an external perspective. In order to complete a dungeon, players need to know which patterns or combinations contribute to an experience of success. This means gaining knowledge about each dungeon’s situated meaning concerning the overall system, but also understanding the situated significance of the individual elements (Rodríguez, 2013; Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). Newgarden and Zheng (2016) point out that the gameplay in World of Warcraft contains multimodal

dimensions and forms of communication, where players, especially in a dungeon, must be able to obtain the right information needed to continue (way-finding). In addition, attention needs to be paid to a lot of cultural aspects that arise during the play. A dungeon can thus be characterised as a sociocultural practice (Newgarden

& Zheng, 2016). The interesting thing about a dungeon is how a group of players constitutes themselves before the action itself by negotiating their understanding of the characteristics of the dungeons/missions. Research has also shown that World of Warcraft and other similar games strengthen negotiation abilities as well as teamwork skills (Newgarden & Zheng, 2016; Rodríguez, 2013).

Raids ( a larger and more difficult dungeons) in particular, which are characterised by a larger group of players, often from the same guild (20‒40 people), require much preparation, with each player having a great responsibility to be well prepared – being well prepared means having the right equipment and resources, but also having acquired the necessary strategic knowledge about the challenge a dungeon will offer (Rodríguez, 2013). Dungeons/missions are often repeated over and over to improve the players’ abilities to master the challenges (Eklund & Johansson, 2013).

According to Silva and Mousavidin (2015) and Rodríguez (2013), being able to complete a dungeon thus requires players to clarify goals; identify, share and discuss strategies; state roles; coordinate work; correct mistakes; establish clear rules for a reward system; and keep the group on the same page for the task at hand – all of it both during and after the dungeon/raid (Rodríguez, 2013; Silva & Mousavidin, 2015).

6.3.5. FARMING AND CRAFTING

The concept of farming and crafting in games is not described particularly richly or in depth in the literature. However, many of the game activities in World of Warcraft are based on the concept of farming and crafting. Players within the game, therefore, spend hours of collecting material and resources, also called “farming” (Alexander, 2017; Chen, 2012; Gee, 2007; Nardi, 2010). The material or resources collected are later used to craft items. The farming activities are woven into the overall design of the game and act as small breaks or oases (Nardi, 2010). Nardi (2010) uses theories of Freud to explain how farming activities can be seen as a way of coping with frustration and uncontrollable events that are concomitants of life in society (Nardi, 2010). Nardi highlights the paradox that players accept the boredom that farming activities entail:

“The sheer boredom of farming and players’ acceptance of it were surprising” (Nardi, 2010, p. 111). However, it is difficult to achieve satisfactory success in the game without having to farm, as it is the key to obtaining, for example, better equipment and items. The collection of items contributes to solving complex tasks, which in itself is a reward (Gyldendahl-Jensen, 2016; Gyldendahl-Jensen & Dau, 2019; Nardi, 2010).

The basic principle behind crafting and farming is all about slowing the game down and keeping the gamers busy (Gyldendahl-Jensen, 2016; Gyldendahl-Jensen & Dau, 2019;

Nardi, 2010). The interesting thing about the farming activities is that they appear as repetitive actions with little contingency. Farming in World of Warcraft can, therefore, be seen as an activity that with its potential creates both affordance and meaning within its form of magic circle (Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al., 2013; Nardi, 2010; Nørgård et al., 2017; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). Furthermore, crafting and farming stimulate both social communication and collaboration about preparing a joint action through quests and dungeons/missions (Chen, 2012; Gyldendahl-Jensen, 2016; Gyldendahl-Jensen

& Dau, 2019; Nardi, 2010).

Another angle of the concept of farming and crafting is the collection of knowledge through external sources. It is challenging to achieve progression in World of Warcraft without gathering knowledge of the game’s challenges or doing analysis of data from the game log (Chen, 2012; Nardi, 2010; Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). Alexander (2017), in his research, makes a link between crafting in World of Warcraft and real-life academic teaching environments:

My gaming participants told me they do not “write” often, and do not

“read” often, but the volume of composing they actually did is staggering.

Thousands upon thousands of words in strategy blogs, hours and hours of chat conversation, numerous complex user-generated videos ‒ not to mention all the reading/viewing of other user-generated content. They were writing more on any given day than the students in my upper-level writing classes. The reason they didn’t see their actions as reading and writing is because they didn’t know how to break it down, how to look at what their processes were. In their minds, they were simply “playing”.

(Alexander, 2017, p. 11)

The players thus share and publish their experiences in virtual forums, and by doing so, external sources become crucial to learn about the game’s more complex gameplay (Alexander, 2017; Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). This develops (crafts) the players’

different “types of knowledge[…]develop through play and the ways they composed and shared that knowledge with other gamers” (Alexander, 2017, p. 2). It is, therefore, a question of players achieving different and sophisticated ways of thinking and working regarding developing the right strategies and behaviours concerning meeting specific challenges (Alexander, 2017).

6.3.6. GAME OVER AND WIPING

Another essential gaming principle that is not described in detail in the literature is the concept of “die”, “game over” or “wipe”, as it is called in World of Warcraft. Wiping refers to when a group of players repeatedly fail and have to start again (Chen, 2012;

Golub, 2014; Nardi, 2010; Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). A wipe, therefore, is a situation where entire groups of players die. Wipes happen for many reasons: the group fails in

their attempt to solve a problem, unforeseen problems in learning new difficult game content, etc. (Silva & Mousavidin, 2015). Silva and Mousavidin (2015) describe the reason why a wipe occurs as follows: “Wipes occur because of an unbalanced group composition, unawareness of boss mechanics, poor communication or weak or total absence of leadership” (Silva & Mousavidin, 2015, p. 172). A wipe creates afterwards processes of reflection regarding finding the right combination of resources and actions necessary to defeat the challenge given (Chen, 2012; Golub, 2014; Nardi, 2010; Silva

& Mousavidin, 2015). From a design perspective, “dying” is thus a way to teach and train players to act more successfully according to the game’s intentional gameplay.

Thus, it is a method of pushing players to collaborate with others to improve their game (Klastrup, 2008).

One of the few articles dealing with the concept of “dying” in a game is Klastrup (2008). She writes, among other things: “If we want to understand a world like WoW in all its complexity, death is important as a pivotal design element and something that every player experiences several times during the game” (Klastrup, 2008, p.

143). Specifically, when a player in World of Warcraft runs out of health points, the player dies. The player’s characters do not disappear permanently, but the player must instead spend time reclaiming the corpse in order to continue playing (Klastrup, 2008).

In World of Warcraft, dying is something that happens all the time, and therefore it can be described as a game activity in line with many of the other repeatable activities that occur as part of the game (Klastrup, 2008). Klastrup’s research also shows that the players in World of Warcraft utilise the ghost state (a transitional phase parallel and identical to the game world) you are in when you are dead, to positively explore the game’s challenges (Klastrup, 2008).