Archive of ‘eng586_w17’ category

The End is Here

Never before, in the duration of this course, have I ever been so thankful to be done with a game. I admit that my boredom with Pokemon GO is based on my lack of nostalgia with the Pokemon franchise. The rest of the boredom is based on the lack of excitement offered in playing the game. The design is overly simplified with no indication of how to operate the app. Add in the elements of gamificiation that are within the game, and I am one frustrated player.

One new design feature that I encountered in the game was the integration of new style features for the avatar. While the avatars available are not very representative, the added features allow the avatars to become even more customizable. But wait! To make the avatar look anything like an actual person, you have to pay! Pretty soon, the app itself will not be free.

All of this frustration reminded me of my internship supervisor this summer. She became very frustrated with the concept of Pokemon GO and the players as she has been a dedicated Ingress player for a few years. As I was reminded of this, I decided that when I deleted the app on my phone when I was done playing, I would try Ingress for a small portion of time to compare the ‘original’ format with the ‘new’ format. And in comparison, Ingress is AWESOME! The design, the tutorials, the explanation of the game narrative! In comparison to a Pokestop, the Ingress app walks you through your first deployment of a resonator so that you don’t walk through the app blindly. And with this new experience with the ‘original’ app, I have to ask how much pressure Niantic was under to produce Pokemon GO by a certain deadline. With the fanbase of Pokemon being much larger than an app like Ingress, there must have been some pressure to release the game by a certain date. But why was the design simplified so much? Were the creators of Pokemon GO at Niantic so driven by the possibility of profit from the app that they completely threw out any element of meticulous workmanship in the design of the game? I don’t know, but I think I may keep playing Ingress for a bit longer…

Hello Gamification!

I had been hoping to complete my time playing Pokemon GO without encountering any blatant forms of gamification, because I knew that it would add to my frustration with the game. I was getting more confident in what little I could do with the app. I was catching Pokemon and gaining more experience by swirling my finger over the Pokeball. I was finding new Pokemon as I played at different points in town. And then my downfall occurred.

As I was playing today, I happened upon a new Pokemon that I did not have in my Pokedex. I immediately tried to catch it when the app told me that I was out of Pokeballs and needed to purchase more. At this point in playing, I had not seen any indication of the amount of Pokeballs that I possessed or used. Then suddenly, I am being told that to even try to catch any more Pokemon, I needed to pay a dollar to get another 100 Pokeballs. I will admit (as I have in class already) that I am cheap. I don’t like additional purchases that are not on essential items. I am not a fan of freemiums, subscription services, or in-app purchases. So this notification just irked me. So much so that I immediately closed my app and did not try to open it again for a few hours. From the company’s side, I see that benefit in making the purchase so small. If the player is really into the game and wants to continue, why not spend a dollar? From the player’s perspective, I was quite confused. I knew there was the possibility of in-app purchases, but with no indicator as to when those in-app purchases would occur and limit my playing, I felt that I fell into the company’s trap. And if I wasn’t disenchanted with the game (or cheap), I wouldn’t mind paying the extra dollar every time that I need more Pokeballs.

Frustrated Reality

One of the most frustrating things, next to the battery drainage, of this app is the constant need to update. I was ready to play when I add a nice afternoon. And I lost 15 minutes of buffer time because of having to update the app. With my older model of phone, I even had to delete a couple apps to make room for the game. My frustration level to begin playing was a little higher than I had expected when I set aside time to play today.

I did have the chance to test out a few of the game mechanics that we had discussed in class this week. I found that I did gain more experience points when my pokeball hit a smaller target and in spinning my finger on the screen. But, like we discussed in class, these are not intuitive. I can see this being a benefit for the game designers when the game was most popular after its release. If they only let a few sources know, those sources can spread the word about how to get more points and level up without the company having to invest and create tutorials in the game. But playing this long after the popularity craze of the game makes it harder to learn the ‘unspoken’ mechanics of the game.

I also tried to battle in a gym using augmented reality. And I never want to do that again. I am still completely lost on what I am even supposed to be doing in a gym. Add in a viewpoint that is based on the location of the camera of my phone, I become even more lost. And this makes me even more frustrated. I kept moving my phone around just to try to see what was going on in the battle, and no matter where I moved my phone, I couldn’t see anything! At this point in time, there is nothing that is intuitive about using this game, especially with augmented reality. Without nostalgia for the Pokemon franchise, my motivation as a player is draining. And fast.

That Awkward Moment

Play time: Sporadically throughout the day

I have experienced playing these games around my friends twice before this, and I have to say that each time has been a unique experience. I believe I have stated this before, but the friends that I play around in Eugene do not identify as gamers and have little to no experience with video games. When I played Zork and WoW around those friends, they found that it was an entertaining experience because there was a designated beginning and end to the play experience. With Pokemon GO, they have begun to get annoyed. And I don’t blame them.

As a personal practice, I try to stay away from my technology when I am in a social situation so that I can be present in the conversation. So naturally, it has become a pet peeve of mine when I see my friends on their phones when we are having a conversation. Now I am doing that! I find myself opening the app out of a sense of obligation to the assignment so that I have ample experience with the game. And my friends have yelled at me when they see me looking at my phone because they know I have a technology pet peeve. Add in the fact that the popularity of the game has petered out since the summer, and I realize that I am starting to feel subconscious about playing in public areas. I know that my friends are not being rude when they point out others playing, but there is a small indication of judgment in their intonation. It happened when we were getting dinner at the Bier Stein and a woman sitting at the table next to us had her phone on the table with the app open and playing. One friend said “Oh she’s playing too!” while the other two rolled their eyes. While it may limit the already limited amount of time I can play, I am going to try to refrain from playing when I am with my friends in certain social situations.

Warning: Do Not Play While Hangry

Play time: Sporadically throughout the day

I have discovered some disadvantages to the game. The first being the need to operate the app with the highest screen lighting setting. As a person with very sensitive-to-light eyes, I found this to be frustrating as I was playing on my way home from campus. Because the screen brightness was adjusted to be so low on my phone, I could not see anything on my screen because of the glare. So for a good portion of my walk, I was simply hitting random parts of the screen because the only thing I could see on my phone was my reflection.

By this point in the day, I was starting to get kind of hungry. Add in the general annoyance from people not sharing the sidewalk (Gee thanks, mister! I really would rather walk through a mud puddle than be on the sidewalk!), and my patience was wearing thin by the time that I was playing consistently while walking. I did change my path home and found that the number of Pokemon available on 13th was much higher than on 15th (an advantage to trying to avoid the construction that we WEREN’T INFORMED OF). I was even able to enter a training gym as well. Hi, Team Mystic! Granted I chose Mystic because I was already very annoyed with the app taking forever with introducing the trainers and teams. By the time that I was to start training my Pokemon, I was ready to shut down the app. Then begins the battle, when I realize that I have no idea how to operate within a gym and can barely try to figure it out when I can barely see what is happening on the screen. The one highlight of my hangry playing time was finally figuring out where the settings on the app are to switch to power saving mode. Hopefully, this will save a little bit of power in the future days I’m playing.

Goodbye Battery

Play time: 5:00- 6:00pm

I was somewhat nervous to start playing Pokemon GO because one of the many things I had heard from this summer is the game drains your phone battery. And with a battery that should have been replaced a couple years ago, my battery life is not what it could be. But hey, at least it lasts longer than an iPhone!

When I first started the app, I was kind of excited to see that I could customize my avatar. And then I was let down. After playing WoW, I have this expectation to create and have many options for my avatar, but Pokemon GO offers little options for players. And with the terrible wifi connection in my office (where I started), it took almost twenty minutes for the game to completely start and generate all the options for character creation. Thankfully, I was able to get started catching Pokemon quickly as I made my way home. Or at least, I catch a few before I left campus. As soon as I started to head downtown, it was like a barren wasteland with no Pokemon in sight. I soon realized that this will get very boring and still be somewhat difficult. In the fact that, as a grad student, I don’t really get to leave Lawrence Hall that much so figuring out time to walk around campus will be the bane of my existence for the next two weeks.

I do question whether my boredom stems from lack of nostalgia. I have a few friends that are avid Pokemon fans still, but I was never intrigued by the concept of the show or card game. The app (to me) is simply marketing the nostalgia factor of the game with the added bonus of forced exercise rather than needing a complex storyline to carry the app as a game. Even though my computer overheating often, I am starting to miss WoW.

WoW: The Ultimate Procrastination Tool

Play time: 2:30- 4:15pm

I ran into my first female human character today while I was completing my last few quests. Maybe it was the escape element for my perspective as a player, but I did not even consider playing as a human. Most of the characters I have come across have been elves, so to come across a human character was quite the experience.

That experience was somewhat disconcerting. I previously had reflected on how I felt my avatar performs gender and realized that I had focused on gesture and movement rather than material evidence. And coming across the female human reminded to consider material items as a way of performing gender as well. My blood elf was not bare by any means, she actually was fairly covered in comparison to some of the avatars from other games I have seen. But the human character was considerably less clothed. And this reminded me of another Feminist Frequency video (because I did a little more digging) called “Lingerie is not Armor”. If Williams et al. provided data implying that to represent more women in video games there needs to be more women game designers, then ideally women should feel more comfortable with how their avatars appear. And if the avatars are overly sexualized because of choices a majority of male designers make, I really do feel like we are stuck in a wormhole. Women could have a harder time identifying as gamers because the representations of women in games are so limited and sexualized. And then I remind myself, I wasn’t considering any of this while I was playing because my personal avatar was not overly sexualized. Yes, she physically presents as female and performs certain tasks in a feminine way. But none of that hindered my achievements as a female player. So why am I, all of a sudden, so caught up in this idea of female avatars after seeing a character run past me for less than 2 seconds?

On the upside, I will be able to push this out of my mind for at least a little while as this is technically the end of my play blog for WoW. On the downside of that thought, I no longer have my number one procrastination tool for completing chapter drafts for my final thesis…


Butler, J. (2009). Performative acts and gender constitution: An Essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), pp. 3- 26.

FeministFrequency. (2016, June 06). Lingerie is not Armor – Tropes vs Women in Video Games. Retrieved February 24, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jko06dA_x88

She Shoots, She Quests

Play time: 3:30- 5:00pm

As I am becoming more comfortable with the basic operating commands in WoW, I am trying to pay attention to the many variations of the fantasy world that exists around my avatar. Sometimes, that’s easier said than done. Especially as I move forward in levels and have to face creatures that will attack me without provocation. But while I was completing quests today, I noticed that I was working on the same quests as a few other players.

The players around me in the past play sessions have just run past me without much thought. Today, as I was completing a couple of quests, I was working simultaneously with another player (with whom I had no interaction) to kill the same creature. And both times I noticed this other player, the avatar was a female magic wielding character. I started to question if, as a female player, I had chosen the right avatar. Yes, my avatar is a female hunter, which according to Nick Yee’s analysis in the Daedalus Project is not an uncommon avatar for female players. But does that match the demographics of the avatars of female players with the current server I am playing on? Am I questioning my avatar’s race and gender to avoid questioning my skill set as a player?

 

As I was contemplating this, my avatar went into idle mode. She started moving a little from side to side. And I noticed that her head tilted to one side, which happened to the opposite side of the hip jutting out while she rested. Where do I know that stance from? Then it hit me! Sidewalk LED screens (sadly, no picture, but they can be seen in the MassAve arts and culture district downtown). There are a few of these screens in downtown Indianapolis that my sister and I would make fun of because we realized that that can’t be the way a ‘stereotypical’ woman stands at a sidewalk. Could that really be the only feminine feature of my avatar that I can distinguish?

The Overachiever Strikes Again

Play time: 3:30- 5:00pm

As I began playing today, I figured out a configuration with my laptop to avoid as many overheatings as I can. Sadly, this means balancing my computer on a research book (tilted at an angle to avoid blocking the fan) and an ethernet cord twisted around the base of a chair and across a desk to reach my computer. For some reason, this was an entertaining sight to my officemate. But it worked! I only overheated twice!

During these last few play sessions, I have been very focused on my role as a player. I don’t identify as a gamer, but I find that my avatar (a blood elf) could contribute to my personal representation in WoW if I did identify as a gamer (Shaw, 2011). My identity as a player has now moved from 70% achiever, 30% explorer to 100% achiever (Bartle, 1996). I am experiencing this change as I have challenged myself to work on three or four quests at a time.

This play session, in particular, I was interested in finding new ways of surviving in the game. As a hunter, I mainly use a bow. So while I was completing my quests, I looted any creature I killed to gain anything that I could sell for more weapons. I then bought a stiletto, dagger, and two-hand sword. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out how to use them as a weapon. Even more unfortunately, I found that I could not use these items as weapons just by clicking on them like the cobra shot while I was being attacked. While I was able to win the skirmish, I am inclined to check the forums online to see if I can learn to switch between weapons while fighting.

One feature that I would like to learn more about (maybe in online forums) is the motorcycle and sidecar. It seems to be outside of the featured aesthetic, but is something that I am seeing more and more as I play. And whenever I see it, my achieving personality just wants to scream out “WHAT ARE YOU AND HOW CAN YOU HELP ME!”


Bartle, R. (1996). “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs”. Journal of MUD Research I.

Shaw, A. (2011). “Do you identify as a gamer? Gender, race, sexuality, and gamer identity”. New Media & Society, 14(1) pp. 28-44.  

I never really believed in reincarnation before…

Play time: 3:00- 4:30pm

Yet again, I am running into overheating problems. It seems to be that my computer is more likely to overheat as I am in a very intense time of the game. And speaking of intense…

I have learned what it is like to feel like prey in a game (Bartle, 1996). While I fell prey to the game, and not other player personality types, I did feel somewhat attacked. It all started when I was working on a quest for arcane cores. At first, I did not know that I need to kill the urchin before trying to open the glowing chest. And the urchins attack quite a lot faster than other creatures in the game. Then, I moved too close to a chest by two urchins. And then found out what it is like to die in WoW. Thankfully, those players that are under level 10 can be resurrected with no penalties.

The second time I died in the game, I truly believed that the game was trying to punish me for my last successful play session without overheating. I don’t understand what I could be doing so wrong. And this second incarnation was doomed from the beginning. This play session, I attempted to play with an oblivious audience. My friends would watch me playing without seeing the screen on my computer. This came to be favorable for their entertainment as I would be engaging with some conversation and immediately start yelling and screaming as I fell prey to urchins. After this play session, I feel that I have lost my status as an achiever in the game and moved into some mutated form of a socializer that just does not socialize with other players in the game (Bartle, 1996).


Bartle, R. (1996). “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs”. Journal of MUD Research I.

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