W.O.W. #2 – My Character Choices

In his essay Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs Richard Bartle discusses the four types of players in Multi-user dungeons such as World of Warcraft. He creates four categories: Achievers (diamonds), Explorers (spades), Socializers (hearts), and Killers (clubs) (Bartle 3-6). A lot of his research pertains to race/class choices in W.O.W. – players make different choices about what kind of character they want to play as based on their play-style and what they hope to get out of the game.

I chose to be a human mage for my primary character, and also created a human huntress just to see what the gameplay associated with that class was like.

I took the time and thought to make both characters look kind of like me, but I didn’t think much about why I made the choices I did regarding the race and class of my avatar(s).

Why did I decide to be a human – both times? Well, my limited knowledge of W.O.W. has led me to believe that the Alliance represents the “good guys” and the Horde are the “bad guys”. I don’t actually know if this is true or not, but the connotations of the names of the categories alone carries that weight. Out of all the potential Alliance races I could have chosen, the humans were the most appealing in appearance to me, so that’s why I chose them.

As for class, I always find myself leaning towards “magical” characters in these sorts of games, so my choice to be a mage as my primary character wasn’t difficult. For my secondary character, I chose huntress because I liked the idea of having an animal companion (clearly I thought long and hard about this). I never considered what I wanted to get out of the game when initially making these choices, or what they said about me as a player.

Referring back to Bartle’s player types, an analysis of my choices and my own gameplay leads me to believe I’m more of an explorer/achiever. I’m not interested in close combat – with other players or the enemies in the game – nor do I like being forced to fight when I’m trying to explore. I suppose we’ll see if this continues to be an issue as I explore the game further – perhaps the quests become more compelling the longer you play?

(Game session was 1 hour long, played at home on my laptop)

W.O.W. #1 – Character Customization (or lack thereof)

My only memories associated with World of Warcraft center around watching my step-brother play 10+ years ago, but otherwise I have very little experience with the game. I started as everyone else does, trying to decide what “race” I wanted to be (troll, human, elf, orc, etc.) and then what “class” (mage, hunter, etc.).

I played around with different “races” and “classes” to figure out what level of customization was allowed for each kind of character, and to see what they all looked like in their various forms and occupations. What I found was a bit surprising, to me anyway.

First, I noticed the disparities between males and females of each race. The female character models were all slimmer, with much more substantial curves than the male character models. As far as skin, facial features, hair, etc. all of the character models (male and female) had similar levels of customization. My issue wasn’t so much with these cosmetic feature as with the bodies of the characters themselves.

While this image isn’t the best quality, it does show the disparity between male and female character models among a variety of “races” in the game. The aforementioned curves are evident across all races – even the Pandaren (Panda bear like creatures) have noticeably feminine body shapes. This wouldn’t be a problem if players were allowed to customize body shape (or even clothing) in the same way as they do facial features or hair color, but this isn’t an option.

Now, I’m not a game designer and I don’t necessarily understand the logistics of character models. But I have seen plenty of games (The Sims, for example) that have allowed body customization for years. What if I don’t want my character to have extremely large breasts; what if I want her body shape to be more realistic? Every female character model is inherently sexualized; with no way to change what their bodies look like, female players lack control over the perception of their characters.

World of Warcraft presents the female body through only one lens, even across races when comparing the female character models to the male character models of the same race. As discussed by Williams et al. in The Virtual Census: representations of gender, race and age in video games “imagery that is viewed or played repeatedly is more accessible when a person is attempting to recall information about that class of social objects (Williams et al. 191).  If male players of W.O.W. or any other game only see female character models with large breasts and slim hips, there will be a perception that this is what a woman is supposed to look like. They not only associate that specific body type with women, but also as a basis for sexual harassment of female players.

While our avatars in-game do not necessarily reflect what we look like in real life, they are representations of the player within the game and do carry weight with other players in how they treat us. Allowing women and men alike to customize the bodies of their avatars in W.O.W. (to a reasonable extent) could help to transform how female players are viewed and treated in-game.

(Game sessions was 1 hour long, completed at home on my laptop)

Zork #6: I’M GOING TO FINISH THIS GAME *except not really (part 2)

In this second guided play session of Zork, I realized that there was no way for me to finish the game in the time I had allotted without using a step-by-step guide. So I made it as far as I could, and realized a few things along the way…

  1. The gameworld is massive, especially considering you can’t actually see any of it (I MEAN LOOK AT THIS MAP?!)…

2. There is no way I could have intuitively solved the majority of the puzzles without a guide (opening the coffin in the rainbow area makes the rainbow real? So you can walk across it and get gold? WHAT?!) Maybe I’m just dumb at this game or I was missing something that other players understood, but few of the puzzle solution made much sense to me.

3. I really don’t like Zork

…and not because of the text-based navigation through the gameworld. Rather, because I felt that in a world such as the one the Zork creaters built there has to be some intuition in the gameplay. And in the basics, there were. I figured out commands fairly easily (well most of them…I never would have figured praying in one location would zap me to the forest), and the AI was rather amusing in its’ descriptions and interactions with the player.

It was the lack of intuitive puzzle-solving that bothered me the most. And perhaps that the goal of the game is really just to collect treasure through the solving of these puzzles. These goals are relatively simplistic, and the world is clearly rich with lore – yet I still found it lacking. The few characters I did interact with in the gameworld weren’t very compelling, I never figured out why I was collecting all of these treasures, and (while the descriptions of the locations were interesting) there simply wasn’t anything the pulled me into the game and compelled me to complete it.

I suppose I prefer games with purpose; that is, explained purpose. Did Zork create a “narratively-compelling space” as detailed by Jenkins (Jenkins 176). Yes, but for me it failed to deliver on the promised intrigue the compelling space presented the player with. Zork created a “staging ground in which narrative events are enacted” without actually enacting any of them, and that’s where it lost me (Jenkins 178). I thought the experience of Zork would be more akin to reading a book with some sort of narrative tie-in for the player. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t, and I leave the experience with disappointment akin to that of what I felt playing Civilization with the knowledge that there are games of that genre out there that I do enjoy playing.

Zork #5: I’M GOING TO FINISH THIS GAME (part 1)

After my last unsuccessful Zork session, I decided it was about time to bring in some guides – if not to complete the game, than for the sake of my own society.

A couple of things I established right off were:

  1. The trophy case is for collecting treasures
  2. The painting is one of these treasures
  3. “Kill the troll” is indeed the most effective command for killing the troll.

Yay guides! With this initial information, I began making my way through the game. I revisited old haunts and when I ran into a roadblock, I simply looked up what I needed to know to get past it (doing my best to avoid spoiling the whole thing). For instance, I tried to focus on the objects I would need to solve one puzzle or another and then attempt to find the object myself so I would not be following the steps in the guide for the entirety of my gameplay. After about an hour and the collection of a few objects (the painting, a sceptre, a pot of gold, and a gold coffin) I ended the session, but did not close the screen in order to maintain my place.

So how did I feel at the end of this session? Significantly less frustrated, for one. But also a bit disappointed – more in the game than in myself. I didn’t find a lot of the puzzles I managed to get through solvable on my own, so I couldn’t really be upset with my own inability to figure them out. Still, I thought it disheartening that I had to consult the guide before feeling like I made any significant progress in the game. Perhaps I’m just not used to this genre of gameplay, but I feel the narrative could have been more compelling – if only for the purpose of pushing the player through the puzzles in an organic way.

While I fought the thief, the troll, and witness a few other characters I didn’t ever feel like I was “perform[ing] or witness[ing] narrative events (Jenkins 179). There is something compelling about the world within Zork for sure, but with narrative drive the whole thing seems like a lackluster experience rather than a grand adventure. Hopefully as I progress this feeling will lessen, but as of right now I don’t even really feel compelled to return to the game; the amount of effort I’m expending on it certainly doesn’t seem worth the so-called reward at the moment.

Zork #4: Reaching my Limit

My third run through of Zork had me making very little progress from the previous two. I began the game much the same as before (as all of the needed objects and weapons are in the same place), then made my way back past the troll. This time, I headed for the Chasm again, where thankfully there was no thief. I found the dam and control panel, then was promptly confused again with very little idea of how to use it.

After a lot of aimless wandering around and input of ineffective commands, my confusion led me to try to use the hang command for lack of any idea of how to progress further. While the AI response was amusing, my frustration eventually led me to end the game with my sword—what else was I going to do? Perhaps it’s time to bring in some guides and start drawing maps…

This play through really made me consider Jenkins’ discussion of world building at the expense of characterization. Jenkins explains how “in many cases, the characters…are stripped down to bare bones…in world-making and spatial storytelling” (Jenkins 177). I thought of this aspect of Jenkins’ writing because while Zork does have an intricate world (even if it isn’t physically visible), this does seem to be at the expense of the characters in the story.

Of course, I really haven’t made it far in my play through; I can’t say this is true of the entire narrative. But if I have spent three hours wandering around a world with such rich lore and backstory without a single idea of what I’m doing there or without meeting any characters whose descriptions match the depth of the lore…well, I find myself losing interest. Who is my character? What are they doing there? Who is the thief? Where does he come from? Why is everyone else in the story trying to kill me? – I find myself less and less interested in embarking on a journey to discover theses answers on my own; all I really want to do is pull up a guide to get me through the game and discover the ending, if I’m being honest.

I suppose this comes from a lack of attachment to either the world or the characters in it – including whomever I’m controlling (if it’s supposed to be someone else, but everything I see leads me to believe that the person moving through the gameworld is supposed to be me). Jenkins even mentions Zork in his discussion of narratively-compelling spaces (Jenkins 176). I don’t think he’s wrong to consider the Zork gameworld narratively compelling, either; I think the gameplay just gets in the way of that. Perhaps using a guide will help to mitigate my opinion – stay tuned!

Zork #3: Getting Discouraged and Environmental Storytelling

My second time playing Zork was no less baffling than the first. Initially, I stumbled through the forest after clearing the objects from the house looking for something to do. I ended up finding a location not previously known to me—the “Canyon View”. The description claimed it was possible to climb into the canyon, but I couldn‘t figure out the proper commands to do so (the AI claimed not to know the words “climb” or “canyon”, and anything else I tried failed as well).

I made my way back to the gallery—which thankfully wasn’t the hangout for the thief this round—and then backtracked to the troll and managed to stun him. Finally, I could go somewhere new! So, I entered the maze which was probably one of the less intelligent decisions I’ve made so far. I got hopelessly lost and wandered aimlessly until I found the thief (somewhere…somehow). I threw a water bottle at him as suggested in class; what I wasn’t informed of was that the thief takes both the object you threw as well as the rest your stuff before leaving peacefully.

So, I was left to wander the maze without any of my items or weapons. After many, many minutes of wandering I made it back to the troll room, where I was promptly killed as I had no weapons. I came back to life in the forest, got a knife, got past the troll, was killed in the Chasm attempting to fight the thief, and promptly gave up.

I think part of my problem (or perhaps most of my problem) with Zork is that I find the text-based format frustrating. I’m a very visual person, and I enjoy having something to look at while I play. Perhaps that feeling is short sighted, but I did acknowledge my frustration with the lack of visuals when I played Civilization, as well. Going from that to no visuals at all has been a bit of an odd experience, and made me question my own relationship with visual media, especially in the context of Jenkins and “environmental storytelling” (Jenkins 177).

Can a story/game with no visuals have environmental storytelling? At first glance I would say no, especially since Jenkins sites Disney and creating theme parks (extremely visual experiences) in his explanation of it. But then I began to consider the details giving in Zork; the specificity in the description does lend itself to environmental storytelling, even if most of the visuals are left up to the imagination of the player. After all, why mention specifically that there are low hanging branches on a tree unless it is meant to be climbed? Or that there are nails in a door, or axe scratches on a wall, if you don’t want the player to infer something about the environment and its’ history?

I appreciate Zork‘s environmental storytelling, a difficult task for a text-based game. But I wonder if the limitations of the text-only gameplay interfere with playability. After all, text can only reveal so much. Perhaps in trying to be subtle the writers didn’t consider that some players may want some chance for extra clues to be revealed in the text, especially for more complex puzzles unfamiliar to those who have never played text-based narratives before. I would have appreciated some sort of “hint” or “clue” command at least, just so I could get past some areas without having to consult a guide (or at all, since I decided not to consult one in this session).

Zork #2: Lost in the Dark

For my first few attempts at playing Zork, I decided to just jump in and see how far I could get on my own; I refused to even draw a map in these first couple sessions, and didn’t use any reference materials or look anything up that wasn’t present in the manual.

My first hour playing the game was spend mostly stumbling around in the dark, so to speak. I started out getting lost in the forest for a bit, because I couldn’t figure out how to get to the open window leading into the house. Even through this confusion, I was able to figure out the most basic controls rather quickly; for instance, if a tree in the forest had low hanging branches, I knew immediately that I must be able to climb it. Eventually I made my way into the house, and again the controls here were pretty intuitive. I got a bunch of items, figured out that I needed to move the rug, open the trap door, etc. Then things got a bit trickier.

I kept running into enemies—the troll and thief primarily—and backtracking because I wasn’t sure how to fight them. I found that if I did use the command “fight”, I always ended up losing.  I kept trying to find different ways to go or different things to do, but obviously there is no way past the troll without fighting him, the forest seemed to lead to nowhere, and in my first round of play the thief was in the artist’s studio, so I couldn’t explore that area either. Eventually I fought the troll to the bitter end just to see what would happen; the game did something weird and I ended up not being able to continue, so I ended my session there.

This play through was indeed frustrating, and I often found myself feeling like I was stumbling around blindly in the dark. I hope that I will find Zork more fun as I continue to play and learn from my mistakes, but I’m concerned that as the narrative continues to become more complex I will find the game more frustrating than rewarding. I suppose we’ll see; I’ve never tried to make it through a text-based narrative experience before, so I really have no idea what the puzzles will be like or if I’ll be able to solve them without some sort of help. I hope to not consult a manual, but I might need to further down the road.

Zork again reminds me (much in the same way Civilization did) as to why “play” and “fun” are so difficult to define as discussed by Huizinga, Caillois, etc. Yes, I’m playing a game – but am I really enjoying myself? Probably not, if I’m finding myself so frustrated and unable to feel like I’m making any progress. While “play” doesn’t necessarily have to be “fun”, I do think some sense of accomplishment tends to come from it – without that, what’s the point?

Zork #1: The Manual

For this first blog, I chose to read the gameplay manual in order to get a sense of the creators of the game as well as the lore of the game universe. I found the first few pages – dictating a brief history of “The Great Underground Empire” – rather amusing and also progressively sillier as I continued reading.

I found the humor continued into the instructional part of the manual. albeit to a lessor degree. I also found it interesting that the creators chose to give direct advice in the opening statement of the manual. In the second paragraph, they say “you’d better equip yourself with a source of light…and weapons…” because “some of the inhabitants are unfriendly – especially the thief, a skilled pickpocket and ruthless opponent” (11). Essentially the manual tells the player who to look out for before they’re even seeking that specific information. It does make me wonder if the manual is attempting to mislead the player in any way in these opening paragraphs, although the nature of the information provided makes this seem unlikely.

Continuing through the manual, I especially liked the “Tips for Novices” section. While I approached Civilization with the thought that I would – at least for the first few play throughs – try to figure out the game solely by playing it on my own, a manual such as this one would have been much appreciated. Also, since the inherent nature of interactive fiction makes it visually more akin to reading a book (in that you must imagine events for yourself as you read the text on the screen), some direction in regards to playing is appreciated. I found the advice regarding directions especially useful, since a novice might assume that to backtrack they only have to type the opposite of direction they used to get to their present location (this is not always the case, apparently – a fact I was not aware of).

I’m really not entirely sure how I feel about playing a game lacking in visuals. It seems if I enjoy reading (which I do) I should also enjoy this experience, but I don’t know if that will necessarily be the case or not. I tend to be a very visual person, so not being able to see the world around me will probably confound me for a bit until I get used to it. But, if the narrative is interesting I think I’ll still enjoy the experience…nothing can be quite so bad as I found Civilization, anyway – especially with the manual close at hand!

Civilization Gameplay Blog #6

For my final hour of gameplay with Civilization, I continued my previous play through begun in my 5th gameplay session (so all the settings were the same as stated in the previous blog). I started the game at 1 AD, and was mainly trying to see if I could just get to the end of the game during this play through regardless of winning.

I did well at first, getting the Largest civilization in 140 AD, the Wealthiest in 680 AD, the Most Powerful in 1300 AD, and then the 2nd Largest in 1635 AD. It was around here that things started to go downhill as in previous sessions. In Paris (my original city), I had built the Great Library, Hanging Gardens, and Magellan’s Expedition – not that I really understood what I was accomplishing in doing so. I still had plenty of money, continued peace with the Egyptians, and didn’t even have any issues with revolts (probably due to my lack of desire to change the government).

So where were the issues? Barbarians almost constantly landed on our shores, I still hadn’t found any other civilizations, and most of all I felt stagnated even as I entered later stages of the game. Frankly, I was bored and getting frustrated again, especially as I noticed that the later I went into the game the slower time seemed to pass. I knew the game would end at 2500 AD, but I found myself quitting somewhere just past 2000 AD. I didn’t think I was in a position to win, and I was no longer motivated to reach the goal I had set for myself. So once the hour was up I chose to let the game go.

So what were my issues with Civilization? I think overall my biggest problem is the lack of intuitive controls (at least for someone possessing no prior experience with civ games). It made the game feel more like work than play; essentially, it lost the “fun” factor for me.

As stated by Johan Huizinga, “the fun of playing…resists all analysis, all logical interpretation” (Huizinga 98). That, I think, is the strangest thing about play and also the reason there are so many different kinds of games. What is fun to one person might feel very similar to work for another, as Civilization felt for me. A lot of people really love this game clearly, or else it wouldn’t be such a successful franchise. It simply doesn’t appeal to me personally, at least in the form of the original Civilization.

And if a game is missing the fun factor for you, then why play it? To learn, I suppose. I don’t regret spending the time to try and understand this game, and it certainly gives me a greater appreciation for the more modern games I tend to enjoy. So in the end, it was worth putting the time in and reflecting on what kinds of games I personally want to spend time playing for the fun of them.

Civilization Gameplay Blog #5

For this attempt at Civilization, I decided to span a play through of the game over two play sessions rather than just one. I figured I could try and reach the end of the game in some capacity (my research indicates that at 2500 AD the game is over and whichever civilization has the most points wins).

I played for one hour, on the Chieftain difficulty level, with my old favorites the French. I decided to edit the game world in an attempt to make it easier to come into contact with other civilizations (the only default parameter I changed was making the land masses large instead of medium).

I started out this play through with a similar strategy to my fourth one, doing my best to expand as quickly as possible and have the best military units available to me across my cities. I did well initially, getting Happiest Civilization in 1700 BC and Most Advanced Civilization in 1040 BC. I also found and made peace with the Egyptians in 880 BC. While I was still on an island sort of land mass, it was significantly larger than the others I played on and as far as I could tell the Egyptians only occupied the upper corner. I played through until I reached 1 AD and I didn’t come into contact with any other civilizations, although I was a bit befuddled by the Egyptians’ actions as the moved settlers and soldiers around in my territory. I also made use of caravans more than I had before and established trade routes with my Egyptian neighbors.

I enjoyed this hour of gameplay significantly more than the last few hours I played through. I had a goal in mind of reaching the end of the game and while that isn’t necessarily “winning” by the standards of the game having my own goal gave me some level of motivation that I did not previously possess. Still, I wouldn’t say that I enjoy Civilization as much as I enjoy other games, even those of the same type. I see where others might enjoy it, and even where it could be useful from a strategizing standpoint, but I don’t find it all that interesting myself.

I have considered why I might not like it in comparison to other strategy centered games I have tried, and I feel it might be due simply to the overall limitations of the game. The graphics in the main screen(s) are boring to me, and although I enjoy seeing the cities grow in the animations this growth is not reflected in the cities on the main map. I do understand these are just the limits of graphics at the time, but I couldn’t help but want to try one of the more recent games with detailed graphics.

The lack of intuitive controls also bothers me, and I suppose it’s because they made the game feel more like work rather than play. But I’ll save such observations for my final play through blog.