The Classroom Analogy

Today was the release of the 4.1 patch in World of Warcraft, and amongst it’s features was the infamous “Call to Arms” dungeon finder feature.  There has been much discussion in the blog community about how this feature is tantamount to bribing tanks to run in PUG groups.  As I discussed in my post I present the notion that this will not actually solve anything.

Sheer bribery sadly solves none of the core issues that keep tanks from wanting to queue for random dungeons in the first place.  Good tanks, simply do not need to queue for randoms, as they are in demand with their friends to run them.  However the problem behind this issue is the fact that the PUG environment has degraded to a point where no one really wants to put up with the frustration.

Over the years, the game has gone from an environment where most players were capable of competing in most areas, to one where there is a massive chasm between skill have and have nots.  The question is, why is this the case?  Why has the game degraded to a point where the average player is simply not prepared for the realities of post leveling content.

Lack of Training

A few weekends ago I was sitting at On the Border restaurant, having a conversation with my wife.  As an educator, she was concerned about trying to cram as much learning as possible in the last few weeks before her upcoming end of instruction exams.  As a conscientious educator, she wanted to make sure her students were prepared for anything they might encounter on the impending exam.

The problem at hand with MMOs in general, is there is no solid focus on educating the player base.  In a classroom, the teacher must constantly challenge their students.  If you spend your time doing nothing but meaningless busy work when the time comes for that final exam, chances are the vast majority of your students will fail miserably.  You would not have prepared them for the high expectations.

In MMOs, the growing trend has been to make the leveling process easy and quick for the players, so they can ascend to the higher level content as fast as possible.  The problem with this notion is that while this is good for already skilled gamers as they level their second or third character, it does a massive disservice to the new players that each and every MMO is trying to actively recruit.  Through this style of leveling, you have given your players none of the necessary tools to be able to tackle the harder challenges that await.

A Shift in Focus

I’ve mentioned this before, but my last character leveled in WoW, was my Worgen Druid.  It took me a little over 2 days played to get from level 1 to level 85.  60 levels of that, was spend leveling through content I had never seen before, since it was brand new with the massive changes that came from the Cataclysm expansion.  While I will admit, as a six year veteran I am probably far better at the game than your typical staring player, it still tells me that the leveling process has been completely trivialized.

Game developers have to move away from this “low cost of entry” attitude in a blatant money grab for new players.  They have to switch their focus to treating the leveling process as classroom time.  Leveling your character should teach you all of the skills you will need to have to be able to participate in higher level content.  Giving players the easy road while pushing through those levels has created an environment where fresh 85s do not know how to use the basic skills their class requires.

I don’t really see this as being specifically harder than the current way.  Each level the character gains, builds their repertoire of skills so that as you progress through the content the designers can present the players with more interesting challenges.  When you reach the level cap, you have been taught everything you need to survive in the end game.

Dungeons as Raid Training

If leveling gives the characters the basic skills needed to play their class effectively, then Dungeons should reinforce good grouping habits.  Moving through instances should help the player pick up various skills needed to transition into raiding.  The system should be designed in a way to reward the character for spending the necessary time in dungeons, to gain sufficient gear to be able to not be a drag on raid groups.  Currently the drive is to rush through the gearing phase, and in the past players have been able to skip it completely.

I know on my various alts, I was able to step into raids and complete well within a few days of dinging 85.  Granted I always made a massive push for gear, but if I were a new player I would not have soaked up enough necessary skills to be able to move forward.  Spending time running dungeons for gear, needs to be a rewarded practice.  Going into an instance under-geared puts undue stress on the entire party, so this “Raid Education” phase needs to be treated in such a way that players gain something to keep building upon.

Universal Currency

One of the  best advancements I have seen came in the Rift system of universal currencies.  From the moment you step into your first rift or invasion, you begin earning a currency called Planarite.  Regardless of what you do from that point on, Planarite has value to you.  The key significance between level 10 content and level 50 content is the volume that you earn.  It gives players a feeling that regardless of what they are doing, they are building something that will be just as useful at level 1 as it is in the endgame.

The problem is, this concept is not nearly as common as it should be.  In WoW you are awarded various tiers of points for completing different difficulties of content.  The problem is, after a short while, that low level currency becomes completely meaningless to the average player.  So much so that they have been forced to implement a series of ways for the players to spend this currency at a resource loss.

Why is this a bad thing?  It rewards behavior that is not beneficial to social gaming.  In the example of random dungeons, you gain Valor Points for the first random heroic dungeon you do of the day (I realize that system changed somewhat in 4.1).  As a result you have just given players a reason not to help out with anything other than this one dungeon a day, or in the case of 4.1 patch the first 7 randoms each week.  So as players level and need gear, there is no reinforcement of the practice of more experienced members of the group helping out the lower level ones.

In the case of a universal currency, regardless of what a player does, they are always gaining a small bit of benefit from the action.  While it might sound mercenary, this small bit of reward alone can incentivize the player base in a way that the sheer bribery of “Call to Arms” really can’t.  It is a fundamental shift in the way players think about group interactions.  If they go into something knowing that no matter they are do, they are helping themselves while helping others, it builds a stronger community ethic.

Seeing the Big Picture

The problem is, I feel that most MMO design doesn’t really see the journey as a whole.  I am not saying that there is not some amazing content along the way, because there are some amazing quests and lore out there.  What I mean is that publishers fail to see their game as a process of gradually training the player.  Much as education is an investment of time in the students, leveling should be a similar investment in trying to create the kind of players that designers want to build content for.

Sure there exists plenty of content online to do this training process, and those who are willing to dig for it become the upper-class of players.  The problem is, we the gamers who read blogs, information sites, and forums are in the gross minority.  Your average gamer, wants to be able to come home from a long day at work, log into a game, and lose themselves in this rich world you have built for them.

Designers want to build compelling content that requires a high skill level to conquer.  Currently however, they are doing next to nothing to build this kind of player.  There are some games that do it better, than others.  Rift for example, is  challenging from the moment you leave the opening tutorial.  However even in this case, there is no real focus on teaching the players how to play their classes in a slow and focused manner.

If we shift the paradigm, and begin to act like those dedicated Educators out there.  We will build up this strong player base with all the tools they need to conquer the content the designers really want to be creating.  I might be naïve, but I believe that we will be able to raise the base skill level of the players, rather than nerfing existing content to make it more accessible.

The Final Exam

If we treat the leveling process as time spend in the class room, and leveling dungeons as quizzes.  It lets us move the players onwards to the final exam knowing they will be prepared to conquer it.  This is a far stronger base to build a game upon rather than what we have currently.  Based on the growing disillusionment among my generation of gamers, something has to change. 

I feel that we can rework the basics of the MMO genre and produce a game where the leveling process feels more meaningful.  No player, enjoys grinding through content for no purpose.  In the current system, there is no valid reason not to simply start characters out at the maximum level.  In fact, one of the EQ2 designers has suggested that. 

EQ2 producer David Georgeson presented the question, what if players could create a free level 90 character, thus bypassing the content and skipping straight into the endgame.  Problem is, statements like this tell the players that every bit of that sub 90 content is meaningless.  Having walked my way without any challenge through the leveling content in WoW, I can certainly say that it feels meaningless.  It feels like the leveling process is this menial task given to the players to keep them busy for awhile.

If MMOs are going to remain viable as a genre, the entire Journey needs to be meaningful.  The players need to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves.  That everything they do is building to something larger, preparing them for something on the horizon.  There are great examples of lore and quests that give this feeling, but the problem is these are one snapshot of a larger photo album.  The entire game needs to feel like the player is going somewhere epic, and each quest they complete, each zone they move into, is building to something truly amazing that will be resolved through dungeons and raiding.

If designers are willing to shift focus, I feel in the long run this will create a more skilled base, and at the same time create a happier player base.  When you know the other players you are running with are skilled, that point of rejection against running with strangers is far less.  There are certain guilds, and raids you know harbor good players, so when you encounter them you are more likely to help them out.  Wouldn’t be be amazing if the entire community were made up of these “known good” players.

Wrapping Up

I realize this is an odd topic, but this is something that has been incubating in my mind for awhile.  I really feel that something has to change to raise the base, rather than separate players into skill based silos.  Thinking of the game, like an education process makes sense to me.  We go to high school, to gain the necessary skills to carry us into college.  We go through an educational process to give us the skills we need for our job, even if this is comprised of on the job shadowing.  Why would we think that our gameplay would be any different?