How does World of Warcraft create
meaningful play for players?
World of Warcraft is the master of meaningful play. It
constantly strives to offer players choices with meaning, and reasons to keep
playing. It’s set in a fantasy world where discoveries lurk around every
corner. There are large continents that NEED to be discovered by you and your
friends! All this is rolled into one game, a game where there is also a dynamic
population, economy, and constant updates.
Almost everything you do in world of Warcraft creates
meaningful play. The game world has quest givers dotted around. When you
interact with a quest giver, you acquire an assignment/quest, when it’s
fulfilled you receive something in return. When the quest is finished it can
change things in the surrounding world, new opportunities are opened up to you,
new quests and new enemies. “the process
by which a player takes action within the designed system of a game and the
system responds to the action (Salen & Zimmerman: Rules of Play – 2003).
Whatever level you are, there’s always content for you to complete, be it
challenging or casual, there is always content for you to complete that will
lead you in a certain direction. There isn’t one thing in world of Warcraft
that will ultimately leave you at a dead end; the developers know that they
must reward the player with the giant sword they always wanted, or the glinting
piece of armour that will help them in tomorrow’s raid.
World of Warcraft’s levelling process is a training stage,
training to become a player, training to no longer be called a “noob”. This
training is set for everyone, all 10million players that play the game have
gone through this training. Eventually they’ll reach maximum level where they
will be a seasoned player. And it’s at that point where we see that world of
warcaft has created a meaningful experience to this point. Everyone around you
in this massively multiplayer online role playing game wants to succeed in the
same objectives as you, but they can only do this with help from players. Luckily
for them, there is now a huge abundance of players who have completed their
“training” and would be glad to help to achieve epic wins.
Upon booting the game and logging in the player will chose their
faction, race and class to play as. This strengthens the bond the player has
with their character. The character is no longer an entity that the player
controls like in lots of other RPGs such as The Witcher. The fact that player
has their own character allows them to have a virtual identity within the game
by which other players can identify them, just like someone would identify you
in the real world. This is an important factor in wow because it allows the
player to have the sense that THEY are making change to the world, and that they
aren't just controlling a scripted character.
World of Warcraft took a lot of inspiration from various
fantasy texts, games and movies. It’s fair to say that the work of J.R.R
Tolkien has inspired many of the design decisions of world of Warcraft. Just
like in his books, Trolls, Orcs, Dragons and many other concepts are found in
WoW. The players that play world of Warcraft are already familiar with these
ideas, it’s ingrained into our culture, therefore the design decisions and art
assets have a purpose and a meaning in the game world. Upon entering players
will be familiar with what they are seeing, it may be fantasy, but it’s not so
strange it’s off-putting. The fact that it’s a fantasy world gives the player
large incentive to explore. It would be much more enjoyable to explore a
fantasy world tan a world designed to replicate our own. The fantasy elements
give the world more meaning and flavour.
Throughout world of Warcraft’s levelling process, there’s an
ongoing story. The story involves an “end of the world” scenario with each
expansion, and when levelling you’re constantly reminded of this. Not long
after starting the character, the player knows that he will be the one that
will save the world from the conflict. The
player is quickly given a purpose in the virtual world, it’s their job to
improve and rid the world of evil. This reinforces the idea that the player has
meaning.
There are times in world of Warcraft where you’re forced to
make choices, such as when you have to choose between the Aldor or the Scryers
in outland. Depending on which choice the player makes, the future content for
the player will be changed. It will result in a different environment,
different quests, monsters, npcs and story. The choice that the player makes
will result in them meeting different people (actual players). So the game
creates this system that completely alters the players experience due to a
choice they made.
World of Warcraft has a total of 15 professions, and they
are often used by players to generate in game currency. The items produced by
in game players are sold on the virtual auction house, and the items can be
bought out by another player. So players have the power to add things to the
game world to potentially help others. In return for the players item gold is
rewarded to the seller. The player will gain a sense of meaning, they will be “that
guy” who sells fish or armour or minerals, and the player will have purpose. The
money a player generates allows them to access new places, buy new things and purchase
services within the game. So generating in game currency has a meaning, it can
allow players to experience different features within the game.
WoW is the king of creating
meaningful play. A lot of the meaningful play is created by other real life
players instead of the developers. The developers put the systems in place for
the meaningful play to be created. The developers give meaning to the player by
making the content informative and explaining the issues at hand. The game also
keeps the player playing with constant gear upgrades which makes the player
feel more powerful. The player creates their own meaningful play at high
levels, they become important to the people they play with, and affect the
outcome of others gaming experiences depending on how dedicated they are to the
game.
