Why I do it.

I get asked a lot "Why do you want to be a game designer?" this isn't as easy a question as one would assume. It's one of those questions that when asked out of the blue, I was often stunned by the sheer absurdity of the question. I would think to myself "Duh! Cause it's my dream job." or "It just calls to me." Even the ever-famous "Why wouldn't I?!" This question often left me Speaking in undefinables. Recently, I've decided that it's time for me to really sit down and figure out how to describe it. How to break it down and present it in a way that is understandable and conveys why I feel so strongly about the subject.

Before I can even begin to explain it, there needs to be some background. What are games about to you? Are they about wasting time? Are they about having fun? Getting together with your friends? No matter why you play games, the core of the relationship between you and games is likely related to the experience. No, not experience points like in an rpg game, but the experience of playing the game.

Games are a unique medium. They focus around controlling and defining someone's interaction in a way that causes them to make decisions. They make you think. Some games ask you do to this on an instinctual level with quick decisions and reactions, while others ask you to think slowly and come to a decision after considering as much as possible.

I think it's important now to define the difference between an experience and a stimulus. Music is mostly a stimulus. You can listen passively just sit back and just enjoy it. It requires nothing from  you as a listener to enjoy it. Many people find themselves being more engrossed than simply listening, and become involved with the music. This is where music tips from a passive stimulus into a true experience. People rarely experience music when heard on the radio on the way home from work, but when going to a concert, or making the music yourself, or even when that perfect song plays at the perfect moment it suddenly changes into an experience. These experiences are what stick with us as humans. Humans innately remember experiences, feeling, and moments.   

Games don't give you the option to allow them to be stimulus. They require your interaction from the onset. The game provides you with a stimulus through feedback and your reaction is required, this is what makes games one of the most powerful media in the world.

Couple these game requirements up with the ability to share this with another person, and you've suddenly created something far larger and more powerful than a single interaction. You've created a communal experience. This communal experience is something that transcends cultures, languages, and personal differences. It almost becomes a universal language to anyone who's touched the game in any way.

This is the beauty of interactivity. It creates experiences. It doesn't provide you with an. You can't passively consume. It doesn't work unless you're a part of it. I remember in college hearing about how art is defined by the reaction, emotion, or feelings that it creates to its audience. I remember talking about the Mona Lisa's eyes, and how people felt that her eyes followed them around the room. Or how the Sistine chapel makes a person feel like they are looking up into heaven itself. These are more than simply pictures or paintings because they make you interact with them. They make you feel something.

Games do this innately as they require interaction to function. They do this without the need for language or art, but through rules and mechanics. Think about chess for a moment. Chess is a fairly straightforward set of mechanics and rules that has been enjoyed by millions of people for well over a millennia. Two people plucked from different times, languages, and cultures could be placed at a chess board opposite each other and would be perfectly comfortable interacting playing the game. This can be seen in modern gaming communities too, whether it's global tournaments, mmo games, collectable card game gatherings, or the high score board for a single player puzzle game.

Games act as a common language. The game is the interpreter, the referee, it can even be a player at times. A game is a template for an interaction. An interaction is the basis of an experience. This experience, this shared experience, is what drives me to design games. Can my template illicit a pleasurable experience? Can I deliver an experience that someone will remember?

Modern games are more capable of this than ever before. The integration of technology and social availability allow designers to create experiences that are more realistic than ever and widespread enough to reach millions of people simultaneously. The MMO market is booming for these reasons. Today this communal experience can be shared with millions of people in real time. Despite the different languages and regions, every single person in an MMO is connected.

This is why I design. To be part of creating these universal experiences. Games deal in experiences. And their designers broker memories.

A Cataclysmic Failure?!

Before we get started here, I want to make a few things clear. I love wow, and I love Cataclysm. I think that cataclysm is the best expansion Azeroth has seen. If you're gone back and re-experienced the old zones, then you know, they are better than they have ever been. Questing is more fluid, logical, and enjoyable than any blizzard has delivered yet. The questing and leveling really shows off how much blizzard has learned over the last 5 years. This leads to the first issue with cataclysm though, and that is the perception of new content.

I was talking with a former guild mate the other day. He has quit wow and moved on to rift. Immediately hooked i started asking questions. I opened with the general and broad "why did you quit wow?" he immediately answered "Because blizzard is trying to steal my money with cataclysm." Of course, being so interested in games and design, the conversation went on for a good hour after that. What I walked away with was that his perception hinged around his opinion that "Blizzard is out of ideas and too lazy to give us new content." And being out of ideas left blizzard in a position of "ummm... redo old stuff!" This was an angle I hadn't thought of before, and decided to spend some time pondering.

After some internet searches, and some simple word of mouth, I found this opinion to be a fairly common one, much more so than I anticipated. The wow population is fickle and can be difficult to please, but one thing that gamers universally love, is new stuff (of equal or improved quality). In the eyes of the developers all of cataclysm is new. All of the zones are new, the cities are new, the dungeons are new, and the gear is new. But in the eyes of a player, they see "go back to all the places you've already been." Where is the wonder in that? where is the discovery, the amazement, the marvel? Yes, there were new zones. Yes if you took all of those new zones and put them in their own area, it could be a new continent. But the problem is the presentation.

With burning crusade we stepped through the portal into a whole new world that brought mysteries unseen in Azeroth to light. With wrath, we traveled to a whole new continent controlled by one of the greatest evils and most well-known characters from Warcraft lore. And with cataclysm we.... went back to where we started. We went back to Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Back to a world that we've been away from for years. It's kind of like after high school you go to college in a bigger city, then you go to grad school in an even bigger city, then you finish and come back to your small hometown. Sure, you're different, and the town is different, but it still feels like the same old place where you grew up.

Now, anyone who's leveled a new character at this point is crying foul. Saying that the world might as well be new as it's so drastically changed from what it was, and how it's better than it's ever been. And they are absolutely right. It is. The new leveling flow and quests are some of the most fun I've had with the game in a long time. The problem is that the majority of the player base, or at least the player base that's likely to leave, aren't keen on going back through and leveling a new character. Even if they do, with so many alternative ways to level (dungeons, pvp, quests, archeology) there isn't a boatload of incentive to do all of these things. Most people I know who level alts now-a-days do it by afk'ing in town and wait for dungeon queues to pop. Why? because it requires less effort. Never underestimate a gamers ability to travel the path of least resistance.

For most at this point in the game, leveling isn't an issue of speed or efficiency or even honest enjoyment. Nearly everyone I know who's leveled an alt in the past few years, has done so with the intent of playing it at max level. "I want to try tanking as a warrior." or "I think warlock could be fun." These are things that I hear a lot. Coupled with the general mindset that you are only playing a fraction of the class until your max level. When people think about experiencing a new class or trying a new class, they are framing their thoughts around max level. I've never heard anyone say "I wonder what leveling another class would be like, going through the same stuff I've already done but now standing 40 yards away!" Now I can't speak for everyone out there, with tens of millions of players, anyone who thinks they can is just lying to themselves. So I'm confident there are people who would love these types of things, but I don't know any. And the ones I do know, went back for loremaster after being max level.  

This problem could have been mitigated somewhat with the inclusion of a new class. A new class that starts at level 1. The new class would have caused players to roll this class in droves, and while many of them may level it up through dungeons alone, anyone who's interested in getting to end game as quickly and efficiently as possible is going to be questing. So not only are you driving people to go through all of the questing and new-old zones, you're giving them an exciting reason to do it. This could have worked with the introduction of new races, but by allowing level 80 characters to race changes from day one, there was really no reason to go back.

So let's say you do go back. Let's say you don't want to dungeon crawl to max level, and you want to experience all of the new content. Well, you're in for a treat. You get to experience the best storytelling, questing, and level flow that the MMO Market has ever seen. Your first sixty levels are going to be packed with fun and enjoyment as you tromp from zone to zone living out the stories of the cataclysm and partake in the rivalry between the horde and the alliance. Then you get the pleasure of walking through the dark portal to a mysterious new alien land. A place where the horde and alliance are suddenly working together against... someone? Burning Crusade plays very differently from the rest of the world, anyone in the know is familiar with illidan and his journey, but it's not present enough through leveling or questing to make it clear to anyone who hasn't lived it already. I don't recall a quest even mentioning the name "illidan" until getting into shadowmoon valley, meaning someone could potentially level through all of outlands without ever knowing why they are really there or who they are hunting beyond the generic thought of "bad guys". This is not to say that it's impossible, if you've an interest in lore and are willing to do even a little research, the story comes out. And it's a good story! But it's not told through the game and the play.

Walking through the Dark Portal has become a jarring experience. You get 60 levels of fresh new content using all the tricks and experience that an army of game designers have spent years honing. Then you step foot into a magical land where the questing flow and storytelling is radically different. You've spent 60 levels learning about the cataclysm and the strife between the horde and alliance, but on Draenor that doesn't exist. Who is Deathwing? The people in outlands likely have no clue. (of course, the astute player will now bring up netherwing ledge, but that was all optional and a brand new questing player would likely not even touch that area)

So you've finished up Outlands, now it's time to move on to Northrend! A whole new continent that looms in the north. A frozen waste land where the scourge are launching their assault. Northrend is definitely a step up from Outlands. From the moment you step foot into Northrend, you learn about the scourge invasion and Arthas makes quite a few appearances while leveling through the zones. Northrend also makes a major effort to keep questing interesting and changing. From the vehicle system, to the improved level flow, to a player leveling up now, Northrend would feel much more cohesive and fluid.

Now, this all makes total sense to people who've been with the game for years. Outlands is 3 years older than Azeroth now, of course the content is going to be continually getting better and better. But for a new player, (one who rushed out and bought this awesome expansion after hitting level 60) This must be insanely confusing. I say this because my mom recently made that exact transition. She called me up and said "howcome hellfire sucks?" I chuckled and explained the wow timeline to her, to which she understood and replied with "Well they need to redo this too then, cause it's not nearly as fun." And she's right.

It's no secret that the wow player base has been going in the wrong direction lately. And I personally believe that the perception of recycled content is a huge part of the issue. I know when I first stepped into ZG I said to myself "oh god, I'm back here again." And yes, it was different than in classic wow, but different is not the same as new and shiny. As my former guild mate made quite clear when I asked "So would you feel different if Shadowfang were in Gilneas and the dungeon was named 'Assault on Gilneas' with different names and models?" to which he replied "Absolutely, at least then I'd feel like my Christmas gift wasn't the same bike old with a new coat of paint."

So has blizzard backed themselves into a corner? With the leveling flow being heavily disrupted between 60 and 80 and the recycling of old content? I don't think so, not fully at least. With 4.2 around the corner I think the designers have ample opportunity to give the end game loads of new content. As long as they keep making it new and shiny, rather than just a new coat of paint.