Leet Noobs: The Life and Death of an Expert Player Group in World of Warcraft

and I drew the cover myself! (sketched it from screenshot references with an ipad2 and a stylus, imported into photoshop and colored with a bamboo tablet)

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With the new year, I resolve to be more proactive at work since I’ve been feeling stagnant for a while now. I also plan on looking for grant money to start a lab focused on arts and humanities games. I haven’t decided if this should be with UW or independent or what…

Basically, it’s been tough finding a position that fills my needs, so the only thing left to do is make it myself.

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In other news, I’ve been playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic. What I’m finding interesting is that I actually care about the dialog decisions I’m making in the game, and I really like the companions and main story arcs each character class comes with. More interesting is that these things basically make me feel like I’m playing a solo game with a backdrop of a whole bunch of other people. Bioware always sucked me in with story, and I like it, but I’m not sure this is a proper MMO… Jury’s still out.

Also, even with the built-in light/dark choices, they really only appear through dialog during plot moments that don’t actually affect the gameplay. I still go around killing everything under many suns even while saying that violence isn’t the answer (as a goody-two-shoes trooper). Ah well.

It was me, Chris Paul (Seattle U), Roger Altizer (U of Utah), Nathan Dutton (Ohio U), Todd Harper (MIT GAMBIT), and Shawna Kelly (USC/Intel).

While last year we presented a general overview and introduction to games studies/games research in academia to people who may be interested in games as a career but don’t want to go into the games industry, this year we each had five minutes to share where we’re at and what we do and then share the work of someone else in the field that we like.

I talked a bit about the Center for Game Science and the web games that the lab is making that are mostly focused on science and math learning using massive amounts of data to discover: optimal learning pathways, whether achievements help, how to deliver various topics to players, etc.

Then I mentioned briefly my dissertation research (how becoming an expert WoW player was about using the right tools rather than being “expert” in the game mechanics) and that I have a new book coming out titled Leet Noobs that covers the life and death of the raid group. Nathan said he’d buy multiple copies of the book if I get that lolcat in the presentation as the front cover… That’s something to think about…

Finally, I gave a brief summary of the huge, huge potential battle in education coming up around games and learning (which honestly, I hope sort of fizzles) between those (often non gamers) who want to just use games to deliver science and math content and assessments and those (often gamers) who see games as embodied experiences where the learning is emergent and procedural.

The panel went quite well, I thought, though I think we didn’t get a chance to get too deeply into certain topics in the QA and I think at least one person left dissatisfied because of that. We were unfortunately lined up against the keynote, and we were on the first day, Friday, so I think our attendance wasn’t as high as last year’s (where we had a completely filled room).

There were some other fantastic panels at PAX this year (this link will die as soon as they update it for the next convention…), but two of them deserve mention here: one called “BA, MA, PhD in Game Studies, WTFBBQ!” and the other on games and education. They deserve mention because both of them were sort of from left field.

The first featured Avery Alix, a masters graduate from UW’s comm department who now works at PopCap, Morgan Romine, a current PhD student at UC Irvine in anthropology (studying under Tom Boellstorff) who will do an ethnography of a game design studio, and Elisa Melendez, a new PhD student in Florida International University in sociology looking at gender performance in music games. What’s bizarre from looking at the program is in how the two women chose to display their cultural capital. Who the hell gives them the authority to present an overview of game studies? Ubisoft, apparently. They both chose to list the Frag Dolls as their affiliation rather than their universities, and PAX goers basically had to google them to find out which academic institutions they represented. They didn’t seem to understand that their cultural cache within the games industry doesn’t make them authorities on academia. Later, however, it became clear that the *actual* topic of their presentation was an intro to academic games research for industry people (with gamers treated, problematically, as industry people).

I find their research interesting for sure, but Elisa took the lion’s share of the presentation introduction and was very unfocused, very rambly, very arms akimbo, making huge claims about games research, and kept saying, “I’m a sociologist, so…” or “As a sociologist, I…” Apparently, the only difference between sociology and anthropology is that soc does stats. And Avery didn’t seem to know the difference between archeology and anthropology, wondering if Morgan had a whip, etc. In both cases, Nathan’s laughter was quick in coming and to the point.

Once Morgan and Avery started talking in earnest, though, I found them articulate, cogent, and less OMG-this-is-quite-clearly-my-first-presentation-and-I-have-no-clue-that-I-don’t-know-how-it’s-done sort of feel to it. I don’t know if this was true for Elisa, but it sure felt that way. The first half of their time (mostly Elisa) was basically spent pandering to the audience. Yet Avery’s story about how he got into game studies and then his move to PopCap was definitely engaging. And actually the stories from all of them about their trajectories was the gem in their presentation. All of them had interesting stories to tell. And they were all unique. But that’s part of the problem.

I went into the panel wondering how they could possibly give any insights into academic research in games when I’ve never seen them in any academic conference, etc. It’s clear they are all smart people and know quite a bit, but I think their experiences are very much unlike most people’s experiences who enter the games research arena. They seemed to downplay that different people have different experiences and that not everyone can get a job at PopCap or the Frag Dolls or just write a paper as an undergrad-turned-masters student and suddenly find themselves cited, etc. They didn’t do a very good job of mapping out the landscape of academic research in games and how someone who’s interested in academia might get started.

The second panel on games and education included James Portnow, a game designer who seems to get invited by industry conferences to talk about education a lot as he was at the Serious Play conference that was also happening in Seattle earlier in the week, and Lee Sheldon, who has a new book out: The Mulitplayer Classroom. It sounded good, but unfortunately I couldn’t attend. Just wanted to give a shout-out to it…

1. Ultimate Gamification. Player earns points while the app is on. Random awards once in a while with bigger rewards happening to greater fanfare, bigger badges, etc. Nice confetti showers or fireworks or emblems or whatever. The description will hint that some rewards are tied to activity, using the accelerometer, gps, gyroscope, or compass. This is untrue, but hopefully players will link coincidences to ritual. (Or maybe it’s actually true… :) )
2. Phone Killer. Player continually accrues points while their phone’s screen is off. The points continually increase exponentially, encouraging people to keep their phone screens off for as long as possible. Long idle times = bigger payoffs. Additionally, a large lump sum payoff is given when turning the screen off after the phone is active, though, if someone chain-turned on and off the phone, they’d get points at about the same rate as if they just left the phone idle while the screen was off. The idea is subversive in that it rewards players for not using their phone. Oh, while the phone is charging, player receives no points. If the battery is lower than 25% player receives double points.

Now that I think about it, I’m not sure these games are even possible on the iPhone. How is it with background apps or apps running while the phone isn’t actually active?

An excerpt:

Clearly influenced by the enormous success of Mass Effect II, and the excellent ways that game was executed, DA2 seems determined to try to be as accessible, without compromising on its combat. But in the compromise appears to be lost another crucial aspect of such an RPG: dialogue.

My character, The Female Hawke, is utterly unlikeable. Smug, smarmy, and needlessly rude, her having been given a voice means her identity has little to do with my own influence. Good old Grey Warden Simon was mute, but immensely likeable. And helped by being offered nuance in his responses.

Hawke has Mass Effect’s three options. While they occasionally vary, they boil down to, “Good”, “flippant” or “evil”. The latter two are always rude, the first one only sometimes. And with no conversation skills apparent in the game, that’s your lot. Creating a character whose gift of the gab can talk their way out of situations appears to have been completely eradicated – something that’s really shocked me in a BioWare game. If it appears later, it appears far too late.

I desperately miss the range of possible responses, none so crudely labeled. Here, I was able to flirt, or agitate, in a way that felt nuanced, even subtle. Now I can sometimes choose the conversation option with the heart by it, where Hawke will then say something barely related to the words I’d clicked on, often so crawlingly crude that I’m surprised my companions don’t file a sexual harassment complaint.

 

This week I reinstalled Fallout New Vegas since I heard Dead Money, the first official expansion (aka downloadable content (DLC)) is out for the PC version. While I was installing the main game, I quickly did hopped over to the Fallout New Vegas Nexus to see which player-made mods, tweaks, and extensions I should install for this new playthrough. It’s now been a week, and I’ve spent perhaps a dozen hours delving into the mod space, reading about different extra companions, quests, and locations I could try. I’ve been viewing screenshots of mods that change the lighting, atmosphere, textures, and models used to make the game more realistic, more cinematic, more saturated, more detailed, etc. I learned about some common tools people use to create and install mods (FOMM, FNVEdit, NVSE, NCCS), and I’ve discovered several community efforts that combine the best mods into sets of mods to install. Below is a screenshot of Fallout Mod Manager that shows the current mods I have installed:

Notable highlights are Fellout, Dynavision, Electro-City, Nevada Skies, and FNV Enhanced Shaders (adding some nice richer environmental and atmospheric effects), Camera Control (automatically switching between first-person and third-person depending on if a weapon is drawn or holstered), DarNifiedUINV (resizing all UI elements), and a bunch of new quests.

None of this could happen, of course, without people sharing their findings about how to create mods, how to tweak the game and push the envelope of what it can do, explaining why certain things worked and others didn’t. None of this could happen with Bethesda (and Obsidian) creating a game that allows third-party mods, releasing some tools with Oblivion and Fallout 3, the games that came before New Vegas that use the same game engine (Embryo).

There’s also a sizable wiki devoted to Fallout New Vegas where I can read about console codes, get hints on specific quests, learn different strategies to take with different NPCs, etc. There’s the standard gamefaqs.com guides on quest walkthrus and character creation guides. And there’s websites devoted to teaching others how play the in-game card game Caravan.

Last month I played the original Mass Effect again and completed every side-mission so that I could export the save game for Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 2 features a ton of little nods to your decisions in the original, but, in the end, I’m not sure if it’s really all that well implemented. The problem is that I bonded or bought into the role-play of my projected identity (Gee, 2003) of my version of Shepard in how the commander became emotionally attached with various party members that when I met up with those party members in the sequel, I was disappointed with how interactions with them were treated.

For example, in my version of Mass Effect, Ashley Williams started out relatively xenophobic but loosened up towards the end as I explored her feelings with her through dialog. When I met her in ME2, though, it just seemed like she reverted to her old self, as if we didn’t become close friends at all. Most glaringly, though, was the way my Shepard interacted with her lover from the first game, Liara T’Soni. In ME2, they exchanged maybe two lines that referred to their past relationship, kissed once, and then that’s it. The rest, I assume was just scripted for any Shepard incarnation, based off of Liara’s dealings with the Shadow Broker. I know there’s a comic book prequel to ME2 that details what Liara was doing between the events in the two games, so maybe her experiences while Shepard was away were traumatic enough to warrant her distanced emotion, but *Shepard* doesn’t know anything about those details (even if I did via reading the comics), so it would make sense for them to at least spend a couple of more sentences on how the events affect their relationship.

Disappointment in how ME ties into ME2 aside, there’s a bigger problem I had with Mass Effect 2. (I should say, right off, though, that I did like ME2; I just thought it could’ve been better.) The bigger problem is that there’s not really much of an epic plot going on. Things don’t lead to other things. Piecing together a mystery was a great plot in the first game; it’s barely there in the second game. Instead, the majority of the game is spent recruiting more and more party members and then going on unique missions for each one to unlock their special ability, presumably a reflection of their augmented loyalty to Shepard. There’s no sense of urgency, really. You don’t meet party members along your desperate journey to fight the bad guys (which worked really well for almost all the previous BioWare games such as Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and the first Mass Effect). Instead the game is about recruiting them and getting them set-up the way you want before eventually going through a mass relay to fight the bad guys. It just didn’t feel like there was a point to it, especially since you can only take two party members with you on a mission. Getting more than half a dozen seemed superfluous.

A funny thing I noticed: it’s actually very similar to Dragon Age: Origin‘s plot, though DA:O seemed less linear than ME2. You have to get the Dwarves to join you, for example, but before that you have to resolve an internal conflict they’re having, and you have many options for how that conflict is resolved. In ME2, you recruit NPCs by helping them with whatever they’re currently working on, but you don’t get much of a say in how it’s done. What tied Dragon Age together really, really well, was the betrayal theme underlying the whole game. ME2 doesn’t have a one-word theme that resonates as strongly, I don’t think…

Other things about the game:

Still, this was the second in a planned trilogy of games. Arguably, it’s the lull before the climactic finale, building up anticipation for something big. I suppose I’ll hold onto my save game until then.

Gee, J. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.

Driving around in the Mako, exploring various planets, is slightly tedious, but it’s good fodder for the compulsion to complete achievements and collect shit. I’m well-trained for that kind of gameplay from WoW, which I both find interesting in a “hmmm…” sort of way and despise in a “goddammit, why do I do it?” sort of way. (Something about the game playing me just as much as me playing the game can go here. :p )

It’s unfortunate that there’s no agency involved with finding a cure for the krogan genophage, but others have surmised that it needed to be saved for a later game in the trilogy. Can’t have the hero resolve *all* the galaxy’s problem in one go, after all.

One question (and major spoilage): at Noveria, in the research facility, the asari kills the security guard blocking the way to Shepard and then tries to kill Shepard, on orders from Matriarch Benezia. Ok, that’s fine. Shepard reports this treachery to the security chief and then proceeds to deal with the rachni situation in the Hot Labs. Upon returning from the Hot Labs, the whole security force goes ballistic and ambushes Shepard, again, on orders from Benezia. WTF? If they were working for Benezia all along, why’d the asari have to kill one of the guards?

*See Jim Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, specifically the chapter on Arcanum, for a primer on projected identity. :)

PC

• Torchlight - level 35 or so, finished main quest. Fun Diablo clone with great art. Not sure it has legs, but it’s good for when you need a 30 min wind-down diversion.
• Dragon Age: Origins – twice, on third iteration now. Google for reviews. I can’t really add anything more other than to say that it has very strong introductory chapters for the different origin stories you can choose for your character, drags a little in the middle (massing an army can be tedious), and has a relatively short end-game (what we’d get that army for again?), but all in all, classic Bioware and a triumphant return of deep(ish) party dialog. Looking forward to community mods.
• Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon – I bought this game years ago but it never installed on my various computers I’ve owned over the last few years. Buggy install is a bitch. I saw it on Steam 2 weeks ago and figured I’d give it another shot. It worked! and it’s a pretty good game. Odd Tomb Raider-esque ledge climbing given its pedigree (the first two were point-n-click 2D adventure games), but they didn’t really bother me. The art did take a turn backwards though when they moved to blocky 3D. I played Broken Sword 4 a couple of years ago and remember it being much prettier.
• Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy - Yes, I’m a sucker for Nancy Drew games. They’re all generally the same with not much innovation between iterations, but that lets them pound out… what two dozen games? in the last few years. Kinda like trashy romance novels.
• Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships - Sailing and driving around was pretty fun, I have to admit. That was new.
• Mirror’s Edge - the first-person pakour game that came out a year or so ago. Most games I play are at least a year old so I can afford them… But anyway, yes, this game was fun. Shortish. Captivating music. The cutscenes were done in cool Samurai Jack-esque cutout-esque artwork. It was frustrating a few times, but overall good. Racing game combined with platformer combined with FPS. Neat.

DS

• Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes – Best DS game of 2009 for me. Though, admittedly, I haven’t played GTA or the new Zelda. Essentially, a puzzle game with RPG elements. Engaged me more than Puzzle Quest did.
• Broken Sword 1: Shadow of the Templars – haven’t quite finished it yet. Just as good as I remember from playing it years ago when it first came out and then replaying it a couple of years ago on the PC. For some reason, Nico’s apartment as a sort of home base works really well and is missing from the later games in the series. Also, being able to talk about everything to everyone and get (mostly) unique dialog is pretty cool. The DS version adds some nice 2nd-screen portrait close-ups when talking with NPCs but the small main screen makes seeing the various environment elements a little harder, though they tried to make up for it by making things highlight when you touch the screen with your stylus. I bet the Wii version is great, so go buy it if you have a Wii!

Xbox 360

• Fable II – Got this pretty much right after I (finally) bought an Xbox 360 in November. I think I liked the original Fable more. The morality system was pretty meaningless since it didn’t affect the story at all, just your character’s visuals.
• Lego Batman - Playing with Robin. We aren’t done, yet. It’s fun. :)
• various incarnations of Rock Band – Fun as always. The main reason we got an Xbox 360, actually. Well, that and the fact that it hooks up nicely to my home network and Windows Media Center.
• Forza Motorsport 3 – When we get a house and a dedicated home theater room some day (I want to take you to a monster-free city), I’ll be getting a racing chair and a wheel to go with whatever version of Forza exists then… It is sooo beautiful. Damage modeling, too!

Wii

• New Super Mario Bros. - Haven’t actually gotten to play it much, but I like it. The kids we sometimes hang out with like it.
• Wii Sports Resort – borrowed from Steve. I spent a few hours just flying around. :) Sword fighting is fun.
• Wii Fit Plus – We had to rearrange our office to make enough room between the couch and TV for the Wii balance board. Now that we’ve set it up, we’ve used it maybe once a week, which is better than sitting on our asses all the time. Pretty fun so far, actually.

The thing is, I’ve been replaying some older games and realizing how much of them I’ve forgotten, and then I have a tiny moment of panic about how ephemeral my experiences with these games are–a tiny existential crisis ensues. Do I play the games because life is nihilistic and I should just fill it with personally engaging experiences, or do I try to contribute something to the societal world–games culture and academic progress? And then I figure, well, it won’t take much time to write at least a one-line review of the things I’m playing.

Part of the hesitation, though, is also the fact that I play *a lot* of games. A LOT. It’s kind of frightening, actually, given that I’m trying to finish the dissertation and apply for jobs and do academic stuff at the same time. So, there’s a bit of shame or guilt involved, too.

But talking with Theresa, another student at the college of ed who also studies games and learning, has convinced me that knowledge about games is part of my academic identity. I’ve come to be known as “the games guy” in my department, and that label or position has definitely given me some cultural capital that I’ve been able to ply into various opportunities within academia, if only by giving me confidence in myself by seeing that others value my knowledge.

The positioning, though, is kind of strange since I don’t think I’ve done all that much to cultivate it. It seems like I can contribute to it and make it productive while also justifying all the game playing if only I shared my thoughts about these games, and thus, my new year’s resolution is to write about each game I play.

Or maybe I’m just trying to make an obsession have some sort of extrinsic value…