Unpredictable length

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the length of instance runs during World of Warcraft. It is often hard to predict how much time will be needed to complete a certain instance.

Playing computer games is often a good way to make a short break between tasks[1]. Compared to other activities, playing a video game does not require a lot of preparations. The player just needs to start the game in order to enjoy the content and to free up his own mind before he starts to tackle the next tasks.

Personally, I am really enjoying a short game session in order to relax a bit before I start or continue a task. It really helps me to stay focussed on tasks which are not completed within a few hours. However, I have to set up a time limit for these game breaks, because the content of computer games is a continuous stream of new challenges. As soon as I finished the first challenge, I will get offered a new one in order to continue playing the game. In this case, it is easy to get lost in the game and the short recreation break will become longer than planned.

Typically, this is not so much an issue. In most cases, a mission or a task rarely lasts longer than 30 minutes and even if it does, then a save function will allow me to stop my game break and to continue the game later at the exact same point.

This approach worked for me with most of the games I enjoy. Lately, I was even able to use World of Warcraft (WoW) for such a „game break“. The expansion pack „Warlords of Draenor“ has added new and fresh content to the game and so I was able to complete a few quests during my break. However, playing WoW during such a break is still quite complicated because you have to deal with other players. Sometimes a lot of players are active at the exact same spot and trying to solve the exact same quest. In such a case, it is often hard to find enough enemies or other items which are required to complete the task. Luckily, at this point, I am still able to just log out, because my avatar will remain at the exact same spot and I can continue solving my quest later on.

Unfortunately, this does not apply to small 5-men instances. Apart from the fact that you do not want to leave your friends alone, it is not possible to save the progression during such a non-raiding instance. You are required to finish it in one go or you have to start over once again. In this case, you need to have enough time if you want to participate in such an instance run. Moreover, the length for such an instance run is hard to predict. Someone can make a mistake and the whole group gets defeated by an enemy. Someone gets a phone call and is not available for a few minutes. These issues are not so much a great deal, if the game session is planned to last for longer than an hour. However, if you just want to make a short break then the unpredictable length can become a problem.

I even noticed that this unpredictable length is sometimes keeping me away from joining an instance group during a longer game session. I really like to explore this part of the game, but being stuck in one instance for more than an hour is not really practical, if I want to do other things. On the other hand, if I do have enough time, then being in such a dynamic instance group is really entertaining.

10 years of World of Warcraft

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the 10th anniversary of World of Warcraft. The game unites million of players since its release ten years ago.

It’s hard to believe, but the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game „World of Warcraft“ (WoW) is currently celebrating its 10th anniversairy. During the last decade, the game has received five major expansion packs to keep the players interested in the game. The latest expansion pack „Warlords of Draenor“ (WoD) was just released on November 13th.

Blackwing Lair 40-men raid

Apart from being played for 10 years, WoW is a very successful game which attracts millions of players who are keeping the virtual world alive. Currently, the game has a subscriber count of 10 million and 3.3 million copies of the just released WoD were sold so far[1].

This success is especially so interesting, because the core mechanics of the game have not changed since the release ten years ago. Although new tasks and new environments were added to the game, the players are mostly interacting the same way with the world as they did ten years ago[2][3]. However, the players have developed a very strong emotional attachement to their own avatars over time. The own avatar became the virtual representation of the player in this virtual world[4]. Moreover, the players were required to form groups in order to achieve certain goals in the environment and over time, friendships evolved among the members of a group[5][6].
As a conclusion, the players of WoW started to live a second life in Azeroth and/or were attracted by the simple reward mechanisms of WoW which are constantly providing an immediate feedback about the own progression.

Firelands 10-men raid

The success story of WoW is unique and it is the first game which reached this huge dimension. WoW has influenced the development of many other games and has revolutionized the online multiplayer games. It even has become a social platform.

As a computer game researcher, I am excited to see how the playerbase will evolve during the next years. Some of the frequent players have grown up with this game and it became a part of their life. It is a very interesting to observe how living virtual worlds like WoW are connecting the players from all over the world and how the game is influencing our own life. The next years can give us some more insights into the dynamics of virtual worlds and how we could use them in order to connect and educate people in an engaging way.

Philae

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the successful landing of Philae on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12th, 2014.

Wednesday afternoon was a very exciting time for spaceflight, science and mankind. All the tension evolved around the small robotic lander „Philae“ which was descending towards the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Around 09:03 GMT the Lander Control Center (LCC) received the data that the lander was released from the mothership „Rosetta“. After the separation, the lander started its descent towards the icy and rocky surface of the comet in order to land there after a seven hours flight.

A few hours after the separation, the first pictures of the two spacecrafts arrived at the LCC.[1] Rosetta took several pictures of the descending lander with its landing gear and instrument booms extended. At this point the lander was still in the middle of its slow descend towards the surface of comet 67P. The tension reached its climax around 16:00 GMT or about seven hours after the spacecraft separation. All the scientists and misson controllers were waiting for the confirmation of a successful landing.

Finally, at 16:03 GMT the signal with the great news about the successful landing arrived at the LCC. Philae managed to land on the surface of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. However, the data were a bit different than expected and indicated a rotation of the lander. The lander was equipped with some harpoons and some anchors in order to attach the spacecraft to the surface of the comet due to the weak gravity. Unfortunately, the harpoons were not fired and it turned out that the lander bounced up into space once again after the first landing. The lander reached an altitude of about 1km during its second flight and bounced up a second time after a second landing. Finally, after the third landing on comet 67P the lander remained on the surface. Mission accomplished![2]

The lander Philae is only able to communicate with the LCC when the mothership is flying over the landing site and is acting as a relay. The signal then needs about 30 minutes to reach the antennas on Earth. After several hours, the Rosetta spacecraft finally returned into the line of sight of Philae and the first observations, data and pictures were transmitted to Earth.

The first pictures from the surface of a comet were a huge success and an amazing result after the ten years flight of the Rosetta spacecraft out to the comet. Although it was just mind-blowing seeing these pictures, the pictures revealed a problem for the Philae mission as well. The third and final landing of the robotic lander ended in a spot that is surrounded by cliffs and rocks which are casting a large shadow on the solar panels of the lander. Moreover, the comet has currently a distance of about 3 AU to the Sun (the Earth has a distance of about 1 AU to the Sun). This distance reduces the light of the Sun by a significant degree and the solar panels are not as effective as they would be on Earth. The lander is equipped with two batteries which are able to supply the lander with electricity for about 60 hours.

The lander continued with its research and transmitted more data to the Earth every time a communication with Rosetta was possible. After 60 hours on the surface of the commet, the batteries were almost depleted and the lander was transmitting the last set of data back home. Afterwards, the lander switched to hibernation and began to sleep on the surface of Comet-67P. However, this does not necessarily mean the end of the Philae mission. The comet is currently flying towards the Sun and over time, the electricity generated by the solar panels will increase and maybe it is possible for Philae to wake up once again.[3]

The whole landing on the comet was a very ambitious mission and it were very exciting last days following the results and the activities of this mission. Congratulations to everyone who was involved in this spectacular mission!

Immersion with a real world connection

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about how the immersive effects of computer games are influenced by the experiences we have made in the real world.

Last week-end, I started playing a new computer game called „The Long Dark“[1] and during the gameplay, I was able to make an interesting observation about the immersive effects of this game. The gameplay itself is all about a person who has to survive in the Northern Canadian Wilderness during the winter. The main objective of the player is to find shelter from strong snow storms and to find enough food in order to stay alive.

Although the whole survival part felt quite realistic, most of the immersion was caused by the game world and all the colors used in the environment. During my short game session, I was mostly walking through snowy forests. Moreover, I was able to experience a beautiful sunset which had the characteristic color of a sunset during wintertime. The color of the environment was changing from a warm orange to a cold blueish color shortly after sunset.

The Long Dark

Personally, I like the winter and I like to go hiking through snowy landscapes, so I almost felt as if I would be „at home“ as I started playing this game. This immersive feeling was completely different from the „normal“ immersive feelings of a computer game. I was not hooked up, because I was totally focussing on the action of the gameplay. Instead, it was more like being in my favorite environment.

The Long Dark

It was interesting to become immersed by a game because of a direct connection to one of my most favorite environments. It was also very interesting to observe how a direct connection to the real world was intensifying the immersive effects of a game world.

Don’t break the immersion

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the advantage of implementing a knowledge database directly in a game. The database could help players to develop a deeper understanding of the facts presented in the game without breaking the immersion of it.

There are several great examples for presenting knowledge directly in a computer game. „Civilization V“ provides the player with a huge database about the history of humanity. The players can look up important facts about certain buildings or units, if they are interested in them. The Mars rover simulation „Take On Mars“ offers an encyclopedia about the exploration of Mars and gives the players the opportunity to develop a better understanding of it. The space agency management game „Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager“ offers additional insights about the celestial bodies of our solar system and all the different spacecrafts used in the early days of spaceflight.

But why are these databases so important? Although the main purpose of these three above-mentioned games is still the entertainment, all of them are also educating the players. The main topic of these games has a direct connection to the real world and the players are automatically learning new facts about this topic just by playing the game. However, not all the important facts about a certain historic building or spacecraft can be presented in the game world, because it would overwhelm the players with too much information. On the other hand, all these information are important in order to develop a deeper understanding of the content presented in the game.

While the players are progressing through the game, they are getting introduced to a new topic. Over time, they might get interested in this particular topic and start to look for some more information about it. This development is described with the so-called tangential learning. Tangential learning describes the process during which a player gets motivated to look for additional information about a certain topic by playing a game or enjoying any other media product. As soon as the players reach this point, they have to leave the game in order to look up some additional information and to gain more specific knowledge. Unfortunately, this would break the immersion of the game.

By implementing a knowledge database directly into the game, the players can look up the desired additional knowledge directly in the game without breaking the immersion. Furthermore, the players can immediately satisfy their needs for additional insights into the topic without the need of searching for good information on the internet. In return, this could result in a better learning outcome, because the players are still within a motivating environment and they can immediately visualize the just learned knowledge by continuing the game.