Garrison – Followers

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 core game mechanics of a new feature added to World of Warcraft with the expansion pack Warlords of Draenor: the Garrison.

Apart from managing the Garrison and constructing new buildings, one of the core elements of the Garrison is the management of the own followers. A follower is a special Non-Player Character (NPC) who joined the player during his explorations of the WoD world. Each follower has an unique set of at least one ability and one trait which allows them to perform special tasks. The amount of available abilities depends on the qualification of a follower: uncommon (1 ability, 1 trait), rare (1 ability, 2 traits) or epic (2 abilities, 3 traits).

Standing around with two followers.

The abilities are needed to successfully complete the special follower missions. During such a mission, the followers have to defeat certain enemies who are attacking with an unique sets of skills. These attacks can be countered by assigning a follower with the right set of skills to this mission. This rock-paper-scissors concept challenges the players to analyze the skills of the enemies in order to assign the followers who have the right set of skills to counter the attacks and to complete this mission.

Planning a Garrison mission.

The traits of the followers fall into three different categories. The first category gives the followers a certain advantage during a mission. This can be an increased success chance when the follower is fighting together with a certain race (e.g. „Humanist“ increases the chance of success when the follower is on a mission with a human), in a certain region (e.g. „Cold-Blooded“ increases the success chance when the follower is fighting in the snow) or against a certain enemy (e.g. „Ogreslayer“ increases the success chance when the follower is fighting ogres). Furthermore, the followers can also increase the success chance based on the duration of the mission (e.g. „High Stamina“ increases the success chance when the duration is longer than 7 hours and „Burts of Power“ increases the success chance when the duration is shorter than 7 hours).
The second category is boosting the reward for successfully completing a mission. This can be an increase of the gained resources or of the gained experience.
The third category allows the players to assign the followers to work in one of the different building the players can construct in their Garrisons (e.g. „Blacksmithing“ enables the follower to work in a forge). Some followers even have a special „Bodyguard“ trait which enables them to accompany the players and to support them while they are fighting against some monsters.

The followers are also characterized by their experience. Like the players, the followers can gain some experience points during their missions and reach higher levels. The lowest follower level is 90 and the maximum follower level is 100. After reaching the maximum level, the followers can continue gaining experience points in order to raise their qualification. This approach allows the players to boost an uncommon level 90 follower to an epic level 100 follower. By doing so, the follower also gains new abilities and new traits which makes him more powerful.
Reaching level 100 enables the follower also to wear some equipment to increase their so-called item-level. The item-level is needed to enable the followers to participate in some prestigious missions. If the follower is not fulfilling the item-level requirement of these Garrison-„endgame“-missions, then he can not increase the overall success chance and the mission might end in a failure.

The description of a follower.

All these examined game mechanics are challening the player’s problem solving and decision making abilities. The players have to analyze the requirements of a mission in order to assign the right followers to it. Moreover, the players have to analyze the traits of their followers to recognize if the follower might be useful for other tasks than just participating in some missions. Finally, the players have to distribute special follower items in order to boost their item-levels.

to be continued …

Garrison

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 core game mechanics of a new feature added to World of Warcraft with the expansion pack Warlords of Draenor: the Garrison.

One of the new features that were added to World of Warcraft (WoW) with the release of the expansion pack „Warlords of Draenor“ (WoD) is the Garrison. The Garrison allows the players to construct buildings, to transmute materials and to manage followers. In this new article series, I will analyze the major game mechanics which are used to realize this new part of WoW.

The Garrison itself is an instanced area which blends into one of the regions of WoD. Depending on the faction the players belong to, they will have their Garrision in Shadowmoon Valley (Alliance) or Frostfire Ridge (Horde). The region around the Garrison is shared among all the other players playing on the same realm. However, as soon as the player is approaching the location of the own Garrison, he changes from the shared environment to the instanced area of the Garrison. This gives the players the impression to be in charge of their own Garrisons and to be able to create something unique in the predefined world of WoW. Of course, the players are allowed to invite other players to visit and explore their Garrisons, but in general the players are alone as long as they are inside their Garrisons.

The Garrison itself consists of the main administration building and a certain amount of building plots where the player can construct three different types of buildings: small, medium and large ones. During the player’s progression through the content of WoD, the player is able to improve the own Garrison and transform it from a small outpost to a small castle. The player gains access to the first stage of the Garrison after he finished the first initial quests of WoD. The story automatically leads the player to the point where he needs to construct a small protected outpost in order to advance in the narration.

Garrison – Stage 2

The first stage of the Garrison comes with a large and a small building plot and is used to introduce the players to the basic management functions of the Garrison. The player learns how to begin the construction process of a building and how to send the own followers on a mission. This first stage lasts only for a short amount of time, because as soon as the player completes a certain quest or reaches level 92, he will be able to upgrade the own Garrison to the second stage.
At this point, the Garrison receives the appearance of a small fort and the administration interfaces of the Garrison move from a small shack to the inside of a townhall-like building. Furthermore, the Garrison then features a large, a medium and two small building plots, a mine, a herb garden and a fishing shack at a small lake. This allows the player to construct two additional buildings which should help him to get through the level phase until the player reaches the maximum level of WoD.
After reaching level 100, the player is able to upgrade the Garrison to the third stage which looks like a castle and offers several options to customize it. Moreover, the final tier of the Garrison provides two large, two medium and three small building plots and gives the player the option to add a monument after reaching a certain milestone in the game.

Garrison – Stage 3

The game mechanic of the upgradeable Garrison helps the players to get used to the new feature of WoW. The first stage introduces the player to the core mechanics and allows them to develop an understanding of the control interfaces. The second stage is an interim stage and allows the players to start the process of the Garrison development which leads to the uprade to the third and final stage. At this point, the players have learnt how to manage their Garrisons and are now able to take advantage of the performance of all the different buildings. Moreover, certain buildings are mostly useful for the endgame of WoD and would only distract the players during their level phase.
Finally, the process of expanding the Garrison is also increasing the immersive effect of WoW. The Garrison is improving together with the player. At the beginning of the WoD campaign, the players are completely new in the regions of WoD. As they progress through the level campaign, they start to get used to the new environment and are able to foster their base. Finally, after reaching level 100, the players are settled in the regions of WoD and hence are able to establish a fortified settlement.

to be continued …

Nostalgia

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 way how World of Warcraft has created a completely new dimension of gaming nostalgia.

The unprecedented success of World of Warcraft (WoW) is also resulting in a new dimension of gaming memories. Normally, playing a computer game is like reading a novel. It is very interesting and exciting to dive into a different world and to experience a new story. However, the attachment to the virtual world and the own avatar lasts only several hours until the narrative of the game is exhausted.

In contrast to a regular computer game, the story of WoW is a vast narrative and runs now for more than 10 years. During this huge amount of game time, the players were able to develop a strong attachement to the own avatar and the virtual world. Moreover, the story of WoW is not an endless stream of new events. Instead, the WoW story is segmented into smaller chapters which are added to the game over time. Each chapter lasted for several months and the players were able to gain unique experiences during their exploration of each chapter.

In most of the cases, the story of each chapter evolves around a particular raiding instance. Vested players were running into these instances until the next instance was made available. By now, more than 30 raid instances are available in WoW and the players have made unique memories during their exploration of each instance. Depending on the own experiences and the own preferences, each player has its own favorite instance and is comparing the current content with the ‚good old times‘.

This gaming nostalgia is a completely new dimension of gameplay and is only possible due to the fact that the memories were made in the exact same virtual world. Moreover, the players of WoW are even able to relive a certain content because the instances remained in the game and can be visited by the players. During such a nostalgic instance run, the players are often talking about their memories of the particular instance.

The unprecedented success of WoW has not only caused a new dimension of gaming nostalgia, it even has found a way to keep the memories and history active by allowing the players to revisit a location where they have spent a certain amount of their WoW playtime.

Disadvantages of playing an early access game

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 a few disadvantages of playing an early access game. New functionalities implemented to the game could require the players to redo their current progress thus reducing their enjoyment of playing the game.

I already wrote an article about the fun of playing a computer game which is still under development and receives a lot of updates and changes within a short amount of time[1]. The way of selling an early access version has become more and more popular among computer game developers. Especially indie game developers can benefit from the early sales of their products[2]. However, early access releases can also require more management in order to sell the product over a longer period of time compared to a fixed release date[3].

As a gamer, I really like the opportunity to play an unfinished game and to experience the new features as they get implemented. Sometimes, it is even like playing a completely new game which still has the same interesting setting, but offers more ways to interact with the environment or has a better accessibility.

However, the approach of playing early access games has also a few disadvantages:

• The developers could deploy a new version of the game which is no longer compatible with the old save games. Suddenly, the current progress through the game world is lost and the player has to start over again.
• The game receives a new functionality which challenges the player to visit certain locations or to achieve certain goals. Players who have already completed these tasks need to redo them in order to take advantage of the new functionality.

These issues are not a real problem and they are just a side effect of the regular game development process, but they can reduce a bit the overall enjoyment of the game. On the other hand, by playing an early access game, the player accepts the risk of experiencing these issues during the gameplay.

I have played several early access games during the last year and I noticed that these issues are more problematic with certain game types / game mechanics. In most cases, I noticed these issues with open world and exploration games.

Losing the progress of an open world game can be quite annoying because it is also the loss of a lot of unique experiences and achievements[4]. Moreover, the players of open world games are also more likely to be affected by the implementation of a new functionality which requires a certain accomplishment in the game world than the players of computer games with episodic content. The players could have already completed the tasks and would need to redo it. Depending on the game, this would not feel right. On the other hand, begining a completely new game could be also disappointing because it would result in the loss of the old progress.

The players of exploration games can experience the exact same issues. The exploration of a virtual world works only once. The enjoyment of discovering a beautiful spot in the game world is an unique experience. Often the players need to find the right way and need to overcome several obstacles in order to reach a certain spot. However, after the players have achieved this, they probably will not be experiencing the same level of excitement if they need to achieve it a second time.
Losing the progress of a save game or taking advantage of a freshly implemented tracking functionality would require the players to explore the world again. Unfortunately, the players are already aware of all the shortcuts at this point.

Although the players could take advantage of new functionalities, it would seem redundant to the players because the new features are just an enhancement of the core game mechanics.